Jupiter and Hope

As I was walking through Golden Gate Park last night I began to feel arising in me a deep feeling of compassion, of heartfelt love and lament for all around me. It was the desire to cry and smile simultaneously. In the darkness of the park I saw through a gap in the trees the pure shining light of Jupiter. It was the only light in the sky, dazzling between between dappled purple clouds. I left the path to stand in the darkness of the trees. I had the feeling in my body of beginning a sacred journey, and wondered, only momentarily, if this might be the beginning of what it was like to have a spiritual emergence.

As I gazed with true love upon Jupiter it appeared to grow brighter as a communion seemed to be arising between us. As clouds passed over the planet it still managed to shine through radiantly. I was suddenly reminded of the moment in The Return of the King when Sam looks up at the smog covering the desolation of Mordor:

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach[1]

It suddenly dawned on me that part of the archetypal character of Jupiter is Hope. I had the sense I was looking directly at God and feeling Hope. The Shadow of our times, the great devastation of our Earth, will also pass in the end. There is always Hope. I felt the drive within me knowing one day we will succeed with the power of Hope.

Work Cited

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings, New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1954.