Jupiter in Libra – The Search for a Better Equilibrium: September 9, 2016 to October 10, 2017
A review: Jupiter enlarges the scope where-ever it goes. In a myriad of ways over this past year, Jupiter in Virgo has exponentially increased the number of folks in daily need and/or crisis. It has also increased the need to fix, heal, repair, correct, and upgrade. Have you felt as though you’ve repeatedly run up against it, that your coping skills have been greatly tested, or that you’ve had to keep running on an empty tank? When Jupiter tours Virgo, we are often faced with one thing after another. Often this happens in such rapid succession that we aren’t able to fully complete, fix, or heal before our attention is claimed by something more.
While the work begun during Jupiter in Virgo will continue, Jupiter now moves onto a fresh target. Jupiter’s one-year tour through Libra will now increase the scope of relationship, partnership, social involvement, and social trends. Jupiter in Libra also weighs in on the scales of social justice, of contemporary thought, opinion, morality, and on matters to do with keeping the peace.
While Jupiter tours the sign of the scales, things can go from one extreme to the opposite. To the plus, Jupiter in Libra can increase personal enjoyment, social interaction, romantic, and financial potentials. Folks can be more accommodating, more open, inclusive, and gifting. Jupiter in Libra can make the going and the connecting easier. Mind you, there are no guarantees, but if your birth-chart confers, then prospects in all the aforementioned can hit an upswing.
First and foremost, Jupiter in Libra increases the focus on gaining a better inner balance and on developing a more self-honouring, more harmonious relationship with yourself. Have you made too many sacrifices as of late? Jupiter in Libra lets in fresh air so that you can clear your head. Once you can better reconcile with your own wants and needs, you will find you will have readier access to what and whom is truly of quality, worth, and benefit. What is it that prospers inside of you? What you fuel inwardly is always reflected to you through your interactions with others. If you want to be respected, honoured, heard, validated, and loved, make sure you are the first in line to bestow on yourself.
As a cardinal archetype, Libra is naturally driven to seek fresh experience, to explore diversity through social interaction and also through intimate encounters. Libra learns best through counterpoint awareness, through contrast and comparison.
While Libra seeks equality in relationship, when the scales are tipped, the experience of one-sided give and take can ensue. When Jupiter transits Libra, relationship imbalances can become greatly increased. Projected expectations often go unmet; the voiced can easily go overlooked. We assume that another will understand and meet us, that another will respect our wishes and boundaries, that another would be sensitive enough not to cause us hurt or harm, emotionally or materially. In our zeal to be cherished, desired, loved, accepted and respected, we can override the fact others do not put our needs, wants, and desires first. When in self denial, Libra is famous for saying “I’m fine”. If we do not put our essential needs first, why should others? If we skew the truth to self, how can we expect that another will give us honesty? When the gap between what we want and what we get grows too obvious to ignore, the start of a more earnest inner dialogue with self can begin.
Enmeshment and co-dependency issues can gain more of our attention during Jupiter’s transit through Libra. This play out in our personal lives and also in the political world. We all breathe the same air. No country or political system is an island unto itself. We need each other. Alliances, associations, collaborative undertakings, and contracts fall under Libra’s jurisdiction. What is fair and just under the law? Growing social trends and norms are here to stay and they require new legislation. (The legalization of pot, the rights of transgenders, same sex marriage, designer babies, right to die, right to live, to bear arms, etc.). Jupiter in Libra raises the issues of the middle class and those who look to join this social class. More people have more opinions. More people join more crusades. More blending of cultures, beliefs, and families are happening too as more people come, go, and grow on the planet. Where does free trade and open borders take us? Will Jupiter in Libra produce more tolerance for those who don’t look, talk, or act like us?
While Libra can swing to extremes, it can also park it into neutral, into complacency, or ambivalence. Indecision, another Libra weakness, is often based in the mistrust of one’s own evaluation process, and/or the fear of exclusion, of losing one for the other.
Libra always wants to partake in the best of all worlds. To keep up with an appearance and to maintain the status quo is important to a Libra in need, even though a precious cost may ensue. Decisions are often clouded by what is socially acceptable, or by the uncomfortable feelings and fear associated with disrupting the peace and/or meeting with another’s displeasure. To this end, one can override one’s own needs for the sake of keeping the peace. Libra’s first choice will typically vote to maintain a status quo, to keep a relationship or involvement going rather than to go it alone.
Libra’s non-commitment or non-monogamy can steam from a lack of emotional investment, or from a compelling desire to explore diversity. Both suggest a limit has been reached, that there is a deeper soul need to grow and expand again. Fickle Libra can be easily swayed by a promise, a projected expectation, by the advertising, or appearance. Jupiter’s transit through the sign amplifies all of Libra’s plus and minus columns. Noting that the start of Jupiter’s transit through Libra encompasses the US election, we may see the numbers grow of undecided or swing voters. Jupiter in Libra promises much – can it deliver? How far can we go with free trade and open borders?
Whether challenged or balanced, the art of listening is Jupiter in Libra’s most valuable resource. When one listens with both heart and mind relaxed and united in the understanding that there is more to gain than to lose by staying true to self honouring and the higher principles of living, loving, sharing, inclusion, and caring, then Jupiter in Libra will strike a beautiful, blended, intuitive balance. When the art of listening has reached a refined mark, the soul will no longer feel the stress and need to overcompensate in order to please, to obtain, maintain, or to enable for fear of loss. One can give more freely, receive and gain more freely too. When the right balance is achieved, true peace can be found. At its finest, Jupiter in Libra has a natural wisdom that knows what to give and when to give without having to be asked. To accept and to feel blessed is also Jupiter in Libra’s gift.
JUPITER IN TRANSIT 2016/2017:
Jupiter in Libra now reaches the third quarter mark of a twelve-year cycle with Pluto. This world growth and personal growth cycle began in Sagittarius and will end in 2020 in Capricorn. Beliefs are the building blocks of reality. At this point in the cycle, the priority attention shifts away from the past and toward the building new reality.
Jupiter now reaches the third quarter mark of a twelve-year trend setting growth cycle with Pluto, the power planet. These two have compelled a major learning/major evolutionary journey into being. It is one that has been testing beliefs and putting reality to the test. Every step along the way brings the opportunity to choose our destiny. Enough is enough. Jupiter/Pluto have now built and extracted as much as is useful from the previous program. While there is still major finishing work (especially to 2020 and to 2024), Jupiter/Pluto will now strive to making better, more solid gains on the future. Jupiter in Libra will meet with Pluto in Capricorn three times: November 24, 2016, March 30, 2017, and August 4, 2017. Each exact alignment sets another paving stone in place regarding reconciling with existing reality, and cementing the framework for tomorrow.
Jupiter in Libra will meet with Uranus in Aries on December 2, 2016, March 2, 2017, and Sept 27, 2017. At every level, these three peak dates accelerate our personal, social, political, and global reinvention program. Jupiter/Uranus can see great gains in science. Weather extremes and global warming continues on the acceleration curve too. Whether exceptionally opportune or of sudden shock value, Jupiter/Uranus will strike flint in some unmistakable way. Uranus in Aries is a rebellious, excitable unpredictable, liberating, innovative, spontaneous, and extreme influence. Closely following Jupiter/Uranus, Jupiter in Libra opposes Eris, the goddess of discord, on January 17, February 22, and September 9, 2017.
Note, all the aforementioned dates are exact alignments, but their influences extend over a length of time. Anticipate that Jupiter in Libra will be anything but a placid transit. With Uranus in the mix, it could be life altering for many. Jupiter also maintains an opposition with Ceres in Aries from mid November 2016 through February 1, 2017. Beyond key family relationships, relocation, goodbyes, hellos and fresh starts, this transit underscores the karmic recall or fruition nature of circumstances and relationships.
Lastly, but also of great importance to watch is the transit of Venus, ruler of Libra. Jupiter will increase the scope of all Venus activities and undertakings. The money, love, and relationship planet, Venus transits feature all matters to do with net worth, self worth, intrinsic/natural resources, and survival (personal, material, relationships). Due to a retrograde cycle (March 4 to April 15) Venus will be on an extended visit of Aries. Watch for new found independence, freedom needs, wants, desires, and money making ventures to strike a hot flint from February 4 to June 6. Venus reaches the peak with Jupiter on May 19, 2017. Just before Jupiter leaves Libra Venus and Mars will begin a new cycle. What does it all add up to? Within your heart, your relationships, your social or material world, expect to be someplace new, to be somebody new, to be doing something new. Life is for living! Live it courageously, live it fully.