Saturn in Capricorn ♄ 2017-2020

Dec 19, 2017 – Mar 21, 2020

Saturn enters Capricorn, the sign he rules. I will talk about this at length in just a moment. First a recap of Saturn in Sagittarius, a transit which began in December 2014.

Saturn in Sagittarius was all about truth, morality, free thought and spiritual seeking. This transit was one massive reconciliation between the need to be rooted and supported, and the equally powerful need to be mobile and adventurous, to travel, to expand, to be free. Saturn in Sag helped us destroy cynical psychological complexes and live with more authenticity. We aligned with liberating spiritual philosophies. We evolved rapidly, yet within a structured and disciplined framework, as Saturn always demands be done. Saturn contracts, Sagittarius swells. They don’t understand one another on a fundamental level, and I think those of you who just had your Saturn Return know this better than anyone. Your spiritual DNA dictates that you expand and contract at the same time. You are gypsies stuck at home.

Saturn in Sagittarius also placed us in grueling circumstances where we had to discern with utmost prudence what was right and wrong. Sagittarius is an optimist and idealist, but he is also an escapist, a willfully blind man, who, rather than grope in the darkness he so adamantly denies, lives only in the light. He tells himself whatever he needs to uphold illusion and gleefully ignores that which rankles. No matter, we still had to face and define spiritual blocks. Our blocks and beliefs were heated to scorching. My personal relationship to this transit was an intense questioning of my own pursuit of yoga and what it means to be a yogi in the Western world. How to take this wisdom and become it, live it, be it?

Now Saturn in Capricorn. Saturn rules Capricorn, so he is “at home” here. We’ve been waiting 27 years to see Saturn at home again. I’ve done a lot of charts recently for people who were born with Saturn in Capricorn, people who are about to have their first Saturn Return. These people, but really all of us, are about to experience Saturn at his most quintessential, moving through his very own constellation – his stomping grounds, his castle, his domain.

Saturn/Capricorn is associated with work, finance, institutions, religion: all that forms the foundation of society. Saturn in Capricorn is a blueprint; a clock; a bank. He is regulated, officious, detailed, oriented towards reality and what is. Those born with Saturn in Capricorn are often similarly oriented. Collectively, as a generation, these types are more concerned with status and profession, especially when Saturn is strong within an individual’s personal chart.

Saturn in Capricorn exerts constant pressure, goading us to perform better, harder. He expects perfection from his students. Those born with Saturn in Capricorn are often highly self-critical. Earthlings, prepare to witness this cold, earthen energy welling up from deep within Gaia’s core. It is steely, prickly, frigid. Saturn in Capricorn is barbed, then soft; difficult, then endlessly forgiving; back-breaking, then sound asleep.

Saturn is the architect of the solar system. Saturn in Capricorn builds and creates and uses. The mantra for Capricorn is: I use. This verb has very negative connotations in our materialistic world. Think instead of usefulness, practicality, applicability. How can I take what I have and use it for the greatest good? How can I be more resourceful? How can I learn to appreciate what I already have without seeking more resources elsewhere? And yes, there are profound spiritual elements interspersed in all this cold, hard language.

Capricorn comes from Lord Enki, the Sumerian god who was half goat, half fish. It is easy to focus strictly on the goat side of Capricorn, the stoic mountain climber with no patience for frilly subjects. We do Capricorn a grave injustice by forgetting his gorgeous fish tail, bobbing in the tide. His tail is his greatest love and enemy. Yes Capricorn resents that tail, wishes it would go away, but the truth is that he is an artist and creature of great feeling beneath his bristles. Capricorn represents the ancient conflict between head and heart. He is at once rational and irrational, extremely critical and exceptionally lenient. He works relentlessly, then sleeps for days. He moves and organizes with impressive speed, then lounges in catatonic stillness. He focuses his energy on what is useful and practical, then loses himself in whirlwinds of emotion, namely regret and guilt.

I feel that one of the major lessons of this transit lies in acknowledging that scaly tail. This is particularly true for those of you who have your Saturn Return now, but it is also true for me and everyone else. The divine masculine is not a singular violent force. Within the realm of man, there is woman: cosmic duality. No person is immune to water, to spirit, to love and feeling. Even Capricorn’s goaty heart, so routinely suffocated by his own ideas of how it should be, even he is pulled again and again into the deliciousness of the illogical ocean self.

These next three years will teach us how to stay in one place and do the good work, the hard work, the physical work. We will learn the value of stability and security in all senses. We will learn how to take care of our own material and financial needs. We will learn to see structure, discipline and self-control as necessary tools in the evolution of humankind. Prepare for some wonderful mentors to enter your life.

Good luck with your Saturn Return, goat people! Celebrate this transit with Capricorn Yoga. To find your Saturn sign, click here.

Mantra: I am in control

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