What you hold in your heart...
creates the story of your life.
Our next Astro-salon for paid members will be held on Friday, June 20th in honor of the Cancer Solstice. Celebration, astro-guidance, and deep relaxation are on the agenda!!
One of my favorite topics to discuss is karma. The concept is misunderstood and misused in our culture, and yet can be so useful when you unlearn the distortions. Perhaps the simplest and best explanation of what karma really is comes from an introduction to the yoga scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, by Eknath Easwaran:
The purpose of karma is to teach the consequences of shraddha
The Sanskrit word shraddha translates as “what you put your faith in”, or what you “hold in your heart”, that is, the deeply held beliefs that guide your life.
Those beliefs, whether conscious or unconscious, shape your world view and therefore drive your thoughts, words, and deeds, all of which lead to consequences - i.e. karma.
While Saturn, the “Lord of karma” is responsible for showing you those consequences, Jupiter is the planet of faith, belief, and the way in which we make meaning of the world. Where Jupiter is in your chart describes what drives your belief system, i.e., your shraddha.
Jupiter in Cancer - find home within
Last Monday, June 9th, Jupiter moved into the sign of Cancer, the great mother, where its highest expression is knowing the whole world as home. Our collective work now is to feel at home in the cosmos, on the earth, and in our bodies. The conscious expression of this placement is feeling so nourished, and having such a sense of belonging, that you can show care and compassion to everyone.
The shadow side of the placement tends toward defensiveness and grasping at rigid ideas of safety or belonging. Do you think of your tribe as the Earth community or your political party? Do you only feel at home in echo chambers of people with similar opinions, or do you maintain a sense of compassion for and curiosity about those who think differently? These are questions of Jupiter in Cancer, and they become even more critical when Uranus (disruption) moves into Gemini (communication and perception) in early July. More on that topic soon.
The tension
Jupiter’s move into Cancer brought it into tension with Saturn in Aries. This is the opening square in the cycle begun on the December Solstice of 2020. The conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, society’s timekeepers, began a new 200 year era of social and intellectual initiative and growth, closing a chapter of materialist thinking and industrial development.
The current tension between the two planets is fundamentally between expansion and contraction, between the urge to grow and push boundaries (Jupiter) and the necessity of stability and structure (Saturn). More specifically, the Jupiter in Cancer-Saturn in Aries conflict asks for reconciliation of the emotional need to belong and protect home ground (Cancer) with the duty to be fully and unapologetically yourself, becoming the agent of your life (Aries).
This dynamic between Jupiter and Saturn happens in the context of the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune. It might seem difficult to be unapologetically yourself when your very identity is dissolving and/or being restructured by Neptune’s softening effect.
Neptune glamorizes and obscures. In Aries, the collective risk is the idealization of war. On a more personal level, it might be a little too easy to don the mantle of “spiritual warrior” when in reality it is a cloak of self-righteousness. If you are uncomfortable with uncertainty, the temptation may be to reach for the solid ground of dogma and ideology, forming an identity based on what tribe you believe to be most righteous.
Your initiation
We are all in a period of initiation into a new world. The Solstice alignments remind us to burrow under surface beliefs and apparent identities to feel what is truly aligned in our hearts. The violence, both verbal and physical, over definitions of “home ground” are examples of the flowing energies of the moment becoming rigidified; of the inspiration to create being subverted into destruction based on superficial understanding, a hazard of the online world.
Each of us has the choice to bring greater consciousness to what we hold in our hearts, how our beliefs affect our perception of reality, and therefore the world we co-create. May the Sun’s meeting with Jupiter in Cancer next week amplify compassion and creativity in service to all beings.
Solstice Astro-Salon
In our Solstice Astro-Salon on the 20th for paid subscribers, beginning at 10 am Mountain/Noon Eastern, we’ll listen to the guidance of the planets as we examine our stories of this year of change. The 2 hour salon offers a chance to take stock of the first half of the year, and focus your intent for the next six months. Our agenda includes:
the opportunity to tell the story of the first half of the solar year;
the chance to revise your story as necessary to be one of celebration and honoring of your creative power;
a brief astro-review of the remainder of 2025 to orient us to what is still to come;
and a short relaxation exercise to anchor your renewed intention for this pivotal time in history.
The recording will be available to all paid subscribers shortly after we conclude.
Paid subscribers receive the Zoom link a couple of days before our call, plus a reminder on the morning of the 20th.
Thank you for being here. Paid subscriptions help me to keep writing and teaching, and all subscribers help me stay motivated and connected. Your comments and replies are always appreciated. It means a lot to me to be in community with you.
I hope to see you on the 20th.