Capricorn New Moon: Mind the Cracks
- Liv Woodford
- 7 days ago
- 10 min read
Change, when it comes,
cracks everything open.
Dorothy Allison
The New Moon on January 18, 2026 at 28° Capricorn
accentuates the cracks that are deepening in one or more areas of our life. In this historic time of big endings, we are in the final stages of completing and releasing an old version of ourselves. There is potential for karmic shifts, where life-long patterns are permanently resolved and will not need revisiting.
In the weeks following the New Moon, planetary conjunctions with Pluto may offer sudden insights and creative vision. So, while we actively finish up what is to be left behind, we can look for the inspiration that will inform a game plan for how to solidify our strengths and launch ourselves in a whole new direction.
The New Moon
conjunct Mercury, Mars, Venus, Pluto
trine Uranus
sextile Saturn and Neptune
New Moon Ruler: Saturn at apex of Small Grand Trine
Pluto conjunct each personal planet
The house in our natal chart where 29 Capricorn resides lights up the area of life where we there is a need to complete or renovate something so we can make room for change and new growth.
The New Moon is the optimal time each month to set an intention for what we want to see manifest over the next four weeks of the lunar cycle that is beginning. We are to plant this seed intention in the 24-hour window after the exact moment of the New Moon, when the Moon is still dark and not yet visible again in the night sky.
Sometimes good things fall apart
so better things could fall together.
Marilyn Monroe
The Degree of Final Endings. We are at the tail end of a two-year process of Final Endings. Dreams we have nurtured have run their course. It is time for humanity to let go of the old shared dream, the old world order to clear the way for a new one. Longstanding structures and systems we thought would endure are being shaken to their core so that room is made for something new and unprecedented to emerge.
Neptune at 29° Pisces, the final degree of the Zodiac, occupies this area of the sky every 168 years. Neptune, the Dreamer, is broadcasting that we have reached the end of the road for an individual and a collective dream.
Saturn will soon arrive at 29° Pisces where it will be until mid-February. Uranus is nearing the final degree of Taurus, completing its 8-year agenda. Uranus forms a rare and generative relationship with Saturn and Neptune that support and guide the dismantling of old structures.
The New Moon, at the final degree of Capricorn inserts itself into this potent time of dissolution, reinforcing and drawing our attention these endings. The New Moon is flanked by Venus on one side and Mercury and Mars on the other, serving to reinforce and strengthen the conviction of the Capricorn New Moon to assume responsibility to actively and resolutely finishing up and ushering out the old.
The First New Moon of the New Year occurs at the end of Capricorn Season (December 21 – January 20). When it occurs at the very beginning, at the winter solstice, it is about new potentialities to be nurtured. If it occurs around January 1, then we look to make New Year’s resolutions and declarations. But at the end, at the final degree of Capricorn, it points to things we have already built. Capricorn is about the structures and structural integrity of what have built that defines our commitments, responsibilities and lives. At this time, we are to recognize what has completed, appreciate what we had built, and acknowledge the resulting mastery and knowledge gleaned from the successes and failures of our endeavors.
We are integrating our lived experience and as we do this we see how dedication to our commitments has changed us. We are not who we once were and so are ready for something different. With an eye to the practical, to the wisdom of what was learned from the past, we look to the next steps we need to make to finish up what we started, and clarify where are priorities lie now. Priorities may be shifting and what was once important may no longer be front and center in our lives.
Change is hard
because people overestimate
the value of what they have
and underestimate the value
of what they may gain
by giving that up.
James Belasco and Ralph Stayer
Redefining Solid Ground
New Moon Ruler: Saturn
Conjunct Neptune and at the apex of a small grand trine with the new Moon, and Uranus - each at the final the degree of the sign it occupies.
Saturn's beneficial alignments at the New Moon support favorable developments that help to set us free and unburden us - though we may only come to recognize their favorability in hindsight. To make the necessary changes, we will find that we have the resources needed to do what needs to be done.
The rare and beneficial small grand trine, occurring at the final degrees of the zodiac signs involved, is between transformative, generational planets. In effect, they are supporting, inspiring, even egging each other on to fuel close out a cycle of growth and manifestation. The cycles ending are big cycles. And next month begins the new cycles with Neptune entering a new 165-year cycle and Saturn a new 30-year cycle.
We are swimming around and living in cycles within cycles, in overlapping cycles that are somehow coming to an end simultaneously. Thus, we are caught up in events larger than ourselves, with a design that is beyond individual comprehension. We are to discover a way to trust that what is unfolding is cosmically orchestrated and that it dovetails beautifully with our own evolutionary path and what we need to grow and fulfill our individual potential.
Capricorn is the forms our life takes and the ambition to create and maintain those forms in our professional, private, spiritual and community lives. The New Moon interacts with and amplifies the larger, more far-reaching planetary movements that let us know that we, as a collective, have arrived at a turning point. Around the globe, the foundations of humanity are being shaken in a series of cosmic earthquakes that are destabilizing that structures, principles and beliefs that our lives have been built upon.
Universal, impersonal energies are in effect surveying, evaluating and testing the integrity of and sustainability of the foundations we have built and the structures and long term goals we have embraced. Cracks will appear or may deepen in areas of our life that are weak or not in alignment with who we are becoming.
We may experience cracks on one or multiple fronts: from career foundations to spiritual practices, from relationships to belief systems, health habits, or financial strategies. If the life we have built is authentic to what we are about and shaped by the integrity to our values, then it is likely to become stronger through this process. But perhaps the biggest gift is not in leaning into our strengths but in contemplating the cracks and their inherent invitation to transformation and growth.
And if something is cracking open, crumbling after years of dedication to it, it doesn’t mean we have done anything wrong. Finding blame with self or others can have us miss the opportunity, the insight and the awakening.
We are living in times of accelerated planetary change. Structures that could have lasted decades may not survive the intensified energies. In the 1990s, a study was conducted people in the 20th century experienced change and new information compared with their ancestors. The results of the study reported hat the amount of change first world peoples experience in one decade, our ancestors experienced over the course of an entire lifetime. And the amount of information we absorb in a year’s time, our ancestors were exposed to over a 10 or 20 year span of time. To think this study was done before the internet took hold, before cell phones and social media speaks to the speed of today's information, technology and changes that we absorb and field on a daily basis.
The great benefit of living in a time of rapid change is that it offers fertile conditions for personal transformation, healing, and evolutionary growth. 2026 will likely be remembered as a year of unprecedented and seismic change. The Capricorn New Moon reminds us there are structures in our life that need dismantling and releasing so we are freed up to meet what is coming. In addition, we are to recognize what is strong and can be relied on in our lives to help us navigate and embrace the changes coming.
The Small Grand Trine is Supporting us in Navigating Change by Bestowing on Us
the impetus to adapt, to reach for change and just get on with it. There is less trying to hold on to the old or delay the inevitable (New Moon trine Uranus).
the resourcefulness needed to bring something to completion, and the awareness of our earned wisdom and what has been learned that makes us eager for something different, new. (New Moon Sextile Saturn).
an inclination to trust in the universe or in forces larger than ourselves to help guide us. We can sense we are part of a larger dance, part of larger cycles, and that our life is working in concert with the changes happening worldwide (New Moon Sextile Neptune).
Clear-Headed and Resolute Action
Mercury and Mars conjunct the New Moon
Four planets are in Capricorn (Sun, Moon, Mercury and Mars) traveling very close together in a pattern called a Stellium – a pattern which creates a highly focused energetic that is impossible to ignore. Capricorn is ambitious, strategic, results-oriented and serious. There is serious and practical work we are to accomplish to release old commitments and turn a corner so we can prepare the soil to plant new intentions and goals.
Mars in the Capricorn Stellium brings passion and the drive to accomplish what we set out to do, and fuels our determination to get things done.
Mercury in the Capricorn Stellium sharpens our mind so we can be strategic, give adequate attention to details that need consideration and undertake the necessary planning so our efforts produce satisfying results.
The strong Capricorn influence can have us feeling harnessed to a task. We are more intentional at this time, more disciplined, less spontaneous and less likely to follow a whim. There is a grounded, systematic way we are to handle what is on our plate. For those of us with a lot of fire and air in our charts, we will need to source some additional patience, and trust that all will be moving more quickly and fluidly soon enough.
I cannot say
whether things will get better
if we change; what I can say
is they must change
if they are to get better.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
Deep Insight and Far-Reaching Vision
Personal Planets conjunct Pluto
January 18 - 27 each of the personal planets one after the other merge with Pluto for a short time.
Pluto in Aquarius, is ushering in a 20-year period of revolutionary, future-oriented innovation. Following the New Moon, each of the personal planets will leave Capricorn and enter Aquarius. They will then join Pluto and be infused with creative solutions, flashes of deep insight, or experience synchronicities that can have us change directions. As the personal planets meet Pluto, our identities and ways we have identified with some old way of operating will be encouraged to fall away in order to welcome a more expansive, authentic way to see, know and experience ourselves.
The Moon conjoins Pluto hours after the New Moon, followed by Venus the next day. There can be a reality check around finances and needing to assess what we value, no longer value, need, and no longer need as we look at where we want to allocate our precious and limited time and resources. We do not have the means to give to everything and we may be surprised how things that were once important no longer appear on our Top 10 list.
January 22, The Sun and Mercury come into Cazimi and together conjoin Pluto. The days surrounding this can bring changes to the vision we have for our life, understandings about what our life is and isn’t about, and an expanded perspective about the larger forces working in our lives and in the collective.
January 27, Mars will conjunct Pluto. The final week of the month can see explosive and surprising developments. There is potential for further collapse of systems not aligned with our collective future and surprising announcements around technology (ruled by Aquarius) - of breakthroughs or breakdowns concerning robotics, AI technology, internet storage and web services. Things associated with the electrical grid and systems may highlight areas that need attention: airline travel and booking flights, online banking and cell service, energy consumption and nuclear energy systems.
Final Thoughts...
The last weeks in January we will be shown what needs to be left behind so we can move with the accelerated changes that will unfold later in 2026. We are living in a period a time marked by significant intensity. Transformation is accompanied by heat and everyone worldwide is feeling the heat.
Planets in water signs, are helping us to cool off and stay centered: Jupiter in Cancer reminds us to listen to our feelings and not lose sight of self care routines. Saturn and Neptune in Pisces help us to forgive ourselves for not having done better, and forgive others so we can let go and move on. They have also been guiding us to deepen our spiritual practices, to develop trust in our intuition, and to nurture a higher perspective.
The Capricorn New Moon invitation is helping focus our energies so we do what is needed to be prepared for the portal that will open at the Solar Eclipse on February 18 which will coincide with Saturn and Neptune both leaving the degree of final endings and arriving at 0° Aries, the Creation Point. We are preparing for a new creation, a new world that will begin to emerge and be felt soon enough.
Last Chance!
Astrology of 2026
90-minute webinar
With a focused eye
on the pivotal months of January - April
Sunday, January 18
7 pm EST / 4 pm PST
$32
The webinar provides
*a broad overview of the year's dynamics
*an in depth look at the next four months.
*ways to harness the potential of the upcoming eclipses, retrogrades and the big movements of the generational, transformative outer planets.
WHEN REGISTERING, you MUST select January 18 in the calendar on the booking page
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Tuesdays: February 10 – March 31, 2026
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Prerequisite: Astrology 101 or working knowledge of planets, signs, houses and aspects.
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