All about Capricorn

Different transits bring into focus different signs: the signs are the context for karma instigated by the planets that move through the fixed signs (i.e.stars) .

Capricorn has been highlighted for some time now, by the transit of Saturn and Jupiter, which together instigate a huge amount of potential energy from this sign. They call into question the central questions of Capricorn—a moveable earth sign, ruled by Saturn whose environment is a graveyard and whose symbol is a sea monster or crocodile (Makara is the Vedic name for Capricorn, which translates as something like crocodile). All of these elements become important in understanding the fundamental qualities of the sign, whose essential energy is one of upheaval or “moving earth.” This earth will be moved in a Saturnian way, which suggests seriousness, gravity, limitation, discipline and enormous effort.

Moving earth can be thought of as change requiring destruction. This change can be positive, neutral or destructive—and often it is all three depending on which role you are playing in any particular event. For example, in the case of laying foundations to build a home: moving earth is positive for the people who will occupy the home but may be negative for the field of wildflowers that formerly inhabited that tract of land.

We’ve seen quite a bit of substantial change since the beginning of the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction in Capricorn—this change being of many different shades. The key word is substantial. Earth has substance, and any change involving earth will similarly carry weight. This is the power of this transit—it can create real, lasting impact in the world at large and in your personal life. And often only the passing of Time will reveal the essential positive or negative nature of events, and ultimately from the perspective of the larger play of Cosmos it is all neutral.

Getting on the side of this transit requires getting to know a bit about the way that Saturn works. Saturn is often associated with laborers—the working class who may perform the physically demanding work which allows our day-to-day lives to function somewhat smoothly. This is the work that is often unacknowledged, but without which our society would quickly collapse. So Saturn puts in the behind-the-scences effort (he does not require recognition like his opposite—the Sun) that essentially greases the wheels of the collective. He is associated with shadows and darkness, and now you can see why: he can literally go unseen or unacknowledged. Saturn is the back we all stand on to reach the heights we crave. In mythology he is associated with Kurma—the turtle—whose shell is used to churn the ocean in order to extract the Amrta or nectar of immortality. (This suggests to not ignore the small, routine and laborious tasks in your daily life that seem to ‘not really matter’ but may be supporting you in ways you do not realize).

Saturn goes unnoticed until night comes and the isolated shadows gather into a completion of darkness. In life this night comes in loss or death and destruction. Capricorn rules graveyards, which are not only the place of death but the place of liberation. Mars is exalted here because he is the left-handed tantric, and knows how to use the potency of death and destruction (and ultimately our human aversions toward those ‘disgusting’ elements of life) for the purposes of spiritual emancipation. The fertile ecotone between life and death that is Capricorn contains this potential: to understand something about the boundary between life and death and the physical, material world and the subtle, spiritual realm and the way that our attachment and aversions pull are actually what steers our course between these polarities. All kinds of mistakes can easily be made here, and Saturn is not soft about consequences. This leads to the symbol of the sign, which is the sea monster.

Mythologically speaking the symbol is prolific and many-layered. But in keeping with what was just mentioned, an animal which is able to inhabit both the aquatic and terrestrial world is something like a bridge, which is also a characteristic of an environment such as a graveyard which connects the world of the living with that of the dead. So Capricorn has the characteristic of connecting extremes (life and death, water and land) , and the outcome of that quality can be a facilitation of deep, substantial change (the moveable earth). Death itself is certainly a substantial change, as is moksha or the spiritual liberation sought after by the left-handed tantrics in the environment of Capricorn—it is nothing other than total annihilation of the individual self in favor of inhabiting a universal consciousness. We could suspect that this transit (and the larger cycle it instigates) might instigate a move toward a more collective consciousness than the one we’ve been inhabiting as a species.

Clearly Capricorn is asking for a break-down of some sort, and I think the central question of this time and transit is: how can we breakdown gracefully? In other words: how can we choose our own decomposition so that it does not have to choose us in undesirable ways? This is a question both for the individual and the collective, and it is not one that can be answered quickly or easily. I have written previously about how this transit ushers in a new 200 year cycle, so we are just beginning to edge up agains this question collectively. There are still many illusions about a return to a dysfunctional normalcy which Saturn and Capricorn will absolutely not tolerate.

One last thought, which may be helpful: a break-down does not have to be unpleasant, particularly if what is being broken is itself unsustainable or negative—such as a way of being in the world which is ultimately unsatisfying. So we do not have to imagine this time we are in as some sort of hell that we will be lucky to make it through—the disintegration of what has not been working can be incredibly space-making, liberating and ultimately beautiful.