Dear Friend and Reader:
AS WE DRAW closer to the Full Moon in Cancer on Saturday, Jan. 10, there is a sense of insecurity in the air. We’re still under the influence of this past New Moon in Capricorn, still trying to work out whether or not the world is going to be a different place when we wake up in the morning. The news has brought us images of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, which erupted into greater dimensions on Saturday as Israel invaded Gaza and brought with it artillery fire. The Cheney-Bush regime, meanwhile, is sending out its usual ambiguous murk about it all. Then there is the economy: a topic I am so sick of thinking about that even as I type this I feel like I should be trying to come up with some optimistic spin on it and failing miserably in the wake of so many people losing their jobs.
But amazingly, there is a silver-lining to the bulging storm-cloud. Planets are changing signs: the image of things passing into new realms surrounds us in our place of the Galaxy. Venus has changed signs, from Aquarius to Pisces. Mercury followed suit, entering Aquarius a few days ago, and now comes Jupiter, which reaches Aquarius today.
Before we get into just what this might mean for the world and for ourselves, let’s take a look at Jupiter itself. As a planet, it is the largest in our solar system. If you can imagine Jupiter as a hollow plastic ball and opened it up, it could hold every planet inside, times two-and-a-half. Jupiter, mainly composed of hydrogen and helium, is counted as a gas giant. It can be seen in the sky (as those of you who observed the Jupiter-Venus conjunction of Dec. 1, 2008 will recall). It’s big, bright and beautiful.
Astrology has assigned to Jupiter the beliefs and cultures of different places, higher thinking and of knowledge: a kind of cosmic library. The fact that the ancients didn’t know that Jupiter was as big as it was, or that it was composed mainly of gas, yet still understood that it as about belief systems and religious thought, is amazing. The fact that it’s made of helium and many people associate Jupitarian energy as “being full of hot air” is a testament to the wisdom of the joker.
Jupiter’s energy is usually friendly and optimistic, but it can be a touch arrogant at times, in that distinctly friendly way. It rules Sagittarius and Pisces, and is associated with Cancer. It occupies each sign for one year, thus it has a quality of indicating the cultural trends for the year. In our current era, it changes signs right around Jan. 1, though this gradually drifts as the decades and the centuries progress.