Holy Jupiter, I’m Back (Hopefully for Good?)
I am writing this blog post on Jupiter’s day. And it has been a minute since I blogged.
Micro-blogging on Twitter has been fun but my tweets are getting much traction anymore. But as I’ve told my own content clients, you own your website and blog, so it’s better to put your best content there.
So here I am, and hopefully, I’ll be more consistent.
Interestingly, this post is about astrology, mainly mine. But I’ve been pivoting to focusing more on energy healing. But sometimes, there are transits that are very poignant and I wanted to share one of mine.
Ted Lasso: An Imperfect Show That I Love
I didn’t expect S310, “International Break” to be so poignant for me. I have had issues with Ted Lasso, the show and the titular character, being preternaturally positive.
Everything can be a little too simplified like we’re watching an afterschool special (although even those can be grittier than this show). This show deserves to be a 22-episode show because it shoehorns a lot of character growth into too few episodes.
If you haven’t watched this episode, spoilers are ahead, but they’re important to this Jupiterian story.
“International Break”
This episode is not well liked by critics, but who cares about them? This is about my journey!
What really spoke to me was one scene that Nate, a former soccer coach, had with his dad while moping at his parents’ place. Nate roots around in his parents’ attic and finds his violin and starts playing it, with his music becoming the soundtrack for another well-placed speech by another character (it’s very cool that the actor playing Nate, Nick Mohammed, really can play the violin!).
Nate is startled by his dad who hears him play. His parents were off on an errand, but his dad came back for some alone time. He looks on admiringly at Nate while Nate apologizes for possibly bothering him. His father replies that he has always liked Nate’s playing. Nate is shocked because he thought his dad hated his playing, that he lacked discipline, etc.
Nate’s Story of Giftedness
Nate is most likely a gifted person, because his nickname on his former soccer team was Wonder Kid (which he kept insisting on the German word, wunderkind).
He knows soccer. He knows a lot of stuff.
Nate left the team that Ted Lasso coached for a rival team and became a coach. His team did well, but he was a sore winner, taking digs at his former team. But his boss is a creep. Long story short, Nate resigns I believe because of that creep behavior but he lets go of his dream job.
Back to Nate and his dad. Nate’s dad responds, apologizing that he didn’t know how to parent a genius. He thought he needed to be hard on him. He hadn’t had the same opportunities as Nate did. Nate replied that he just liked playing.
The scene is relatively short but powerful. I had this to say on Twitter.
Nate’s dad just gave me an explanation and apology I was never going to get. Wow. #TedLasso pic.twitter.com/8y177aPBwk
— deb, venusian edition 🪷 (@sunoppositemoon) May 17, 2023
Jupiter in Taurus & Me
Jupiter entered Taurus on May 16, 2023 at 10:20am PDT, before “International Break” aired later that evening.
Let’s look back at how Jupiter behaved in Aries, though. In my opinion, it was a bit disappointing. It was ruled by an erratic Mars in Gemini which was retrograde for months, and then by Mars in its fall, Mars in Cancer. It wasn’t that boisterous with hope or abundance.
So a lot of people have been hoping that Jupiter in Taurus is better. And I am one of those people.
Granted, Jupiter is not at home in Taurus, like it is in Sagittarius or Pisces. Taurus plods along, is methodical, but it is ruled by Venus, which is also benefic. And Venus is currently in Cancer. These two planets are helping each other out (mutual reception is the technical term) as Jupiter is exalted in Cancer and Venus finds its home in Taurus. It’s a much better rulership conversation.
So how did this ingress affect me?
Straight out the gate for me, in my natal chart, I have plenty of planets in the early degrees, including:
- Saturn (in Virgo, at 0 degrees)
- Jupiter (in Cancer, at 0 degrees)
- Chiron (in Taurus, at 1 degree)
In that order is how Jupiter in Taurus will be trine, sextile, and in conjunction.
The Jupiter/Chiron conjunction in my chart perfected on Saturday, May 21, 2023, but Jupiter still wasted no time in bringing healing to me.
Let’s meet these two key planets first.
Who Are Jupiter and Chiron?
Chiron is the planetoid known as the wounded healer. This is where we have wounding that ends up being our place of expertise and we share our hard-fought wisdom. That really kicks off during a Chiron return (which happens around age 50. I’m currently about 5 years away from this transit).
Jupiter is expansive and involves healing, growth, and prosperity. I also think Jupiter can overpromise and underdeliver, because there can be a lot of enthusiasm and zeal, but not a lot of follow-through.
Jupiter in Taurus isn’t going to be that bombastic. It may be a time for really enjoying the sensual world (maybe too much, so be careful!) but slowly yet steadily, you could build up some fortune.
Where these two planets are hanging out is important. My Taurus house is the 5th house, the house of children, creativity, fun, and sex. Venus likes hanging out here, so to have a Venus-ruled Jupiter here is quite nice.
Having my Chiron and IC (3 degrees Taurus) is not as nice. Although the IC represents ancestry, and I inherited my creative gifts, the conjunction between my Chiron and IC connotes that there is ancestral pain around childhood and creativity.
So let’s dig into my Chiron’s story.
My Chiron Story
Even though I’ve cosplayed a STEM person for a long time, I’ve been a creative at heart. But that journey has come with fits and starts, probably because I do have this grand earth trine between my sun in Capricorn (3 degrees Capricorn), my Saturn retrograde in Virgo, and Chiron in Taurus.
It was not going to be a straight shot finding my career and calling.
For example, I’ve always been a writer. One thing my mom made me do when I was little was practice writing. I wrote things she picked out of the newspaper. I also initiated reading at an early age (age 4 I’m told).
But it took my first Saturn return to give up on the idea of becoming a doctor (like my dad, who of course because of Saturn and my sun in this story, had a lot to do with this trajectory) and focused on writing, starting age 30. Then it took a certificate program and getting an MFA in Creative Writing to finally realize a dream I had since I was little: professional writer.
Some Support, But Not Enough
Ironically, my parents, both medical professionals, saw the writing on the wall here in the US and didn’t want me to go into medicine. My mom advised me to go into research, which I did later. But she didn’t really know how precarious research funding is in the US.
Yet it’s clear that I should have been in the creative arts. I just didn’t get much guidance from them. I had to do some heavy self-advocacy in this area. Although, most of the time, if I expressed interest in something, I’d get some support — like playing the clarinet in junior high and high school. My dad played the clarinet, too. He got an old one from a pawn shop (I know I could have gotten a new one, but that’s a story for another time and possibly another place).
One of My First Loves: The Piano
Before the clarinet, I wanted to play piano. I had inherited my dad’s good ear for music. I’d say I have relative pitch (it’s probably flat by a half step, meaning when I hear B I think it sounds like C). He had keyboards and organs, including one he built himself, in our home. I learned recently he had played organ in his high school. From age 8, I started wanting to play. But it took 4 years of begging and cajoling to start playing at age 12, which is a late start.
I took weekly lessons and went to Saturday classes learning history, keyboarding, and performance at a local university, headed up by a famous duo who had played piano all over the world. I also started to compete in paying competitions. Piano became my haven in darkening storms as my dad’s mental illness worsened and went untreated.
One spring day, I came back from winning my first paying competition. I won $50!
With my winnings in my hand, my dad then told me he’d stop paying for lessons.
Chiron strikes!
A Calm Refuge in a Stormy Home
At this point, my home had become dysfunctional and very unpredictable, partially due to my dad’s untreated mental illness, enabled by my mother and Christian fundamentalism, which had my dad as head of the house no matter how absent or inept. As I was struggling just to survive emotionally through parental emotional neglect, I didn’t really have the druthers to think of solutions, such as getting my driver’s license, getting a job, and funding my lessons myself.
The reason my dad gave me for cutting my lessons was because he wanted me to practice as much as the famous professional pianist, Vladimir Horowitz.
I stood in front of him in our den with a check in my hand and yet winning wasn’t enough for him.
My Personal Pleasure
In the 1990s, being a well-rounded student was important. It’s probably the same now (not really in the high school scene these days), but in my day, the more extracurriculars, the better. I had been busting my ass taking two math classes the year before so I could take AP Calculus my senior year. I had been in many clubs and societies and active in my church.
Playing piano was just something I liked to do. It was never going to support me professionally, especially because I started late. I knew that. Maybe if I had started at age 5, like a lot of my fellow piano classmates, I could have gone to a conservatory. The logic behind his desires was flimsy and whimsical at best.
He was the sun (he had his sun in Leo) and I was an unwitting Icarus.
But piano was my personal pleasure. Hearing myself play beautiful pieces, having that time to myself in front of my glossy black Weber studio piano, it was my pleasure that I also shared with anyone who heard it.
Yet my dad did not want any part of it. He never came to any of my recitals (or any other celebrations for that matter), the ones that happened at my teacher’s piano shop and the ones that happened at the university every semester. He did try to share some pieces he liked. But it was always about him not me.
The Pleasure Police
This wasn’t the first time my dad would come to stop me from having fun. He denied me class trips abroad, and an important mission trip with my beloved youth pastor.
And it was never because of affordability.
Looking back, it felt spiteful to deny a good kid near the top of her class anything good.
It was narcissism. If anyone got more attention or support, then they would be punished with his absence or withholding access to resources.
And mind you, this is also about what was available to me as a doctor’s kid and what my dad did for himself. He had a lot of hobbies including photography, cars, and aviation. He never spared expense on himself. This was a generational pattern, though, which is another story for another time and place.
Still, despite the different intentions my dad and Nate’s dad had, that conversation Nate and his dad had on Ted Lasso made some sense, even through the self-centered lens.
A Failure to Nurture
I do think he was used to seeing how many opportunities I had vs. what he had with his mother (possibly his Cancer north node was informing a lot here, along with Venus and Saturn in Cancer i.e., he wasn’t yet comfortable being the nurturer).
Even though I am sure my dad was gifted, too, he didn’t know how to raise a gifted kid.
Instead of being like Nate’s dad, humbling himself to bridge the gap of misunderstanding, he created a wedge of spite and cruelty.
Watching Nate and his dad mend their fences, and also take a huge chip off Nate’s shoulder (through the magic of television), I could see the power of (yes, it’s cliché but) love. How this love was able to heal decades of distance, resentment, and self-hatred. The next scene has Nate having a laugh while playing cards with his parents.
Healing Transits Before Jupiter in Taurus
Right up until I saw that Ted Lasso episode, I felt mortally wounded around music, especially classical music. Yet I can say there were other transits that prepared me for this moment of healing.
My Uranus opposition and my Saturn oppositions have been helpful in gaining clarity about the wounds I’ve received around creativity and education, respectively.
Even this recent Mercury retrograde in Taurus has been clarifying, reminding of music that I love.
My life has been on a long delay. But this Jupiter/Chiron conjunction came right on time.
Death Brings Clarity and Closure
One week after “International Break” aired, my dad dies.
He had been sick for a while and was then hospitalized in February, nearly collapsing with shortness of breath. On top of that he contracted COVID. They found a spot on his liver and they found cancer had metastasized from his colon, liver, and lungs.
His three-month odyssey into his next life gave me time to reflect on a lot about our relationship, how we went from the forgotten “Daddy’s Little Girl” to not speaking. That journey could be a whole book of wisdom, but I am so grateful at how a short scene on a TV show gave me healing that I never thought I would never have.
And that’s the beauty of art.
Art Returns and Heals
Art can clarify and heal. And I’ve been lucky to have so many ways of artistic support.
This song from Spanish rock star Juanes addressed to his eldest daughter (which is an apology) has supported me. So speaking of music that I’ve loved, I’ve loved this guy’s music since his third album, La Vida…Es En Ratico (Life…Is A Moment).
His album Vida Cotidiana (Everyday Life), was released on Friday, May 19th and I’ve been listening to it every day. He thinks that Everyday Life is his best album, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.
The next Ted Lasso episode “Mom City” has also supported me. That could be a whole other post, which I may or may not write, but the magic I experienced around energy work really blew my mind.
Ancestral Roots, New Seeds
My dad gave me the seeds of art and creativity, sharing his love of Mozart, reggae, and Mahalia Jackson. I listened to so many of his tapes, albums, and CDs of contemporary Christian worship and gospel music, of folk music, of Ghanaian music. I appreciate his wide musical palate.
But he didn’t try to cultivate them in me except to learn what he liked. He was never interested in what I liked.
I feel very lucky and fortunate that I did have some time to grow my love of art and creativity outside of the home at school, and then living in Chicago, moving to Orlando to focus on writing, and now Seattle — a city I saw myself living in when I was a grunge-loving 90s teen.
It’s surreal that I am here in the Emerald City, after 2 years. And it is surreal that the physical remnants of my dad are now cremains.
Still, even as I look back and forward, I’m not sure how I feel about my dad no longer in form here on Earth — even though most of adult life involved investigating and excavating my life with my parents.
This story will continue to evolve as I continue to heal.
Being Well Acquainted with Grief
Grief is a spooky specter, so who knows what will come up for me today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year.
But I do feel like a salty old dog when it comes to loss. And when you have someone who is not fully present in your life for so long, and is also the source of most of your losses — grief starts long before they die.
What I’ve been grieving mostly has been the person I could have been without having parents thwarting my path because I didn’t get to be who they wanted me to be.
Yet there are parents who are humble enough to apologize, to make things right. I’m not filled with envy or jealousy, like I had been before (and who could blame me?).
Knowing these parents exist, and that hopefully I can be such a parent: I am filled with hope.
There’s no hope that I will have a healing conversation with my mom (been there, done that, got the tear-soaked t-shirt).
There is hope that I can fully heal.
With Tina Turner’s death the following day after my dad’s, reflecting on her life and legacy has given me renewed hope.
Her life of perseverance, resilience, and, ultimately, joy. Her history may define her from people who don’t know her. But she is self-defined. She’s a hero and inspiration to millions of people, including me.
Jupiter in Taurus: A Tangible Hope?
I usually think of Jupiter as a thug, mainly because my last Jupiter return was full of betrayal and heartache. But at least in Taurus so far, Jupiter isn’t overpromising and underdelivering.
Hope is not something ephemeral. As activist Mariame Kaba says, hope is a discipline. And it’s one I plan to work at, daily.
I’m not sure what else I’ll do creatively in Seattle. But there’s fertile soil here for music and writing, that’s for sure. New seeds to plant, cultivate, and grow.
Even before my dad’s illness, I had a goal of getting a weighted key piano, because I am still determined to cultivate my own joy.
But just like Nate, I just want to play for me. And I literally can’t wait.
I hope this Jupiter in Taurus transit gives you a more tangible hope! I can honestly say that having the Expansion Principle in my life has an energetic technology is why I have been able to get through such a tough year. If you’d like to learn more about it and have a distance EP session with me, here’s where you can learn more.