Astrology of 12/20 – 12/26: Dignified Era

This week Mercury in Sagittarius stations direct, the Sun and Venus enter Capricorn to join Saturn in Capricorn, and Saturn and Venus start a new synodic cycle together. While Saturn in Capricorn alone is, simply put, about “getting to business”, it’s entering our consciousness with a Venus-Saturn cycle as well which is about getting to our heart’s business, or maturing the heart and the heart’s ethics, in the abstract and in practice. It is about promises and enduring love; loyalty, solidity in relationship – which naturally relates to discernment and consideration of what it is we want and what our boundaries are – what we move toward to accept and no longer choose to accept.

Saturn’s entrance through Capricorn puts us in touch with an era of dignity. Nobility. Responsibility. Even if you look around and do not see these things; the potential is here and it starts often at the individual level. Do you live a life that you are proud of? Yeah, the shadow of this is to feel shame, to give up, and to think who cares about a dignified existence. Maybe we don’t ask such questions then. But if we really were to shape our lives as to have esteem in them and to feel like we were making the right calls and right decisions, we would be compelled to develop our own ethics, and to discover our own unique contributions to reality. This path also requires that we are not afraid of failure, for having large dreams and large vision means there is room to fall and it is likely that it will happen at some point along the path if not many. When we really aspire, when we really are living for something, we are collecting gravitas the entire way and it buffers the fall. Ask yourself how you can live up to your potential and be a member of the world. How is it that you and the world need each other?

P.S. A big cheat code in the game of life to include here as we talk about Capricorn and Saturn… though the work, and conditioning, and labor over time etc. is real… so is the imagination or the discipline of the imagination to cultivate the emotional vibration of having already achieved your goal. Things happen faster when you believe! Feeling good is always energy; always capital or currency if you will. So feel good in the ways you know how as you learn how to feel better and better and make a habit of feeling good about yourself. And aspire to your dreams. Don’t think you have to feel bad to be motivated to get better. Feel good and have fun and show up for the hard stuff and love it while you do it – that’s how you win.

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(Image: Edward Burne-Jones)

Here’s our week:

December 20

Venus in 24 Sagittarius trine Uranus in 24 Aries: 4:12 PM PDT

• Venus-Uranus transits open up irregularity, unexpected horizons and new resonances in our relational lives. This can relate to making new connections or to expanding existing connections as we realize that even the people we know well are always generating new facets of their character; always revealing new aspects of themselves. This is basically assuming that we have not shut ourselves down to life in which case we do stop generating new elements of our character and relationship becomes stagnant, rather than a continuous exploration.
• Venus in Sagittarius trine Uranus sets up a love language in the air that has to do with freedom. In a less complex way that is the freedom to let someone else be who they want to be and letting them come and go like some stray animal that visits one’s yard. In a more complex way that is about entering the wild realm with that other and interacting with freedom – which can constitute a different relationship dynamic and love language than culture itself teaches (i.e. consent, enthusiastic yes’s, boundaries…). Honesty and forthcoming sentiment is a love language of Venus in Sagittarius — and when put into circulation (spoken aloud) it lands on ears that have the choice to respond in the way that they would like. Yet because coercion is part of our collective relational karmas, a true ask or a true invitation to connect is an art form that comes from a developed character; and it’s not necessarily readily modeled in ordinary life.
• Related to the above, you may think about harmonizing (Venus) with your intentions (Sagittarius) in your actions (Aries). Good intentions are not enough – they are just a starting point. There is a process in aligning one’s good intentions in the actual way that they manifest.
• Relative to the free will we each have to respond relationally, we don’t have to word our invitations to others to account for their response (beyond informing of them of our intentions if we feel we must clarify).
• People used to pour their hearts out to one another in letters which took days in the post. Though we have quicker means of sharing messages, the need for spaciousness between communications is still archetypally relevant in situations in which the sentiment is large and gravitational, like Venus in Sagittarius. Except often now it is our will, not our circumstances, which holds the space.

December 21 – Winter Solstice

Sun enters Capricorn: 9:27 AM PDT

• Our Capricorn Season begins with a 0 degree Sun-Saturn conjunction in Capricorn, the sign of Saturn’s rulership, with Venus 5 degrees behind in 25 Sagittarius. It is a pretty and dignified entrance. We may take a moment to feel gratitude for the quiet supports in our lives and in ourselves: the bones of reality. We may also take a moment to be aware that bones tend to form naturally but posture is a matter of conditioning and that the same applies toward the bones of the collective, that is, culture. This collective project. Others will construct the architecture of culture when we do not – Saturn and Capricorn do relate to fate but they also relate to our ability to condition and predispose fate.
• The ability to discern which responsibilities (we can perceive need holding) are ours versus which are not is a type of wisdom we will be learning in Capricorn Season and Saturn in Capricorn’s transit. We cannot shoulder it all, but if we are capable of seeing the dysfunction in something enough to be able to complain about it, those are the places that are potential step-up points. A complained-about reality is viewed by a witness as a static object. Once interacted with, that reality is a project capable of change.

Sun in 0 Capricorn conjunct Saturn in 0 Capricorn: 2:08 PM

(Image: Beautiful world by Rene Magritte)

~Read the new article up on the blog about Sun-Saturn in aspect.~

December 22

Mercury in 13 Sagittarius stations direct: 6:50 PM

Mercury leaves shadow on January 10, 2018 at 9:28 AM.

I don’t know about you, but beyond my internet not working well on my phone and the basic tech mishaps, I have had many other subtle moments of looking around at phenomena and being like, “So this is Mercury retrograde.” — the to-do list piling up, the insights and downloads streaming in, the double-takes on information and on reality itself, the weird tendency to catch things that are falling and be not quite sure if I saw what happened clearly (was I moving fast or was time moving slow?), other things falling that I didn’t catch that seemed to fall in the oddest locations as though they were alive and not inert objects, the wild amount of word-for-word synchronicities. We can anticipate some further integration of all that has been catalyzed this retrograde season as Mercury in its forward motion will hit the same degrees it just retrograded over. We may begin to catch up and return to our bearings. I hope you managed to have some fun with it! I will say it here every time, that Mercury retrogrades are magical and though there may be mishaps, it is an adventurous time to perceive reality from new lenses and to get new reference points on our reality maps.

December 24

Venus enters Capricorn:

Venus enters Capricorn in tight conjunction to Saturn and the Sun (read more about Venus-Saturn on the next section). Many of Venus in Capricorn’s natural themes are amplified by the conjunction to Capricorn’s ruler, Saturn. These themes include:

• Loyalty and promises as a language of love – being willing to go through hardships and to get stronger together. The balance of accomplishing this without repression or putting one’s real desires/heart into shadow over a construct.
• A mature love – the ability to see past the fairytales and incomplete portraits of love and to really see into its multifaceted nature, which while including those peak states also includes grittier and more difficult passages. When the love is a container that can hold all of these states, a deeper and more trustworthy bond emerges than fair-weathered love, even in all its excitement, can compare to.
• Love of elders, or love of the wizened – esteem or appreciation for qualities that are only earned with time and experience. The balance of having lived a lot and still loving and being open to life (rather than shutting down against life).

• The grumpy element of Venus in Capricorn is possible… if you should find yourself here and wanting to do something about it, it often has something to do with the structure of one’s life (Capricorn) not resonating with one’s values (Venus) — but not an inherent character deficit. Capricorn involves the process of having the maturity/grit to make our circumstances better even when we’re already down – it relates to our strength in reserve. It also relates to the structures that hopefully exist in society to make this path easier.

December 25:

Venus in Capricorn conjunct Saturn in Capricorn: 10:55 AM PDT

(Image: Hans Thoma)

Read about Venus in Capricorn above. The conjunction to Saturn just makes it mega! However, do take note, now that Venus passes Saturn, Saturn and Venus begin a new cycle together until February 18, 2019 when they again are conjunct. Here are a few things to note for this cycle, which you can actually set an intention for and watch throughout the year.

• Saturn and Venus cycles relate to the material, tangible manifestation of our hearts desire (Venus), as well as the blocks to our hearts desire especially when the desire is immature (and Saturn is maturing it).
• Saturn-Venus relates to and rewards loyalty – this is when a love is committed to such that the container is strong enough for certain magic to come through that an otherwise flimsy container would not hold.
• Think about your capacity to make promises. Most people don’t actually like to break promises or would, even if they didn’t believe in magic or subtle forces, think carefully before making a binding promise. I’m not suggesting that you do. But what I would say is think about if there is anything that your heart is actually so loyal to that you can make a promise. That probably feels really special. If you want to amplify that process or begin to see your life constellated with more value that you are loyal to (such that promise-making is something you can happily, nobly and not in some repressive way do), think about what you are really loyal to and consider showing up for that to see what kind of magic you might manifest this Saturn-Venus cycle, with your intentions and your loyal commitment.
• Whatever intentions you might set at this point, here are some dates to keep in mind. 1st turning point (Venus square Saturn): March 13, 2018. Harvest/peak moment (Venus opposite Saturn): May 25, 2018. Next turning point (Venus square Saturn again): August 9, 2018. And end cycle (Venus conjunct Saturn) – February 18, 2019.
• Want a better idea of Venus-Saturn if you do decide to observe this cycle? I was touched by this 22 minute video about it you can watch here.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me! I love hearing your feedback and responses to these ideas; let me know how you are doing in the comments!

~Sabrina Monarch

Sabrina Monarch is a soul-centered Evolutionary Astrologer who publishes weekly astrological forecasts. She has been collecting astrological experience for over a decade. She also enjoys kundalini and ashtanga yoga, hiking and creative writing.