Almagest

The library · The practices

A planetary meditation for Jupiter

a planetary meditation practice addressed to Jupiter

What the tradition reads

The Western planetary tradition treats a meditation to Jupiter as an appeal for expansion, good judgement, faith and the generosity the tradition calls the open hand, worked in Jupiter's own hour, the first hour after sunrise on Thursday, dressed in sapphire or another airy colour and burning storax or gum benjamin if it can be had, the colour and incense Agrippa's own chapters on the subject give the planet. The tradition reads Jupiter as the planet of growth kept honest by proportion, and warns that Jupiter's excess, unchecked expansion, overconfidence, or promises made too easily, is as much a part of the planet's tradition as its gifts, so a Jupiter practice is read as asking for right measured growth rather than growth without limit. The Vedic remedial tradition reads the same working through Brihaspati, called Guru, teacher of the gods, and prescribes it most often for whoever stands in a Jupiter dasha or whose lagna lord is Jupiter: the name mantra recited on Thursdays, charity of yellow things, turmeric, chickpeas or saffron, given on the same day, and, where a jyotishi has examined the whole chart and prescribed it, a yellow sapphire worn on the index finger in gold, for a trial period, removed if the trial does not go well. Both traditions read the practice as training the hand to stay open rather than to close around what it is given.

The story

The fourteenth hymn in the standard Orphic sequence addresses Jupiter, under his Greek name Zeus, as much honoured and supremely great, ruler of earth, sea and sky, all parent and source of abundance, asked for blameless health, peace and necessary wealth, and marked in the hymn's own instructions to be burned with storax as its proper incense; the collection as a whole was composed in Greek, likely for a mystery cult of the early centuries of the common era, and reached English readers chiefly through Thomas Taylor's translation at the close of the eighteenth century. The Vedic tradition's parallel verse, from the Navagraha Stotram attributed to Vyasa, calls Brihaspati teacher of the gods and the seers, golden in colour, the embodiment of intelligence and lord of the three worlds, a description that shares with the Greek hymn a picture of Jupiter as the wise ruler standing over the whole created order rather than merely one god among equals. The two hymns arose in unrelated traditions, one Hellenic and one Indian, separated by both distance and centuries, yet both independently gave the same planet the same essential office, wisdom exercised as rule, which the honest telling records as a striking parallel rather than as evidence either tradition knew of the other.

The practice

1. Begin with the blessing of the room, cleaning the space, setting out salted water and an unlit lamp, and asking the One who made the lights that the place be clean, quiet and kept. 2. Sit in Jupiter's own hour, the first hour after sunrise on a Thursday if it can be managed, with sapphire or another airy colour set out and storax or gum benjamin burning if available. 3. Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, out for four, hold for four, twelve rounds. 4. Say the address aloud: in the name of the One who made the lights, turn to the light of Jupiter, and to its angel or deva, asking for generosity, faith, or good judgement, and that it be given in the light and harm no one. 5. Recite the mantra, Om Gurave Namah, one hundred and eight times on a mala, or read the Orphic hymn to Jupiter slowly three times instead. 6. For the sitting, hold both hands open, palms up, and each time a worry closes the hands a little, open them again; this is the tradition's own image for Jupiter, the open hand kept open on purpose. 7. Sit for five to twenty minutes, then give thanks, put out the lamp, and go on to whatever the practice was meant to support.

Written from

Corpus key practice:Jupiter.