Jupiter
Jupiter is the power of expansion. He represents the law of mercy and love. Mercy redeems us from retribution and gives us the chance for true reconciliation. Love gives us new experiences to broaden our horizon. Jupiter acknowledges new experiences to find a meaning in them. Only later in retrospection, we recognize the meaning, and then it strikes us. Single experiences suddenly merge into a conclusive coherence. They each tell us something and make everything appear appropriate. Whatever we have experienced, as soon as it seems meaningful to us, it seems alright to us. At this point, we agree how things are. Like that, Jupiter fulfils the law of love. He connects with what we lack, integrates it into our lives and expands our horizons.
Jupiter’s opponent is Saturn. Saturn represents the principle of severity and hardness. He puts up resistance, forces and oppresses us. Saturn is the maker within us who wants to fulfil his ideas. What we can’t imagine is beyond our capabilities. That is why our ideas also form our horizon. If things don’t work out according to our ideas or imagination, we experience it as a resistance. If we fight against it, the resistance usually increases. Jupiter leads us out of this blind alley. He uncloses us and appreciates the impulses of life in form of a new experience. However first, this expanding force needs to be developed within ourselves.
Long before Jupiter was born, as mythology tells, Saturn had separated himself from the all-encompassing spirit of heaven. After having taken over a dominating power among the Gods, he learned that he would lose it to one of his children. He immediately devoured his children after they were born. Only with Jupiter, he did not succeed. Mother Earth and the heavenly Father Uranus had ensured that the future ruler can grow up well protected. It is said that Jupiter will grow up in the cave of the heart. There he is nourished by the divine white goat. So to speak, he absorbs wisdom with the mother’s milk.
There is also the little goat pan in the cave. The God of nature, Pan, stands for our true nature. The more Jupiter’s strength grows, the clearer our true nature shows up. Greek mythology repeatedly refers to Zeus’/Jupiter’s relationship to our true nature. Pan helped Zeus/Jupiter to grow up, then in the battle against the giants and finally in the fight against the seemingly all-powerful Typhon. Hence, we are able to master every challenge that Mother Earth presents us. Our true nature never admits defeat.
The first wife of Zeus/Jupiter was the Goddess of wisdom. She recommended him to administer Kronos/Saturn an emetic. Instead of just swallowing experiences, one should look at them again closely and recognize their meaning. Jupiter followed this advice and then swallowed his wife. Wisdom is an internalized experience.
Only love really initiates new experiences. It connects us to the unknown that we lack. Through the creative power of love, the connecting spirit of Uranus is revealed. He enters at the right time into our lives and, in most cases completely unexpected, with the intention to break, so that we integrate new things and our consciousness grows. When Jupiter assimilated the Goddess of wisdom, she was already pregnant with two children. Her son with a strong heart remained in Jupiter. Her daughter Athena, the most knowledgeable of the Gods, was born by the divine will through the head of Jupiter. Athena represents the heart-connected mind that acts according to what is right for all. Jupiter realizes love through courageous and all-inclusive actions.
Love is an ingenious attractant that voluntarily – precisely out of love – makes us transcend our limits. Therefore, no other God had so many amours as Zeus. One of them was Maia, the magic, one of the divine doves of love. She gave birth to the messenger of the Gods. Those who listen to the messages of Hermes/Mercury and take advantage of their opportunities follow the wisdom of Zeus/Jupiter. Love also reveals itself in apparently negative experiences. How else could we realize that we can change at any time and better express our true nature. To love ourselves with all our faults is the first and most important step that allows Jupiter to grow within us.
Classically, Jupiter is assigned to the archer. There he has the tension of the bow. It allows him to achieve all his goals. Excess and gigantism, however, will be punished by him. The archer’s arrow is the arrow of Amor, the God of love. He gives orientation to what we love and what lies beyond our own horizon. Are you ready to get fully committed to new experiences and endure, as a consequence, all the tensions in order to see how your true nature wants to express itself?
…will be continued
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