Zeus and Thetis by Jean Auguste Ingres.

Thetis begs Zeus to help her son Achilles

Jupiter (Zeus, Thor, Wotan), king of the gods is the largest planet in the solar system, and it’s symbolism bears this out. Jupiter is the principle of expansion: expanding the mind to superconscious realms and philosophy, expanding our physical horizons through long journeys, and expanding the physical body through putting on weight (or just plain being large). It is also a kind of cosmic Santa Claus: generous, optimistic, or, if afflicted, extravagant, excessive, fond of display, opinionated, fanatical and boastful. Jupiter is the promoter par excellence, the teacher or the con man, the priest or used car salesman, the gambler or the crusader. It represents the higher mind, lifting up our eyes (the arrow of the Sagittarian centaur) with visions of truth, idealism, understanding, wisdom, and aspiration.

Jupiter’s symbol is the crescent of personality raised above (or uplifted by) the cross of matter. It represents man’s (the crescent’s) triumph over earthly experiences (the cross) through his understanding of universal law gained through just those experiences. Saturn is those experiences and the testing through which this wisdom was obtained, and hence their symbols are each other’s turned upside-down. Thus the wisdom and understanding of Jupiter is the way through the tests of Saturn.

In the body Jupiter rules the thighs, liver, hips, pituitary gland, and assimilation on all levels. Its house position shows what activities shaped your social principles and ethics. Just as the liver produces bile to help you digest food, so too does your ethical, religious and social training produce the principles and values that help you digest life’s experiences.

Jupiter is a planet with a lower and higher manifestation. If well placed by sign or house or well aspected it can signify subtle understanding of life’s deeper principles, learning through travel or higher education, general good fortune or luck, and material abundance. If poorly placed or afflicted it symbolizes indiscriminate sensuality, self-indulgence, wastefulness, greed, avarice, dilettantes, and wanderers. Jupiter rules Sagittarius where it embodies all the planet’s positive aspects, and is exalted in Cancer where it expands the nurturing, mothering principle.

This Jupiter in astrology page and the entire website are excerpted from You and the Universe, a handmade, individualized fine art book on astrology, mythology and astronomy through which each recipient's individual (based on time, date and place) and complete astrological reading is woven.