I wrote recently about Jupiter’s movement into Sagittarius, and its association with a renewed trust and faith in the goodness of life. At the same time I started to really understand the nature of prayer. A friend and teacher of mine has been strongly encouraging me for much of this year to pray more. And while I have been doing it, it felt very uncomfortable to me and didn’t really fit with my understanding of the nature of reality. And prayer has, in our culture, been strongly connected to religion, and hence all the dogma that goes along with that, which I do not relate to.
And then I got it. I really felt the truth of what prayer is and how it works. Once again this happened just after Jupiter moved into its home sign of Sagittarius. I realised that whether we are praying to God, to one’s spirit guides, to nature, to the Universe or to Life is not important. What matters is that prayer helps us to get in touch with our heart, and truly feel the goodness and benevolence of life that is always available to us when we live from this place and not from our mental constructs of what life is or how it should be.
The importance of this in my own life, from an astrological perspective, is that my North Node (big life lessons, where I am heading, destiny) is in Sagittarius and my South Node (my past, what I am leaving behind, karma) is in Gemini. (The South Node is always the opposite sign to the North Node.)
North node themes tend to be things that are very unfamiliar and challenging to us, but the more we live from this place and embody these energies, the more our life tends to come together, good things happen and we find a deeper sense of fulfillment and ease). Sagittarius is linked to themes of higher knowledge, spiritual wisdom, benevolence, trust, faith and, yes, prayer.
South Node themes are very familiar, comfortable, but also what often holds us back in life. Living from our South Node we can feel stuck, unfulfilled and generally have a sense that life isn’t quite working for us. Gemini is the sign of the logical, rational mind. And hence this axis in my chart indicates a key shift in how I live life from logic to faith.
Part of my time in Portugal was spent visiting a good friend who lives at Mooji’s ashram. Mooji is a favourite teacher of mine and I’ve spent much time watching him on YouTube. I really wanted to meet him in person, and so just before heading there I prayed and asked for this serendipity to happen. It seemed very unlikely since the ashram is closed for the winter and no events are taking place. But still, I figured it was worth a shot, especially with fortunate Jupiter in Sagittarius at this time.
On my second day there, the community were getting together for a photo, so I figured I’d leave them to it and went for a walk around the land.
And then I heard this familiar voice saying ‘Good morning’ and looked up to see Mooji smiling at me. He insisted I come and join in the photo and we chatted together for a beautiful couple of minutes, before walking down right into the midst of the entire community of 200+ people who were waiting for him (hence my good fortune at having these pictures).
Now, my North Node is at 14 deg 25 minutes of Sagittarius. When I later checked the chart for the moment I met Mooji the Ascendant was at 14 deg 23 minutes of Sagittarius! (To give you an idea of how quickly the Ascendant moves, had we met 2 minutes earlier or later, it would have been at 13 or 15 deg of Sag respectively).
To me this felt like a strong sign from life confirming, through the symbolism of astrology (my language for understanding the mysterious workings of the Universe), that prayer does indeed work.
Of course, I still had the thought (Gemini) that this was all just a nice coincidence. But the confirmation of how the astrology of that precise moment synchronised so exactly with this key part of my natal chart was powerful enough for me to not buy into this rationalisation.
