What? What do you mean, why am I here? To make a good life, of course.

Maybe not. Maybe it’s time to think in larger terms.

It’s funny how coincidences can challenge you to think a little deeper. Just recently, in a casual evening chat with friends on my sister’s front porch–and I can’t remember the context–one turned to me and asked, “Why are you here?” It wasn’t like, “Why did you drive up to spend the day with Kate? It felt like “Why did you incarnate to be here in this time in history?”

TWO PLANETS INTERVENE

Maybe that was an imaginative leap into metaphysics. A few days later, an email seemed to confirm my interpretation. It was a report from Mark Borax, Soul Astrologer, on the subject of Jupiter and Saturn going direct. Now, before you hurry off the page, let me say that I’m not deep into astrology; this was just a coincidence.

Jupiter and Saturn Conjunction

Anyway, going direct means that the planets align on the same path and at a certain point appear to be very close together. This upcoming moment with regard to Jupiter and Saturn will occur on December 21. This happens only every 20 years.

So this is kind of an astronomical wrap-up point in a year that we know has become extremely important. Borax explains it as follows: “Saturn provides meaning by holding each of us to our prenatal vows, the reasons our soul chose to come back again. Jupiter provides meaning by aiming us at the optimal destiny we signed up for.”

OH, REALLY?

An image comes to mind. A man sits in jeans and T-shirt at a desk he has hauled into the master bedroom. This was so he could have the privacy he enjoyed in his spacious office on the top floor of the corporate high-rise. The man has paused from his work to think, chin resting on palm.

This is not fair. He did everything right. He got the grades, the degrees, and the job. He got married, had a family, and has provided for a very good life. He toed the line all along the way, made the grade, and had a career on the rise. He has been teaching his children to do the same. At the dining room table, his wife is helping them with their online courses. Her voice in the distance sounds a little strained.

The man’s hand rises to rub his forehead. “I didn’t sign up for this,” he thinks. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

THE RECKONING

How many people all over the country are struggling with an experience akin to betrayal? They did everything right, embraced the conventions of our culture and the terms on which they might enjoy approval, recognition, prosperity, success, and financial security. Now everything is totally screwed up.

Day by day, the return to “normal” seems less likely because how can we forget this experience? How can we trust that it won’t recur? After all, those in power, who have played major roles in shaping our culture, have so far been pretty safe from disciplinary consequences.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin

The experience of feeling like a victim, of having been misled by the expectation of rewards for “being good” is not comfortable, so maybe it’s time to consider a possible truth: You did sign up for this.

THE SOUL’S PURPOSE

This is the matter of going back to Borax’s idea that, in a soul state, we foresaw the current landscape and chose to be born into it to fulfill a chosen destiny. I don’t know if this is true or not; it’s an idea tenable to those who are open to the possibility of reincarnation. It’s also a view that lifts one above fear and anger and encourages thinking out of the box that has confined us all.

Anyone to whom this idea appeals may benefit from a sense of being more important than you knew, bold and courageous in a soul state aware of great potential. In life, you have probably already brought something important to the table on terms you trusted; perhaps it is time to bring something larger–your authentic rather than inculcated self–to a much bigger table where the groundwork for some kind of collective lift can be done.

IN CONCLUSION

When I think about this possibility, I wish I were decades younger so I could get involved in some way besides posting on a blog. However, the elders in my cohort have the advantage of the long view. We remember warning signs along the road that have brought us to this troubled place in time. Later generations have not had the benefit of as large a map of personal history.

The young must be really confused and disenchanted in the moment. Before we are engulfed in pity, however, we have to give them the same due we may access for ourselves. Even though they may start acting out, consider the possibility that the young entered this world as even more daring souls than we were. Be nice. We’re all in this together.

And as we watch over them in ways available, we may consider the questions with which Mark Borax closed his brief piece: “Who are you really? Why are you here? How much longer are you willing to wait?”

Right. All of us.

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