Insights for Capricorn
December 21
Before the Sun enters Capricorn:
Venus square Saturn
Jupiter square Chiron
Preparing to leave the up-down energies of Sagittarius and enter the new month perhaps we struggle with endings we didn’t ordain. And woundings we refuse to believe are even possible; If not to us directly then to others on this planet. So much gratuitous suffering makes no sense.
Sun enters Capricorn: 10:03 AM EST
If the heavens above teach us anything it is this: If you want magic you must slow down. Magic is only real when it is embodied. Otherwise it’s only thinking about magic. You maybe can’t see it but you can feel it if you s l o w yourself down. Today is one of only two days in the entire year when the Sun Stands Still. You can say, ‘well it doesn’t literally stand still so what are you on about?’ but therein lies the magic: Nothing stands still in this Uni-verse of ours as it sings its song. And yet, it still appears to stand still. Consider all the times in your life you felt that something could or should last forever. Where is that forever now? It is and it isn’t inside you. Sol is the Sun and when it seems or appears to stand still in a constantly shapeshifting world we pause. We catch ourselves living as if we will live forever. We measure the moment against eternity and wait, for what seems to be an eternal moment, for the engine of the year starts up again. We can frenetically move through the next 12 days (of Christmas) until Epiphany on January 6th. Or we can allow the magic that allows eternity to coexist with the finite world: In wonder: In awe. We are here to experience this quiet Wow! A subtle yet profound ‘Yes! ‘ to the come-what-may song of 2026.
As the Sun travels through Capricorn it will meet a conjunction with Venus (Venus Star Point), as well as Mars. It will oppose Jupiter, square Chiron trine Uranus as it sextiles Saturn and Neptune. Dancing us all through the month of nostalgia and promise. For those who live in the southern hemisphere, look around you with an eye to the culture you are part of. How are they defining the solstice, the holiday season? Extracting yourself might require you to consider that this is actually the first day of summer for you. The season of long light. Yes, the sun appears to stand still but, as is reality on a big round ball, we are living on a paradox.
December 24
Venus square Neptune
Venus enters Capricorn
At times we are overtaken with longings that we cannot ever hope to assuage. Allowing the feeling takes us through something that makes us stronger even as it fulfills the mission of the soul, that mysterious part of us that some deny even exists.
December 27
Mercury trine Chiron
Creative visionaries at play. A New Year is coming. Many hopes have been dashed. All manner of broken stuff calls out for repurposing. Humans are proactive adapters. You are human…
January 1
Mercury square Neptune
Mercury enters Capricorn
A fleeting, aching and intense longing for a past that never was greets us at the gate of 2026. If only I had more money, time, energy, whatever, then I might have accomplished a different life. Beware and wary of the fog of pointless longing. Hang instead with the sense of impossibility hidden within ‘if only’. Wait to sense the shift into a new year: that moment in which emptiness becomes possibility in the here and now. Even ‘small’ impulses can shift the world. Consider the butterfly effect.
January 2
Chiron stationary direct
Wherever your wisdom comes from, whoever your teachers are, however the wounds of experience have left their mark in your psyche and/or on your body, begin your New Year by honoring the getting of wisdom. You are the student of (your) life. Learning all the time.
January 3
Full Moon: 13* Cancer: 05:02 AM EST
An abundance of blessings are embedded in the efforts we make to master the world for the benefit of others as well as ourselves. The Moon illuminates the night with her silvery light. What do you see that eludes you by day? How is it you nourish your people, including all that lives?
January 6
Venus Star Point: Venus conjunct the Sun
Every 9 months Venus visits with the Sun, sitting in the heart of our Great Star. When Venus (or any planet) conjuncts the Sun it disappears from our view. When the Sun is shining in the sky, nothing else is. What story to tell?
Venus is beauty, value, attachment and all that we hold dear. Venus is relationship. The Sun is heart, the Great beating heart of everything: The eternal drum: The fire of all fires. When we come to the Sun we are immolated. Burned to ash. Phoenix like, we rise from the ashes of what we were. We are renewed, made new again.
What we observe from our seat upon Earth is Venus, the morning star, consumed by the Sun’s light. Vanished (for 50 days or so) only to return as the evening star. Slowly, inevitably she shines in the west after sunset for as long as she has until she vanishes once again to return to the skies of morning. One story connects the conjunctions because one of them happens when Venus is direct (today) and the other one when Venus is Retrograde. (October 2026). Venus, shrouded in mysterious invisibility, transforms from morning to evening star for the next 9 months. And so it goes.
Some say that today’s conjunction plants a seed for the next conjunction in October. How is this a story for you? What seed are you planting? How is desire transforming you the way Fireweed does a forest? What are you letting go of that might create room for beauty?
When we plant seeds we think we know what they will become. We don’t. Today’s acorn may indeed become a mighty oak but it might lean left or right, flourish or not. It will meet conditions as it rises up. Seeds are acts of faith. There is no guarantee we will harvest what we plant, or sit beneath the shade of the tree to come. Consider if you will all the ways they tried to bury us and forgot that we were seeds.
January 9
Sun conjunct Mars
Venus opposite Jupiter
The word for when a planet conjuncts the Sun is cazimi. You might notice that both Venus and Mars are cazimi this week. And then you might observe that they are all opposite Jupiter and squaring Chiron as well, between the 6th and the 13th. What rough magic is afoot in your life as we begin 2026? How is desire (Mars and Venus) being immolated in you? What kind of Phoenix are you?
Mars is our hero. In the heart of the Sun he loses all his strength, all his bluster, even his courage because it is time to let love burn away useless efforts (all these cazimis are in Capricorn). Effort that isn’t in service to love and the sustainability of our lives on planet Earth is pointless. How is it our small and relatively inconsequential lives support corporate greed? Mars and Venus are rapacious and greedy to a fault when left unchecked. So today we look, if we will, at our choices, our efforts to serve life which is love, even as we feel the pull to have more, to want better, to click and click like rats in a lab experiment. Pause. Feel the fire of choice. Orient your choices with the notion of right action. Appetite is a survival instinct. We live in a time when survival is threatened.
January 10
Sun opposite Jupiter
Mars opposite Jupiter
Every opposition struggles for resolution. If we can say ‘no’ with love we can say ‘yes’ with conviction and confidence in our choices.
January 11
Venus square Chiron
Humans are wanderers. Migration is part and parcel of our nature. Welcoming the stranger creates diversity. Hyper focus on stranger danger feeds our collective pathology. And yet many of us have come to fear the one who isn’t like us. We cannot grow, learn new things and become wise when we shrink into fear of others. Use good judgment when encountering the ‘other’. Healthy boundaries are not the same as barbed wire fences.
January 12
Sun square Chiron
We cannot change the past. We cannot even banish it to some dark cave and pretend it never happened. It makes no sense to wear it like a hair shirt (although there are some who should). Experience is our greatest teacher. We are here to learn and to awaken, over and over again. It’s worth the effort.
January 13
Mars square Chiron
The mandate to learn from experience gathers intensity. Adding to it is the sense that we are warriors in the fight for awareness. There is no point in taking on the struggle without the skill to engage the forces that would keep us asleep at the wheel of Life.
January 14
Mercury opposite Jupiter
If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. So they say. We struggle to understand. We debate with others, with life itself as if we have the answer. Always better to have the question: to listen to the other and ask yourself why your reaction is so swift, so strong, so full of conviction.
January 15
Venus sextile Saturn
Venus trine Uranus
The goddess of love, attraction, attachment and, above all, beauty, is active today. Beauty and our appreciation of it is meant to be the root of value. Not greed. If greed is at the root of love we violate the thing we love: the Earth, our beloved, the children. Say ‘yes’ to beauty as the root of love, even if you aren’t sure what that means or how it changes anything.
January 16
Mercury square Chiron
Change in the mind is like wringing out a sponge or smashing glass, maybe rearranging the pieces of a puzzle or opening the blinds to let the sun shine in. They say the mind is like a parachute. It works best when it’s open. Trite but true. Making the effort to change the mind is a builds mental muscle. You can always revert to type. If changing your mind leads to greater wisdom, what’s to resist? Mind loves a good idea.
January 17
Venus sextile Neptune
Sun sextile Saturn
Venus enters Aquarius
Sun trines Uranus.
Two heavenly bodies: two agendas: two impulses. One impulse reminding us that change is the only constant. We live in a river that never stops flowing to the sea. Our other impulse is also toward change, the kind we bring about because we are capable, willing, inventive. She Changes everything She Touches, Everything She Touches, Changes.
January 18
New Moon: 28* Capricorn: 02:51 PM EST
Mercury conjunct Mars
Mercury sextile Saturn
You are an agent of a sustainable future at a time when we are exhausted from the chaos rocking our world. An intention that takes into consideration what you actually can, can’t and must do would enable you to do your unique and necessary part. There is no denying we are at the end of an Age. And there is no point in wishing it was otherwise.
The key to sustainability is care. Caring for the children makes a future worth living. Caring for our elders acknowledges the past and reminds us that one day we will be the elders. Caring for each other reminds us that these things are valuable and worthy of investment.
