During this week, Luna (the moon) makes her slow journey through the sign of Capricorn, conjoining old task-master Saturn and underworld transformer Pluto. Already, we’re in heavy territory: at first glance, this seems the week to cut through illusions and ground ourselves in practicality. There’s an uncompromising weight of reality, solidity, and with Mercury turning retrograde in Pisces next to the fixed star of the Hydrus, all of our visions seem suspect, drunk, paranoid. There’s a tug toward doing what gives us that secure, feet-on-the-ground feeling, and at the same time, a subjective sense that we’re bereft of material resources, needing to take simple and slow steps into a stark nighttime of our three-dimensional world.
Several planets this week loiter in Capricorn, the sign of foundation, structure, clarified ambition, with a dash of the capricious goat and a pinch of occasional melancholia: Luna, her south node, Saturn, Pluto and Jupiter. Ah, Jupiter, the great fortune, the partying philosopher who mirrors our optimistic wisdom back to us…right? Actually, this time, with Jupiter, there’s a twist: in traditional astrologies, Luna and Jupiter are both said to lack robust resources in Capricorn, and since these celestial bodies reveal different aspects of our growth through the cycles of worldly life, in the mid-week we’re likely to feel an ‘abundance of emptiness’ that prompts us to live simply and manage time concretely. There’s a desire to mind the ground but also glimpse the mountain of aspiration in its full form and scope—if there are no peaks to ascend, no paths to groom for the next seven generations to walk, if there’s only a void in this dark nighttime of reality, then we grow depressed indeed.
Our Nocturnal Double
It’s necessary, then, to cultivate nighttime vision, shape-shifting into nocturnal, animal nature, so that we might see the mountain with perhaps more crispness, sharpness and cunning than we would in daytime vision. If we can smile at the void as Luna transits Capricorn, waving hello to the task-master, child-eater and lord of the underworld, as black cats and goats know to sniff further past the void onto the path’s whispers of twilight, then we’ll be laying just the ground needed for ourselves to dive into Pisces season. It’s not advisable to insist on “more, more, more,” demanding that results come to fruition, because later in the week when pioneer Mars trines wild-card Uranus, state-of-the-art swords, clubs and staffs will arrive at your feet to aid you in the mountain-climbing, and to insist on their delivery prematurely would be like encumbering yourself with feeble armor and glass trinkets that would at best be heavy to carry and at worst would break, causing you to spill your own blood.
Visitors Inhabiting The Space
Developing our night-vision will show us that far from the suspicion that this week contains no fruitful visions, we’re really in the business of laying down a flexible methodology to ground our imaginations’ inspired images so that they can express themselves properly. On February 19, we’ll see Sol (the sun) move into Pisces, and the psychic visitors will come into our home demanding we creatively address them whether we like it or not. The rock-bottom sitting-on-the-earth feeling of early in the week cleans house ensuring the habitability of our living space: can these moods, flights of fancy, feeling and inspiration demanding attention live in here? Is this body’s connective tissues open to the medicines and potions working, to the sicknesses clearing it out? It’s necessary to empty out and gaze into the night, eyes twinkling, before the glimpse of the winding path up the mountain refills our hungry eyes.
In an old Navajo story, the night creatures were unhappy with the pitch darkness of the night, and called out to the Great Spirit wanting more light. “We only have the moon: we want more light in the sky!” The Great Spirit told them to gather pebbles form the river and draw self-portraits in the sky using the stones. Coyote overslept and missed the meeting, so Raven told him to quickly go to the water and gather his rocks. He was determined to make his portrait the best, but as he ran up the mountain with his pebbles, the other night creatures were already hard at work. In his exuberance toward drawing his self-portrait, he tripped, fell, and splattered his pebbles all over everyone else’s pictures. All the other animals were furious with him for lifetimes, but the myth suggests that Coyote’s trip is the reason we have stars in the sky now: he scattered the pebbles, and that’s what was required to make stars.
But unlike other seasons might express, this week it’s not Coyote’s action alone that makes the stars: the others’ careful rock sketches, the raven’s urgent message, the complaint of no light in the dark—Coyote was the unexpected wild card, but all the others laid the ground and paved the way up the mountain so he would jump. So mind your pebbles, roam in the darkness, work deliberately, heed the messages of the ravens—and prepare for the unexpected. It might light up your world, it might be too hot and messy at first, but you will have done your part.
“You trace a line from point Z to point A and then you forget where you were going but that’s ok because you discover the meaning of what you were searching for between the starting point and the finishing one. People reveal their secrets between breaths, between sunset and sunrise, when dragons move from heart to mouth. It’s refreshing to be given all the answers without asking for them; you simply know without your head. There is a cool dark forest at the base of a mountain with an ancient fountain of memories where the water tastes like earth and courage. You drink from this place before you ascend higher and higher, crossing a golden net made of your own ambitions and fears.“- Elodie St-Onge Aubut, 9th House Astrology, 9thhouseastrology.wordpress.com
image from Trickster: Native American Tales, A Graphic Collection, Matt Dembicki and Jack Lenzo”
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