Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful. L.R. Knost.
The Sun in exuberant Sagittarius scatters star dust and sparkle into the weeks preceding the winter solstice. This is the month of Thanksgiving. For counting our blessings and breathing in the amazing. This month we turn our attention away from the cynicism and lies of the swaggering polititians who dominate the news. This month we switch channels to something lighter, less dissonant, less deeply disturbing.
On November 22nd, the Sun in profligate Sagittarius rises from Scorpio’s generative mud and looks upwards, towards new horizons. As we engage with the archetype of the archer, we become explorers, adventurers, pilgrims. We look for meaning, watch for signs. We reach for the stars, dream the impossible dream, buoyed by the faith that it will all work out in the end. Sagittarius is ruled by portly Jupiter, a planet which, on a good day, softens the hard edges of the world with good cheer. We invoke the spirit of Jupiter when songs of grace touch our hearts with their beauty, when we look up, when we notice the silver lining on the dark clouds of circumstance.
Jupiter has been moving through the emotional currents of Cancer since June 9th bringing our focus to safety, home, and family. Cancer is the Moon’s sign. Jupiter expands the qualities of Cancer, heightening our sensitivity and empathy, our innate ability to nurture, to form deeper, heartfelt connections to people, places, to our faith, or our religion. To what brings meaning to our lives. Jupiter finds ease, joy and abundance in Cancer, traditionally, the sign of Jupiter’s exaltation. Jupiter’s 12-month journey through Cancer will influence all our lives in some way if we tune into Jupiter’s benevolent wavelength and focus on positivity, abundance, and gratitude.
Jupiter stationed Retrograde on November 11th and moves direct on March 11th, introverting the expansive energy of Jupiter as it moves through the watery sign of the crab—a creature that lives between the material reality of earth, and the ever-changing swirl of emotional and imaginative tides. Amidst the sparkle of festive lights, the Christmas playlist that pulses through shopping mall, the human-rush of life, a wash of fatigue may grey our days. We be physically or emotionally exhausted as this year draws to a close. It might be that we outgrown our shell—a home, a place of work, a state of mind. Cancer is a sensitive, intuitive sign, and Jupiter amplifies this energy. Over the coming weeks, take time to close the curtains, indulge in your favourite comfort food, and withdraw from the noise and bustle as you gestate something new, much like the crab who must seek safety as he grows a new shell.
Changing our attitude takes practice and repetition. Rick Hanson, a psychologist who focuses on mindfulness reminds us that our brains are biased towards fear and threat and negativity because the brain keeps us safe. Yet our brains are plastic, constructed for growth and adaptation. Research acknowledges what shamans and wise women have known for eons. The thoughts and images that flow from the deep ocean of our imagination have real physiological consequences for our bodies. Yet our ancient human brain often can’t distinguish whether we are imagining something or experiencing it in “real time”. It’s up to us to re-frame our dark nights of suffering and loss, to take our bundle of straw and spin it into gold. To practice gratitude. To allow grace to find us.
Within the sacred geometry of overlapping cycles, light and dark, the amazing and the awful, and the wonder of the ordinary, Mercury turned Retrograde (3º Sagittarius) on November 9th — stationing direct on November 20th (20º Scorpio) and will quicken the tempo of our lives as it opposes Uranus on December 10/11th before leaving Scorpio’s dark waters to move into optimistic Sagittarius on December 12th. From fixed water (Scorpio) into the fire (Sagittarius), Mercury travels over that same Retrograde degree on December 14th as we consciously focus on our state of mind, tracking the wonder, celebrating the amazing. Writer and teacher, K.M. Weiland describes gratitude as a state of being, a frequency we must choose to embody. She writes, “the older I get, the more I believe gratitude is the secret sauce. Without it, nothing is good. With it, all of life is miraculous. I don’t believe gratitude is a feeling, any more than love is. It is a force that changes the world—perhaps, ironically, less because it demands change and more because it is focused on accepting and celebrating exactly what is.”
Pragmatic Saturn stations direct in Pisces on November 27th, squaring the sun on December 17th, an inflection point in its journey in tandem with Neptune. Saturn and the sun are in combat in our natal chart, as they are two antithetical forces. As Saturn begins to move slowly forward, a feeling, a thought, a desire, that is gestating within us is beginning to grow.
Both Saturn and Neptune linger at that critical, final degree of Pisces (29º) symbolising sorrowful endings, also often quite literally, water symbolism: storms, floods, wet, wild weather. As Saturn/Neptune journey through the final degrees of Pisces we may have a sense of what we must now release from the past, what we must lay to rest, what we must mourn. Venus opposes erratic Uranus on November 29th, carrying the promise of incandescent encounters that may not last long, but that offer us the opportunity to move from the sadness that has weighed us down towards what could be…to believe in love after love, to tap into the power of gratitude which never wanes.
Thank you for sharing with me your stories, the amazing, the awful and the ordinary.
Thank you for supporting my work, for your trust and faith in the power of astrology to illuminate the way.
Together, let’s savour the “secret sauce” of gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving!
To book an astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com
