Gratitude vs. Delight
Your Mileage Will Vary
“Her name derives from the Sanskrit word ‘lakṣ,’ meaning ‘to perceive’ or ‘to observe,’ and is associated with goals, aims, and prosperity.”
Almost 3 months into my Jupiter and Venus profection year, so they’re demanding a public accounting of how it’s going so far ESPECIALLY with the new moon in Libra on Tuesday, October 21st at 6:25 AM MDT fueled by Venus (finally at home) in Libraand squaring an exalted Jupiter in Cancer slowing down before its retrograde on November 11th
This won’t be joining the readily available plethora of “this is a great new moon for manifestation” information that’s in circulation currently on social media — because, depending on your natal placements, yes. It can do.
Instead, let’s dig into what seems to be a central topic in our collective consciousness these days — especially thanks to the real estate that Venus and Jupiter are covering currently: How to manifest EASE, PROSPERITY, ACCEPTANCE in a system that seems allergic to granting these without major transformations of inner scripts (aka nervous system patterns) and outer structures (aka economic and political systems).
Hot Take: It Starts in the Cradle
Jupiter is the planet that asks: What do you believe about how reality behaves? Who or what has the ultimate power over your experience here in on planet Earth and how do they treat you?
It’s seen as the energetic archetype that culminates in wisdom — which, ultimately, is the recognition that surrender is the only viable strategy to life on Earth particularly surrender to a “higher power”. Why? Because, as we travel along the arrow of time, it becomes increasingly clear that ease and joy exist on the other side of our personal accountability for the controllables and surrendering what’s outside of your domain to affect to whatever’s “out there”. (Believe you me, several of the younger Anaks riding along in my neural pathways is pitching a hissy fit and current me writing this — how dare I think that she can’t completely figure out how to bend reality to her will. Lol.)
(Side note: But, hold on, isn’t Saturn the planet of limitations and boundaries? Isn’t Jupiter supposed to be the one who sets you free and grants your wishes? Well, think of it as two different parenting styles: Jupiter will tell you not to touch the hot stove, but he won’t stop you from doing it. Saturn will ask you not to touch the hot stove, and he’ll build an impregnable baby gate around it. In the first case, Jupiter teaches you by letting you have what you want. In the second case, Saturn gives you the time to grow up and understand. Either way, you learn the lesson — the stove is hot and will burn you. Some of us like the former — we’d rather take our own lumps. Some of like prefer the latter — we’d rather learn from someone else’s lessons.)
But let’s get to the salient point about Jupiter’s role in manifesting abundance and ease: Parenthood, grace, and gratitude.
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Mommy Dearest
There you are — a fresh arrival on planet Earth. You got here via a traumatic entry process and find yourself inside a helpless and weak body. Completely unable to fend for yourself, you start life with your first prayers — cries that appeal to the benevolence of a higher power to care for, protect, and feed you. Who is that first benefactor? Your primary caregiver — and, regardless of gender, let’s call this person your mother.
But, isn’t the moon equivalent to mother? NO. The moon represents our individual programming around homeostasis and perception of whether or not we’re safe, nurtured, and secure. We bring this with us from — if you believe in reincarnation — a previous lifetime’s understanding of safety or — if you don’t believe in reincarnation — genetic, epigenetic, and species specific inheritances.
Your cries are heard, but are your prayers answered?
Your current relationship with your primary caregiver notwithstanding, none of us arrived to perfectly omniscient and ascended mothers so the “errors of translation” set the pattern and tone for our relationship to grace and gratitude. (If you’re an adult reading this (whether you have children or pets), you realize at some point that your mother was figuring it out as they went along, making mistakes along the way regardless of access to emotional, financial, and/or practical support available to them.)
Let’s say your early cries/prayers were answered quickly, generously, and restored homeostasis relatively easily, then more than likely you’re someone who believes that you live in a world and higher power that are responsive to your wants and needs and are here to support you. You trust your “luck” and can really say with your full chest, “it’ll all work out”. Often times, you can see this in a chart when Jupiter and the Moon have a flowing relationship to each other regardless of whether or not they’re in signs or houses that they enjoy being in — OR you experience this during Jupiter transits or in your solar return chart when Jupiter is in a place that benefits your moon.
However, what about those of us who had caretakers who had impediments (e.g., post partum depression, milk not dropping, resource scarcity) to answering your cries? Whether you were left to cry it out to the point that you were fast tracked into the realization that you’re on your own in this alien world, there was a mismatch between what you were asking for and what was provided, and/or you could tell your needs were being met from obligation and not from true care, these can create patterns that can make someone more distrustful of higher powers and/or a worldview that is apathetic to one’s existence and needs at best or downright hostile and rejecting at worst. In such cases, receiving grace and the resultant reaction of gratitude (that signals to the mind that grace has been received) have challenging repercussions later on in life. You can see this in charts where Jupiter and the moon are in a “dynamic” relationship to each other or have no relationship at all.
Furthermore, as I posted on Threads last week: Depending on your ascendant/risingand moon signs, people have different affinities with receiving Jupiter’s “parenting”. Usually Aries, Cancer, Leo, and Scorpio ascendants/rising and moons, in theory, will vibe with how Jupiter teaches its lessons and are open to receiving the way Jupiter likes to give — so anchor your manifesting work in gratitude.
However, if Jupiter tends to do you dirty, usually this means you’re a Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Capricorn, Aquarius, Sagittarius, or Pisces ascendant/rising or moon. You can determine this by whether or not you were the kid who burns their finger on the stove and then feels like your parent should’ve actually protected you better, and you look to that burn scar as a reminder of their parental incompetence. If so, it may explain why focusing on gratitude as the anchor emotion to rewire your nervous system for receiving abundance and experiencing prosperity gets blocked. In this case, maybe you need to lean on another planet to help with re-writing your inner scripts for manifestation and help to heal your Jupiter/gratitude wounding.
Origins of a Jupiter Wound
So, when I was a baby, there were various reasons why I couldn’t be breastfed — not only was it the mid-1970s and baby formula was considered “superior” to breast milk (why? <rolls eyes to the heavens>), my mother was NOT into the idea of her beautiful perky breasts becoming stretched and saggy, AND I, being born 5 weeks early, had no sucking reflex. It was the perfect storm for a complex relationship to Jupiter. (For the sake of full disclosure for the students of astrology, I have a relatively strong, angular Jupiter in Aries that “technically” sees my Libra moon (which is in a tight but separating conjunction to Pluto) by opposition but it’s also tangled up in a t-square with Saturn in Cancer and my ascendant and Uranus in Libra.) The solution was to have my nanny dropper feed me formula on a very regular schedule — whether I was hungry or not.
As a child, a lot of what could be described as “subjugation of self” or disappearing myself to fulfill others’ expectations was involved with obtaining what most would describe as basic resources from my parents — until I was 9 years old, I was made to believe that we were full on poor — like food is a privilege poor. It only came out that this wasn’t the case on a vacation with my aunt’s family after I made some comment like “Oh, I can’t get an ice cream because we’re poor.” My aunt lost her shit and schooled me on the fact that my parents were not poor, and that my mother essentially had been lying to me — which she said was her way to make sure I built “character” and “work ethic”. Add to this an almost obsessive devotion to G*d from a young age — I was obsessed with growing up and being a saint like St. Thérèse of Lisieux for whom I was named or a priest — but a G*d that didn’t answer my prayers when I asked to be removed from my parents’ abusive behaviors — including being regularly turned out of the house.
(Let’s not even get started on the pressure to go to prominent schools but with the caveat of “we don’t have money for your private high school/university but if you don’t go you’ll forever be a disappointment so you’ll have to get in on scholarship”.)
These personal revelations aren’t meant to elicit pity but to demonstrate where “Jupiter wounds” aka manifestation blocks can come from. For me, it comes from an apparent early break of trust with a “higher power”. Not only did it not matter what I was praying for but I was expected to be grateful and make do with what was begrudgingly given. This created not only a scarcity mindset (thanks square from Saturn) but reinforced a belief that I was on my own to make my own luck (typical themes for those born with Chiron and Jupiter co-present in Aries).
So gratitude often gets mixed up with resentment and being made to feel subordinate for me — especially in the context of 1:1 partnerships — especially after being cast in the role of Jupiter (thanks to the 7th house placement of my Jupiter). Maybe I’m a petty bitch but it’s hard to be grateful when the scales feel unbalanced (hello, Moon in Libra needing fairness to feel safe and nourished) or when there’s resentment or stinginess that accompanies granting one’s request.
Meanwhile, I’ve found that what opens up the floodgates to heart filling and heart opening gratitude is unexpected kindness. (Yes, I could probably write a whole chapter in a book about how this is a trauma response — but that’s beyond the scope of this post.) When Huntington was sick with lymphoma but I was poor as dirt, so many people in my circle of friends, the wider astrology community, and my extended network stepped up with a level of generosity that I’d never before experienced in my entire life. Each and every act of kindness and philanthropy in response to asking for help restored so much faith in the goodness of people and the wonder at being here on planet Earth that many of my limiting beliefs around prayer, worthiness, and receiving were broken — and, yes, it involved surrender to my own helplessness in the face of a loved one’s terrible disease and to the fact that light will always find you in the darkness.
The astrology tie in? Jupiter was transiting Pisces that year and was with my moon by antiscion.
Books are open!
Manifestation via Delight
Maybe you’ve gotten this far, because it sounds like you might have a Jupiter wound as well — and maybe you haven’t had the opportunity to heal it fully. Does that mean that a complex and challenging relationship with summoning up gratitude is a permanent condition that will constantly dog your efforts at manifestation?
“de·light
/dəˈlīt/
noun
1. Great pleasure; joy.
“The proud parents’ faces beamed with delight.”
2. Something that gives great pleasure or enjoyment.
“The vacation was a delight for the whole family.”
3. A high degree of gratification of mind; a high- wrought state of pleasurable feeling; lively pleasure; extreme satisfaction; joy.”
Oh hell no.
There is another emotion equally as powerful as gratitude that, when accessed judiciously, enables manifestation and can also lead to profound gratitude and that’s delight.
If you have a chart that’s more receptive to Venus — the planet that fundamentally gives us both individually and collectively what we need to cohere as a civilization — beauty, relationship, pleasure, justice, then use delight as the anchor emotion to rewire your brain to manifest.
When you appeal to or plug into Venus, you aren’t praying for some higher power that will make you feel safe, secure, and nourished. Venus doesn’t care what you believe nor does Venus need your faith. Jupiter brings you abundance whereas Venus brings you prosperity. The distinction is important: Abundance is a lot of anything unless you’re specific; additionally having this abundance doesn’t necessarily mean you get to enjoy whatever it is. Jupiter makes whatever you believe the reality that you live — enjoyment optional and responsibility required. Prosperity is having what you wish for — so remember that it requires specificity. Venus makes whatever you want an experience that you live — enjoyment and ease included.
Venus asks: What do you want in order to thrive aka enjoy being a soul in a body on planet Earth?
Sure, there’s the danger of Venus entangling you in a never ending search for carnal pleasures that detach you from Spirit — but so can Jupiter when it’s so inaccessible that you feel cut off from grace. But, here’s another hot take: There’s a reason Venus is exalted in Jupiter’s sign:
Venus can do what Jupiter aspires to: Instantaneously bring you to that liminal point between body and spirit — providing you an experience of ecstasy in which you comprehend your true Self as well the nature of the Universe. Effortlessly, delight, ecstasy, wonder, draw out gratitude, surrender, and wisdom by making you aware of both your individuality and your connection to something timeless and infinite.
Because, when we drill down to the fundamentals: What is manifestation but the act of being the bridge between spirit and matter?
Your Venus Chronicles
Try it: Start a “delight” journal — write down 5 things (every day for 30 days) that brought you delight during the course of the day and then who or what you can thank for that experience. Really register what delight feels like physically — with all of your senses what does it taste like, feel like, smell, sound, and look like?
Manifesting with Venus
Next time you implement a manifestation technique substitute delight if you struggle with calling up the emotion of gratitude.
Imagine being on the receiving end of delight — and tie it into a smell.
If what our brains need is the “memory” of already having prosperity (or whatever it is you want to manifest) in order to rewire scarcity scripts and regulating your nervous system so it’s able to receive and hold space for what it is you’re manifesting, then smell will get you there the fastest way since it’s hardwired into the parts of our brains that form and store memories.
P.S. A Couple of Things to Keep in Mind
If you follow me on Threads or my messages here, you might’ve caught a cheeky post about attracting abundance and ease into your life by working with Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. If so, feel free to skip this section.
The biggest thing with manifesting ease, prosperity, and acceptance is that you’re working with benefics. They aren’t your problem solving planets like Saturn and Mars who look forward to hard graft, delayed gratification, and challenge.
Think of it this way: When you invite guests to your house are they likely to say “yes” repeatedly or stay for long if you’re asking them to come over to help you clean up, listen to you complain endlessly, and/or if you’re making it their responsibility to figure out how all of you will be entertained?
Maybe in a pinch — if they feel like they owe you for some time that you bailed them out of a tough situation or they feel like they can bank the favor for the future … but they certainly aren’t going to make a habit of it if you’re Mercury (who likes to solve problems and get organized — yes — until it becomes routine and you bore them), Jupiter (who does like to play the hero every so often but has a very low tolerance for you not learning your lessons and who would rather be off adventuring or plumbing the depths), and Venus (who might enjoy leveling up your decor but who will only ruin a manicure once for you and really may only be there for the snacks).
Don’t ask them to pay your rent and bills out of your fear of repercussions. Don’t ask them for a relationship because you’re afraid of being alone. Don’t ask them to save your business because you’re terrified of failure. They’ll tell you to call up Saturn and/or Mars who will gladly take you for a ride on the struggle bus and drive you around in circles until you either learn some boundaries and/or build up your courage.
If you’re calling on the benefics to make something real for you: You want to curate an experience for them. You want them to buy into your vision — to invest in you because they know you can do it and because they see themselves in you. (Take my word for it — most investors invest in people who remind them of themselves.) You want to show them a dream they already want to be a reality before you even started your pitch.
KEY TAKEAWAY
When we learn to receive joy as easily as breathing, ease, wealth, and acceptance find their way back to us.
Want more?
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Lots of light,
Anak.
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