Approaching The Grand Conjunction
I shared the following comments about Jupiter and Saturn on social media, and felt called to consolidate it all in one place.
The brightest “star” in the evening sky these days is Jupiter, the guru.
Old man Saturn aka Chronos is nearby.
Both giants are retrograde right now. That will change in September.
On Dec. 21, 2020, they will cross paths exactly as they do once every 20 years. This moment is called “The Grand Conjunction.”
When you are blessed with clear skies, I invite you to take a moment to notice these beings. Over the next several months, observe as they swerve ever closer to one another, dancing and dancing until they touch.
Jupiter expands; Saturn contracts.
Jupiter teaches through grace; Saturn teaches through loss.
The meeting of these two planets represents the ultimate expression of competing opposites — push-or-pull, explode-or-collapse energy abounds.
The meeting occurs in the early degrees of Capricorn, a sign ruled by Saturn where Jupiter is debilitated, so Saturn is the strong favorite in this “fight.”
Jupiter was in Capricorn earlier this year — from the end of March until the end of June — almost perfectly aligning with the most intense period of quarantine.
This is what happens when our source of inspiration (Jupiter) arrives in a confined space defined by strict limits and hard/fast rules based on practical fears (Capricorn).
Jupiter in Capricorn is usually hard on the stock market — an area of the economy driven almost exclusively by our sense of relative hope and fear about the future.
Furthermore, the last Grand Conjunction was in the year 2000, when the dotcom bubble burst.
Now, while Jupiter is still in his own sign of Sagittarius, is the time to connect with your teachers and teachings and develop a disciplined routine of practices based on your deeply held spiritual convictions.
Jupiter in Capricorn and the Grand Conjunction is a time when shraddha (faith) is likely to be diminished, which is precisely the time for which we study and practice. It is easy to practice when faith is strong; the true test is when life is unsure.
How do you respond when your benevolent Divine Mother goes all Kali on you?
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Thinking/feeling about this further — I can really feel the tension between this explosive/implosive impulse in the world right now.
If you think of a birthing process, the fetus has grown to the point that the womb is a constrictive space and then contractions start — these spasms of pressure that squeeze the fetus down the birthing canal.
It is the pressure that creates a release; the “implosion” of the womb initiates and “explosion” of life. Please forgive the metaphorical medical terminology.
Within the obvious chaos of this historic moment, I feel a palpable sense that many humans are ready to remember a newly beautiful way of living with the Earth and with each other.
The pressure of our overlapping crises is squeezing the last toothpaste from the tube of the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (a phrase borrowed from bell hooks, heretofore referred to as WSCP) way of being.
At the same time, that pressure is consolidating the resolve of those with visions of a utopian rebellion simmering in their hearts. The womb that is the WSCP worldview is now so restrictive that an increasing majority of individual cells who compose the collective fetus that is humanity are starting to kick and turn and fuss about, eager for release into...
Into we have no idea what! This is part of the challenge of explaining the situation in a rational way. The fetus has no idea what awaits them on the other end of that portal. All they know is that the present density is unsustainable, and life tends to flow from high to low pressure densities.
All that to say — pressure is prerequisite to expansion. Jupiter will leave Capricorn for Aquarius in April 2021 — this shifts the pressure-restriction from the fundamental structures of society (brick-and-mortar) to the social contract (what does it mean to have a society?).
In April 2022, Jupiter enters its own sign of dreamy, idealistic Pisces AND Rahu/Ketu enter the Aries/Libra axis, indicating a burst of fresh energy and a focus on balanced relationships.
So — birth is a messy process. New mothers need many attendees on-hand with towels and water and encouraging words. It is messy and risky and can be scary.
We are together in labor. We need to hold each other’s hands and squeeze tight as the contractions ripple through our collective body — contractions whose increasing intensity only indicates the closeness of a new life.
Does that make sense to anyone else?
Does anyone see/feel it differently?
Again — advance apologies to the real life mothers who may read this and want to edit the metaphor for accuracy according to lived experience. I have only been born, never given birth, so my medical training and imagination fill in the gaps.
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Some additional notes:
Jupiter is associated with the element of ether, or space, which is the expansive force. As the all-encompassing substance that perfectly fills every possible nook and cranny of observable existence, ether wants to expand infinitely in every direction all at once.
The limiting power of Saturn is able to force that expansive impulse to move in a single direction. The fetus has no choice but to move down the birth canal; there is nowhere else to go.
Once the baby is born, their freedom and capacity to expand in their chosen direction increases exponentially. They can move their eyes and look around; eventually they can turn their head, then crawl then walk and run and climb and introspect and then the sky is the limit for their expansion.
However, Saturn‘s influence is always with us, offering awareness of limitations, providing a limited selection of potential pathways. Jupiter’s grandiose inspirations inevitably must pass through Saturn’s realistic filter.
As described above, Saturn is more powerful right now, which is why it feels like we’re so stuck, like we’re moving through a keyhole in history. Once we pass through this portal, life potentials will expand again, but for now we need to squeeze.
Different people are experiencing and expressing radically different responses to this need to squeeze. Many experience the squeeze as tyranny — an oppressive regime making us slaves via mask-wearing. Many are squinting into the blinding light of the true history of tyranny, slavery and genocide perpetrated primarily by European settlers on this continent.
Many (most?) experience it as an economic squeeze. Many (most?) experience it as a social squeeze, in which we are discouraged from leaving the confines of our individual domiciles.
In what other ways are we being squeezed in a particular direction not necessarily of our choosing?
What is your response to the suggestion that the collective birthing canal through which we are squeezing is a necessary compression before we are born into an unfamiliar world full of new dangers and potentials?
One of the things that happens in the birth canal is that the fetus acquires the bacteria that serve as the seeds of their microbiome. Let’s keep that in mind as we navigate our labor together.