We generally think of learning as adding new information to what we know. The data poured into our heads at school by teachers and at home by parents accumulated and grew into pockets of expertise and waves of understanding. The more we accumulate, the more we know … or think we know. But intelligence is not solely about the sum of facts, as any ineffectual genius will demonstrate. It is the ability to apply knowledge effectively or manipulate and express concepts skillfully.
In Astrology, Mercury is the planet of lower mind, the means by which we gather and communicate ideas. Its position in a birth chart represents the manner in which we observe, collect and share information. Someone with Mercury in watery Cancer, for example, must connect emotionally with material to get it while a person with Mercury in earthy Taurus needs concrete examples to maximize learning. While we usually notice cycles such as Mercury Retrograde, the messenger planet normally moves through zodiac signs so quickly that we can’t easily assess their impact on collective thinking. Slower moving Jupiter, though, is a more reliable guide to changing patterns of education.
Jupiter represents the higher mind of meaning, vision and philosophy in contrast to Mercury’s role as data collector. It spends about a year in each sign, providing a clearer picture of how we can assimilate information and turn facts into understanding. Jupiter’s role in education is evident in the Sanskrit name the ancient Indians gave to this planet. It is “guru,” which means teacher.
Jupiter spent the majority of 2010 in Pisces, the super-sensitive, spiritual and imaginative last sign of the zodiac. Pisces is about absorption without effort and knowing without knowing how we know. It is the truth that lives in silence, the dark matter of outer space, and in the junk DNA in our bodies. Pisces is the page rather than the words written on it, so describing what we’ve learned this year can be difficult. It’s not what we’ve added to our databanks, that is, grown our minds, but recognizing the space between words and information, the infinite sea in which everything exists.
In practical terms this means that we’ve been learning by sensing things that we can’t necessarily put in words. This may seem like a contradiction, a trick in which nothing is credited with being something. Yet the wisdom of Jupiter in Pisces in about the relationships between the things we know so that we sense the connections among them. This occurs when we eliminate the artificial divisions the mind creates and recognize that everything is connected. We can recognize this during moments of peaceful reflection, in meditation, when we feel the connective quality of love or the all-encompassing beauty of nature. Music touches this, as does poetry and all great art that lifts us above the separating nature of words and punctuation to feel the unifying force of the universe that some call God.
Jupiter in Pisces is teaching us that spirit is indivisible, so that even in our darkest moments we remember that we are all part of something greater than our individual pain and suffering. It is a lesson of inclusion and forgiveness with gifts of faith and compassion that supersede all the boundaries of language and subject. We learn it when we let go of what we think we know and who we think we are. This surrender of the boundaries of the mind warms the soul and enlivens the spirit. When Jupiter returns to energetic Aries on January 22 (which it visited last summer), we will shift from the receptive stage of opening ourselves to universal mysteries to a new dynamic phase of individual taking action with what we’ve learned.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 at 1:00 am and is filed under Jeff Jawer, Tarot.com experts, Planets, Astrology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Love this article about Jupiter.
