Capricorn: Use and Conservation

The archetype of Capricorn exists on a spectrum of use and conservation. It speaks to the governance of resource and intentional management of time, space, and goods. The archetypal opposites that depict the spectrum of Capricorn, the modern capitalist banker, willing to cultivate capital wealth based on a precarious and unsustainable value system at the expense of the environment and future generations on the one hand; and the purposeful indigenous ancestors who planted seeds generations ago, knowing they were creating sustainable wealth for the future based on time tested wisdom that honors the sacred land on the other. The legacy is what matters to ambitious Capricorn, and the lessons of this cool, boundaried, and powerful archetype are focused on whether it’s all worth in the end.

When there’s nothing left but your name, what will it mean?

Capricorn is the archetypal embodiment of economics. The root of the word economy leads us to the original meaning that signifies management of the home or clan. This is where the practical nature of Capricorn shines bright; a great deal of responsibility and pragmatism must go into maintaining the stability of the home, its structure and resources, over time. This means a strong understanding of what is valuable, what is “worth it” must be cultivated to make sustainable choices. It means understanding the needs of the collective and maintaining enough distance to make hard choices that are required of a leader. It means holding space for all of the emotional complexities of the home and supporting healthy boundaries that are the foundation of healthy relationships.

Capricorn is a cardinal sign that is oriented toward initiation of action and the competitive desire to achieve. It is also an Earth sign, making it materially and tangibly inspired and motivated. The Earth, moved by the cardinal modality initiates purpose and meaningful action toward efforts that will last. Capricorn creates structural integrity out of generational wisdom and ancestral tradition to forge a purposeful foundation stable enough to hold the future.

The constellation of the Sea Goat has a number of origins including the goat nymph that raised Zeus in hiding to protect him from his father. Amalthea, the goat nymph was rewarded for her service to Zeus’ Mother, Rhea by being put into the sky for eternity. Another Greek myth tells the story of Pan, Amalthea’s brother, half man and half goat who was turned into a fish so he might survive the waters and escape the rage of Typhon. Some myths go farther back to Babylonian times when the God Ea climbed out of the rivers he ruled in a cape of fish skin. No matter the story, there is a strong connection to Saturnalian as the ancient holiday of debauchery, gluttony, and sexual abandon fell during Capricorn season and celebrates the same God (Saturn) that rules the sign of the Sea Goat.

The ruling planet of Capricorn is Saturn which is the embodiment of time, structure, discipline, authority, boundaries, and maturity. Saturn reinforces the systematic techniques of the intentional steps used to create a lasting of Capricorn. The Saturn cycle marks our path to maturity and responsibility, taking a full 29 years to complete. Saturn is the slowest moving planet of all that can be seen by the naked eye and is also therefore the last planet that can be seen without technological support.

In our body, Capricorn rules the shins and all bones, our joints, skeletal system, and our teeth. The hardest parts of us that provide structure and perhaps remind us of the passage of time the with particular persistence.

Capricorn speaks from purpose.

The etymology of purpose describes the tension between action and intention that Capricorn must learn to articulate and embody. The urge to take action and the need to understand who, what, where, when, why, what for of it all, are at odds. As pro/por indicate the forward action of cardinality, the pauein/pausis/pausa/pausare/poser indicate the need to hold back, take pause, to place before losing track of the goal or target.

Knowing when to end calculations and take action is a lesson of Capricorn. Understanding which actions are worth taking and which costs cannot be avoided is a lesson of Capricorn. Coming to terms with ends justifying the means is a lesson of Capricorn. Balancing the urge to move into the future and hold on to valuable traditions of the past is a lesson of Capricorn.

Boundaries

The archetype of Capricorn teaches through boundaries. It can be challenging to calculate our boundaries and be discerning when it comes to how and when we spend our resources. Often we are taught lessons of boundaries by failing to hold them or by setting such impossible boundaries we must choose not to enforce them. We may learn what too much looks like by missing the indication we have gone too far by hitting our limit and facing harsh consequences. We may learn what not enough looks like my allowing ourselves to be overworked and exploited only to hit a wall of burnout too taxing to ignore. Whatever the context, we learn lessons of boundaries and limitations through the sign of Capricorn and its Ruler Saturn.

The planet Saturn is the symbol of boundaries and demonstrates as much through the structure of the planet with its rings of spinning rocks hurtling through space in an exceptionally organized format. As individuals we must learn to hold onto our own structure to protect us from being forced to conform to a shape that is inauthentic to our systems and values. Boundaries are the structure that support engagement; they are the foundation of any healthy relationship as they allow relating while upholding enough structure that all parties are able to maintain their own authenticity. By developing healthy boundaries, we conserve our own and other’s values and resources and we maintain sovereignty.

Remember:

Boundaries are the distance I can love you and me simultaneously.

We need not treat our boundaries like a series of brick walls that surround us to keep everything out. Instead, we can treat them more like a lovely home with fine doors and windows with secure latches, that is designed to invite folks in when the time and resources allow and keep out whatever or whomever depletes our resources.

Capricorn Keywords

Empowered: ambitious, paternal, pragmatic, developmental, structural, lessons of sustainability and legacy

Disempowered: elitist, high and mighty, unfeeling, singleminded, power-hungry, dissociated

A Case For Astrology As A Therapeutic Tool

The broadest and perhaps the most useful definition of trauma that I have ever come across is any challenge for which we are not prepared. 

In the mental health world, being well-resourced is considered a crucial factor when assessing trauma and what we refer to as “protective factors.” Someone with many protective factors at their disposal is considered well-resourced, making them less vulnerable to being unprepared for challenges and therefore less likely to experience trauma. That is not to say they will not experience events that many would consider traumatic, it is instead to clarify that with the right resources comes preparedness. Challenging events may remain challenging rather than morph into traumatic events when someone has the resources, the capacity, to approach the event as a challenge rather than something for which they are not prepared. 

So what do resources look like and how can we protect ourselves against trauma?

Resources are an equally broad term as the above, trauma. Resources are most commonly thought of as the tangible, material goods that sustain us; money, food, clothing, housing, fuel etc. Beyond those basic resources lie even more socially complicated access to services, proximity to privilege, and abstract resources like educational/academic access, the skills to calm a reactive nervous system, ecological privilege, physiological and mental health, and the all-important supportive and caring community. I cannot stress enough, the value and importance of a supportive community. When all resources are accessible and sound, someone impacted by a recognizably traumatic event, a devastating hurricane, for example, will be less likely to internalize the experience as traumatic. They are, strangely enough, prepared for this event in that they have a toolbox that is stocked with resources for their protection. They have access to housing or financial resources to keep a roof over their head, they have access to health and healthy coping mechanisms, and they have a caring community to process the tragedy with, all which serve as protective factors that prevent a challenge from becoming trauma. 

Here’s where astrology comes in. 

If protective factors and preparedness are the difference between a challenge and trauma, using the wisdom of the cycles of life and the orbit of the planets as another tool to help prepare us for unforeseen challenges has the potential to protect us against trauma. When using astrology to understand potential or current challenges we can gain an archetypal understanding of what is to come and what we are facing now. With the extremely macro perspective of the planets, asteroids, and their respective orbits, we can implement a protective factor that operates on several levels at once. For one, the orbit of planets offers the promise that as the Persian adage goes,

“this too shall pass.”

Through the naturally orbital quality of life on Earth, we can have faith in the fact that nothing is static, everything will change, and there is something much much greater than us that is operating in the same cyclical format that we experience in our everyday lives. As Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk writes in The Body Keeps Score,

“Awareness that all experience is transitory changes your perspective on yourself.”

While the cosmos promises change, it also can be something we have faith in, we can put our trust in it to just keep spinning, to move in a predictable way as demonstrated in an ephemeris, a record of 9,000 years of planetary positions. As I’ve written about before, faith or trust is a crucial pillar of our mental well-being. To be able to trust despite the seeming chaos of our realities helps to calm the reactivity of such an unpredictable experience. Astrological awareness also serves to highlight the connectedness and archetypal patterns of the cosmos. For me, this offers confidence and trust in a system that is so vast it is beyond my complete understanding; only available to my mind where the universe allows me insight.

 It feels important to note that, as Richard Tarnas says, astrology is archetypally predictive. While some astrologers may be able to give exact predictions that come true in distinctly accurate ways, I find astrology most useful in its ability to make archetypal predictions that speak to the qualities and archetypes of the relevant celestial bodies and how they may offer important life lessons to the individual and the collective. To clarify, I believe some astrologers are deeply intuitive, myself included (hello! grand trine and six planets in water), and are therefore able to offer a look at the future that astrology doesn’t necessarily predict. With clients, and in my own life, I do not make predictions. For one, I am prone to paranoia, and telling myself something bad will happen at the transit of certain planets does nothing but challenge my sense of well-being. For another, the self-fulfilling nature of a predictive dynamic impedes self-determination and one’s sense of empowerment which could not be less aligned with my intentions as a practitioner.

Living an intentional life, with awareness of the gravitational pull of the planets and how certain archetypes may appear in our life is one more tool that we can use as a protective factor. Though we may not be able to see the future outside of its archetypal qualities, that knowledge alone may offer a great deal of support and validation. For example, nearly everyone who makes it to age 44 will experience an archetypally similar urge to liberate, to upset the norms in their life, to try something they have never tried before, perhaps buy a flashy car or end an important relationship; this urge coincides with what astrologers call the Uranus opposition. This astrological signature, defined by the planet Uranus, that is associated with upsetting the status quo, (violent and nonviolent) revolutions, and technological advancement, is called a Uranus opposition. It occurs approximately at age 44 and marks the period when the planet Uranus is positioned opposite the natal placement of Uranus. In American culture, this period is often referred to as a mid-life crisis. With this knowledge, someone around the age of their Uranus opposition has the awareness to respond to the upset of this dynamic with intention and preparedness. The readiness is possible for other transits including a Saturn return; not only is it validating and affirming to know you are in an age marked by challenging lessons but one can even prepare for the archetypal character of these challenges by locating the position of Saturn and drawing on the wisdom of generations of ancestral observers. 

There are many generations of communities that have built on the wisdom of astrology. These communities have spent thousands of years creating a kind of observational and archetypal database of the correlation between human life and the position of the planets. By drawing on this wisdom, we can gain a sense of our place and purpose in the cosmos, cultivate a sort of trust in the cycles of life, bask in the poetry of the universe, and increase our awareness and preparedness for what life has to offer on individual and collective levels. Again, drawing on the wisdom shared in The Body Keeps Score,

“Seeing novel connections is the cardinal feature of creativity; [...] it’s also essential to healing.”

Astrology is nothing if not the perfect opportunity to see new connections, create a new and viable narrative, and thus offer healing through the creative integration of the self, using archetypes that have been maintained through millennia. Though we may not be able to predict the future, it seems we may not even want to, for fear of giving up any semblance of agency and free will. Instead, we can gain an archetypal understanding of the challenges and ease the universe has to offer and approach them with a preparedness that can protect us and offer us greater opportunities for an intentional and present life.

confidence

Building confidence is one of those things you can see a therapist for. There are techniques mental health researchers have studied carefully that are considered proven to build a sense of self-efficacy. In fact, the principles of social work require practitioners to uphold a belief in the client even when they themselves cannot see their own strength or capacity for change. A beloved phrase among mental health practitioners that was said to me at a crucial moment, just before my very first talk therapy session with a real live human,

“Borrow my confidence in you. If you can’t find the confidence, know that I have confidence in you, and let that be enough.”

I held on to that vote of confidence and over time I proved to myself that I had every reason to trust my abilities. And that’s what we do in therapy, gather data to help reflect strengths and self-efficacy rather than perpetuate a narrative of failure, incapacity, and limitation. 

Sticky Note Affirmation Exercise

1. Secure a fresh stack of sticky-notes (found these cuties)

2. Pick a mirror, maybe a private one for you and your meditation

3. Pick a regular time you’ll return to that mirror at

4. Each day, write one thing you love and appreciate about yourself on a sticky-note

5. Make eye contact with yourself and say what you wrote out loud

6. Stick the note on the mirror 

7. Repeat every day, as consistently as you’re able ‘til the stack is gone, more if it’s still supporting you 

Full disclosure, when my therapist had me do this exercise, I cried almost every morning for at least the first month. I cried because I felt ashamed I couldn’t think of anything. I cried because I thought it was f%#ed up I was so mean to myself. I cried because I knew there was something and how dare I waste a life hating myself!  I cried because I could think of a million things for virtually anyone else but somehow I couldn’t appreciate myself?! I cried because I knew so much of my challenge was a product of oppressive and hateful forces. I felt absurd until one day I could look myself in the eyes with gratitude and humbly remind myself of what unique magic I bring to the world, of how far I have come, and how far I am willing to go. 

I suspect this technique works best for people that are particularly validated by words of affirmation, which I am. It’s fairly simple, if words of affirmation work well for a you, then whether they’re kind or critical affirmations, they’re likely to stick. Intentionally replacing the critical and even hateful affirmations with self-appreciation requires us to create a new vocabulary and with eye contact, develop mirror neurons that sustain our memory, our understanding of self from that appreciative perspective. 

Trust + Purpose

Hungry and restless, just a month into the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself urgently seeking. I was seeking what it seems we all strive for, purpose and direction or more dogmatically speaking, faith. I looked to the traditions of my family and was drawn to honoring my Grandma Doris by journeying into the traditions of keeping a Jewish household. My Grandma, Doris, has always offered me guidance. She died at what I morbidly consider an ideal age in my life course, as my 6-year-old brain refused to let her go in any spiritual or philosophical sense. She has always been just over my shoulder, sometimes offering a soft touch, other times guiding me with a firm crab-like pinch that is surprisingly strong and pointed. She has never interfered but comes to me when I ask her for guidance, using her strength only when I ask without truly listening. 

It took less than six hour-long zoom calls with a Rabbi for me to experience the significant benefits of what it means to have faith. For years I have repeated my father’s words, “faith, is simply a gift I haven’t been granted.” But a look into Jewish traditions and how they are reflected in my own beliefs directly challenged that spell I had unintentionally cast by repeating my father’s words. Firstly, I don’t believe my father means this in any kind of absolutist way. He is a man who believes and has taught me to believe strongly in the unknowable magick of the cosmos, in the divinity that is nature. Second, what my father taught me to have faith in, is to me, the gift of faith itself, though it doesn’t quite fit the culturally Christian orientation of the English language. Thirdly, and most importantly for me, faith in the magic of the universe is perhaps the most foundational faith expressed in Judaism.

There is a requirement to recognize the value in absolutely everything in and of the universe in Judaism that rests on the idea that G-d is and creates everything. In a fundamental sense, reverence for G-d applies to everything and everyone, quite literally as it is all G-d.

I believe I was taught this subliminally through my father’s ancestral traditions, likely without him realizing the significance of this messaging in his life or his children’s. 

Despite the devastation of a global pandemic, increasingly abhorent social inequality, and environmental collapse, my faith and my sense of purpose have been growing. As I embrace myself within the belief that all things, all beings are owed the love and respect with which I regard the divine, I watched my mental health begin to improve, and with that came the desire to engage more deeply with my life in order to craft an existence that I consider a work of art. I began to care for myself not with routines that ‘I had to complete,’ marked by obligation, but with rituals that I cherish and look forward to practicing. Simply, I reminded myself to look forward to grooming myself, practicing yoga asanas, consuming intentionally, doing my morning pages (The Artist's Way, 1992), cooking; whatever the practice, I ritualize it to stay present with the gifts that are the ability to enact these rituals, the time, the knowledge, the work of the ancestors that brought me to this sacred moment I am in.

This practice gave me trust in myself.

It has also supported a sense of purpose giving me the confidence to invest in a master's program to study Social Work. I thought I chose Social Work because my Grandma Doris was a Social Worker but I believe the part of me that knew to do my research, to investigate the distinctions between the many mental health practices and degrees, saw that there is something bigger to why and how Social Work became my path. The field takes a highly practical (and hopefully accessible) approach to mental health by including the many facets of the individual human experience. For example, a social worker is called to recognize the interconnected nature of mental illness and homelessness as part of the wellness of a client experiencing both, rather than attempting to treat for one or the other. Later, through my studies, I would learn that the code of ethics at the foundation of Social Work played a powerful part in my decision as they seem informed by Jewish values, though potentially a subconscious reflection of Jewish values. This idea clicked into place for me when I studied Frances Perkins, appointed by FDR as the first female to a cabinet seat in the role of crafting social security policy in its nascent form. Since then, it seems Jewish people have continued to play a pivotal role in crafting and practicing in the field of Social Work.   

As it was with my undergraduate education in linguistics and photography, the connections were all so potent I couldn’t stop noticing them. That’s when astrology, a modality that has always fascinated me, was offered to me as the second field of study that would influence me in this phase of life. A mentor of my father’s introduced me to Debra Silverman, a giant in the astrology world and a former psychotherapist. As I dove into the wisdom of the cosmos and what astrology can offer the individual and the collective, I began to see the potential of astrology as a practice to support people’s sense of faith and purpose. Every interpretation I made for myself or reading I have offered has tapped into these two pillars. Meanwhile, many of the texts (here’s another) I read in my Social Work studies suggest purpose and faith or trust to be protective factors against depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges including addiction. The field of Social Work requires practitioners to abide by a code of ethics, one that preserves social justice and human dignity. The ethical compass of Social Work also reminds practitioners that no method of treatment that offers healing, *ideally* without harm, should be excluded particularly according to social, political, or spiritual bias. Over and over, astrology has presented itself to me as a tool that supports a sense of purpose and trust in self and/or the universe. The principles of Social Work seem to require the respect of the tradition of astrology despite it being culturally regarded as ‘the most woo of all things woo’ to quote Jessica Lanyadoo. At the end of the day, no matter how ‘woo’ one regards the modality, astrology can help people find a sense of trust or faith and purpose, and that is worth doing for the individual and collective sense of well-being. 

Everything does not Happens for a Reason

I will never accept that ‘everything happens for a reason,’ but as someone who believes in the power of faith, and someone who desires to assert my own sense of free will, I have chosen to believe that I can make meaning from anything.

That is not to say I can make sense of tragedy or justify the unjust, but in an effort to find peace, I can accept that I become stronger through the endurance of the catastrophe. 

As someone who has survived sexual assault, I can hardly imagine a way I could be convinced that what happened to me, what happens to more than a third of the women in the world, was reasonable or happened for a reason. Neither am I willing to attach to a victim identity. Instead, I have chosen to make meaning of my experiences. This practice of meaning-making is by no means my own innovation, in fact, I imagine it is as ancient a practice as the development of mythology. Just as myth is the creation of a story, the telling of a tale for the understanding and sense-making of an entire culture, so too is meaning-making, the process of creating a story from the fragmented, chaotic, and seemingly meaningless parts of our inner culture. 

Our own narratives are, more often than not, a reflection of the myths of our culture. 

The real challenge comes when we attempt to liberate ourselves from the toxic mythologies of our own cultures. The stories of blame and shame seem to punish us just for being born into a world full of dangerous and violent narratives.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, a book I cannot recommend highly enough, Viktor Frankl recounts the atrocities of surviving the Holocaust and explains the therapeutic technique he developed. He refrains from many of the narratives that depict the incredible violence of this genocide, instead focusing on the opportunities for meaning-making that he would develop into the therapeutic technique called logotherapy, the therapy of making meaning. As with all senseless violence, there is absolutely no justification or reasoning that can be used to address the Holocaust, instead, the author makes meaning of who he is and how he became who he was meant to be. Despite the irreconcilable losses and violence that Frankl endured, he was able to shift his perspective from one of victim of circumstance to one of purpose. His purpose? To survive. To endure the impossible, to go on to make meaningful written works, and to fulfill his sense of purpose as a therapist with a greater understanding of traumatic experiences than most. Not only did he live on to create meaningful therapeutic techniques and texts, but Frankl credits his ability to maintain a sense of meaning as the reason he was able to survive torture and enslavement in the Nazi internment camps. 

Frankl seems to have created an inner narrative that could sustain him even in the face of the murder of his wife, parents, and all of his family. Not only this, he maintained a sense of purpose and trust in his purpose whether he survived the internment camps or not. He continued to provide medical care and relief to his fellow prisoners even as he was tortured and fell terribly ill himself. In the face of senseless violence, he stayed connected to his own reasons for living, his own meaning of it all. Though there was no reason Viktor Frankl should have faced the devastation he endured, from his own sense of free will and belief, he created meaning and purpose, tools that helped him survive spiritually and literally.

In The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté, an infant when he and his mother fled Nazi-occupied Hungary, the renowned physician and author speaks to both the empowering and disempowering qualities of myth. He begins his book with a critique of the modern myth of productivism and the symptoms of ill health we have normalized in the name of work, propped up by certain concerning practices in modern medicine.

He demonstrates the power of myth and how significantly it impacts human behavior and therefore our culture and sense of health and well-being.

Finally, he calls on the power of myth to guide us to more sustainable and regenerative behavior. He points to how, generations ago, people took lessons of moral obligation from mythology, learning how to grow food sustainably and treat one another well from ancient mythological resources. Without regenerative cultural stories to guide us, what meaning do we make of our experience as over-worked and highly traumatized beings, paying handsomely to live in a culture that challenges our health at every turn?

While Nietzsche said “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” he couldn’t have meant that trauma itself makes for stronger stock. Instead, the overcoming of adversity, the growth in spite of violence, and pain is the fire where strength is forged.

No one should have to be so strong as to look assault or any trauma in the face with the determination to go on, yet so many of us are called to this strength training. We face it, hopefully with the support system that reminds us that nothing we have ever done deserves the trauma we have received. The kind of fortitude that we must find within us is our reward granted in the face of a punishing society full of false and toxic narratives.

Not everything happens for a reason and we certainly don’t deserve to be learning the lessons of what it means to live in this violent time. Since we’re here though, what meaning do you make of all the lessons you never should have been responsible for learning?