Jupiter in Cancer 2013 to 2014: Creating the New Earth Family

It’s big news for all of us when Jupiter moves into a new sign, as it expands a new area of spiritual growth for humanity.  On June 24, just following Summer Solstice and the year’s brightest Full Moon, Jupiter moved into Cancer initiating a year where humanity’s dharmic path is centered on restoring and bringing in new expressions of family, home, belonging, and responsible nurturing.

The Personal Journey

On the personal level, this means expanding our ability to hold emotional presence, beginning with ourselves.  We learn to create a “womb-space” for the vulnerable aspects of ourselves and our “baby” dreams to develop and grow.  We learn healthy boundaries for the aspects of self/creations that are still tender, which we will protect fiercely if need be.

The gift is this: as we cultivate a deep sense of home and belonging inside our psyches, bodies, emotions, and lives, we radiate a field of nurturing presence around us.  Our world is sorely in need of people so “at home” in ourselves that we create a sense of family everywhere we go.

At the collective level, this is a time for us to increase our ability to care for those in our community who are most vulnerable, and to expand our concept of “family” beyond the borders of blood, culture, nations, and species.

It is time to recognize Earth as our home, create the new Earth Family by expanding our global community to encompass “All Our Relations.” Are we courageous enough to care this big?  In times of great change it is far too easy to shut down emotionally, and to forget how much we need one another.  Jupiter can support us in opening up, enthusiastically.

The U.S. Jupiter Return, Spiritual Destiny, and Cancer’s Shadow Side

In contrast to planets like Uranus or Pluto, which initiate experiences over which we have little control, Jupiter requires that we make a conscious choice to use the beneficial energy available, or risk losing the opportunity altogether.  This applies to each of us as individuals, for humanity as a whole, and the U.S. in particular as this Jupiter transit represents our nation’s Jupiter Return (and transits to the U.S. natal chart’s Venus, Mercury, and Sun) and an opportunity to reclaim our original spiritual destiny as a nurturing nation.

Which brings up the shadow side of Cancer.  This side crops up when our core identity is shaky, when we are not comfortable with vulnerability and change, when we lack emotional maturity.  Because of our deep insecurity, we feel constantly threatened by forces outside ourselves that we identify as “Other.” Sadly, instead of focusing our energy on the gestation of new life or strengthening ourselves from the inside out, we focus all of our energy on survival, protection, and defense in the pursuit of security.

On September 11, 2001, Jupiter was in the sign of Cancer, within a degree of the U.S.’s natal Sun and the Natal Sun of George W. Bush.  Many of you may recall the images that flooded the web just hours after the twin towers were struck.  All across the globe, from South America to Asia, to the Middle East, young and old were gathered, holding vigils, lighting candles, sending prayers for healing to the people of the U.S.  Among them were many with reason to hold a grudge against our nation.

This was an opportunity for us to take our place within the larger human family, to acknowledge that we, too, were vulnerable to pain, to unpredictable violence, and to mother our own national psyche so as to heal.  Instead, we reacted from the shadow side of Cancer, which we had already adopted with our military buildup during the Cold War.  The choice we made to invade Afghanistan that fall, and Iraq 1 ½ years later, have resulted in the loss of arguably tens of thousands of civilian lives in Afghanistan, and over 100,000 civilian lives in Iraq.

Back in the days when people across the globe still did love the U.S., right-wing pundits were fond of saying that people loved us because they “wanted our freedom.”  Yet when we look at an icon like the Statue of Liberty, it was not only liberty people longed for but the Cancerian compassion implicit in Emma Lazarus’ (Sun and Mercury in Cancer) poem inscribed at its base with the famous lines: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me…”

There have always been men and women of vision in the U.S. who have worked to manifest the Cancer destiny of the U.S. to create a society that would care for and nurture all members of the community.  The New Deal was an expression of this.  The tax code prior to Reagan, which supported social programs and a thriving middle class, was an expression of this.  As was an affordable public education and health care.  Of course, we never reached the full ideal, there were many flaws in these systems, yet for many the ideal of being a nurturing nation has been a driving inspiration. 

Re-visioning Cancer at the Turning of the Ages

When we are in the midst of an Age Change, as we are now, the zodiac signs that are “culture-bearers,” such as Cancer, are the ones that are in the greatest need of re-visioning.  It is not only the fear-oriented, violent shadow side of Cancer that needs to evolve and mature, but also its opposite expression—the mothering impulse that smothers, creates dependence, and holds its creations back from full development and empowerment. In far too many cases, the social systems designed to support the most vulnerable have remained stuck in this mode.

The question is this: how do we learn to strengthen ourselves internally (as individuals, families, communities), which paradoxically means being willing to own our more vulnerable emotions/family and community members and creating a space where they can show up and come into full development?  Over the next year, stay vigilant for opportunities at the local level, as well as at the national/international, to initiate or support activities and policies that nurture, protect, and empower those who are most vulnerable in our communities—including our “more than human” community.

This year is a good time to begin reaching out to neighbors, or within your own “tribe” to develop stronger threads of connection and support. What Cancer understands about creating healthy community is that it is best when we start small and intimate, and grow from there.  Some of the most enlivening contexts for this can be small projects where people get their hands dirty and connect to the earth—to build a community garden, learn a new technique for composting, rainwater harvesting, etc.

One of the greatest books I’ve found in that vein is Margaret J. Wheately’s Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future. I love that Wheatley weaves into her conversations the question of how we are caring for the Earth, for our water, our soils, our more-than-human community.  At this time, these themes can give us contexts to learn to work together again.  The question for 2013 is this:  can we learn to open our hearts and care again? Can we remember that our greatest strength emerges from a willingness to own our vulnerability? Jupiter supports us on this quest.

Special Note to Readers:  Chances are good that if this resonates with you, you have Cancer in some area of your chart–so this cycle is especially big for you.  I have been seeing a lot of clients lately who have Cancer Sun, Moon, Mars, Venus, or Jupiter in the sign.  I would love to support you in getting the most out of this next 12 months, through a Natal Chart reading if you’ve never had a reading with me, or an update if you have.  Contact me if you’d like to schedule a reading at tamibrunk@yahoo.com. Many blessings!