Insights for Capricorn

As the World Turns

December 21:
Sun enters Capricorn: 4:20 AM EST
When I think of how patriarchy has twisted and turned archetypes into their opposite meanings, Capricorn easily comes to mind. The essential human trait of this earth sign is one that nature uses all the time: sustainability. Which is to say, the right use of resources (not simply the use of resources) in such a way we sustain life. How this reversal has overtaken what we actually know to be true is the story of how the mind creates reality over and above and beyond our common senses. Like all earth signs, Capricorn means to understand reality through the gates of perception: our senses. It’s quintessentially practical. Somehow patriarchy confuses the quality of presence with the notion of presents and so we go sort of mad in the season of Capricorn, trying to find things to give to people rather than ways to offer the gift of our focused attention to their existence. Capricorn can be an indication of great magic. Not the sleight-of-hand kind that depends on illusion, delusion and trickery but rather the total perception of here and now – The still point of the turning world, where “past and future are gathered”; fleeting though it is.
So start right where you are, with what you actually have and with the notion that you can and will manage it for the Good of All, including yourself but not at the expense of others. It’s not about being king of the mountain, more like being the mountain itself and drawing on the strength and determination of the mountain within.
This year as the Sun travels through Capricorn it will sextile Saturn and Neptune, trine Uranus, oppose Mars (retrograde).
Read all about it below.

December 24
Jupiter square Saturn
Every excess will require a balancing, a reckoning, and have consequence. Christmas Eve may tempt us to throw caution and good sense to the wind. This square suggest we are not thinking clearly and Mercury underscores that as it comes to oppose Jupiter and square Saturn in a couple of days. It doesn’t seem possible to open to the totality of suffering and fear that is permeating our thought streams and choking our feelings or to really ignore it. Just what you can handle is good enough.
This is the second of three squares between Jupiter and Saturn, the first was in August of 2024 and the last will be in June of 2025. It is born from the ‘seed’ of the conjunction which occurred in December of 2020 at 00* of Aquarius; a promise that we are indeed on our way into a New Age. Gonna take a lotta love to get there.

There is magic afoot on the eve of the day when we can actually see, if we look, the Sun miraculously and in tiny increments beginning its journey toward greater and greater light. It’s the magic of the mundane, the best kind of magic.
Having lost so much, we might stand with the angels on the head of our pins, neither here nor there, neither past nor future and allow the magic of presence to overtake the tyranny of presents.

December 26
Mercury opposite Jupiter     
You want to find truth in your mind? Even one truth from the noise inside that mind of yours? Truth amidst the mess of memories, arguments, algorithmic commands pointing you this way and that? Hopes, fears and the mess of stories going ‘round like a deranged carousel? Stop right where you actually are. Put down the loaded weapon (your attention on the screen). Step away from the seemingly sentient machine and go outside. Look up at the sky which goes on forever. Breathe the air. Wonder what it’s like to be a tree in winter or where the raccoons are today. That’s the kind of truth that can set you free.

December 27   
Mercury square Saturn
If you managed to find a coherent corner of your mind yesterday, today asks us to think about the hard stuff. The troublesome monster hiding at the back of the closet, nibbling on your precious treasures; the papers piling up on your kitchen table, even the obligation to have fun during the last week of a very difficult year. End of the year stuff congeals but it’s not a blight on your week. More like a call to turn and face what seems intimidating so you can shrink it down to size.

December 28
Venus square Uranus
There is nothing to be done about regret. We all feel it sometimes: all the things we could have done better: all the money we might have saved: the utter emptiness of certain kinds of pleasures in the wake of its aftermath.
There are three days until the end of this year and two days until the New Moon. Today was made for us to open our arms and embrace the full catastrophe even as we learn from the natural world. Sky’s the limit. Things end. New things begin. This, too shall pass. Are we “captives on a carousel of time” or dancers of the spiral dance which has no end, no beginning? Only ebb and flow, wax and wane, comings and goings: Enormous, relentless, glorious and annihilating. Oh My! Lions and tigers and bears, all over again.

December 29 
Chiron stationary direct
Here is the Great Teacher, mentor to all seekers, stopped in their tracks. Turning and turning toward the next lesson. Reminding us that the Greatest Teacher is always and without exception our own experience. To be human is to be wounded. To learn from our wounds is to grow wise and wiser still.

December 30
New Moon: 09* Capricorn: 05:26 PM EST
Uncertainty is not a comfortable land to travel through. Now is a good time to bow and honor the force of gravity even as you align yourself with the uplifting powers of grace. We are as dense as rock and as spacious as the cosmos. One year ends and another will begin soon enough. Draw up from the root before making and taking your good intentions into the next turn of the wheel.

December 31
Mercury trine Chiron
Make some noise. We are all here in the crazy chaos of the moment. You belong here in this world just like everyone else. Enthusiasm is not fanaticism if your intentions are truly wise.  

January 2 
Venus enters Pisces
Where is beauty? Within or without? Is it always a reflection of the soul? What is longing? Why is it impossible to assuage? Is mysterious the same as beautiful?

January 3
Mars opposite Pluto   
It is important to know and to acknowledge when you are being bullied so you can think about how you might respond. At the moment, it seems that the entire planet is being bullied by the billionaire bros and their pawns, the power brokers.
Pluto is unbelievable strength. Mars is courage. We will need lots of strength and courage as we persevere in the face of our challenges. We need more than endurance if we are to give birth to a New Age. It’s not called labor for nothing.

January 4
Sun sextile Saturn
We are here. We are alive. Each of us is capable of some things and not others. So be it. Is life a gift or a burden? How we carry it depends a lot on what we imagine we are carrying. Oddly. Systemic failure is scary especially when we are caught in the system that is failing. What tips and techniques help you along your way?

January 6
Mars rx re-enters Cancer
Mercury square Neptune
As Mars slips back into Cancer approaches a trine with Neptune for the second of three times. (see below) Mercury, the Trickster, offers a bit of aggravation just in case we missed something. It’s not a polarized ‘either/or’ world even though we can’t really count on a reasonable ‘both/and’ approach. Maybe it’s just a world, dark in some places, light in others; alive with wonder and misery. Paradoxical and cyclical, an endlessly turning kaleidoscope of what we call reality. We spend a lot of time being dissatisfied, reaching for something better, all the while knowing that what feels best is to care for and about each other.

January 8
Mercury enters Capricorn
Sun square Chiron
You didn’t make the world the way it is. You will not unmake or remake it either. Of course that’s not true. You/we are making the world all the time: When we cook and sew, choose what to wear and what to buy, the ways we dispose of our garbage. We are crafters, just like the Maker of All Things. Living is craft.

January 12
Mars rx trine Neptune
We are almost at the mid-point of Mars’ retrograde adventure (see below.) What longings do you have to do better? To face and challenge your biggest fears? How willing are you to touch your feelings as you continue on the journey? Even and especially to acknowledge that you are both tender and fierce? Given that all that lives, lives on One Planet imagine the possibility of containing multitudes.

January 13
Full Moon: 24* Cancer: 05:26 PM EST
Sun trine Uranus      
Calling all angels… It’s time for radical shift. Are you careening into change? Steady on? Embracing Chaos? Consider the notion that what feels like chaos might be change, moving faster than our ability to adjust. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, be the change.

January 14
Venus square Jupiter    
These two planets are considered by astrologers of old to be the greater (Jupiter) and the lesser (Venus) benefics (bestowers of blessings).  It’s hard to imagine that Venus is good with being the ‘lesser’ of anything, especially in a time when we are all tired of waiting for handouts from Jupiter, given that he’s only handing out what is ours to begin with. Jupiter’s lying, rapacious behavior seems all he is good for of late. Today calls us to sort through our blessings and pay attention to what feels good vs. what seems to feel good but only in the way of scratching an itch, calming a craving or the absence of a toothache. We are conditioned to be addicts, to pull the lever and get the pellet. That tension you are feeling wants the mind and the soul to recognize each other across a seemingly impossible divide. Awareness and acknowledgment (your way) of the elegant simplicity of bodily existence through which you sense the world is the ticket.

January 15
Sun opposite Mars rx
The absolute mid-point of Mars retrograde is upon us: Sun sets, Mars rises. Observe it through the night if you aren’t sleeping. See it in your dreams if you are. Symbolically we are called at this time to ask the hard questions. Every quest turns on a question which is way more important than the answer.

January 17
Sun sextile Neptune
Everything is grist for the mill of awakening. It is our mission to learn from experience. All longing takes us there as well as every stubbed toe, satisfying meal, accomplishment and failure. 2025 is no different.

January 18
Venus conjunct Saturn
We have a body which is real as anyone who ever had a headache or enjoyed love-making knows. The psyche, our soul is just as real.

These insights, are meant as contemplations. 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 planetary aspects.