Light tomorrow with today.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Do something today
that your future self will thank you for.
Sean Patrick Flanery
The New Moon on December 23 at 1 Capricorn
invites us to harness Capricorn’s ambition, and to generously give ourselves to building upon what matters most. The Capricorn New Moon each year is the time to make our ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ and so is an optimal time to give shape to the long-range plan of what we want to bloom in 2023.
5 planets in Capricorn
Jupiter square New Moon
South Node at apex of Yod with Mars/Chiron
Chiron stations Direct
Mercury in shadow zone of its upcoming Retrograde cycle
The New Moon potential is magnified as it comes on the heels of the Solstice two days before, and is a Super Moon. It is ‘Super’ because it is as close to the earth as it can come in its orbit. This strengthens the influence of the New Moon to assist us in identifying and committed to a plan for 2023.
This is not the the best time to launch something big (Mars Retrograde and Mercury readying to go Retrograde), but a time to listen deeply to ourselves and what we desire, and to lay the necessary foundation for implementing the plan in 2023. It is less about getting rest and more doing the work to lay the groundwork and prepare the way. For instance, if we want to move to a new location, now is a time to clean out and downsize. If we are wanting to restore our health, now is the time to create a dedicated space in our house for exercise or to commit to a year membership with a gym or program. If we want to launch a business, now is the time to work on the website, learn new technology to support promotion, and to draw up a business plan.
We are to look at what we can do today and in the next weeks that will support and clear the way for the forward movement of our plan when we are ready to launch it fully (Mercury, Mars and Uranus go direct the 2nd and 3rd weeks of January).
Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation
determines how much you’re willing to do. Your attitude
determines how well you do it.
Lou Holtz
Capricorn = Cardinal + Earth
Cardinal signs initiate.
Earth signs ground and make real.
Capricorn, as the cardinal earth sign, galvanizes us to define a vision or plan, take responsibility for creating a concrete plan that we will dedicate and discipline ourselves to achieving over time.
Empowering Our Ambitions
6 Planets in Capricorn
I was born on a Capricorn New Moon with five planets in Capricorn. I have spent much time contemplating the potentials and qualities of Capricorn. When I was young, I remember reading a description of Capricorn that simply said: Capricorns are Dull and Boring. So, I began to think I was dull and boring, that my willingness to shoulder responsibility, my tenacity and my nose-to-the-grindstone personality made me a boring person to be around. Yet, if someone wanted to get something done, then they would call upon me, because Capricorns get stuff done.
Capricorn is one of the more misunderstood signs, mostly in how we interpret and react to Capricorn's key words: Responsibility, Authority, Adherence to Rules, and Ambition. These words have been maligned in our culture in how they have been appropriated by patriarchal culture to foster domination and disempower or oppress another.
Capricorn’s ambition has been interpreted as power hungry or opportunistic. But the key for each of us to define our ambition and then allow the New Moon to support us in giving legs to our dreams. Our ambition isn’t necessarily to be the CEO of a company. It can be to have good health, build community, raise a family, heal traumas or achieve self-realization. The Capricorn energy is what paves the way for our ambition to seek form and shape in our lives, and provides us with the tenacity to stick with it until what we desire is achieved.
Capricorn is about responsibility and authority – not so much as having authority over others, but author-ity as taking ownership to author of our lives accompanied by the motivation to do what we need to do without looking for someone else to do it for us. When assuming roles of authority, the well-balanced Capricorn seeks to fulfill a need and provide a service, not to use it in a self-serving fashion.
Self respect and integrity are Capricorn traits essential to holding responsibility well and to be a functioning adult. When we are dedicated to a dream, a plan we will naturally curb short term gratification, be disiciplined, tenacious, resilient, set boundaries and be strategic about where we give our attention. These are all Capricorn virtues that make it possible to achieve a long-range goal.
As I write this, the United States is experiencing arctic conditions with 80% of the country experiencing below 0 Farenheit tempetures with wind chills as low as -50 F. There is a brutallness to the Capricorn time of the year (December 22 – January 21). To meet harsh and unyielding conditions, there is a tenacity and a resilience that arises within us. It arises in conjunction with the belief that this too shall pass, that spring follows winter, and that new life will sprount from the desolate landscape of winter. This is the very belief that we called to draw upon as we look ahead within our lives and what we are ready to build when there is not sign of it existing within the current reality of our lives. The belief that it is possible has us take the first necessary steps.
The earth of Capricorn is hard, frozen earth, barren and impenetrable. Yet within the silence, the stillness of the landscape, there is a germination and gestation of the new life happening deep within, in a way that is not visible or apparent. While there may seem little movement forward on the surface of our lives, this is the time to nurture the seed, the promise of what we plan to have flower in our lives.
There is a magic in the Capricorn season. It is the season of Christmas, Santa Claus, flying reindeer, the birth of a Saviour, the light that stays burning throughout the darkest of nights, decorated trees and houses. Our faith in what is happening deep beneath the frozen landscape is celebrated. We outwardly demonstrate our faith in the miracle of life we know will come re-emerge in a new way with the spring.
Ultimately Capricorn is about embodiment and a demonstrated mastery of the physical plane – Capricorn provides the physical structure that can house our dream, our talents, our knowledge so that it sustains the tests of time.There are notable spiritual masters who have a Capricorn birthday, which supported them in embodying the divine wisdom and realizations so they were integrated and sustained.
Within the time of hard, frozen earth when life appears ot have arrived at a standstill, we and the earth are in a period of prepation. We can clean out that closet, begin that exercise routine, build that website, rework a budget, research options or write out our personal or business plan that prepares us for 2023.
The house or (or houses) where Capricorn resides in our chart point to where it is time to to roll up our sleeves and give our time and attention to lay the foundation for what we wish to build in the coming months. Astrological dynamics this fall gave us the opportunity to release old fears and traumas that have unduly restrained or held us back. Fears surrounding 'authority', 'responsibliity' and 'ambition' are released and a new way of dancing with being an adult is found. Having integrated what we needed to learn, we are ready to lay a stronger foundation (New Moon square Chiron) to support the manifestation of our plans.
Start by doing what’s necessary,
then what’s possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Saint Francis
The Vision is the Engine
New Moon Ruler: Saturn in Aquarius
At the 2020 Solstice we had the Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn at 0 Aquarius, and a new vision of the future began to take shape. Saturn will complete its sojourn in Aquarius over the next several weeks. The vision has taken shape through this least two years. We have only to acknowledge what it is and use the New Moon to shape a plan that will bring it to life.
In Aquarius, Saturn encourages us to not go it alone, but to embrace collaboration and community in the cultivation of our vision and plan. It invites us to see the big picture and not get sidetracked by distractions or minutae.
It is wise to reach out to those who have authority and a mastery of some field of endeavor that can support us in fulfilling our plans. They can inspire or guide us in grounding, clarifying and filling in the missing pieces to our plans. For example, if we are wanting to create an organic garden in our yard, it is beneficial to reach out to someone who has years of experience with this so that we don’t need to recreate the wheel.
Chiron, The Wounded Healer Stations direct in Aries
As Chiron moves forward again after months of being Retrograde, there is resolution around something in our past that had zapped our confidence and belief in ourselves. We are less fearful and less sensitive around a past wound that we have protected and used as an excuse to not believe in our potential. We feel more trust in the future will be a departure from,not a repitition of, the past.
Eclipse Dynamics Present at the New Moon
Jupiter at 0 Aries square the New Moon. We feel a surge of courage and enthusiasm that can motivate us. We are the beginning of a new 12-year cycle (Jupiter at 1st degree of the Zodiac) and we are ready to begin this new chapter (Jupiter square the New Moon). The enthusiasm that could have us leaping forward is tempered by all the planets in Capricorn which has us approach this chapter as a marathon and less of a sprint. The enthusiasm is tempered by pragmatism which has us outlining the plan, the budget, the benchmarks to reach along the way.
South Node at Apex of Yod with Mars and Chiron. The apex of a yod is called “the Finger of God” – a very dramatic name that nevertheless points to something essential to resolve as a means to releasing our potential. This configuration reinforces an imperative to release the past, to restore our courage and self trust that was damaged through some devastating circumstance. We are to reclaim our power, our soveriegnity and not give it away to another. In taking responsibility to heal and own what happened in the past, we turn harsh experiences into learnings, new growth and discover a new wisdom about ourselves and our life.
Acknowledging What Works and What does Not
Mercury Retrograde (Dec 29 – Jan 19)
Mercury has slowed down and will spend an extended period of time in Capricorn (until February 11). As Mercury goes over and over 8 – 24 degrees Capricorn, the very same degrees that Pluto traveled over the last 10 years, the degrees of the Pluto/Uranus square, the degree of the 2020 Jupiter/Pluto conjunction and the 2020 Pluto/Saturn conjunction. We will recognize how our perspective has shifted through events of the last decade as we revisit and reflect on the last years as period of deconditioning and reprogramming to have us better aligned with our soul's longing.
We will contemplate what fell apart in recent years and how what fell apart no longer served us. We will assess our successes, failures and what was learned so we move with greater integrity to ourselves and our dreams.
We will be getting clear on what works and what does not, especially in the area of responsibility. We will see how we have perhaps held responsibility in the way we were taught to hold it, in a way that pleased another’s expectation of us, and in a way that diminished or exhausted us. Through the lens of where we wish to dedicate our lives, we will discern which responsiblities are appropriate to hold and which are not. There may be commitments we decide to let go of that distract us from what is most important to us. We are retooling and reassessing how to maximixe our resources (time, money, talent, skills, community support) to determine the best plan for moving forward. We are assessing what is realistically possible, what it will require of us, and setting up our lives so we can make it happen.
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