YEAR OF THE BROWN EARTH RAT, or JUPITER POSITIONED IN CAPRICORN
This year, according to the Chinese astrological calendar, will be the year of the Brown Earth Rat. This is related to Jupiter which having entered the sign of Capricorn on 18th December, 2007, will stay in it until 5th January, 2009. Namely this position of Jupiter is related to the year of the Rat, and this cycle – to the year of the Brown Earth Rat.
Jupiter in the sign of Capricorn is in the most mature sign of the earth element. The energy of the earth in it is very structuralized, mostly covered with the light of cosciousness and wisdom. Capricorn is associated with wisdom of the old earthly age, strategy, prudence, responsibility, discipline, ability to pursue one‘s goal and reject everything unnecessary. Having entered this sign, Jupiter will help us all acquire some more of these qualities.
The rat in the wheel of Chinese zodiac signs is among most practicle and able to take care of itself animal symbols. And what more can be said about its vitality and ability to survive in any conditions... The symbol reflects vibrations and topics brought to us by Jupiter, throught it it is being said what is worth seeking, what will be successful and how to do that.
This position of Jupiter will significantly highlight the importance of the earth element and its influence to people‘s emotions, decisions, run of works and universal economic and financial processes.
This will, first of all, draw people‘s attention to material values, practicality, concreteness, will highlight values of safety, trust and reliability, and will stress presence or lack of these qualities. You will want to strengthen yourself on this earth as conrete and practical as possible and get as many guarantees as you can.
In the language of symbols you can see this as a rat which makes use of every crack to make itself a small hole, a lair, similarly for a person it becomes more important to make efforts in order to have his/her safe home, be able to hide there from dangers, accumulate things, get ready for winter. The rat is not good-looking, is not distinguished in beauty, romantism, articism, sentimentality or bright colours, but it is resolute, decisively courageous in need, and has huge and strong feeling of danger or success. This symbol reminds people of importance of virtues such as modesty, simplicity, economy while seeking success this year; necessity of virtues such as purposeful courage, persistence and resolution in order to maintain or acquire something what is valuable.
This Jupiter‘s position is not happy or especially joyful, for this reason, if you go too deeply to your troubles or problems of safety and guarantees, it can push you towards concern, sadness, gloominess, rudeness, cynicism, disbelief in life, victim, or the position of the hurt one, deserted one, the lonely, „poor thing“ or, on the contrary, towards the position of an aggressive consumer. This may raise big fears related to old age, diseases, survival, pension, heritage, real estate, fanatical care of insurance, graves, comfortable end of life and the like...
There will also appear more speculations on this topic. It will not be easy even inside yourself to distinguish these tendences and understand where the golden medium, moderation is.
Do not be surprised if more than usually you will be irritated by wastefullness, disorder, inconcreteness, unpunctuality, fantasizing, sentimentality, escaping responsibilities. This you can find in yourself or others or maybe other people can find this in you and start being irksome or critizing. Search for order, concreteness, benefit and goal, and careerism this year can come fanatically, clashing with aspiration for beauty, love, artistry, nonselfishness and spirituality. It will be harder than usually for idlers, people who fantasize, dreamers, prattlers, credulous people and simply artists.
Work, concreteness and cooperation can be saving and influential, understanding that gloominess, victims or unpractical, superficial position is, in the end, not useful for anyone except a coward or idler.
Naturally, insurance companies receive more attention. For traders, especially small ones, this is not especially favourable time: customers will look at shopping in a more economical and rational way and they will seek to save and get as big guarantees and discounts as they can. There will be more scepticism, less spendings, generosity, open-heartedness and reliability. On the other hand, big manufacturers or traders will benefit from improvement of strategies of business expansion, management, relations and realisation.
True, this year Jupiter‘s position (and together the year of the Rat) is exceptional: influence of Pluto, which little by little will get its grounds in Capricorn throughout the year 2008, will join influence of Jupiter in Capricorn. This will give the sign of Capricorn huge transforming power both in its most positive and negative sense.
So bigger manufacturers, structures of trade, finances and state institutions, entire concerns will go through strong processes of transformation, and if they are not in time, they can be abolished, distributed, or not endure the pressure from their competitors or society, finances and economic levers. On the other hand, this will unexpectedly raise new, more vital, big structures, new mergers. The time is good for big structures of business and politics, which have mergered, taken over interests of many smaller structures.
True, officially according to the Chinese (as well as Tibetan) calendar, the year of the Brown earth Rat will take root together with the New moon and eclipse of the Sun in the sign of Aquarius, which will take place on 7 February, 2008. And yet I think that most people will sense these new vibrations already at the beginning of the year.
Jupiter in Capricorn will prompt you to save, and find use in things you have never though of before. It is true to say that if you overtry this can come as thrift.
Jupiter in Capricorn as in any other position has possibilities of both positive and negative expression. It depends on each of us which of them we will hear and which seem more important.
In the positive sense this position of Jupiter will help, even bring in a necessity to throw away everything unnecessary: garbage, old things, ineffective bonds, models of behaviour and the like. In the negative sense, on the contrary, it will prompt ill accumulation of everything, even small things, old papers, memories and waste products, idealize anf try to use things ineffectively. For people who negatively react to these energies of Jupiter, instead of developing ascetism, moderation, refrain, discipline and economy (this is the positive side of the expression), greed can wake up, a wish to take anything and hide all this irrationally, fear changes, news, deny them, keep to the past and worship it, deny the present, despise it or fear it.
If in the positive sense Jupiter in Capricorn prompts to search and find clarity, order, simplicity and together with this peace, health, cleanness, then in the negative sense this can prompt carelessness, indifference, poor quality, dirtiness, bad smell, turn for misantropy, reticence, coldness and isolation from the world. These are two opposite, maximalistic poles of the expression of Jupiter, related to expression of the same planet in the sign. There is big space between them and it depend on peculiarities of each of us what we will hear and develop. It sometimes happens that, periodically, influence of the planet comes positively and sometimes negatively. This would look as transition from untydiness to excessive need of order and cleaness, from fits of greed to a wish to refuse everything, from bigger discipline and diligence to stages of lazyness and indifference.
Nevertheless, the positive side of Jupiter‘s stay in this position is that if you wish it will help you learn diligence, pursue your goal, formulate one, also will improve relation to the earth element, will provide more stability, peace, constructiveness, self-trust, and will highlight necessity of professionalism and responsibility.
Stronger than usually we will sense the magic of the earth, attraction to minerals and their beauty: their healing and transforming possibilites will be aluring. The eart will increasingly reveal more of its unexpected and increadible secrets. China, closely related to the sign of Capricorn, will probably take or start taking up an especially strong position. Positions of planets will strengthen its positions in international market and politics for a long time. We will apparently watch a quickly growing influence of this country to all areas, including culture, economy and trade. There may rise big international scandals and conflics when trying to restrain this fastly growing giant.
Nevertheless, I think that Pluto in Capricorn for not less than 16 years, until it stays in this sign, promises slow but triumphant march of expansion of influence spheres... Having entered Capricorn, Jupiter will only highlight power and significance of this process. Jupiter‘s position in Capricorn has a positive and a very strong expression in spiritual life, but a very sober, unsentimental one and based on impartiality, ascetism, discipline, tireless self-improvement, and demand from yoursef more and more. It is least related to languages or emotions, and if it is related to love, then only to spiritual one, pure, unemotional, calm and expressed equally to all living beings.
This position of Jupiter is also strong with cognition in laws of karma. It brings possibility to better perceive these laws, start purifying the old karma and accumulate the good one, to form conscious accumulation of one‘s virtues – the basis of the future good karma.
This position also determines success for practices such as chatha yoga, raja yoga, closing in or silence. For this reason, do not be surprised if you more than usually want silence, solitude, peace, concentration – these are are positive tendencies of the time bringing purification and power.
For most spiritual people this year can help go the way of ascetism, self-improvement, for most practical and seeking wellbeing people the year can prompt and help to create that and accumulate wealth. For careful people this is a good chance to create a cozy and safe „lair or little cave“, and for artists this year can help to better embody their dreams in substance, see the way how to apply their visions and dreams in the reality and realize them practically. People who have never been businessmen, builders or artisans, will more or less find themselves like them and will seek to embody their dreams and realize them in practice.
Nijole Gabija Wolmer
