“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~ Joseph Campbell
If the days have been feeling heavy, strange, uncanny, or emotionally charged, you’re not alone, … and there is reason to the madness.
There are astrology transits you read about —
and then there are the ones you feel in your bones.
On top of Mercury and the outer planets (Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn) currently retrograding, Jupiter recently joined the party last week.
Jupiter Joins the Retrograde Party
As a shaman, I look at astrology not for predictive outcomes —
I look at it for pattern recognition, and to see how it mirrors
the flavor of consciousness we are experiencing as a collective.
And right now, Jupiter — the planet of expansion, blessing, generosity, learning —
has descended into the emotional waters of Cancer in reverse motion.
This is not expansion outward.
This is expansion downward.
Into the buried.
Into the unspoken.
Into the emotional patterns we’ve avoided for years.
And perhaps the most synchronistic part?
This retrograde started Nov 11 and ends on March 11, 2026 —
my exact birthday.
It feels only right that I write to you from inside this transit’s medicine.
Jupiter Retrograde in Cancer: The Shamanic Translation
In the Andean tradition, descent is not punishment.
It’s an initiation.
Like Inkahuascar, the mythic keeper of the Underworld,
Jupiter retrograde asks each of us to dive deep
and unearth that which is buried deep in our hearts:
• The emotions we’ve parented alone.
• The responsibilities/obligations we’ve carried without question.
• The exhaustion we pretend not to feel.
• The secrets we bury to “keep the peace.”
Cancer rules family, lineage, emotional inheritance.
Jupiter retrograde magnifies whatever is swollen, avoided, or suppressed.
This is the season where:
what you don’t speak begins to speak for you —
through your body.
This is particularly important for those who are going through health issues.
Jupiter retrograde pulls these stories out of the cellar because they can no longer be metabolized in silent suppression.
This is not chaos.
It is a cosmic excavation.
It is Inkahuascar opening the gates and saying,
“The only way out is through.”
What Jupiter Retrograde in Cancer Activates in Each House
Even if you know nothing about astrology, understanding the “house” Jupiter is retrograding through is like being handed a map.
Check in your chart to see which house Jupiter is transiting in your chart. There are plenty of apps out there like Time Passages or ask Chat.
It shows you where the emotional unravelling… and the emotional rebirth… are happening.
1st House — Identity & Embodiment
You’re shedding an identity built on muscling through. Who are you when you do not need to occupy the role of the “fixer”?
2nd House — Money + Self-Worth
Your money is mirroring how calm or stressed your nervous system is. When you release fight/flight, money will naturally show up. If you do the opposite, it leaks.
3rd House — Mind + Communication
Childhood communication wounds resurface. You are being challenged to speak up for what you need and want and navigating what it feels like to maybe be “too much” in doing so.
4th House — Home + Family
You may find yourself falling into old family roles and obligations. Set boundaries so you don’t become reactive.
5th House — Pleasure + Creativity
If you don’t honor the innocent sense of play and what makes you feel pleasure and joy, your creativity will shrink.
6th House — Work + Health
You are being challenged to change the outdated routines and rhythms of how you work.
7th House — Relationships
You are being asked to find balance between giving and receiving; not under or over committing. True reciprocity.
8th House — Fear + Power + Old Agreements
You are being asked to drop the emotional and financial burdens of others. When you martyr for others, it keeps them from evolving.
9th House — Purpose + Belief Systems
Your perspectives are being challenged and new belief systems are emerging.
10th House — Career + Visibility
Authenticity over ambition. You’re being asked to show up as a truer, not louder version of yourself.
11th House — Community + Tribe
You need to set boundaries with which groups drain you, and you are redefining your place in the collective. (This is currently where my Jupiter is transiting. Not only am I being extra picky with which groups I spend time, I am being forced to do less and not more as a facilitator. It is forcing me to reshape how I hold space and making me refine how I hold space for deep ancestral healing and the emotional weight of it).
12th House — Subconscious + Soul Karma
The most ancient emotional blueprints are surfacing. Surrender is the key.
The Shamanic Lesson of This Transit
Under Jupiter retrograde in Cancer, you will feel exactly where:
• you hold too much
• you push too much
• you give too much
• you speak too little
• you repress too much
• you pretend too much
• you trust too little
• you ask for support almost never
This transit doesn’t dismantle your abundance.
It dismantles the part of you that believes you must earn it through suffering.
We cannot expand while bracing.
We cannot receive while gripping.
If This Is Stirring Something in You… There Are 3 Spots Left
This Saturday, Nov 23 11:30 – 2pm, we will journey again
—with breath, with sound, with me, my assistant facilitators and a live cellist and multi-sound scape artist.
A deep descent.
A conscious one.
A safe one.
An underworld walk guided by the Medicine Wheel.
Registration closes Wednesday night so you have time for the preparation homework.
If your body feels the pull —
this is Jupiter retrograde speaking to your heart:
“You don’t have to hold it all together. Just be willing to be held.”
There are 3 final tickets left. Book them here
Even though summer is around the corner in the Southern Hemisphere,
the forecasts say it’s going to be a wet one.
Energetically, it will become the season of descent.
But every descent — in shamanic cosmology —
is simply the prelude to rebirth.
Into and through shadowlands we go,
Johnson Chong
Upcoming Events:
Shamanic Breathwork Journey with Live Music Nov 23rd
Israel One Day Shamanic Ceremony Jan 30 & Feb 6, 2026