Brave New World: Capricorn Season Forecast and the Age of Aquarius
By: That Astrologer, Fairlie Theta
Tags: Spirituality, Great Conjunction, Occult, Astrology, Horoscopes

Whether or not astrology is typically on your radar, you’ve probably heard some buzz about this season’s transits. Even completely mundane news outlets have reported on the Great Conjunction, though most keep articles brief, dropping only hints of tantalizing history and references to mystic cannon. The Great Conjunction is the most anticipated event of the year, even after a global pandemic and a major national election — but in order to best understand its meaning and impact, we need to examine it in both historical and contemporary context.

The Great Conjunction is the name used for a conjunction between Jupiter, the Greater Benefic, and Saturn, the Greater Malefic. As the two largest and farthest bodies in traditional astrology, the Great Conjunction was an ominous event tied to the rise and fall of dynasties, the birth and death of kings, and massive changes for entire nations of people. The Great Conjunction became a sort of royal eclipse, a continuation of the mythological battle between two Kings of the Gods that would reflect upon the lives of their earthly counterparts. Depending upon the element and sign in which it took place this meant massive shifts in wealth and power. For the last 200 years, most of these conjunctions took place in earth signs and many in Capricorn, speaking directly to the health, wealth, and stability of our modern kings — a few quick calculations show that a strange number of presidents elected around these transits died in office or barely escaped assassination attempts. But the Great Conjunction of 2020 is particularly significant because it kicks off a new cycle: we’re entering a New Frontier of Air.

This has been a larger theme throughout the year. Over the course of 2020 we’ve seen shifts in the eclipse axis, an end to Mercury’s watery retrograde cycle, and now, we see the ingress of Jupiter and Saturn into Aquarius, the sign of Fixed Air. This comes on December 21st — the Solstice — and the same day that the Sun moves into Capricorn, just hours after Mercury arrives to sweep up the debris left behind by unwelcome guests. It’s the longest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere, and while the Sun may attempt to turn on the house lights, we’re only left with more questions: with the Moon in illusory Pisces, there’s no immediate gratification to this well-hyped transit. We’ll have to wait some time before we see exactly what the Great Conjunction heralds in.

This seems to be our order for the season: good things come to those who wait and patience is a virtue, but with fleet-footed Mercury central to so many of this month’s transits, it’s easy to get ahead of ourselves. We’ve stuck to the script and played by the rules, so why aren’t we in a better position? We’ve lived by the book and fallen in line, and we’re finally fed up. As Mercury puts the pressure on Chiron, his wounds still rubbed raw in Aries, Mars squares off one last time with Shadow King Pluto on the 23rd, a reminder to the Powers That Be that we will not content ourselves with silence. Change must come even if we need to make it ourselves, a mantra echoed throughout the season by Radical Uranus in alignment with Wild Mother Lilith.

Full Moons are an opposition of energies, an opportunity to see where we may be out of alignment with our highest potential or the universe around us, but during the Full Moon in Cancer on the 30th, both the Sun and Moon chant in harmony with Uranus and Lilith. Change may be coming, but it begins within. If we can turn our attention inwards and focus on our own fears and vices, we may begin to see exactly where our own darkness becomes the collective’s. As we move into the New Year, Mercury sneaks up on Pluto and we begin to put a name to the shadow.

Mars moves into Taurus on January 6th after its own six month stay-at-home order, finally slowing tempers and cooling aggressions. This doesn’t mean a sudden wave of contentment, however: there’s work to be done, and Mars has simply changed tactics. Two days later, Mercury flies into Aquarius and Venus moves into Capricorn, reminding us that simply using new words does not mean we’ve altered the structure. The System by any other name remains unchanged — and much like Shakespeare’s famous dialogue, the solution may lie in calling out to love. Mercury quickly joins Saturn and Jupiter in embracing Chiron, introducing new ways of healing the wounds we’ve incurred over the last few years.

Healing is a holistic process, requiring mind, body, and soul to be on the same page: on January 13th, the New Moon in Capricorn delivers us to exactly this place. Both the Sun and Moon join Pluto while Venus trines Uranus and Mars squares Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn, all emphasizing that we have two choices: we can continue to hold our grudges, to rail against those we perceive as enemies and pour our energy into half-baked missions of revenge, or we can make peace with the shadows and forgive our captors and in the process, ourselves. The sooner we make this choice, the sooner we turn our attention to the path ahead — we still have a ways to go, but each step forward brings us closer to the light. As the Sun wraps up its survey of Capricorn and readies itself to join the Goodly Creatures of Aquarius, Jupiter has one last reminder for us as it sets its sights on Strange and Unusual Uranus: this is a brave new world, indeed, but we are still just people in it.