Jupiter/Neptune, The Psychic Connection
By Catherine Kenward
www.astrologess.com

In 2009 Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius will conjunct three times, 5/27/09, 7/10/09 & 12/21/09. Like a portal opening on another dimension, expansive Jupiter magnifies Neptune's spiritual, otherworldly energy. Psychic and spiritual experiences become more powerful and frequent now. Dreams are more vivid and our intuition more finely attuned. A mythic, archetypal world reaches out to us with a rich imagery full of information and guidance.

The combination of Jupiter/Neptune make this a time when religious faith is strengthened, the power of prayer delivers miraculous results and contemplation and meditation unfold into blissful awareness. Focusing on your spiritual practice will yield greater results this year, offering breakthroughs and insights that can guide you for many years to come.

At their best, Jupiter and Neptune offer renewed hope, a deep faith, and a purity and innocence of spirit that is echoed in the imagery of the Tarot card, the Fool. The 0 card of the Major Arcana, the Fool is the Soul on its journey through life, a pilgrim's progress of experience and learning. The Fool is pictured merrily stepping off a cliff. He keeps on going, reaching the other side without noticing the surrounding danger. The Fool expects a miracle and, thus, receives one. His trusting and innocent nature brings out the best in potential enemies and disarms dangerous situations.

In a birth chart, Jupiter/Neptune can manifest in several ways. There are warnings about being too gullible, foolishly believing in farfetched theories and pie-in-the sky schemes, a target for every conman that comes along. Ever the optimist, Jupiter/Neptune prefers to trust rather than examine and tends to overlook the details and ignore the fine print. This is a time to expand your creative vision, to see the big picture, but leave the business plan for more practical times.

While this conjunction will bring out the psychic abilities and spiritual inclinations of many, for those with an already tenuous grip on reality, this alignment can trigger delusions that send them spiraling out of control. On days when these planets are especially strong, when the conjunction is being aspected by the Moon or other planets, you will see people who are obviously losing their battle with mental illness or addiction. On the other hand, at these times one may also meet some exceptionally enlightened and visionary individuals or encounter a moment of magic, a transcendent experience.

This can be a time of inspiration. It can also be time of denial, when hoping for the best blinds us to obvious outcomes, logical progressions of events that end up catching us by surprise because of our unwillingness to acknowledge them. With Neptune there is always the temptation to say that someone deceived us when, in reality, we have fooled ourselves with wishful thinking.

Where is the line between a visionary optimism, seeing the highest potential in a situation or person, and in a self-deluding denial of the facts? How does one achieve a balance between idealism and practicality? These are the challenges to making the most of the spiritual opportunity that the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction offers.

Jupiter/Neptune 2009
By Catherine Kenward
www.astrologess.com

One of the most important astrological influences of 2009 is Jupiter's conjunction to Neptune in Aquarius. This alignment will happen three times (5/27/09, 7/10/09 & 12/21/09) coloring events and attitudes throughout 2009. Jupiter crosses Neptune every 12 or 13 years, sometimes making only one pass before moving on, at other times retrograding and crossing Neptune three times, as it does this year.

Jupiter is traditionally regarded as the planet of good luck. The largest planet in the solar system, it expands the qualities of any planetary placement or sign it contacts, acting like a gigantic multiplication sign. This year Jupiter is expanding the qualities of Neptune. Neptune represents the spiritual aspects of life. It rules things that don't have a solid physical body, such as; water, gasses, alcohol, drug-induced states, dreams, mystical experience, psychic abilities and religious faith. Neptune is the anti-ego planet. It shows us how we are all connected and creates a deep longing for a feeling of union. It can guide us toward transcendent experience or the dark and confusing realms of mental illness. Neptune's lesson is that everything that we do to another, we also do to ourselves. The separation that we perceive is an illusion and Neptune is the master of illusion.

Under Neptune's influence, priorities of the past come into question and nothing is as certain as it was. This dissolving effect heralds an expansion of our personal vision toward something greater and more inclusive. Old attitudes must give way before there is room for a new understanding.

There is usually a lot of projection going on with Neptune. More than ever, reality acts like a mirror reflecting our own attitudes and qualities back at us. We see our highest potential or basest nature reflected in others. The more we feel ourselves to be lacking in a certain quality, the more likely we are to idealize or demonize it in another. This happens when we are unaware or in denial about our own talents, abilities and character flaws. Some positive examples of this are that happy feeling of being in love with love, when we put a loved one on a pedestal or see a person or idea as the culmination of all that is good and beautiful. The flip side is the disillusion that follows when we realize that our beloved has feet of clay and that no person or idea is without fault.

Neptune casts a glamour of idealized beauty over a cherished person or idea. In a birth chart, Neptune's placement shows what a particular person finds good and worthy, where their personal ideal lies. Since Neptune spends approximately 14 years in a sign, it sets up a collective ideal shared by an entire generation. Neptune's position at any given time defines what society in general is venerating as the highest good, as an ideal to strive for, as the collective vision. Once a generation Jupiter joins Neptune, expanding and glorifying this ideal, setting a standard for the coming decade until the next time Jupiter conjuncts Neptune and a new vision is instilled.

In 2009 Jupiter will be conjuncting Neptune in Aquarius and a new standard is being set, a new Aquarian vision for humanity's next decade. The constellation of Aquarius is pictured as the Water-Bearer, pouring healing waters for the benefit of humanity. The true Aquarian is an idealist, working for the welfare of humanity and striving to make the world a better place. Aquarius, ruled by the planet Uranus, is a rule breaker, a risk taker, a political, philosophical creature with a strong scientific bent. Aquarians like to work in groups dedicated to a common cause or belief. They believe in the brotherhood of men and, likewise, the sisterhood of women. Aquarius also rules astrology, which should find a more common acceptance and respect in the coming decade.

The last Jupiter/Neptune conjunction occurred in 27Ò Capricorn in January of 1997. This reaffirmed a Capricornian ideal that had already been established back in 1984 when the previous Jupiter/Neptune conjunction also occurred in Capricorn (00š09). It is quite unusual for two sequential Jupiter/Neptune conjunctions to fall in the same sign. This happens about once every two hundred years and enshrines a certain common vision for twice its usual period of popularity, making it the hallmark of an era.

Astrologically, Capricorn is associated with established power structures and the ruling elite. For 25 years we've been under the influence of a Capricornian dream, in love with the rich and powerful. As a society we've taken from the poor and given to the rich in some reverse Robin Hood fantasy that this would somehow ultimately benefit us instead of breaking the bank. Trickle down economics has left us with exactly that, an economic trickle instead of a flow. The 90's mantra that, "Greed is good" (I actually know of a business where members of management had employees chant this repeatedly. Their former CEO is now in prison.) seemed to have government sanction as regulations were loosened and hundreds of business took their profits off shore to avoid paying taxes and their jobs to foreign countries in search of cheaper labor and laxer environmental standards. The increased tax burden has landed on middle class and blue collar workers who have received less and less in exchange for their tax dollars.

Corporations have become the new aristocracy, dictating to government and society in general, as people find themselves laboring on the corporate plantation for less money, fewer benefits and fewer opportunities in sight. This dream is ending now as the world wakes up, rubbing its eyes and wondering how it could ever have thought that crazy dream was real. Remember the fable of Midas? Everything he touched turned to gold but in the end he was left starving.

Looking back at previous Jupiter/Neptune conjunctions further illustrates how this principle works. Before 1984, the last Jupiter/Neptune conjunction occurred in 1971 in Sagittarius, a sign that values personal and intellectual freedom above all else. It's easy to see this ideal reflected in the politics and events of that era. Before that, Jupiter conjuncted Neptune in 1958 in Scorpio, a fitting symbol for the Cold War era and nuclear arms race that accompanied it. In 1945 the conjunction occurred in Libra and the world dreamed of peace after a devastating period of war.

Though we don't always achieve our dreams, the quality of the vision says a lot about who we are as individuals and as a society. The Aquarian ideal coming into view this year will have far reaching effects on the world for the next decade until 2022 when Jupiter and Neptune will meet again in Pisces.