The Sombrero Galaxy in infrared
photo credit: NASA/JPL - Spitzer Telescope Team
As the 8th became the 9th, Jupiter exited the shadow of its 2010 retrograde cycle. Maybe you felt it. Maybe something you had been trying to do last year finally got wrapped up with a nice, neat little bow.
Or maybe you just stopped trying.
Known as sole ruler of fiery Sagittarius and first/initiating ruler of Pisces, Jupiter symbolizes everything about life which makes us know (Jupiter) that there’s tons out there to experience (Sag)…to feel we’re in touch with (Pisces)…to learn about (Sag)…and to be part of (Pisces).
But the 2010 version of this vision – that’s over with now. As maybe you’ve noticed, life has moved on!
So that’s all we have to say at the moment about Jupiter. Well, except that it’s still in early Aries…which puts the focus on who we are and what we’re doing or being in this world. And yes, there’s also how at this particular moment, Jupiter is wafting along through space in astrological (not spatial!) conjunction with Lust (the concept of intensity of focus) and Mnemosyne (reflection as the best teacher).
That implies we are all focused on what we’re going to become. Or – alternately – what’s going to become of us. Maybe even what we can make of ourselves in this world.
It’s rather like that old phrase: ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’
A nursery of new stars
photo credit: NASA/JPL - Caltech
Then there’s the next thing…how as of February 10th at 2:28 in the morning (UT/+0), Drakonia goes retrograde at 17 Libra. By anyone’s estimation, 17 Libra is a second decan (emotional) degree of an airy, ‘the ideal of it all’ driven conceptual sign. Libra is highly, seriously poetic - poetry being the very essence of the idea expressed emotionally. But it’s not all that tangible. We think of it as being all about ‘relationships’ when it’s really more about the quality of relating – as in, ‘can we relate?’
The whole notion that relationships are ‘just one thing’ is about as nonsensical as saying we should match to each other merely based on Sun signs. If your Sun is your basic perspective and personal ‘tool box’ fine – that’s a vital and important aspect of who you are. But that's only part of who you are. The Sun doesn't symbolize your values - that’s Venus. It’s not your emotionality! That’s the Moon. It’s not how you communicate – that would be the Mercury department. And it sure isn’t about whether you put the cap back on the toothpaste tube unless you’re a Sun sign Virgo, in which case you’re likely to have a bit of the Toothpaste Nazi in you or simply never care what happens to the toothpaste altogether. (Yes, there are sloppy Virgos! Shocking, I know!)
Anyway…if you want to pick your ‘true love’ based only on your Sun then I want to see your chart because I’d like to know exactly why you think someone else’s values, feelings, sense of humor and ability to communicate, be all Saturn reliable and responsible….why you think that doesn’t count!
So back to this 17 Libra thing…this is one of those Libra degrees where the two ‘sides’ of Libra are more pronounced or more apparent. You know, like the two sides of the coin – or in this case, of the scale. It’s a degree where Libra presents with great wit and facile eloquence…but to what end?
That’s what one needs to always ask, as this degree can manifest as caring or cutting, interested or quarrelsome, informative or snarky.
And when you add in Drakonia, it’s hard not to think that whatever side of this sugar-vs.-snark line things fall down on, it might not be real. Or realistic!
Making this all double-triple confusionating is that this may not be anyone else playing you! You could be just maybe, perhaps, sorta (kinda) fooling yourself! On the other hand, maybe the biggest (and certainly overarching) concept to consider here is that the third thing happening today is that Neptune is entering the ‘shadow’ of its 2011/2012 cycle.
Probably the best way to understand what this means is to consider what we were talking about in terms of Jupiter. Last year, life was about what it was about at that point. All the parameters and details of what you were doing and what the world was doing…we recognize (Jupiter = knowing, understanding, comprehending) now that all that is over. Done. Finis!
We’re in a whole new cycle of learning about life and what life can become. There’s a difference between where you are now and where you were then.
That’s a ‘planetary cycle’ of a yearly type!
So now Neptune is starting it’s new cycle. With all planets which go retrograde (Sun and Moon don’t, though granted, the Sun is actually a star and the Moon is Earth’s satellite)….these cycles aren’t set flush, end to end. Some have days or weeks between the end of one and the start of another. Time off, call it. Or a free for all in planetary affect terms!
Planet Neptune - photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
If you work with transits, you know this idea from having seen transits – most often by Jupiter and/or Saturn – which are one-time transits, as opposed to three (or with Pluto and sometimes Neptune, five-time) transits.
The farther from the Sun a planet is, the longer its orbital cycle. The longer that orbital cycle, the fewer degrees that planet transits in any given year, and thus the more likely it is that it will go direct-retrograde-direct (or even direct, retrograde, direct, retrograde, direct) over any given point before moving on!
With Neptune, we don’t get any ‘free time.’ Actually…we get anything but! The last Neptune cycle doesn’t actually end until February 25th (happy birthday George Harrison…) of this year. But meanwhile, the new Neptune cycle has begun. This next cycle will take us to February 27, 2012.
That these Neptune cycles are overlapping suggests – among other things – that the great human desire to glue everything down and say ‘Okay! That’s taken care of!’ isn’t much in the offing. The lesson of the moment, for all that we may want to “know” what’s happening, is that we can’t…or that we at least aren’t likely to.
That ‘knowing’ thing? That’s the Jupiter part. So part of our Jupiter lesson going forward is that whatever we try to be or become, we can’t know how that’s going to turn out for us – we just have to try.
Or….seeing as we are dealing with both Jupiter and Neptune, which taken together equal rulership of Pisces, maybe the point is that we should accept. Accept ourselves for who we are and proceed from that basis, accept that we won’t know what every little thing is going to be or become and do a little bit every day to try and reach our goals…to let go of the idea that we know what things “should be.”
Constellation Pisces
produced using Stellarium software
With Jupiter in early degrees (see it above...just past Pisces?), Drakonia in second decanate (middle) degrees and Neptune in the latter degrees of Aquarius, we have a spectrum laid out for us.
Maybe that’s just the point. We can do what we do wanting or looking for some effect or response, but when we do, Neptune defeats us. In all things Neptune, the thing you are most sure of is likely to prove untrue while that you think least likely most often proves out.
And that, my friends, would seem to be a perverse little lesson on how not you, not me, no nobody runs this world. ‘What Is’ is far bigger and more complex than anything we can conceive of. Our egos demand and crave that centralized sense of centralized, viable importance, but when you look at the universe, how big or important are we – really?
And given that, who is really getting played and isn’t the biggest and most consistent form of being or getting played that which comes as a response to having a mortal ego?
So do what you can, but don’t figure that’s all you can do. Know who you are, but figure on learning more as you go along. It’s probably a bad idea to figure you know what ‘should’ be as none of us really have the capacity to know.
Is it us against the world? Us against our world? Or maybe it’s the human race living on its world, gazing out at the stars realizing…
…Realizing what? Playing who?
Maybe it's all about our feelings...and our inborn, human need to feel.
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