The Magi and My Last Jupiter Return - Part 2 of 2

Coming Home to My True Beliefs

© 2011 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

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  ow that I’ve shared my previous post with set-up and background, I can finally tell you the details of what happened during my last Jupiter Return and everything it set in motion. The exact date was October 28, 2006, but as I said in Part 1, I started sensing it coming as early as June of that year.

By August, I was in full spiritual quest mode. I felt what I was missing was ritual, as much as that can be missing for a Radical Virgo with a Cap Moon who works hard to make mundane, repetitious acts almost holy. I had been leading celebrations at the solstices and equinoxes for almost two decades, even performing marriages with my Universal Life Church credential. Suddenly it wasn’t enough.

Happy Epiphany!
The Coming of the Three Astrologers …

The Church Steps

My first stop was my local Greek Orthodox Church. This would be an opportunity to better explore my Greek roots, as everything revolves around church in the Greek community. If ritual was what I wanted, Orthodoxy had it in Jupiterian proportions! My birth mom had already exposed me to the complete pomp and circumstance of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and its extreme length, 1.5 hours. I treasure liturgical music, and this would remain the hook to get me to look at anything that provided me with that sacred sound.

Of course, I should have known anything with “orthodox” in the name could not pass muster with my Uranian Sun, even though my Saturn-ruled Moon was in hog heaven. I even took a class and read a book my mom had bequeathed me in her large collection on the history of Orthodoxy. After three or four class meetings, the rigid ideology crossed the line of my sensibilities. Everyone was warm and wonderful to me, and I definitely loved singing the liturgy in both Greek and English. I got that ritual was still “it” for me, but I knew it was time to bless this brief experience and move on.

Next stop: An Episcopalian service, the church comedian Robin Williams calls “Catholic Light.” There I could go to communion just for having been baptized Christian as a baby, no strings attached. In the Greek Orthodox Church, I could not, because I was not baptized into Orthodoxy. We second-class spiritual citizens did get to have blessed bread at the end of the service, a consolation prize unless or until we decided to join the fold. In Catholicism, I’d have to go to church and confess four decades of “falling away” and every sin I could think of. This would be difficult, as I lived my life by a strict moral compass in my own mind, and anything I had learned to confess as a child would truly be trivial compared to the real issues of my life.

The Episcopalians were also warm and welcoming, but the Protestant version of Mass just did not feel right to me. It was like drinking near beer. I guess I’m not a Bud Light or a Catholic Light. I finally figured, if I’m going to do ritual, I may as well do the real thing. I knew it was time to face the biggest abandonment I had ever experienced, even bigger than my birth mom giving me up for adoption … the abandonment I felt by Mother Church. My inability to rectify my sense of what was right with the church of my childhood was a bitter loss to me. It never stopped hurting.

St. Godsend’s

I had known for decades that if I was ever going to be whole, I’d have to heal the residual pain from my Catholic childhood. I dreaded it and put it off as long as possible. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. Me, Joyce, the Queen of Reunions. If I could only have one t-shirt with one word printed on it, it would be Gutsy. Yet I trembled emotionally at facing and healing this last loss.

Most but not all my negative experiences with the Catholic religion happened at the hands of the “good” sisters. They were well meaning spinsters who often practiced child abuse in the psychological, if not physical sense (some did both), thinking they were doing God’s will. To be fair, I had gone to two schools in communities forty miles apart. One had a much more painful impact on me, particularly at the most raw-nerve time of life, puberty. I was a very sensitive child, serious about being in good with God. That’s the problem. While other kids could let a lot of the doublespeak nonsense roll off, I took it way too seriously.

When the moment of truth came and I knew I had to “just do it,” to borrow the Nike slogan, I was ready to put on my cross-trainers to pound the pavement and find the right parish. I had to feel safe in the right place to put a toe back into the holy water.

Then I remembered a church I’d heard about more than once, supposedly very liberal. To protect the privacy of everyone concerned, I’ll simply call the church St. Godsend’s or St. G’s and change the names of individuals associated with it. A friend had attended St. G’s in the past and raved about its open-mindedness. She also turned me onto Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Edward Hay, a book of often cosmic poems, prayers and rituals by a Catholic priest that got me in touch with the idea that Catholics might have changed since 1966, when I had last set foot in a church unless forced to because of a wedding or funeral.

By then the exact date of my Jupiter Return was days away. I talked a friend into going with me to the weekly Taizé service. For those not familiar with it, Taizé, it is an ecumenical community, started in France, that brings together people of various faiths and beliefs, primarily though a unique and simple form of meditative chanting. Churches all over the world offer Taizé gatherings. Here’s a sound clip to give you the idea. My birth mom loved Taizé and had lent me several audiotapes with the chanting. As I’ve already mentioned, the word enchantment is very literal for me.  

  

However, being out of touch with the liturgical calendar unlike the days when I had it memorized, I didn’t realize that I was arriving on the doorstep of St. G’s on November 1, All Saints Day. (If you also realized it was the anniversary of Chiron’s discovery in 1977, go to the head of the class!) When we arrived on the church steps for the 6:00 singing, I learned that Taizé would not be happening that night, but rather a regular Mass. It was what they affectionately called at St. G’s a holy day of opportunity. I stayed anyway. They had me at opportunity instead of the traditional holy day of obligation. St. G’s passed my Uranian test in the first five minutes.

Not only that, I’d learn that they had a ministry supportive of gays, fed the homeless, and walked the talk of the life Jesus asked us to live more than I had ever experienced in any church of any denomination. I was in love. I dove into the deep end of the baptismal font.

In nothing flat, I had helped restore a Returning Catholics program that had not run for years. I was soon on several important committees, including welcoming and communications. The people I met were beautiful, and the community was amazing—everything I’d ever hoped for.

By Christmas when they read a version of the Gospels that actually referred to the Wise Men as astrologers, I felt I’d found my own Bethlehem Star.

In 2007, Tim and I had our marriage blessed or convalidated in the Church, repeating our vows in the Sacrament of Matrimony. I am still touched to this day by that step. It’s our favorite wedding. (We’ve had three: eloped to Reno in ‘98, vows repeated with a Unity minister at home the next year with closest family and friends, and our sacramental marriage in late ‘07.) Both the wedding and after-party were perfect, attended and in part created by our closest intimates. (My small women’s spirituality group, the metaphysical one, provided the music.) I think we both felt “more married” after that because of the Catholic view on divorce. It completed a circle. We had met and fallen in love as adolescents in a Church-run school. Now we finally had the wedding I had dreamed of back when I was a young girl in a place with stained glass windows where sacred things had happened for nearly a century. I truly did feel my marriage was more blessed. We had done the ultimate marriage ritual!

The Church Ladies

Around the same time, I also became involved in an online group of women bloggers I’ll call the Bloggirls. It wasn’t long into this adventure that I realized they were primarily conservative Christians. There were more prayers flying than howdy do’s, and sometimes I actually felt like I was at a revival meeting. (I’m not kidding, we’re taking “Praise the Lords” and talk of the devil!)

The atmosphere was so Jerry Falwell; one Jewish woman who joined the group asked innocently if it was only for Christians. I was learning a lot about my new career as a blogger, and I was willing to let this experience stretch me for the education, including the expansion of my tolerance for religious conservatives, the one place my own relationship to the Golden Rule could have used a little tune-up.

Ultimately, I found many warm and creative people there, despite our differences in spiritual expression. However, it just got too hard to muffle myself. I felt I couldn’t be me. It was one of the primary reasons I decided to leave the group after less than six months.  I dove in. I swam. I jumped out.

Evolution—Written in the Stars

I truly thought I’d found my permanent, spiritual home at St. G’s. The retreats and workshops were so liberal and liberating. We did Soul Collage and Sister Angie even mentioned openly the parallel between these self-created spiritual art cards and tarot cards. Another nun, Sr. Meg, had studied with the likes of Brian Swimme, cosmologist and director of the California School of Integrative Studies. She even hinted at astrology’s role in the huge cycles of human evolution. Nuns had really come a long way from the penguins who taught me the 1950s! When their habits came off and their street clothes came on, some of them became both more worldly and more cosmic.

During this time, I discovered a book by Rev. Scotty McLennan called Finding Your Religion. The Introduction was written by cartoonist Garry Trudeau, an old friend of Scotty’s. Scotty was in part the inspiration for Trudeau’s Rev. Scot Sloan character in Doonesbury.

Finding Your Religion was all about the struggle I was having between my childhood faith and adult spirituality. One of its most helpful chapters contains a Faith Stage Checklist. It describes seven stages of spiritual development from Stage 1 (Magic, full of spirits, demons and a God that makes everything happen, good or bad) to Stage 7 (Unity, a sense of community with all traditions and seeing God in everything).

Another evolutionary idea I picked up in one of Sr. Meg’s retreats: As we grow in spiritual consciousness, we tend to evolve in three broad steps. First, we identify with God the Father (more childlike). Second, we look to God the Son (a mid-step that literally brings heaven down to earth). Third and finally, we perceive God more in his/her Holy Spirit persona. (God is everywhere and in everything.) I was so Scotty’s Stage 7 and Sr. Meg’s Holy Spirit Stage. Free as a bird/dove—still. ^[1]

The Magi and My Last Jupiter Return - Part 1 of 2

Coming Home to My True Beliefs

© 2011 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

E

 very twelve years, Jupiter returns to its natal position in our charts. My last Jupiter Return was so dramatic; I want to share it as a case study. In doing so, I hope that you’ll Comment and share some of your own stories about your Jupiter cycles and the personal impact of these homecomings. My latest Jupiter Return was very relevant to the ultimate creation of The Radical Virgo, even though I had no idea where I was headed at the time. You can almost think of this pair of posts as an extended “About” section that tells the background of this blog and how I got here. I’ve coined a word for this mixed genre of writing, “astro-memoir.” The only way I’ll ever know if it works for readers is to try it. These posts are also about as open as I’ll ever be on the public wall about who I am, because who I am is directly related to what I believe. Any form of memoir takes courage. Thanks for being gentle!

My Jupiter is at 24+ Scorpio on the Sabian symbol, An X-ray. There can be no Jupiter in my life without deep probing into life’s mysteries. With its placement in the 7^th House, my “religion” is relationship.

But it is so much more. Before we launch on my Big Journey (everything with Jupiter is BIG), I want to talk a little about how beliefs are the most central factor that color our world. This may be the reason why Jupiter also rules travel and multicultural influences. Mixing it up with others different from us expands our minds to consider other ways of living and being. Travel widens our world, challenges our beliefs, and reminds us that our view isn’t the only one in town or on planet.

January 6, The Feast of the Epiphany: The Magi were Zoroastrian priest-astrologers said to practice magic in its highest expression …

Beliefs are central to who we are and affect how we organize our thinking, as well as how we feel. My mind operates in overdrive every waking and sleeping moment, judging by my dreams. What would I do with all that swirling raw input without some beliefs to organize it and put it to good use? Life would be utter chaos. Observing my double Gemini birth mom helped me see how much thoughts are related to feelings. (She was plagued with mind chatter and feelings out of control.) It’s what we believe about what happens that triggers our feelings. Perhaps you’ve experienced this at a family get-together when someone brings up an incident from the past. Your siblings may each have a different memory or take on it—and often a completely different set of emotional reactions. Sometimes I think we couldn’t possibly be talking about the same situation!

Finally, before I tell this tale, I have to make this disclaimer. No transit happens in a vacuum. When I sensed the beginning of my Jupiter Return Journey, transiting Jupiter wasn’t even close to the “official orb” of home plate. It was 15 degrees out—a whole half sign away. Pluto was squaring my Sun and I was zeroing in on my second Saturn Return. Chiron was conjunct my Part of Fortune and waxing into the lower square to itself for the second time in my life. T-Neptune was exactly trine my Mercury. All these transits were instrumental to the symphony of growth taking place. They all orbited around my Jupiter Return which felt very much like the center of the universe to me at the time. It's the Jupiter story I want to share. The reasons will be obvious.

Longing for Something More

In 2006, my first year of retirement from my 31-year government job, I was still on a long hiatus from any public work in astrology, doubtful I’d ever be back. That summer I began to feel an emptiness and need for something new or something more from a spiritual perspective. Maybe I finally had time to deal with the pain of my losses. There had been several long years of hard times with my husband’s health that also affected us economically and in every conceivable way. They were rough times for us both. During those dark days, for the first time ever, I felt totally out of touch with Spirit. My sense of connection to All That Is wasn’t. This was highly unusual for me—the first time ever. It scared me. My sense of faith, hope, and joy all tanked. I guess when the worst of the hard times lifted, I felt a need to plug back into something even more spiritual than ever in hopes this horrible sense of disconnection would never happen again.

Personal and Spiritual History

When going on a spiritual quest, an individual has to consider the context, namely his or her background—religious or spiritual—and personal history. Raised Catholic and adopted through Catholic Charities as an infant, my religion was both a lifeline to my new future and the mechanism that cut me off from my roots and heritage.

I went to parochial school through 8^th grade. There I met my future husband when we were only 12 years old. His mom would force us to break up two years later, worried we were too serious for our tender age and concerned an early marriage would derail her  promise to her husband on his deathbed that Tim would go to college. After 36 years, following a dream I had in 1996, I looked Tim up via the White Pages on the Internet. He lived near Dallas and within a year, he moved to Sacramento. We married in 1998. It was my third major reunion with a lost love.

The other reunions were with my birth mother in 1986 and my other long, lost love, “Keane” in 1987. Keane was the love of all my awakenings, the one after Tim—the one  I never got over. To say I had a lot to work through regarding him is the understatement of the millennium, maybe of all time. My relationship with Keane was as Plutonian as his exact Pluto/Moon a degree from my natal Pluto in my 4^th house. For better and worse—combined in a sticky gob of pain and pleasure—both being with him and losing him rocked my world for decades.

But Keane and I didn’t end up together; Tim and I did. It was the happier ending, even during its most challenging times. This story isn’t about Venus or Mars; it’s about Jupiter. Yet they are somehow related.

When Keane and I first saw each other in 1988 after nearly 20 years (I found him on the same day he started looking for me—and he worked for the FBI), our differences in belief were stark. If you can imagine an FBI guy with a “metafoofoo,” you can begin to imagine the comedic possibilities.

I was at the enthusiastic beginning of my public career as an astrologer at the time. Never known for subtlety, Keane asked, “Doesn’t it bother you that most people think you’re crazy?”

“It doesn’t bother me an iota,” I responded and meant it. Ultimately, the gap between what we believed by then and who we were was just too wide. He had grown into a very conservative person who wasn’t exactly open-minded on issues of diversity of any kind. His religion was himself.

Tim and I, on the other had, were born in the same city only ten days apart and were reared in the same religion, parochial school and value system. Even though neither of us had been practicing Catholics for years, we looked in the same direction—and still do—on everything that matters. We value family, devotion, fidelity, and ritual. We are an odd pair, both freedom loving Uranus-square-Suns yet traditional in some of our most basic values because of his Saturn conjunct Moon and my Moon in Capricorn. Living with someone whose ethical upbringing is so similar to mine—plus coming from the same time and place in history—creates a shorthand between us that rarely requires explanations. At some level, we are each other. And we certainly are grateful for having what we would have quaintly called “our morals” in our baby boomer youth.

Judeo-Christian

Now it’s time to talk about other belief systems I have explored in the past, so the Jupiter Return I want to tell you about has its own specific context. I grew up Catholic in a Jewish neighborhood. (Double your pleasure and guilt). I was spiritually bicultural. I attended seders and bar mitzvahs. My language was peppered with Yiddish expressions, and I was usually as up on the high holidays as the holy days of obligation.

During high school, after Tim, I rarely had a gentile friend or boyfriend. I would have married “Marshall Lefkowitz,” but his mother wouldn’t let me. Seriously. I was Charlotte on Sex and the City. Conversion wasn’t good enough for Marshall's mother. The only thing that would do in her eyes was being born Jewish, something I couldn't go back and fix. And unfortunately, Jews aren't into the concept of "born again." Marshall's mom would have made his life miserable had he married me. Not only was I not born Jewish, but who “knew from” who I was, really? I was adopted and my background was sketchy in her eyes at best.

I have often wondered why I didn’t just convert anyway, Marshall or not. I have always been attracted to Judaism in a big way. Jesus was a practicing Jew. To tell the truth, I finally figured out recently that I’m most like a Judeo-Christian, the Jews who practiced the new ideas Jesus introduced, before Christianity split off into a separate religion. Tim actually came to this conclusion about himself before me. He, too, had many Jewish friends and we share a deep appreciation for this faith. When I found my birth mom, I found out within minutes that she, too, deeply resonated to Jewish people and culture. My best Jewish girlfriend growing up reacted to this information by saying, “Oy! Another Jewish goy! It’s genetic!”  In fact, I was surprised to find out there weren’t Jews in my family tree.

Instead, there were Orthodox Christians. My birth father was Greek Orthodox. My birth mom was Byzantine or Greek Catholic. Byzantines practice the same rituals as Greek Orthodoxy while remaining part of the Catholic Church. Because they practice a different rite, they are not considered Roman Catholic but have their own modifier, Byzantine or Greek.

New Aged

By 1977, the same year Chiron was discovered (later to become my astro-specialty), I longed for something to fill the hole in my heart left by my inability to relate to my childhood religion. I met a woman—a true catalyst—who turned me onto my first spiritual teacher, Betty Bethards, and to Unity Church.  Betty was a down-to-earth modern mentor of meditation and generic spiritual principles. I was on my way to being metaphysical to the max. I had no idea that there was a metaphysical version of Christianity. The name of Betty’s non-profit organization also portended the new view of spirituality I would develop, The Inner Light Foundation.

I also did a five-year stint as a Unitarian. I sang in the choir of my local Unitarian Universalist Society, something that remains one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. Our local UU Society was full of drop-outs from Judaism and Catholicism. I felt at home. I loved having all the positive aspects of a “church"—community, events, a built-in network of caring people. Ultimately, I missed spirituality. At the time, the Society was also heavily populated with intellectuals, agnostics and atheists. The services were more head than heart. I needed Neptune!

That brought me back to Unity. I guess I like churches that begin with the letter U because it's shaped like a smile. Eventually, even Unity did not quite fit for me—at least not as a steady fare. I kept finding myself in the painful place of having to be a freelancer when it came to spiritual pursuits. I found small clusters here and there of other astrologers and generically spiritual people that gave me glimmers of hope that some day, I might find a larger community where I could really belong. These feelings of finding a spiritual home were always short-lived. Their fleeting nature left me sad. During those times, spirituality didn’t feel very Jupiter, upbeat, and expansive at all.

~~~

Tomorrow, Part 2:  The Church Steps, the Church Ladies and the Stars at Church

Photo Credit: Nativity Scene, Adoration of the Magi © Zatletic | Dreamstime.com

REFERENCE

Magi, Wikipedia

Jumpin’ Jupiter! Happy Thanksgiving

© 2009 by Joyce Mason
   All Rights Reserved

No holiday could be more “Jupiter” than the typical American Thanksgiving. We overdo everything—food, football, friends, family and acid indigestion. We hunt and gather at our local grocery store until we have acquired an overflowing basket of ingredients, the makings of a feast fit for a king or queen. Don’t forget their royal relatives.

This bounty hunting got me wondering about the history of Thanksgiving. Long story short: In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast. Today many consider that meal to be one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. This feast also became a symbol of cooperation and communication between the English colonists and Native Americans.

While many people consider this dinner party to be the very first Thanksgiving, it was actually part of a long tradition of celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops. Native Americans had lavish harvest festivals long before Europeans arrived in America. This is one of the many gifts we owe to the Original Americans.

Thanks to a declaration by Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving in the USA is perfectly placed when the Sun is in Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter—the pre-game warm-up to the most Jupiterian of all holidays, Christmas. While our Gregorian calendar, offbeat with natural cycles, places the birth of Jesus just after the Winter Solstice in the sign of Capricorn, all the lead-up is Sag to the max—tinsel and merry, journeys to the mall, buying too much, and more eating and drinking too much.

That Jupiterian spirit extends to the other winter holidays based on faith from pagan (Solstice) to Jewish (Chanukah) and the holiday spirit of more secular believers who simply enjoy cheering for peace on earth and goodwill to humankind. Although Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, it’s still during the harvest season while the Sun is in Libra, focusing on our relationship with others and how interconnectedness is what really feeds us.

The expression “jumpin’ Jupiter” originated as a mild expletive, but I think it describes how the ancient god Zeus (also known as Jupiter) would have celebrated Thanksgiving. I envision him in front of a 72-inch widescreen TV, watching all the games, leaping up in excitement during the hot plays, drinking beer, and snacking till he falls off his recliner. Don’t cheer for the other team. He has been known to throw thunderbolts!

“Everything in moderation, including moderation”


Many of us know this old saw that supports our excesses, as long as they don’t become—well, too excessive. It’s easy for me, as a person with natal Jupiter trine Mars, to overdo things with a flourish. What a perfect time of year to look at Jupiter in your own chart, both its gifts and challenges.

“Jumpin’ Jupiter” is also used to express surprise. I hope that will be the result of your journey to your personal Jupiter. Let’s take a trip, a Jupiter and Sag specialty, to discover your relationship to this planet’s bounty and drawbacks.

A Few Questions to Ask Yourself While Packing

This part of the trip is contemplative. While the metaphor involves packing, the real essentials you’ll be taking are a pen or pencil or your computer to muse on some of the following:


• What is the sign and house of your Jupiter?

• What planets does Jupiter aspect?

• Any aspect patterns? (T-square, Grand Trine, Kite)

• What happened on your last Jupiter Return?

• What were the icky parts of this supposedly great time? When you overdid things, whether you ate too much, drank too much, loved too much? What did you learn when nothing exceeded like excess?


While the first three questions seem elementary, the Jupiter Return holds the key to unlocking your personal Jupiter bounty. The Jupiter Return exposes your customized Jupiter themes.

My last Jupiter Return involved a new spiritual odyssey. I let my cosmic tractor beam lead me. Something felt “missing” in my spiritual life. It led me back to my spiritual roots and the church of my childhood, where I needed much healing in order to move forward into full realization of myself.

My Jupiter is in the seventh house, so there was something to discover about spiritual beliefs in relationship to others. Essentially, I got quite a lesson on the continuum of people who are both alike and different from me in their beliefs. From that introduction, I had to figure out where I fit in and where I belonged. I also learned how to stand in my own beliefs with loving kindness among people who do not see spirituality or the world in the same way as I do. These were definitely jumpin’ Jupiter/surprising revelations! Ultimately, they fulfilled Jupiter’s promise of expansion and getting to know “foreigners,” those whose ideas, culture, or beliefs are different from mine. I was delighted to learn that despite those differences, we were much more alike than different and many friendships could transcend them.

Next step: Once you’ve gotten reacquainted with the themes of your last Jupiter Return, trace it back to your other Jupiter Return cycles. Jupiter returns to its natal position every 12 years.

A Jupiter Journal

Inner journeys beg for a travel diary, just as we create travel journals in the outer world. We take photos; we annotate what we saw. That’s why I suggest that you create a little Jupiter Return Journal. Don’t rack your brain wondering what is important to write down. Write what first comes to you. Just as we're told when taking a multiple-choice test, the right answer is usually what comes to mind first. This is just as true when you consider the date of any Jupiter Return. After all, what you remember pops out of dozens of things that happened around that time. It must be important!

Using myself as the guinea pig (no permissions to obtain), here’s what I found out about my Jupiter Returns in reverse chronological order:

2006 – As already stated, this Jupiter Return brought me a literal spiritual journey back to my childhood religion and a journey in holding my core beliefs while honoring those who believe differently.

1994 - Chironicles newsletter was at its peak. It was my first foray into writing and publishing in a very personal way, where I was navigator of creating and disseminating information created by myself and others. I served as a teacher and mentor to those who wanted to learn more about Chiron during its early discovery years. It was higher education at its most practical, drawn from the laboratory of life. I also went on my first trip abroad to an astrology seminar in Greece. It was so loaded with blessings; this journey changed my life forever.

1982 – I was studying astrology and heading the production of the annual holiday party entertainment at my government day job. I was the team leader of a group that wrote and orchestrated a live show, personal to the audience, with countless belly laughs.

1970 – During this Jupiter Return, I enjoyed the blessings of my first professional job. It was more fulfilling than most people find at the peak of their careers. My work had a large teaching component. I played Jupiter to families of children with developmentally disabilities. Often devastated with little hope, I brought them resources, information and training. They spoke of me as a godsend, and I truly felt like Santa Claus.

1959 – We moved across town just as I entered adolescence, which may as well have been across the ocean for me when we left behind my happy childhood home. However, this journey kicked off all the inner growth expansion in my life and other surprises, such as meeting my first boyfriend. Little did I know then that 39 years later, as adults, we would marry. (For more on that story, read My Three Minutes of Fame.)

Putting It All Together

When I scan the very Jupiterian topics of my five Jupiter Returns, they involve love, inner expansion, teaching, astrology, international connections, entertainment, writing and publishing, and spirituality. These are the gourds, veggies and fruits in my cornucopia. If Jupiter brings joy and happiness, the ultimate joy for me must involve these topics, at best blended together in a big Thanksgiving feast. You’ll find the content of yours in your life review, too.

Guess what I discovered? My work now blends them all! I write and teach about love, expansion, astrology, and spirituality. I publish it on the Internet, the biggest long distance travel venue on earth. I do it in a way that’s entertaining.

When I’m down or blue and don’t feel the love, by Jove? Then it’s time to look to the configuration of my Jupiter by sign, house, and aspect for hints at how to feel in the flow of divine blessings. Trine Mars: Do Jupiterian things—give to others, act funny, write or publish something. Conjunct South Node: Find the blessings in my past, such as my reconnection with my childhood church and reunions with birth mom and my two most significant boyfriends/lost loves, one who became my husband. Your Jupiter configuration and cycles will tell you what makes you happy, too.

But don’t forget what gave you indigestion. It’s a compass in another direction. My excess is “all or nothing.” I don’t do anything half-way, and this takes its toll on me at times. The upside is that I “cycle through things” quickly, reap their benefits, and move on. However, I still overeat—literally. A work in progress!

Following my own Jupiter compass for expansion has brought me enough bounty for a lifetime of Thanksgivings. This holiday gives homage to my favorite feeling—gratitude. I invite you to take some introspective time after your big feast to do this exercise.

You may discover, as I did:

Happiness isn’t getting what you want; it’s wanting what you have.

~~

Photo credit: CORNUCOPIA DETAIL © Achauer | Dreamstime.com

Thanksgiving Note from Joyce: At this grateful time of year, I want to thank the readers of The Radical Virgo for your part in making this blog such a success from its very inception this past Spring Equinox. A reader of my original article, “The Radical Virgo,” inspired me to return to writing about astrology. I actually didn’t think I had much left to say on the subject after a seven-year hiatus. Apparently, I was wrong! I never cease to be amazed that I’ve been able to recycle old articles to new audiences and continue to find inspirations for many new ones. Your support and reports of how this information helps you is what keeps me going. I welcome your feedback in our continued adventure together at becoming better versions of ourselves. Boundless blessings!