Awakening to Freedom
By
Sarah Varcas
Jupiter stations retrograde in the 24th degree of Virgo at 3:30 a.m. UT on 8th January. Conjunct the Moon’s North Node as it does so, it reminds us that only by realising our true nature amidst all of life’s experiences can we honour the gift and responsibility of awakening. For not only is awakening a beautiful grace, it also holds us accountable, demanding ego maturity and commitment to a spiritual quest which strips away our many layers of ego-identity, defensive posturing and pretence to reveal the pure, shining core of sacred presence that animates all beings. Nothing that is not truth survives the challenge of awakening and we must be prepared to place everything on its altar in case everything is needed to renew our spirit. There can be no holding back, no protecting the ego from the demands of the Real. Jupiter retrograde reminds us that to awaken is part of our inherent nature, the most natural thing in the world. But in an unnatural world where falsity has become the norm, liberating that nature can feel anything but easy as layer upon layer of the false self is stripped away and the insubstantial nature of our ego-identity revealed.
Forming an alignment with the dwarf planet Eris in Aries and the Moon in Sagittarius, this Jupiter assures us that ferocious faith may sometimes be necessary to get us through. We must be prepared to grit our teeth as tight as possible and do whatever it takes to allow the Real Self to emerge. Sometimes it entails great acts of courage that see us standing by truth against all the odds and at great apparent cost, which eventually reveals itself to be no cost at all as we rise anew from the flames of transformation. At other times it entails doing absolutely nothing but being, allowing to gradually subside the momentum of ego which tells us we are everything we’re not to prevent its own demise.
This passage of Jupiter could trigger great reactivity if we let it. We may find ourselves subject to the vicissitudes of ‘fate’, thrown first this way and then that, if we don’t choose at the outset to identify with that which never changes, not all those things that do! Deep within, at our very core, this presence of stability and security breathes itself through us. Call it what you will: God/dess, the Divine, Sacred Source, Life, pure presence. Names are irrelevant when we know its boundless substance as our very life force, in light of whose radiance only what is true will hold. All else is burned away by the searing power of Truth, knowable only by living it.
It is just such direct experience of truth that comes with this passage of Jupiter. Available to us all, we must do our part to embrace it. If we continue reacting rather than reflecting, defending rather than responding, we will remain in an ego-oriented state of ‘me against the world’, further cementing the tyranny of ego over essence. If, however, we dare to stop, wait, listen and feel into each moment, asking what it requires of us, not being compelled to give from a closed heart and defensive mind, the coming months can deliver us into the very presence of the divine, known within and without, all around and in everyone.
Between 15th and 24th February Jupiter crosses the degree of last September’s solar eclipse, providing us a final opportunity to address issues raised then and embrace their inherent freedom. For freedom lives within all things everywhere, no matter how constricting, harmful or controlling they may feel. We only have to find it, which we do by letting go of all that denies its existence. Doing so may require courage and a willingness to live for a time empty, until our soul dances to a new tune, sensing freedom is at hand.
Sarah Varcas
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