When I was twenty four, my mom made a red yarn bracelet and sent it to me. The package got lost, sent back, and sent to me again. I wore the bracelet for a year until it stretched out, dirtied along the edges, and then I threw it in the paper mache bowl that I use to keep loose change and clips.

When I was twelve, my laolao was visiting. She had a big, ropey, red belt that she tried to give to me. She wanted me to wear it because twelve is your benmingnian—a year when everything goes a little haywire and you start to doubt that god is really good to you.

In Chinese astrology, you enter your benmingnian or natal year on the Aquarius new moon and exit the following Aquarius new moon. Your benmingnian is the year where you affirm your natal Jupiter, which popular Chinese identity astrology is based on. Your Chinese zodiac animal is based somewhat on Jupiter (it’s really based on the clusters of fixed stars opposite to Jupiter’s path across the sky, called taisui).

In Western astrology, the word that you hear again and again when it comes to Jupiter is “expansion.” I have yet to learn what “expansion” means. The only other place I hear the word “expansion” is in economic theory and the two examples that the Oxford Language dictionary gives of the word in usage is is state expansion (“extension of a state's territory by encroaching on that of other nations, pursued as a political strategy”) and economic expansion (“a thing formed by the enlargement, broadening, or development of something”).

I’ve always hated the way Jupiter is described in western astrology. Travel (as a tourist)! Broaden your horizons (if you are privileged enough)! Make more money (as if that is a choice)! Don’t eat too much (because, nudge nudge, we’re all abundance minded until the fatphobia kicks in)!

I’ve never had the heart to describe a Jupiter return to clients as some kind of free vacation. I’ve seen a lot of anxiety about Jupiter returns—that a person can somehow do them “wrong,” and suffer the consequences. It’s funny because this type of right and wrong, this anxiety over mistake-making depriving us from natural abundance, reeks so strongly of Jupiter.

Jupiter is about belief. It can be about imagination and wonder but it can also be about institutions and power. Jupiter returns leave you lost because getting lost is also the surest way to produce wonder.

The reason why Jupiter return is considered to be your worst year in Chinese astrology is because your taisui, which is one of sixty historical/mythological figures in daoist ideology, is a jealous guy. Chinese gods are bureaucratic gods and, being politicians, they are also worshipped through a weird mixture of mockery and fear.

My mom made me a red bracelet and my laolao gave me a red belt for my benmingnian but, more popularly, people buy a pack of comically red underwear. The idea around wearing red is that your taisui, who is apparently as gullible as a goldfish, is so distracted by your red clothing that he forgets to smite you. This is a peasant’s way of mocking politicians, of mocking power, which is represented by the gods and the heavens. The reason why Chinese ideology and cosmology is so hard to “get” is because it is so satirical.

Deity worship is convoluted in China. Chinese people don’t really take anything seriously. Deity worship is often a peasant’s relationship to power—satire is never explicit and fawning is so exaggerated that it insults the deity itself.

Zeus is also a god—a big man in the sky. Zeus also represents power but western astrology doesn’t mock Zeus. Western astrology, instead, treats you as if you are Zeus. It assumes that you emphasize with power. Sometimes, it assumes that you are Zeus, fluffs you up and makes you nod. Western astrology is made for those with power.

There’s a film, made in 1990, called benmingnian (Black Snow in English). It’s about a guy who, deprived of knowledge due to the Cultural Revolution, re-enters the world after spending time in a labor camp. It’s his benmingnian and he’s disenchanted just as so many of us are during our Jupiter returns. It’s his benmingnian and he’s witnessing and participating in institutional failure. He has no dream, no destiny, and no vision. He returns not to the past but to a regurgitated version of the future.

Your Jupiter return probably sucks because power sucks. Your relationship to power makes you deconstruct your ideology and it puts you in the void. This is okay. When you deconstruct with others, you live in real time. Western astrology, for some reason, often celebrates power. If you have an adverse relationship to power and suffer a lot during your Jupiter return, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just existing the only way you can exist.

If you feel lost during your Jupiter return, you’re okay. If you feel disenchanted, consider for a moment that you’re experiencing wonder. If you feel like god was never on your side, consider a reality where his institutions never were. And if god tries to hunt you down, figure out how to deceive him. Your imagination does not live in the institution. Your imagination camouflages you, makes you into a cypher, and it keeps the big men in the sky happy and gullible.