In honor of Sagittarians everywhere, this post is about Jupiter, Sag’s ruling planet, the bringer of joy.

Jupiter is located in a sign in your chart that brings you joy.  Wherever Jupiter resides will tell a story of an area of life or a way of being which brings you sheer delight and happiness.  To do your Jupiter thing is the very pursuit of happiness for you.  The feeling you get when you do that is a sense of expansion, pleasure and lightness.  Jupiter is just plain fun.

Jupiter is also the part of us that reaches beyond ourselves and makes us grow bigger.  This part helps us develop a philosophy of life that answer’s life’s big questions and makes sense of our place in the universe.  When you are in touch with your Jupiter side, life has meaning and you have a reason to live.  You have a happiness to pursue and when you do so, you exude such positive, hopeful qualities that life rolls out the red carpet, tossing you opportunities and making you lucky.  When you are friends with your inner Jupiter, life is an adventure.

How do you find out where your Jupiter is?
If you don’t have your chart, or don’t know how to read your chart, you might want to order your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder.  This is a special tool I’ve invented that puts your chart’s details in English, instead of astrology symbols.  Your Decoder tells you where every planet in your chart is located:  the sign it’s in, the house it’s in and the exact degree it occupies.  When you’ve got your Decoder in front of you, check to see what your Jupiter sign is.

Where’s Your Joy?
When you have Jupiter in Aries, you derive joy from leaping into action.  It’s a little hard to sit still because you’d rather be in motion, making progress or getting somewhere.
Spontaneity delights you and you are never so happy as when your own action is the right one and brings delight to others.  You bounce back fast & learn well from mistakes.  Your philosophy is based on transparency and you get a lot of joy from being your truest self without apology.  To you, mutual honesty and directness are the key to any relationship.

Jupiter in Taurus people love the physical world.  If you have this Jupiter sign, you relish feeding all your senses with delicious sights, sounds, tastes, scents and textures.  Can this lead to gluttony?  You bet.  It can also lead to acquisitiveness.  But such people do generally end up with the nest egg they seek and lots of nice things to decorate it with.  And your love of food leads to natural cooking talent.  Your philosophy of life includes the importance of continuity and the idea that things should go on much the same unless there’s a really good reason to change them.

Jupiter in Gemini?  Ok, you can be a real talker, even a serious chatterbox.  You love being clever, expressing your wit and getting into wide-ranging conversations on a huge variety of topics.  You are a “renaissance person,” pulled in a number of directions, all of which give you equal joy.  In fact, you’re so multi-talented that you don’t know what to develop.  Being involved with several ideas at once brings you delight and your life-philosophy involves the importance of using one’s intelligence and seeing life logically.

People with Jupiter in Cancer are a fountain of love and nurturance for those lucky enough to be around them.  When you have this, you tend to feel emotionally secure and to feel like your emotions are ok without needing validation from others.  You spread your support around liberally and are not easily emotionally depleted.  You are sensitive to the needs of others, but not clingy or cloying.  Yours is an open kitchen and a well-trod welcome mat.  Your philosophy of life involves the importance of family and of treating people like family.

Jupiter in Leo is very expansive and exudes noblesse oblige.  This makes you a really royal person.  Creativity gives you joy and you like to express yourself, but beware of excess self-involvement.  You can bear a lot of attention.  You are a natural leader and role model.  You are sometimes unaware of how your large expression can overwhelm others and stifle their expression.  When you make room for the creativity of others while not diminishing yourself, you are the best role model of all.  Your philosophy is about being an individual and the importance of individual will and expression.

Jupiter in Virgo is similar to Gemini.  When you have this, you can get lost in, and overwhelmed by, the details.  You find yourself trying to pan out and focus in at the same time, which can be frustrating, but on the other hand, having an abundance of Virgoan organizational energy is not a bad thing at all and you like nothing so much as a clean, fresh surface ready for use.  Your health tends to go well because you enjoy putting healthy habits in place.  Your philosophy can put a positive spin on the work ethic, partly because being efficient and industrious just feels good to you.

Jupiter in Libra people truly enjoy relating to others, which may account for your varied and interesting social life.  Your philosophy includes the tenet that life should be fair and this trips you up occasionally, when it doesn’t bear out.  You think everyone’s beliefs deserve room, except where they exclude the beliefs of others.  You can be a social magnet and a matchmaker, introducing the right people to each other and smoothing over social mishaps among your many and varied friends.  Your tolerance for people’s differences leads to a host of good connections that can pay off over time.

When you have Jupiter in Scorpio, you have a dark side that you enjoy.  Sometimes this takes the form of gallows humor and sometimes it’s about a love of the gritty, grimy side of life (a fascination with detective novels, for example).  Your philosophy includes the idea there’s no moment so dark it will not pass and that there is a light at the end of every tunnel.  Because of that, you make a good helper and guide for people who are truly at the end of their rope, because you have a high tolerance for other people’s shadows.  In fact, your sheer delight at seeing someone else being real while in pain is infectious.

When you have Jupiter in Sagittarius you like to stay mobile.  You are a pretty purely Jupiterian person, so you have a strong sense of humor, a large and benevolent presence and you are fascinated with travel and foreign cultures.  You are delighted by that which is different from you simply because it is different—that makes it interesting.  You are sometimes very restless and need to avoid getting tied down.  You have a deep well of optimism and can bounce back from just about anything.  Your life-philosophy leaves room for endless growth and expansion.

Jupiter in Capricorn people are prone to overworking because they love the sensation of discipline and focused effort.  When you have this, you are delighted by discovering what to devote yourself to and you get a lot of energy and joy from working extremely hard at it once you’ve found it.  Achievable goals inspire you and pie-in-the-sky goals annoy you.  While you are not naturally optimistic, once your skepticism is satisfied, you can show tremendous persistence.  Your philosophy is based on the idea that hard work leads inevitably to success—and for you, it does.

When you have Jupiter in Aquarius, progress is enlivening and central to your world-view—thwarting it runs counter to your philosophy.  You have a rebellious streak and quickly spot the places where old ways have stopped working.  You are happiest when there’s a little chaos going on due to a really big change in the works.  You have an abundance of ideas and enjoy taking an intellectual, experimental approach.  For you an adventure is better had in the world of ideas than in the physical world and you secretly like shaking up the old, established ways.

As a Jupiter in Pisces person, you have a deep well of faith to draw on.  You are a profoundly gentle and tolerant person, with warm affection for all living things.  You can be wise and generous with your attention and help make room for smaller beings around you to grow.  If you are religious, you’ve chosen the finest parts of your religion and tolerate or ignore the rest.  This frees you to participate in a communion with spirit that feeds your soul and gives you joy and vitality.  Your philosophy is simple: every living thing is deserving and there is room for all of us to be happy.

What, did I say that with my outside voice?  Yes, friends, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Sagittarian types sometimes have it so good in life that they forget to behave nicely to the rest of us.  In my two previous posts I talked about how you can become as lucky as a Sag (pronounce that “Sadge”) by adopting their behaviors.  Those articles are great to read if you want to hear tons of praise for the Sagittarian temperament.  In this post I’ll talk about how our friendly, neighborhood Jupiter folks can stop annoying people who are not like them.  And here we go . . .

Beloved Sagittarians, please remember to have compassion for people who don’t have your easygoing, positive-minded ways.  You’re not lucky in every area of your life—why should other people be?  As a Sagittarian, you were born to grow, open up and expand in every part of your being.  Seek out the areas where you tend to contract and practice your Sag skills there.  And be gentle with the people in your life who are more contracted than you are.

Sags of the world, you have a tendency to exaggerate.  It’s not exactly lying, is it?  More like embellishment or a tendency to put a positive spin on something that has some downsides you conveniently forgot to mention.  To some you may come off as if you are trying to sell something.  That can be off-putting and counter to your real purpose, which is to create possibility.  But skeptics may be more open to your ideas if you address the negative rather than ignoring it.

My dear children of Jupiter, remember that not everyone is as tolerant as you are.  You’ve probably got a huge variety of friends and acquaintances and you can’t expect all your friends to like each other.  In fact, some of them might hate each other, which is just a reflection of your breadth of personality.  And that’s a good thing, right?!

Sagittarians, this may seem like a contradiction to the previous piece about tolerance, but you can be quite dogmatic and zealous.  This is because when you discover or develop a point of view that really works for you, you are very excited by it.  It’s best to avoid forcing your philosophy on the people around you because what fits you may not fit someone else and other people need to discover their path for themselves.  Handing someone a complete, finished perspective may deprive them of important discoveries they need to make on their own.  Instead, practice asking them useful questions that may lead them to their own best next discovery.

Remember too that your Sagittarian lack of attachment can be disturbing to people who are more emotionally or financially attached to this material world.  Sometimes a Sag can enjoy possibilities more than actualities, because there’s a kind of deadness in the finality of a possibility coming to fruition.  You like to “keep your options open,” which sometimes makes you act like a commitment-phobe, job-hopping or running from relationship to relationship and leaving each one when it becomes too binding or serious.  You may feel the weight of seriousness keenly and can use humor to lighten things up, which can annoy others who have more invested in you than you do in them.  So it’s prudent to avoid engendering attachment in others before you are capable of returning the same serious feelings.

And one last thing:  Jupiter-touched people tend to project a large aura.  Remember that a Sag just “feels” big to others—you may be a little bit louder, physically larger, wear a bigger hat, dress in brighter colors.  A Sag lights up the room.  But sometimes people find this intimidating, even when that’s not what you intended.  Sometimes it feels to them like you’re taking over.  It’s important to be aware of the amount of space you’re taking up, and to be deliberate about making room for smaller, more fragile or younger creatures to grow.  Encourage them and create space for them.  That is a wonderful way for you to express your wisdom and to be a role-model.

Being a role-model and expressing wisdom are some of Sagittarius’ favorite things, and thank goodness for it.  Thank goodness for all the hope and abundance generated by this grand fire sign.  Lovable Sags of the world, you may sometimes be annoying, but what would we ever do without you?

Sagittarians, how about a special birthday present?
Your birthday is your own personal New Year’s Day.
Having an astrology reading at this time can help you clarify
and pursue your life’s greatest inspirations in the coming year.
Contact Jamie at pandora@pandoraastrology.com
to schedule a reading or put one on your wishlist.

My previous post was about how Sagittarians got to be so lucky—and how you can too, whether you’re a Sag or not.  Here are some more Sagittarian luck-generating habits:

Sagittarians are hopeful.  They are naturally optimistic and are willing to invest hope in possibilities.  They see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty.  Sometimes a Sagittarian will even point out that the glass is always entirely full, regardless of how much water is in it, because if it were truly empty, it would contain a vacuum and collapse in on itself.

Sagittarians expect good things to happen, but they are not attached.  This is because Jupiter’s children understand that opportunities come and go and they instinctively trust that today’s opportunity will be replaced by a fresh one—or two—tomorrow.  They are used to a constant flow of possibilities, like a siphon of goodness.  This lack of attachment is the heart of Jupiter’s gift, and it is the thing that makes the siphon go.  Everyone knows desperation is unattractive, and that grasping, miserly behavior does not inspire generosity in others.

Sagittarians look for the deeper meaning behind things.  They are constantly on the hunt for the principles behind the ways things work in the world.  They feel that once these principles are grasped and lived by, that their life will flow.  Sagittarians can find the design of life in a number of ways:  religious experience, exploration of philosophy, higher education, personal growth, or by throwing themselves into a variety of cultures in order to apprehend what is human behind the differences.

Sagittarians assume that the intentions of others are good.  In part they assume this because their own intentions are good and they project this intention onto others.  This can sometimes get them into trouble and lead to being taken advantage of, but a happy-go-lucky, trusting Jupiter person will slide out of trouble as fast as they got in because they are non-confrontational.  Instead of meeting aggression with more aggression, they tend to evade and lighten up any potentially dangerous situation with humor and can win enemies over with a well-timed and well-aimed joke.

With all the luck and abundance that surrounds Sagittarius, you’d think all Sagittarians would be wealthy, wouldn’t you?  But not necessarily.  Sags (pronounce that “Sadges”) are not so much wealthy in money as they are wealthy in monetary flow.  This is because Jupiter’s people tend to have such faith that they can create what they need when they need it, that for them, money and goods are “easy come, easy go.”  Many Sags would rather live on the financial edge than carry dead weight (money that’s not in motion).  They are spenders, not savers (this drives the Taureans and Cancers of the world crazy).  Some Sags experience themselves not as a receptacle for things and money, but as a space through which things and money tend to move, a living stream of resources.  They have gotten what they needed when they needed it so often that they have become unattached to having things around when they are not needed.  A Sag will give you their last dime today because they know someone else will offer them one tomorrow.  And they don’t just believe it—they know it.

So how can you be a lucky Sagittarian? There’s a simple feedback loop that Jupiter people participate in:  be generous in giving, be appreciative in receiving. You can jump into that loop anywhere and start the process going.
Have trouble asking others for help? Decide it’s ok to make yourself vulnerable and ask—despite the discomfort.
Feeling too poor to give? Find something you are rich in (time, friends, information, attention, praise, wisdom, books, social contacts) and give that. You are starting the siphon.
Can’t imagine good things coming your way? Decide to hope, to take the risk of believing that what you want is possible and watch resources pop up right in front of you.

Sagittarius is sounding pretty good, isn’t it?  But every sign has a shadow side and in my next blogpost, I’ll list a few things every Sag should look out for.

Sagittarians, how about a special birthday present?
Your birthday is your own personal New Year’s Day.
Having an astrology reading at this time can help you clarify
and pursue your life’s greatest inspirations in the coming year.
Contact Jamie at pandora@pandoraastrology.com
to schedule a reading or put one on your wishlist.

Sagittarius is rumored to be the “lucky” sign of the zodiac and it’s true that people with a lot of Sagittarius in their chart (or people who have Sagittarius’ ruler, Jupiter, placed strongly) tend to get their way an awful lot in life.  Today I thought I’d write about why this is, and how anyone who doesn’t think of themselves as typically lucky can become so.  As you’ll see, luck is not a gift of God, it’s a way of being that results from specific habits—habits which can be understood and practiced until they become natural.

What do I mean by a lucky person?  Someone who . . .
•    easily attracts good things, people and experiences
•    just seems to have things go their way, sometimes without really trying
•    has a lot of friends and resources
•    is well-liked and well-received
•    is often in a good mood, cheerful and upbeat
•    . . . and who takes all this in stride, as if this is just how life is.

In the life of a “lucky” person, Jupiter, known to astrologers as the “greater benefic,” is at work.  Jupiter is the astrological cornucopia of goodness and knowing how to work with its energies can open up endless possibilities.

If you examine the phenomenon of “luck” closely and you look at the habits and behaviors of Sagittarians, you’ll quickly see that it’s no coincidence that Sagittarians are lucky.  It’s actually by design.  There are things Sagittarians do that attract good things into their lives, and these are things you can do, on purpose.  What are those things?

Sagittarians are gregarious.  They are very social creatures and they spread themselves out over large groups of people, mixing with many different kinds of people and forming connections within and between communities.  In their social interactions, Sagittarians are tolerant.  They not only tolerate the differences between people (both individual and cultural), but they actually enjoy those differences.  They are pleasantly stimulated by talking with someone from a different background or perspective.  They don’t respond by feeling threatened, afraid or invaded.  Instead they are interested and curious.  Therefore, they have a way of inviting others to open up and express themselves.  Jupiter-touched people are socially welcoming.

Sagittarians know that opportunities must be spotted and pounced on.  They are alert to possibilities and ready to follow up when something arises.  They know that opportunities do not arrive ready-made and that a seemingly imperfect opportunity may be turned into a perfect one with the right kind of cultivation.  When presented with lemons, what they actually see is lemonade-in-the-making, and that vision of possibility is what they respond to.  They respond with gladness and praise, which makes the lemons want to become lemonade, speeding the process.

Sagittarians see themselves as part of something greater.  This makes them helpful and cooperative.  They have no ego invested in not asking for help.  They are willing to ask because they know that they have something to give back.  Sagittarians are aware of their good traits and have self-confidence.  Since they know they have something to contribute, they are comfortable taking.  This, to them, is all just part of the grand design:  sometimes you give, sometimes you take.  They are comfortable with both sides of the transaction.  This makes them generous.  They enjoy giving.  They like the way it spreads resources around.  They like having a positive impact on your life.

Take a minute to think about how you live out these ways of being and how they positively impact your life, and the lives of others.  Read on for more Sagittarian “lucky” habits.

Sagittarians, how about a special birthday present?
Your birthday is your own personal New Year’s Day.
Having an astrology reading at this time can help you clarify
and pursue your life’s greatest inspirations in the coming year.
Contact Jamie at pandora@pandoraastrology.com
to schedule a reading or put one on your wishlist.