Insights for Capricorn
Here are some insights for the month, which could become contemplations: Each one fashioned using the astrological aspects of the moment. Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the subjects.
Mercury will station, retrograde on January 14, 2022: If it makes you edgy and you would like some alignment you might find it here. Alignment is always preferable to anxiety!
December 21
Winter Solstice: Sun enters Capricorn: 10:59 AM EST
One year dies, another begins – or begins to begin. It’s a process that takes us to January 1st when the calendar year turns. Life is a series of cycles and thresholds. Time moves through us even as we perceive ourselves moving through time.
Today is and has long been a profound and universal marker for our world. The fact that it is a clearly northern hemisphere centric perspective could be said to be short sighted or exclusive to half the planet (the northern half) yet there is no mistaking that what we might call north centric consciousness rules the world . As we grapple with climate change the unpredictability of winter, as with all seasons, becomes more and more dramatic. Yet, up in the sky we see the same thing we have always seen. The days get short and shorter. Then a time comes when the Sun appears to stand still for three days (yesterday, today and tomorrow) and, miracle of miracles, the days slowly, steadily, unwaveringly begin to grow longer. Silent night. Holy Night. Down here in under the sky we have choices: we can be amazed, wondrous, and awed by this predictable magic, or not. We can ‘quake at the sight’ like the shepherds in the song. We can celebrate with hushed reverence, give thanks for what we have as well as what we have to share. We can look around and see the needs of others as if they matter.
December 24
Saturn square Uranus
You may have noticed an unfamiliar feeling to this holiday season. Here in Canada, for example, there is a shortage of Christmas trees. The sense that we can’t do things the way we always have but we aren’t quite sure how to do them differently persists on many levels. Although this is the last exact square of these planets they continue to challenge or block each other through 2022. The kids know what has to happen. Perhaps a ‘child should lead us’.
December 25
Venus conjunct Pluto
Mars trine Chiron
Turning off the news doesn’t, alas, turn off what is happening in the world. Even so, we instinctively know that there must be a way to rejoice in the return of the light, to believe in something sacred, holy and beneficial to all that lives. It’s true that to live is to consume, for all living things. The thing is that nature built us to recycle our waste not to simply dump it where we can’t see it. It may be Christmas for some but/and even so, Venus continues to remind us to look back, to reflect on where we have come since, perhaps, Christmas of 2019. Who owns the land? Who controls the resources? Why, when there is enough for everyone do we live in such scarcity? What might help us heal the tragedy of the commons?
December 26
Mercury sextile Neptune
Whatever rose up and grabbed at you yesterday from the recent or distant past, you might imagine as a fish you caught or maybe one that just landed in your boat. You know that little boat of your life that travels the Great Sea of Living? Like many folk tale fish inside this one is a magic ring, a wishing ring. Knowing what you know of the past, what might you wish for the future? And what small thing might bring it closer to real?
December 28
Jupiter enters Pisces
Maybe Jupiter loves Pisces like meat loves salt or like tofu loves tamari. Jupiter is at home here. Its most noble manifestation in this sign is compassion, particularly for the ignorance of humans and their (our) inability to see the beautiful world in which they (we) live. Its most ignoble manifestation is blind faith and gross assumption that they (we) have found the one true thing, the truth of truths. This world is made of paradox. It thrives on ambiguity. Truth is a process, a journey, an endless discovery and a constant revelation. Every day. Jupiter will be in Pisces, reminding us of these things, until May 10th and again from October 28, 2022 until December 20th. Word on the street is that this should be a good time for Pisces people.
December 29
Mercury conjunct Venus (retrograde)
Sun square Chiron
Mars sextile Saturn
As 2021 becomes 2022 we might wonder at a year of not enough of the right kind of change, a year of chaotic weather eruptions, strange protests, and growing apprehension. Why not look for a poem or a song, a kind of theme or thread to carry us across to 2022? This New Year seems to have room for cautious aspiration for a better world; better because humans are capable of so much. Whatever your age or stage of life at this time, the possibility to learn from our losses, to let go of what isn’t coming back and to take aim at a sustainable world is there in everything we do. If you see it you can believe it.
December 30
Mercury conjunct Pluto
Ponder deeply. Think about underlying structures. “Dig where you’re standing.” Mercury has entered the shadow of its next retrograde period (January 14 – February 3). We are digging out from 2021, finding our way to 2022. Capricorn at its best, considers the Good of All not just the one or even the some.
January 1
Sun trine Uranus
Imagine we are coiled but not quite sprung just yet into a New Month (New Moon tomorrow) and a New Year (2022). Today we might marvel that anything can and will happen. We might simply be with how it is. It’s like the moment after inhaling – before exhaling. Suspended. Full of potential. Celebrate the Great Gap between what has been and what will be. Direction unknown. At least for now.
January 2
New Moon: 12 degrees Capricorn: 01:33 PM EST
Mercury enters Aquarius
We are not here to simply keep on keeping on, to merely put one foot in front of the other. As it says in Chapter 97 of Ministry of the Future, “Whether life means anything or not, joy is real. Life lives, life is living.” We are stepping into a time which is the same but different than before. Take a walk outside. Consult with the natural world. You, too are made of fire, earth, air and water. Made, not to last but to sustain and express, for the time you are here, life itself.
January 5
Venus sextile Neptune
Each day of any week or month is like a bead on a string: A necklace which, when strung together, makes a life. To be human is to be overwhelmed. Much of the time it is a trick of the light which has us seeing things as awful or awesome.
January 8
Venus (retrograde) conjunct the Sun
There comes a time at the midpoint of every Mercury or Venus retrograde period when they conjunct the Sun. It’s a call to the mysterious if you’re so inclined, a powerful metaphor of transformation. In the story of Inanna this is when she is hung on the meat hook; suspended between realities. The Sun is the heart of the solar system. The heart of the Sun is the heart of the heart itself. Venus is consumed, inflamed by a kind of love that incinerates that which is over and done as a necessary part of renewal for tackling what lies ahead. Love in flames. Being that we are talking archetypes here – goddesses and gods – we understand this to be a flame of transformation. She dies as the evening star but will be reborn on the other side as the morning star. Here is a heavenly reminder that even after great loss, life goes on, determined to live.
January 9
Mercury sextile Chiron
Take hold of your innate ability to direct your mind. Don’t let the algorithm tell you where to focus.
January 10
Sun sextile Neptune
The way to the door of your inner being is through body and breath. Your body, standing firmly between heaven and earth. Feet on the ground, head in the stars. Inhaling and exhaling.
January 11
Mars square Neptune
Some of us are busy being born, some dying, or so it seems. In truth all of us, all the time are busy doing both. It seems to us that the paradoxical qualities of life, the way it can be fierce, joyous, fragile and tragic all at the same time, is known only to humans. Possibly this existential confusion is at the root of our craziness. Be that as it may, today is not a time to figure this out. Today we want to stay out of harm’s way. Damp down our righteous indignation and remain silent as we pause before deciding if we will take action. Time, space and patience reveals all.
January 14
Mercury stationery retrograde
This Mercury retrograde grabs onto the coattails of Venus’ retrograde journey, even as she moves toward the end of her time of transformation. If ever there was a message from the planets to reflect on where we have been, what we have lost and what we have (or haven’t) learned, it’s now. Each of these planets is retracing our journey since January of 2020, which is to say, the movements of Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter, as well as the retrograde period of Mars in 2020. It’s a lot harder to say where we are going if we can’t admit or if we remain ignorant of where we have been. There is benefit in taking this inventory for your own small life – if not for the entire planet.
The so called dwarf planet, Ceres is also stationary today. Ceres is associated with all manner of cereal as you might imagine, given her name. In ancient Greece she was known as Demeter. She represents an aspect of the nourishing mother. If you’re into considering the smaller planets you might also factor into today’s astrological comings and goings the notion of food, nourishment and security in light of where we have been over the last couple of years. Our journey is most likely more about climate change than Covid. Possibly they arise from the same root.
January 16
Sun conjunct Pluto
What do we really know about Dark Matter? Is it dark or invisible? Does it represent the flip side of reality? It’s certainly fascinating to consider, except when it comes charging at us via other people’s projections. Then it’s downright terrifying.
January 17
Full Moon: 27 degrees Cancer 06:48 PM EST
(opposite Pluto – lest we forget)
This Full Moon could reminds us that Venus is beginning her reign as morning star, bringer of light also called poetically by the ancients, Lucifer and Phosphorous. As the Full Moon sets in the west Venus will be rising in the east. The bees are stirring. Perhaps they feel, not only the turning of the wheel of seasons at the solstice but also the fullness of the Moon in their sign of Cancer. They sense it’s time to look around and see what needs organizing. You can’t have a productive hive if you aren’t organized. This Full Moon is in close opposition to Pluto, asking and not for the first or last time, what we have learned from what we have lost, or are in the process of losing.
January 18
Mercury (retrograde) sextile Chiron
Uranus stationery direct
Climate change is real. At least we have come that far. So is the real trauma that comes with it for those who can’t go home again. Imagine the children who lose their small universes, children who will grow up conditioned by these losses, conditioned not to feel at home anywhere. Imagine a planet of refugees. How can a person not have a place to belong on their own planet? Uranus is the WTF! planet. It is way more than one person can cope with. Time to reach out as best you can as we all travel the highway to the Age of Aquarius.