Jupiter Retrograde in Scorpio 2018: From Great Expectations To Mass Devastation

This post is the 2nd of a three-part series of the Jupiter, Mars and Venus Retrogrades of 2018.

Months before Jupiter ingressed into Scorpio, in my 5th house, I was certain the planet of luck would reinforce the deep connection in my relationship, expand the excitement established between the sheets and give us his blessing in the house of children. We had talks about it years prior and had started trying a year before. Though each step was laced with joy, I knew from other couple’s experiences, the process wasn’t as easy as it seems.  After having miscarried twice, we had realized the struggle was real. I kept my optimism intact since I had Jupiter in Libra radiating good juju in my house of creation and romance. To my devastation, it wasn’t the case. When he entered Scorpio, the hopeful blue skies turned into storm clouds. Instead of blessing us with gifts and wishes, sharp lightening struck, cracking the skies above. It was an impending doom to which I could not surrender, one that would rattle my world in tumbling chaos. 

When a planet enters a house it not only effects that area of life, but also the house he tenants in your natal chart (Jupiter in Leo in my 2nd), the sign(s) and house(s) under its rulership(my 9th house of beliefs; my 7th house of relationship with Sag cusp, and 6th house with a stellium of planets including Mars) and of course the sign it’s transiting(I have a stellium of planets in Scorpio in the 5th house+8th house) as well as its ruling planet(s)(Pluto is in Libra in my 4th house, Aries rules my 11th house). Since my natal chart was dominantly Scorp and Sag energy, and with 7 out of the 12 houses being rocked, I witnessed the sky falling from above, the ground shaking and splitting from beneath, destroying everything I knew and loved. 

We had known each other during high school, briefly dating for a few months. Then about 15 years later we had found ourselves in the same scene again with the same strong, mutual attraction. But it took another few years, friendly flirting here and there and a cute message, on his end, to seal the deal.  About a year later he moved in with me. It was one of the happiest times in my life because it felt like fate pulled us back together, but also because I had finally found someone I connected with deeply. The truth is looking back, the deep connection was rooted in muddy, nutrient-poor soils, a foundation bound to spawn contamination around us. 

Our individual worlds, in its own way, were full of toxins, the only difference was that his was an obvious rot you smell from a mile a way (Pluto in his 1st), mine, more hidden, decayed from underneath(Pluto in my 4th). It was combination that was inevitably going to cultivate a wasteland of past issues, unable to grow anything healthy and stable. Though it was painfully obvious from our clashing emotional needs and conflicting major life values, we managed to resolve our challenges through our own reservoirs of hope, adoration, but most of all our passionate love. We discovered patches of healthy and fertile land, keeping our relationship balanced and worth tending. No matter how intense our fights had become, no matter how cruel our words got, we always found ways to dig up the weeds and revive the intense pulse that beat for no other. But it seemed to never be enough, over time, our efforts could not catch up to the aggressive growth rotting from beneath, twisting, nourished by the toxins in the air. Our relationship had started to weaken from the thick pollution, never reaching purification. After a while, we had grown accustomed to our contaminated environment, neglecting the overgrowth, eventually infecting the healthy seeds we nurtured, creating the imbalance that eventually became our doom. 

We were in a heavy smog of despair and resentment, it got harder to distinguish a healthy dynamic to a toxic one. It was Saturn’s visit to my 7th house of relationship and Uranus’s transiting his 8th house of deep bonds in Aries that would shake us out of our comforting intoxication.

This, with Jupiter in Scorpio in my 5th stirred all that was rumbling from beneath,  causing our world to overturn and crumble down on us. 

While Saturn influenced me, I stood still as Uranus worked his influence, prodding shocking behaviors onto him towards the end of it all. 

The fissures in the sky grew bigger, hitting in accuracy, sensitive spots that seem to purposely hit my most cherished places. It had become painfully obvious that this time the battle would scar us too deep, that the war had ravaged everything to anything recognizable and it would be hard to find anything to hold onto, a point of no return.

Though I wanted to sink in the depths of our wreckage, follow the rushing rapids into a steep waterfall, praying the weight of my heart would break into a million pieces and lift the unbearable pain, I held on to the raft I was always on, one that kept me from the desire to give up. I continued to stay hopeful, watching for a rope, wishing he was on the other end or hit land on which he would be greeting me. When months passed, with the water receding, and he was no where to be found, writing became my solace and distraction from the stark reality of the destruction. 

I stayed in the pollution. I was in denial, taking comfort in the poison I was ingesting, not wanting to leave for if I left it meant he would no longer exist, that I would finally have to let him go. I bargained, I prayed to source to bring him back, to help me clean up and restore our world, that he would help bring the sunshine back, that his energy would clear the rot that was growing. Instead the storms returned, pouring harder, the earth quakes shifting more ground, I held on for as long as I could until the catastrophe cracked a canyon so large that the ground I had stood on had fallen so deep into the crevices of our world, I found myself in the darkest holes of my own existence. It was lonely. It was cold. I was in such devastation there was no difference being down there or up above. After a while I realized how much warmer it became down in my depths. So I stayed. 

When Mars went retrograde in Aquarius in my 8th house, it was his fiery, warrior spirit that sparked the light. I knew he would help me out of my darkest hole. He mostly gave me the courage to see that I could survive this, that the strength I needed was in me, I just had to retrieve it. But in order to do that, I had to purge all that had created the rot, kill the suffocating overgrown rhizomes and understand who I was without my relationship. There had been years of pent up anger from my 4th house of family origins that had found its way towards my 5th house of joy, romance and creativity, climbing to my 8th house of intimate and deep partnership. 

Mars stayed down the depths of my 8th for five months, helping me bulldoze then rebuild, and when he came out of the retrograde period, the 8th house that once stunk of overgrown rot, festering in sludge and colonized by unwanted pests, was now a place more inviting, a haven I could go to, drink from the deep wells of my reservoir. 

When I had come back up to the world I had a hand in ravaging, the toxic dust had almost cleared,  allowing a bit of sun in when Venus was close to going retro into my 5th house. It was reassessing my values and self-worth, who I was and what made me content without the dependancy of another person. I had learnt to tend my own world, create and design one that would be rooted from my centre and nurtured from my values. 

After Venus in Scorpio retrograde went direct, giving me her hard lessons, new buds had started to grow, ones that seemed to promise stability and much deeper beauty to my world.

It’s also when I finally started to see the benefits of Jupiter in Scorpio in my 5th. 

Being in Scorpio showed me what area of life I needed to dig into and clean up. Mine happened to be the sickly parts of my relationships. It help me realize how unhappy we had both been, but because we had such history and an unprecedented level of love, we could not detangle ourselves from the other. Her transit seem to feel like one giant painful blow to what I had cultivated for so long, but Jupiter’s catastrophic approach was necessary to help me build a more fortified foundation, a fresh start, one that would spawn verdant and perennial growth. 

Did you get rocked or cradled by Jupiter Retrograde in Scorpio 2018?

Art: Josephine Wall