_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Staying the Course - Capricorn
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope,
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love.
For love would be love for the wrong thing; there is yet faith.
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not yet ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
~ T.S. Eliot, from East Coker
This season of darkest days here in the Northern Hemisphere—of winter solstice, and religious holidays—is always one of heightened energies. Ushered in by the spark of music, the lighting of lights, the arranging of festive adornments, we are drawn to come together for the familiar warmth and light of companionship offered by family or friends. Yet for some, familial bonds can be charged—be it with longing for what is no more or perhaps never was, or by the constraints of the current configuration. Those with a signature of Saturn, Capricorn’s ruler, together with the Moon (or Cancer) may feel called inward, away from the thrum, perhaps into deeper connection with Capricorn’s Earth element, or its mystical side, seeking a light or quality of communion within oneself, through beauty or the natural world, that family cannot provide.
Capricorn is the polarity partner of the impulse for connection to home and family—the Cancer archetype, arriving at the opposite, summer solstice—and it permeates our experience from winter solstice through till Jan. 21, when the Sun moves on into Aquarius. Signified in modern times by the mountain goat, wanderer of icy heights, comfortable in cold and challenging conditions, Capricorn in its esoteric origins bears the mark of the reclusive Hermit/Seer, primed to bear the harshness of solitude and rugged conditions in its quest to birth the light within. This light-seeking impulse is echoed by the outer story of the light’s return seeded at the Solstice, as well as the story of the birth of Christ.
With its lofty aspirations, Capricorn leads us into the fourth quadrant of zodiac signs, of those that preside over big-picture matters and perspectives, yet the archetype is paradoxically grounded in and beholden to what we call reality—to material plane limits and obligations. The sign’s duality is signified by its totemic origins as a goat-fish, with the goat aspect skillfully traversing rocky domains, and a tail that swirls through the hidden waters of creation. And, while Capricorn in our era is known as the holder of traditions and structures, and thereby associated with patriarchal masculine energy, as an Earth sign it is in fact feminine, or yin. In this respect, it calls us both to towering heights as well as the depths within.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Steadfast she goes
On my walks of late I have been captivated by the simple beauty of the few remaining golden oak tree leaves clinging determinedly to their branches—perhaps an original inspiration for tree ornaments! As well, this year has seen a marked increase in front yards adorned not just with lights, but with trees trimmed with bulb ornaments— proliferating like (upside down) mushrooms! As well, there’s a growing trend towards deer sculptures, fitting given that the deer is another Capricorn totem! Perhaps there is afoot a new leaning towards pagan origins, when the trees and animals themselves were seen and respected as holy.
I’ve been struck this season by the de-emphasis of the Christmas/Christian story and themes, both within and around me. On Christmas Day on a walk at the coast with a friend, only one from among all that we passed offered up a “Merry Christmas! Indicators suggest we may have at last set sail onto the sea of new myth-making, in quest of new stories, with the Earth as principle dream-weaver—as it must be if we are to survive as a planet and species.
I see these ‘remainder’ tree leaves as emblems of refugia, an ecological term used to denote an environment that has proven resilient to ecological change and hence able to offer habitat for that which is endangered. This capacity to endure through hard times and to provide shelter (or light, or comfort) for others, through its gift of steadfastness, is a decidedly Capricornian one, for Capricorn presides over and excels at the building or curating of lasting systems, such as culture in the human landscape. At a time when the traditional structures of our Western world are undeniably toppling, as is the homeostasis of the planet’s ecological systems, we need refugia beacons.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Nobles among us
As the deciduous trees surrender their spent leaves to the waiting earth below, yielding a new landscape of branches bared to sky, my attention has been called to the tall evergreens—the mighty redwoods, the cedars, the pines—whose aspiring erectness rises skyward without meandering. Not distracted by the horizontal plane of life, or the coming and going of leaves, the evergreens are called into the heights of sky, not unlike Capricorn, who specializes in filtering out inessentials in order to achieve lofty goals. As I contemplate the pointed peaks of the evergreens, my mind flies to the heights of the California Sierra, where the eye can travel along vast swaths of steep mountainsides laden with colonies of these upward-rising nobles.
Unlike trees, the notion of a ‘noble class’ among humans, as seen through the eye awakened to social justice, is part of a dying order, one based on hierarchy, wealth, and privilege afforded by birth. As I’ve written about in other blogs, Pluto’s 15-year tenure in Capricorn has brought first the exposure of our hierarchical structures’ corruption (whether religious, government, or corporate), and then its steady unraveling, which was acutely accelerated by the pandemic. As it has crumbled, foreign entities, operating like bacteria and viruses themselves, have become embedded in the systems—unscrupulous outsiders not part of the traditional Capricornian old-world, ruling elites, with flavors like Trump, Musk, and Bezos. Well-versed in white collar crimes, steeped in greed, and equipped with billions amassed through tech expertise, these characters have grabbed the public, corporate, and political spheres.
I and those I follow take the long view in the face of the collapse of once-trusted institutions and systems such as the earth’s itself. Grief over what is falling and has been lost is necessary, but equally so are individual efforts to focus on and offer the sustenance and light of Beauty in its many guises, to serve as progenitors of a new Aquarian way of life. This may sound like fantasy, but it is founded in an understanding of the cycles of time, of death and rebirth, and of the not yet tapped power of the human being to harness its highest capacities towards transformation.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Refugia
Yes, things look grim at face value (a characteristically Saturnian perspective of pessimism, based on logical thinking) if we imagine that humans will keep on in the same treadmill tracks – both ecologically, and amidst the seeming Shakespearean tragedy that has become our societal sphere. But if enough of us deepen into our own shadow healing work (as discussed in my Scorpio blog), facilitating a type of awakening that can bring the release of vital creative energies, inspirations, and gifts that can be offered up to the Capricornian societal milieu, there are those of us that believe that indeed we can create, and become, places of refugia.
These would be places where, whether in a few generations, or a few centuries, humans succeed in cultivating and establishing a truly sustainable way of living and being that centers our relationship with the Earth – respectful of her resources, her cycles, and with our fellow co-inhabitants here. This would of course include a connection with the celestial realm, and a foundation in principles of the Divine Feminine, as exemplified by the Water and Earth sign archetypes. But Air and Fire are needed as well!
To achieve this, we will need to train our vision through a big-picture lens, which Pluto in Air sign Aquarius will be asking of us—a lens that can accept death, endings, and losses as necessary teachers and precursors to rebirth; and a lens that can hold the long view of Time, which is the medium of Capricorn’s ruler and Aquarius’ co-ruler, Saturn. It is possible an entirely new relationship to time needs to come about—one that apprehends time’s hidden feminine fluidity, so that we can acquire the capacity to access and harness states of timelessness within time.
While the influence of the Sun in Capricorn lasts just a month, this blending of feminine fluidity with masculine rigor is an ongoing ‘assignment’ we have been given during this period of Saturn travelling through Pisces, through till May of next year, when Saturn will dip into pioneering Aries for a few months, and then return to Pisces from September to mid-February 2026.
Saturn’s sign during each 2.5-year transit qualitatively describes where we need to ‘get serious’ with our attention and focus, both by house and by sign. Saturn in Pisces calls all of us to this incorporation of the Feminine within conventional structures. This can look like being disciplined with prioritizing our creative or spiritual practices, or working with consistency to open up within us new ways of knowing and being. The challenge is to applying ourselves to goals or intentions that, being Piscean, are likely elusive and unknown in nature. We need but follow our ‘sense.’
The Saturn-Neptune project
Next year, both Saturn and Neptune enter Aries, where they will conjunct at 0° on February 20. This is significant as it marks the start of a new Saturn-Neptune cycle, with the previous one operative since 1989. Astrologer Amanda Moreno suggests that when aspecting Neptune, the grounding capacities of Saturn crystallize the dreams, visions, and undercurrents of the collective, particularly in terms of what we’re in denial about or have been avoiding.
The conjunction also implies a furtherance of the theme of Saturn in Pisces, given that Neptune rules Pisces. But in the sign Aries, Neptune-Saturn bears the potential for inspired action, the pioneering of initiatives that—in their highest manifestation—can harness transcendent capacities and compassionate creativity that can serve as seeds for viable societal change. This is a long-term process, so the medicine of patience (Capricorn) will be much needed, along with faith (Pisces).
While walking one evening this month, during an intensely windy rainstorm, I was struck by the sight of a neon-lit, wire-fashioned snowman that had capsized. What I beheld in the rainy mist was a giant platypus, swimming across the water-soaked grass. I flashed to a thought of a ‘new world order’, a watery one, where the Feminine prevails, in which the symbols that once stood stately and erect (and happy, as snowmen will be—or used to be, before global warming!), have fallen, and are now swimming in waterways close to the Earth. Perhaps this was an emanation of Saturn in Pisces, and an anticipation of the new Saturn-Neptune cycle!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Capricorn 2.0: Masculine-Feminine Weave
It’s interesting to consider how the outdated, overwrought masculine, version of Saturn/Capricorn seems ‘wired’ to receive its new upgrade from the watery depths of the Feminine, via Pisces and Neptune. On the individual level the essence of Capricorn is very much concerned with being successful in its interface with society, being someone who leads through competently holding responsibility in and for his or her particular role. It is the sign of ambition, of sure-footedly climbing either the corporate ladder, or some other rocky pinnacle like the mountain goat. But in Capricorn 2.0, the update may perhaps include a return to Feminine-based qualities of flexibility, receptivity, the capacity to listen within, and a humble willingness to regularly adjust one’s footing.
If Capricorn/Saturn energy is challenged in one’s natal chart, or by transit, there can be a fear of engaging with the social/societal realms, and perhaps an over-emphasis on living out the internal, mystical side. But in truth, Capricorn is concerned with the ‘lived reality’ of the social sphere. At its best, it wants to contribute and participate ‘successfully’ in some way. Perhaps we can prepare ourselves to rewrite our definitions of success and ambition. Perhaps success will come, more and more, to mean the capacity to be present, grounded in our bodies, connected to our intuition, and capable of interfacing with friends, family, and community from this perspective.
Higher octave Capricorn exudes refinement and maturity. It has persevered through the hard-won practice of taking full responsibility for oneself: for one’s situation, one’s actions, and one’s words. This involves honoring ‘social contracts’, such as in communication, and may want to lend its talents to creating or engaging with social solutions. But it will benefit from becoming not just outwardly responsible, but inwardly as well, to navigate and dance with the sensitive and easily fluctuating energy of its polarity partner archetype—watery, moody Cancer and its ruler, the Moon. This is a difficult partnership, requiring the marriage of masculine (Capricorn) and feminine (Cancer) ways of being, a union that both listens to and honors the flow of the intuition while holding steady to show up and participate with authenticity in the social realm when so called.
Of course there will be dark times ahead as we see lower-octave manifestations of Capricorn, as the snowman slowly melts, before it grows its fins! (Going too far with this metaphor?) Off-centered Capricorn allows social contracts to fall by the wayside, with ethics and integrity disappearing from media and commercial spheres. This has of course become the norm at the higher echelons in both politics and for-profit industries like healthcare—which once upon a time was not a for-profit billion dollar industry, but a service profession! —in this time of faltering systems and traditions.
Daily news headlines ask that we witness the slow and uncomfortable, but very real transition from institutions based on calcified Capricornian greed to yet-to-be-born systems populated with ‘new paradigm’ Aquarian themes of inclusivity, cooperation, and coexistence. (See my Sagittarius blog for more on the ‘Death-Rebirth’ passage we are undergoing with Pluto now in Aquarius for 19 years.) Of course there is much fear-churning in the conventional Democrat media as to what US governance will look like in the next four years, but we do well not to give ourselves over to the fear chasm. Capricornian discipline in the amount and quality of media we imbibe seems in order.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alchemical Opus: the Nigredo
What the headlines preach is not the whole story, or necessarily even the story, as we simply do not know what comes next. So we need not lean into fears of change, of losing control or power, or of an unforeseeable future. The Capricorn vibe prompts us to ‘take care of business’, and to focus on bringing our best selves forward in our social interfaces.
The Cancerian values of tending and caring, receptivity, and responding with kindness and consideration, too often absent in today’s public arenas, need to be resurrected in this realm. It is and will continue to be up to us, in our individual lives, to bring these life-sustaining qualities founded in love back into ‘convention’, during what will likely be a challenging time of transition, termed by depth psychologist Francis Weller as “the long dark.”
Capricorn is the archetype that opens out into this long wait for redemption, through darkness and despair. As such, Capricorn/Saturn can be associated with depression, and a profound loss of hope. Alchemically, Saturn is associated with the nigredo, meaning blackness, symbolized by the raven. Phases or encounters with the dark become known to us as deep disappointment, or feelings of alienation from ourselves.
This blackness or “lead” is the prima materia through which we must alchemically work on our shadows, in Jungian terms, such that it can fall, like leaves from a tree, allowing us to grow beyond obsolete and harmful ways, transmuting the lead into gold. This Saturn process of ‘coagulation’ or extraction of the lead within, is associated with death, hence the potential for certain Saturn aspects in a chart natally and by transit to bring on depression. Time and patience are the necessary medium of the process. The power to wait through a winter of isolation and bleakness, to endure the wasteland, is a hidden gift of Capricorn.
The process is quickened by the feminine capacity to dissolve by going within, accepting what is present, or empty, and engaging with some form of imaginal shape shifting, as with active imagination. All of this is on offer with the energy of Saturn in Pisces. During this time, through till 2026, we are called to sift and evaluate old habits of being, buying, and responding that have become second nature, and toss the ones that no longer belong. Pisces is ultimately concerned with service, but with Saturn passing through its rays, we do best holdingto our boundaries, not giving more of ourselves than we have bandwidth for.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ethics of Reciprocity
In a recent interview in Emergence Magazine about her new book, The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer (author of the acclaimed Braiding Sweetgrass) stresses this point of reciprocity. As a corollary to the foundational indigenous practice of reciprocity with the earth—that of giving back whenever one takes while harvesting, and of taking only what we need, and never more than half—she points to the need for us to give our gifts to society.
When someone gives you a gift, you want to give them something. You are in their debt, in a way, and you want to honor them and respect them in the way that you’ve been respected. And so that opens the door to reciprocity, to say, well, what is the gift that I could give you in return for water or berries or birdsong. . .? And that requires that deep self-examination to say, well, what is my gift? And which of my gifts are what the world needs in this moment? And now we’re talking about a purpose-driven life, right? To say… I matter too. My participation, my gifts, need to be in the world in order for the world to thrive.
Another element of a thriving world that Robin emphasizes is enoughness, relevant to the idea of the ‘ethical harvest,’ which considers all the other beings that benefit from a plant offering when one is ‘taking’. She writes in Braiding Sweetgrass how gratitude for what we have creates an experience of fullness, whereas ours is an economy fueled by the notion of emptiness. She says, the notion of gratitude, enoughness, and abundance feel so important as an antidote to the endless need to consume.
The idea of having enough, of being content with what we have, jibes well with the traditional Capricornian values of frugality and respect for the earth’s limited natural resources. Yet Capricorn in modern times has run amok with the concept of success defined as abundance and continuous acquisition. Depth psychologist James Hillman (quoted on symbolreader blog) suggests that “the harvest has become the hoard…The ripened end-product and in-gathering…under the aegis of Saturn can show qualities of greed and tyranny, where in-gathering means holding and the pursuit of miserliness, making things last through all time.”
So the impulse to ‘conserve’ based on understanding the finite limits of what the Earth offers has morphed into an amassing and hoarding instinct. When this is practiced to the excess that it now is, the necessary flow of energy (such as of money, or of other resources like food and water) becomes stifled, leading ultimately to systems failure. Releasing acquired wealth and energy back into the system, whether through philanthropy or ‘spending down’, requires trusting that what goes around comes around, that all life is interconnected and thrives together, that oneself and one’s family alone is not the best final destination of assets accrued. This rethinking of and redistribution of riches in such a way that dissolves greed and releases the fear of lack is another area of potential change that the next Saturn-Neptune cycle, supported by the systems-thinking potential of Pluto in Aquarius, may provoke.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
New Moon and a peek at 2025 Astrology
Saturn-Jupiter square
We have a strong dose of Capricorn energy in today’s (Dec. 30) New Moon signature, launching us into the New Year. First, the Sun-Moon conjunction in Capricorn sextiles Saturn in Pisces, which emphasizes and facilitates the Capricorn work of staying on top of our routines and obligations while setting intentions and establishing routines and structures that facilitate opening to what lies hidden within (Pisces), such as our connectedness to spirit, or our intuitive, felt-sense interface with life. Practical, physical plane matters will be prominent, but they ask to be integrated or infused with the other- or inner-worldly domain of Pisces.
In addition, Capricorn ruler Saturn in Pisces is in a tight square to Jupiter in Gemini, which is one of the major configurations of the first part of 2025, along with the Mars-Pluto opposition. The square will be exact this summer, when these two ‘social’ planets shift to cardinal (action-oriented) signs Aries and Cancer, respectively. Currently they are in mutable signs, which challenge us to inquire into things with our mind and intuition—ideally growing in consciousness and wisdom, to integrate opposing viewpoints with our own, and adjust to changes.
The tension created by Jupiter squaring Saturn can find us toggling between hope and despair, expansion and contraction, or the call to adventure and the call of ‘reality’. At its best, taking care of business can in fact be joyful! We will also want to clarify our sense of purpose (Jupiter) and avoid succumbing to Saturnian fears, or over-identifying with (aka being controlled by) material plane limitations and stressors. With Jupiter in Gemini we are likely taking in either disturbing, or multiple points of view online about ‘what’s going on’, most of them quite biased, and with Saturn in Pisces, fear could be spiraling out of control into illusions and delusions. We might consider reining it in, remembering that much of what we read is speculation and subject to change, evidenced by the ever fluctuating Jupiter in Gemini signature. Partaking of Saturn’s gift of patience, taking the long view is advised.
In the best case scenario, these two planetary principles can by synced: responding to and maintaining the Saturnian structures of our lives while infusing them with a meaning or purpose that inspires, such as being present and awake as we move through ‘ordinary’ life, and open to the extraordinary ever at hand.
Mercury- Jupiter-Saturn T-Square
Mercury in Sagittarius opposes Jupiter and squares Saturn at this New Moon, forming a T-Square between the three bodies. This configuration, with Mercury and Jupiter in “mutual reception” (each planet placed in the sign the other planet rules) further challenges us to synthesize from the vast sea of information that which is cohesive, useful, and of value to our vision of life, to not get sidetracked with too many information byroads, and to be open to adjusting our framework by integrating new perspectives.
This is a precursor to a big piece of work we’ll be called to once Uranus enters Gemini in July 2025. With this T-square there is a quality of lightness, even though serious Saturn is part of it, as Jupiter (which rules Sagittarius) in tandem with Mercury (which rules Gemini) can conjure a diversity of adventures, or an abundance of playful joys. As one of my friends regularly says, we do well to “lighten up and stay curious.” May this be our discipline, and may we be blessed with patience!
But as is often the case, we must take the good with the bad, or the hard: Mars opposing Pluto (discussed in greater length last month) will continue to add an element of explosiveness to emotions, extremes to violence, and heightened sensitivity to triggers; but it bears the potential to inspire and seed actions that can ultimately heal and transform at a powerful level. Courage, perseverance, and strength are valued companions in this endeavor.
I close with potent words from transpersonal and psychological astrology forefather Dane Rudhyar, from his book The Pulse of Life, in which he speaks of this time of Capricorn as that of seeding the light of new life:
“In due time the New Life always wins. The new type of human being pierces through the crust of the decaying matter of what was once the powerful State erected by Caesar, as spring impels seeds to germinate after the Piscean deluge of equinoctial storm. . .The cycle of life does not allow static fulfillment. Everything turns into its opposite. The wheel moves on everlastingly and the Day-force interplays with the Night-force in an ever-renewed drama which is life itself.”
May we plant and tend with care and love the seeds of New Life in our own small lives, each a vital part of the larger web of the Whole.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________