Jupiter in Myth and Psyche – Exuberance Unbound

The philosophers taught us to see one dimension of Jupiter/Zeus: ruler of the gods, aligned to truth, law, philosophy, vision, prosperity, a good measure of luck.  This Jupiter is one part of the planetary story.  

 

But the bards sang to us of another Zeus: shapeshifting, polymorphous, polyamorous, given to countless affairs.  And the forms taken were many and surprising — swan, bull, cuckoo, eagle, whirlwind, lesbian lover and more.  The progeny were likewise multiple: Apollo and Artemis, Athena, Mercury, Dionysos, Castor and Pollux, Helen and Clytemnestra, Hercules, the Muses; some even gestated in his own loins.  It seems that whatever Jupiter touches multiplies, expands, diversifies, in ways unintended and unintendable. 

 

In one reading the logic of Jupiter’s encounters seems all too familiar: to rule from the top, and to compensate for the resultant disconnection from life by pillaging and appropriating the eros of what is relegated below.  But if we loosen the symbol from the limitations of Greco-Roman consciousness, we discover that it also calls forth a life-enhancing exuberance: a wildly queer and kaleidoscopic consciousness that cannot be confined to the existent order of things and endlessly remakes it and is remade by it.  When this Jupiter arrives we feel the sensuous breeze of the whirlwind, smell the sweet breath of Europa’s bull, thrill to the anticipation when our eagle eyes spot some irresistible opportunity.   

 

To understand Jupiter in psyche we will explore the way these stories reflect what we experience when Jupiter is on the scene. As in all the Planets in Myth and Psyche series, our aim is to deepen our experience of the thick semantic field each planetary symbol inhabits and evokes, and then to explore the ways that this field of possibilities and probabilities takes shape in life and in conscious engagement through art, ritual, relationship, and consultation.

 

Our live webinar will convene below a sky where Jupiter has just conjoined Uranus: an apt moment for fresh imaginings and especially for unburying (Uranus in Taurus) forgotten and less-authorized dimensions of Jupiter apropos to the new horizons the conjunction often brings.