Capricorn Solstice & Jupiter in Aries: in darkness, a hero dreams of a bigger life

On December 21, the Capricorn Solstice (7:27 PM PST) is shortly followed by a square between the Sun in Capricorn and Jupiter in Aries (11:18 PM PST).

Capricorn is connected to the winter solstice, literally on the northern hemisphere and metaphorically as a zodiac archetype. The winter solstice marks a turn where the days have grown the shortest and the nights the longest, and now the light will grow again and the days will begin to get longer.

While Capricorn as an archetype is connected to themes like sobriety, grit, realism, and the capacity to delay gratification to engage long and difficult endeavors – it is definitely not a sign devoid of magic, faith, mysticism. We can reflect on the symbolism of the growing light in the darkest moment to understand that.

Capricorn magic engages the foundations of reality – we start with where we are at, we have our feet on the ground. To be oriented this way and still look upward is reminiscent of Capricorn’s animal – the goat – a creature that is skilled at climbing even nearly vertical mountains just by consistently finding footholds to grab onto.

A common cultural ritual around this time of year is to set a new years resolution: to come up with a vision with which to shape an entire year. This kind of longer range planning is also reminiscent of Capricorn, and engages Capricorn skillsets like discipline, time management, and the structural act of sculpting & changing our lives to concretely manifest a dream.

There are certain moments within the archetypal range of Capricorn where we do not sense the light at all – we are downward, inward, contemplative, and potentially “depressed”. There can be a deep connection to soul that we find in the moments that everything falls away: where we are not latching onto some plan or vision or idea to stay afloat, but rather we drift in a liminal space for a time, in the dark. Generally, this type of consciousness is not as culturally supported as the up and up, and can be pathologized or seen as a problem. It takes wisdom to discern whether it’s time to dust off our extended stay in a grief/depression space and open to joy again on purpose, or whether it’s important to rest in the descent and be inside of the down. Or… the complexity of holding it all.

This particular solstice happens with the Sun in Capricorn square Jupiter in Aries. Jupiter in Aries represents a process of discovering wisdom and having our reality expanded and/or wishes coming true because we are at a total frontier of our experience – we are initiating new adventures, or facing a novel challenge that is inviting forth more of our embodiment.

Originally when I sat with this square between Sun in Capricorn and Jupiter in Aries, I thought of a rising star or an entrepreneur being followed around by a documentary crew – the clash of unlimited aspiration & hunger for self-realization and an epic life with the fears and anxieties that it might not work out, the reality that nothing is guaranteed. In some sense, this clash is totally enlivening: when we have a dream or an endeavor where it feels like everything is on the line and we’re really jumping in, it’s gritty and glamorous at the same time.

Jupiter is also known as a remover of obstacles, and this process isn’t always like feeling the traffic clear or the road open just all casual. It includes say, the storm before the rainbow appears in the sky. Sometimes the path toward our own realization involves facing *what is in the way* and with Jupiter in Aries that can be a heroic confrontation.

It is possible to get lost in these initiations when we do not have the perspective that life is collaborating with us and reflecting us, even when we cannot always grasp the bigger picture. If our personal narrative and appraisal of a situation is depressing us, it may not be all there is! The square between Sun in Capricorn at solstice and Jupiter in Aries feels like a moment of the hero in a cave, in blackness, caught between the inertia of staying in a moment of all seeming lost versus having a glimmer or a spark of something new, something that drives the plot forward.

In a revelatory conversation I had with S.J. Anderson on Magic of the Spheres, S.J. shared that Jupiter experiences can be like turning to spirit/God when we fully recognize we are bound or stuck, and asking for divine support, like “I don’t know how to release this myself, so on my knees I turn to you – please unbind these knots.” I paraphrase. (Listen to the full conversation here, or find it where you listen to podcasts, episode 183 of Magic of the Spheres.)

See if you recognize this interplay of grimness and optimism in your own experience – the spaces where something feels final, done, depressing, ‘just the way it is’ and you don’t like it, and where your spirit is through this anguished contrast, actually sparking a new fire of possibility. It is not just about slapping on a compensatory belief or narrative to oppose the other story – but more about opening to possibilities, ones we are only just discovering, tasting, getting to know – possibilities still at the periphery of our sight and capacity to understand, calling us forth to a bigger life with vaster perspective.

Upcoming Events & Opportunities

I have a visualization event coming up to close out the year, as well as an upcoming Evolutionary Astrology course.

This is a ritual that will take place in our inner vision, to call back home to ourselves places we have strayed into fantasy of what could have, should have been.⁣

It is one thing to grieve – but it’s another to believe that life slipped us by.⁣

The moments or seasons that we’ve caught of profound fulfillment and resonance with our lives were birthed out of being present, being connected to the pulse of Eros. In these moments, our visions of perfection and paradise matched our material circumstances.⁣

We’ve taken the risk to open and to say yes to our desires in the past, and when we’ve watched them disintegrate before our eyes — it’s painful. There was something on the line we felt invested in, attached to, something we hoped for. And yet -⁣

As a point of energetic hygiene…⁣

As a point of reconnection with life…⁣

We will take the time to come back home to ourselves, to return stray and lost fantasies to the original energetic of desire, where they can be recycled into life’s next ecstasy. THE PULSE OF EROS in the now, the present alive Eros.⁣

This visualization event is for anyone who feels the call to bring more of their desire back online and to affirm that life is happening now.⁣

December 30 at 1 PM Pacific, live, with recording available to those who register⁣. $22⁣

Sign up here.

One time a few years ago I was going for a hike alone and I was feeling so sad about not being in love. As I was walking with this inner narrative, it started to feel kind of unbearable. I sat down in the middle of the path (no one was really around), leaning against a rock and took out my journal and wrote about myself in the third person. I zoomed out and wrote about being in this moment of life with the desire for love, moving toward an unknown event horizon, the fulfillment of that wish. I made it poetic and gave what felt like an unbearable moment a kind of drama that made it feel magical to me. It relaxed and uplifted me immediately, and unburdened I continued my hike in a different frame of mind.

I didn’t change the present moment exactly. I just captured it and gave it a moment of becoming art, instead of a monotonous inner dialogue haunting my hike. I honestly feel like every frame of time can be uplifted or enchanted with perspective – that there is both a reality and a perspective on the reality, and the latter is the domain of the storyteller. The quality however of the storytelling, alters the choose-your-own-adventure of the reality.

At a subtle level that day on the hike, I went from being someone who didn’t have, to being someone who was on an adventure in relationship with a desire.

These are some thoughts on Jupiter this morning, and how storytelling opens up pathways in reality – past present and future.

My Evolutionary Astrology Intensive is coming again this February, under a new name Dragon of the Moon: an Evolutionary Astrology Initiation – we learn how to tell, retell, re-imagine, discover, the narrative vision of our soul’s evolution from life to life.

Part of the narrative constraint & invitation is that we chose to be here (chose to incarnate) and that our life experiences facilitate our evolution. This invites us to more profoundly consider what life is teaching us through the drama and theater of our personal lives. We more profoundly engage the alchemical work of distilling our experience into wisdom and transforming burdens into treasure. We learn how to engage the raw material of our lives as creators and authors.

And because it’s worth mentioning, this isn’t to say that these are just stories we tell to soothe and comfort ourselves. Some perspectives vibrate a certain way in the body, open the world, offer vitality. We are always telling stories, no matter what we are choosing to believe. But not all stories are equally helpful, or vitalizing, or magical, or true.

But study of astrology allows one over time, to see the “as above so below” layer of reality, to see the way people and events mirror the planetary alignments and thus invite us into a mystery of resonance. Additionally, there is spaciousness to relate to these archetypal patterns, and those with the map have more access to vision and possibility.

In my astrology classes, I teach my students how to access this language so they can reflect on the stories of their lives more creatively and dynamically. We get to experience the magic of touching insights that electrify us, change our lives, have us seeing ourselves others and the world through a cosmic mirror. We learn how to read the language of the sky, which opens up heightened capacity for wisdom and synchronicity.

It’s not just a language that lets us discover who we are, once and for all. It’s a language that offers us spiral evolution of discovery of who we are, again and again and again. It’s a language that deepens its gifts over a lifetime.

Apply for Dragon of the Moon here.

Solstice Blessings,

Sabrina Monarch

(Top image: detail of The Nano Flower, by Jim Burns)