Are we ready for the second half of 2024?

We just crossed a big threshold with Jupiter’s ingress into Gemini, marking a shift in the collective wind. Buzz buzz buzz: the digital field is crowded and busy.

Jupiter has entered the sign of information flow, to help us navigate the latest global pandemic: the collective dysfunction of ADHD.

We incarnated into an era in which instant access on any subject is almost universal, yet human ignorance is as robust as ever. In a modern variation on the old paradox,

Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. — The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

We’ve got data, data, everywhere, but little of it is making us wise.

Jupiter in Gemini is meant to be a corrective. Ideally, it could teach us how to self-inform consciously rather than compulsively. For about a year, we’ll be working on tweaking the ways we manage the sloshing, gushing streams of tidbits rushing into our minds.

What house of your chart is the transit passing through? This placement reveals the ways you can avoid passive overwhelm, and move into a more meaningful interchange with the world. It’ll show you where you’re learning to choose knowledge selectively and use it ethically.

At issue here is a shift from quantity to quality. This is not about judging information in terms of positive-vs.-negative. It’s about asking, Does what I take in expand my consciousness, and that of the world?

Infusion of ego

Exacerbating the Jupiter transit is the entry of Mars into Gemini on 7/20. This pumps a dose of ego into the world mind.

There’s nothing wrong with ego, when we know it’s motivating us. On a personal level, Mars tends to be problematic only when we misidentify it.

We might tell ourselves that our impulse to act is coming from somewhere else, e.g. “I’m berating my child in order to teach him a lesson.” When we kid ourselves this way, we’re asking Mars to come back to bite us, earning its old-fashioned reputation as “the lesser malefic.”

The healthy use of a Mars transit is to get engaged, to throw ourselves into something, hands-on. Mars activates us to care about the issue at hand, so it revitalizes whatever sign it’s in. This month, that means communications. Let the transit add vigor to taking a stand and speaking your mind.

Just make sure it’s an issue that warrants the extra force.

Divas wherever you look

When the Sun ingresses on 7/22 it will be joining Mercury (from 7/2) and Venus (from 7/11) in the sign of fixed fire. Leo is a Martial sign, making it all the more important to notice what shape our egos are in.

Under skies like these, even the most timorous souls are more likely to seek the spotlight. Healthy Leo encourages the proud display of one’s gifts. But the transits themselves don’t determine whether this self-expression will be superb or obnoxious.

A soloist onstage may be bursting with talent, but if she sees her ego-identity as being all there is, she’s woefully missing the point. It would be like a light bulb failing to see that it shines only because it’s plugged into a greater energy source.

By contrast, when a spiritually mature individual expresses herself, she is generously sharing her own uniqueness, while, in the process, celebrating something more. The most exalted performances are songs of praise not for the artist but to life itself.

Images

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Gustave Dore

Saturn’s rings as observed by Voyager 2, 1981