New Moon in Capricorn 2022 Update
New Moon in Capricorn, Mercury Retrograde, and 2023 highlights
We are just past the solstice and heading into the final lunation of 2022, a New Moon in tropical Capricorn. This occurs roughly a week before Mercury turns retrograde (Dec. 29 through Jan. 18). Mercury Retrograde is nothing to panic over, but keep your eye out for potential blindspots, technical glitches, and miscommunications. Be wary of impulsive decision-making, but don't fret too much about going after things you've already carefully thought through.
A Mercury retrograde in Capricorn is a time to make revisions to goals, ambitions, and strategies, perhaps altering our conception of where we're headed. This can be a time to renew clarity regarding our purpose or life mission. Mercury's retrograde station with Venus might pull this into the realm of relationships and how they interact with future plans and achievements. Look for incoming data and information that can alter our conception of all of this.
The following year, 2023, has some significant ingresses (planets changing signs) but is a bit more relaxed on the hard aspects between the outer planets. The more tension-filled Saturn/Uranus square is fading out, and we have only a Jupiter/Pluto square exacting in mid-May 2023. Of course, our individual experiences will vary (some may have more tense aspects in their charts), but generally, this year looks like a bit of a reprieve from the tumultuous energy that defined the past few years.
And with Jupiter now speeding through Aries, we can look forward to more support in blazing trails and otherwise getting plans or projects off the ground (especially those we might have put aside due to various constraints). Jupiter quickly passes through Aries this year, entering Taurus around May 16. Especially for those with placements in Aries, opportunities and new potential openings may be brief, so there will be a need to act more quickly and seize the moment when it arises.
Saturn leaves Aquarius for Pisces on March 7. Saturn entered Aquarius alongside Jupiter in late 2020. Its ingress into Pisces will, in some ways, "weaken" Saturn's dominance since it entered Capricorn back in 2017. With Saturn leaving its ruling signs, the heavy and sobering collective energies will significantly shift, giving us more space and freedom to focus on more vast potentials and possibilities. Though 2017-2022 could have been quite prodigiously productive and hyperfocused for many.
The shadow of Saturn, especially moving through its home signs the last five years (Capricorn and Aquarius, respectively), can be excessive conformity, groupthink, suffocating conservatism, a bleak view of the future, and an appetite for authoritarianism. Moving on into Pisces, Saturn encounters the zodiacal mystic, and thus there can be some strong associations here with applying effort and commitment to developing (or refining) our spiritual practices.
Consider also, that "spiritual practice" might not look like those typical codified forms (yoga, meditation, prayer, attending church), but rather can be an entirely unique and private thing. In fact, my sense of Saturn through Pisces is that it helps us further develop spiritual maturity, which can be very intimate and personal. Also, consider how Saturn might help us in making a vision, dream, fantasy, or inspiration tangible, real, and applicable, but that also implies some potential disillusionment with those that have no basis in reality.
Lastly, Pluto enters Aquarius for the first time on March 23 and will retrograde back into Capricorn on June 10. This brief Pluto into Aquarius transit will give us a taste of the upcoming two decades of collective and personal Pluto work. While I intend to flesh this out deeper in an article, I will simply say that Pluto in Aquarius will bring some difficult truths regarding groupthink/herd mentality dynamics within the culture and the shadow of hyper-novelty (as it pertains to science/technology). And, of course, there is the possibility to grow beyond the blindspots that Pluto reveals.
The tarot card for this New Moon/new lunar cycle is the Page/Princess of Cups. This card often speaks to the birth of something new or a new dynamic emerging within an existing relationship, career, or creative endeavor. This card also deals heavily with emotionality, imagination, and sentimentality. It is a card of dreams and an innocent, childlike ability to envision endless possibilities.
This might seem strange in relation to a Capricorn New Moon, but considering its square with expansive/optimistic Jupiter, and Capricorn's inward dimension, it makes more sense. While Capricorn and its ruler Saturn deal more heavy-handedly with the "real" world of tangibility, it is the archetypal impulse to manifest what we envision. To create anything in the physical world requires first a catalytic dream or vision. Allow yourself to dream a bit with this New Moon and invest your faith in some new potentiality and then carefully rework your strategy for attaining it in the following weeks.
I am finishing up a writing project at the moment and have thankfully finished my holiday preparations. There are a lot of life shifts happening for me right now, but it all feels positive and imbued with new potential. I am looking forward to what I intend to accomplish in 2023. I have some big articles planned as well, so stay tuned for that. I want to wish everyone a wonderful solstice, holiday season, and New Year. Thank you for your continued support of my work!