by guest author to About.com, Shelley Ackerman, of Karmic Relief.
We all have our favorite restaurants, friends, and vacation spots, so it should be no surprise that many astrologers have a favorite planetary placement. Mine happens to be Jupiter in Aquarius.
Exploring Jupiter
Not to be confused with the Sun in Aquarius (that month long transit begins on Jan. 19th 2009), Jupiter, the ‘God of the Gods' is the largest planet in our solar system. Known for its expansive and fortunate influence in a horoscope, wherever Jupiter is in your chart, you're blessed and have a lot of what that particular sign/house represents. When well aspected, Jupiter is wise, generous, buoyant, and optimistic. When negative, Jupiter is grandiose, preachy, full of himself, over-blown, and over-indulgent.
Jupiter's cycle around the Sun is just a little shy of 12 years. So every 12 years or so, we experience our "Jupiter-return". Apropos, Barack Obama's Jupiter-return (yes, the soon-to-be 44th US President has Jupiter in Aquarius) takes place on January 9, 2009, eleven days before his inauguration. Also right on schedule for 2009, is the return of "HAIR" to Broadway, the show that musically introduced us to the incoming ‘Age of Aquarius.'
Jupiter enters Aquarius, the altruistic ‘we're all in this together' sign of brotherhood, civic-mindedness, and progress on January 5th at 10:42 am, and will complete the transit on January 17, 2010, when it enters Pisces. To say that those with Jupiter in Aquarius have an impact on a community that extends around the world would be an understatement, though nothing about Jupiter is ever understated. To illustrate that point, check out this small list of notables with Jupiter in airy, humanistic, and tech-savvy Aquarius:
Miles Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Hugh Hefner, Meryl Streep, Princess Diana, Eartha Kitt, Jack LaLanne, Ray Kroc, Monica Lewinsky, Evel Knievel, Queen Elizabeth II, and International Women's Writing Guild Founder, Hannelore Hahn.
Expect some very significant and far-reaching technological and aeronautical advances in 2009. In 1997, the last time Jupiter was in Aquarius, NASA's pathfinder space probe landed on Mars, and NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission was launched. That was the start of the satellite component of the Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES), which as part of NASA's EOS (Earth Observing System) was designed to measure both solar-reflected and Earth-emitted radiation from the top of the atmosphere (TOA) to the Earth's surface.
What separates 2009's Jupiter in Aquarius transit from all others, is that through much of it (from April on) Jupiter will conjoin Neptune in Aquarius, which will add a far reaching quality and a 'mystique' of sorts by removing ALL boundaries and limits all together. This, as we abandon analogue and go fully digital (on February 17th) in the USA.
Pokémon
While exciting and potentially very inspiring on a spiritual level, the Jupiter/Neptune combo in air has a dark side: It's a perfect breeding ground for airborne infections, and for the negative aspect of technology (dare we say mind control?) to seep in without anyone noticing. In December of 1997, this manifested as "Pokémon Fever" when an episode called "Dennõ Senshi Porygon" aired on Japanese television. The visual effects in the episode caused seizures in a number of Japanese viewers. The press referred to this phenomenon as "Pokémon Shock" as 685 viewers were taken to hospitals as a result.
