Remember “back in the day” when TV sitcoms usually portrayed mothers as “stay-at-home moms” and fathers were usually the “breadwinners” of the family, the kids would be acting up (or acting out), and eventually their mother would say, “You just wait until your father gets home?”
Think about that when you think about the energy of Saturn in Capricorn.
Saturn is the Zodiac’s great father-figure. It is an authoritative and often disciplinary presence. It’s the one who sets the objectives, makes the rules, and exercises the discipline. It’s the one who puts institutions and structures into place and keeps them there, especially in matters of profession and/or public duty. Saturn encourages us to be and remain focused on our goals and ambitions, keeping our eyes on the prize. It doesn’t allow for distractions or drama, and it does not suffer fools lightly.
Capricorn is Saturn’s home sign. This means that Saturn will be stronger than usual throughout the next 2.5-3 years. In fact, it will be rather unforgiving. This unforgiveness will be on full display in the institutions and societal structures which seek to (re?)establish and maintain “law and order”. Yet things won’t go as smoothly as planned. The institutions and societal structures which have been and/or are being put into place will indeed be challenged by those who refuse to play by their “rules”.
Many people are happy that Saturn is leaving Sagittarius, often missing the fact that Saturn was holding us accountable and responsible for aligning with our authentic selves. It pushed us to remain focused on who we really are and what we truly felt called to do in and with our lives.
Yet what many don’t realize is that with Saturn moving into its home sign of Capricorn at 8:47p PST on Tuesday 19th December 2017, we are now about to be pushed to set goals in alignment with our newly-established authentic selves, and we will be held accountable and responsible for producing or achieving results in alignment with our goals. Saturn in Capricorn pushes us to have something to show for ourselves and our lives – it pushes us to achieve something by which society can determine us to be successful or not.
This will be great for those of us who are well-conditioned in the mindset we have been living with for the last couple centuries, and especially the last 150 years. In the industrial-age societal structure, we’ve been conditioned to pick a career or public role and stick with that role for most or all of our adult lives, allowing that industry if not that role to define who we are in the world. Our careers have defined us socially and societally, and many of us when asked “what do you do” have often deferred to our public or professional roles as our answer(s). Many of us, especially those of us in the older generations (mostly age 60+), still believe this is how the world works… or believe it’s how the world should still be working. These are the people who long for the past to return to the present in one or more significant ways.
Yet for those of us who are not conditioned in that mindset (mostly ages 60 and younger, and especially ages 48 and younger), we find ourselves born into or having reconditioned ourselves to societal institutions and structures which are in the midst of a major transformation, which is the other interesting thing about Capricorn right now. Those societal institutions and structures are going through a transformation due to Pluto, which has been in Capricorn since 2008, and will remain in the sign until making its second and final exit in 2024… that is, until it comes around again in approximately 248 years.
Saturn and Pluto will make exact conjunction on 12th January 2020 at 22° Capricorn (which will actually be a massive 22-23° Capricorn stellium as these two bodies will also be conjunct the Capricorn 5 Sun, Ceres, and Mercury as well – save the date!), which is certain to be a massively profound moment in time. Until then, we will be dealing with Pluto doing its best to tear up the institutional landscape and redefine societal standards and measures for success. Saturn will be coming through behind it in an earnest effort to restore discipline, order, and maintain the old standards as best it can until their merge in 2020.
The challenge is… once they merge on that momentous day, Saturn will pass Pluto. This indicates that all of the effort Saturn makes to build up its institutional power and control from that point forward will be subjected to Pluto’s motives – a message that as much as ‘Daddy Saturn’ may try to keep its hold of “tradition” in place, Pluto’s transformative power may end up being too much for Saturn to rein in. ‘Daddy’ may be home, but times have changed, and the way things used to be is no longer the way they are going to be moving forward.
Saturn will move on to Aquarius in late 2020, doing its best to focus and bring order to the rebels who are ushering in societal innovation and progress, leaving Pluto to continue the likely destruction of the old and strengthen the powerful emergence of the new for another 3.5 years.
So, how will this all play out in “real life”?
Well, many of those who are currently the positions of power – in all areas and aspects of our lives – will play the card of “rules are rules” acting in the belief that everyone should play by their rules. They’ll use words like “tradition” and “honor” and “respect” in regard to long-held societal institutions, and make statements along the lines of “that’s just the way the world works”. They will do everything they can to hold onto the world as they’ve known it or as they believe it should be… and that, in most cases, is their ONLY objective. Not all, but many of these people will have little to no vision for the future, or little to no awareness of what the effects of their stubborn authority may bring or cause. They don’t care about the future – they only care about the present, and if they are older than age 60, most of them will care more about maintaining their present experience or maybe even restoring the past.
Those who oppose them will play the rebel card – “to heck with your rules” they will scream. In the present and for the short-term, these people will fully embrace and utilize the energies of quite a few feisty planets over the next few weeks and months, most notably the last few months of Uranus in Aries (now until May 2018, then again November 2018-March 2019). Over the long haul, as people begin to realize that their ability to be uniquely and fully self-expressed is being challenged and may even be at risk of elimination, they will not take this “authority” lightly. In fact, they won’t take this authority at all.
Unlike those trying to preserve the ‘old ways’, those advocating for the ‘new ways’ will have a different focus – a determination to preserve their freedom to contribute to their communities and to humanity as they desire or see fit. They will seek out communities to join in order to further their agendas… but even as many of those groups become questionable in regard to the earnestness of their agendas and motives, individuals may very well choose to go rogue and take action(s) on their own to confront and contest those in positions of power and influence.
The rogues are the ones the ‘institutional advocates’ will want to, yet likely be unable to watch out for. It will be relatively easy for them to target the communities which won’t comply with their rules – any groups which seem to distract from their institutional objectives will be challenged if not dismantled or outright eliminated. The institutional advocates and authorities will do their best to persecute the members of those groups who violate their “laws” and disrupt their agenda of “order”. But they will not be able to control or contain individual rebels. In fact, they’ll have nothing on the solo actors who don’t need to belong to a formally-organized community to do their community work or to fulfill their community roles.
In other words, just because Saturn in Capricorn will try to put and keep us in boxes to control people doesn’t mean those boxes won’t inspire people to generate more resistance to their confinement. In fact, they may very well generate more resistance than the institutionalists could ever imagine.
This isn’t going to be what you think.
This isn’t going to be what ANY of us think.
Though they’ll be getting signs of it over the next 3.5 years, it won’t be until Saturn enters Aquarius for the first time in mid-2020 that the ‘institution advocates’ will get a first-hand taste of what they’ve created. And once Saturn steps into Aquarius for good in December 2020, that will likely be the moment when the rogues will begin to organize and come together as a force to be reckoned with – a collective voice of innovative change that is – for many people – long overdue.
Saturn in Capricorn’s presence makes itself know from the get-go, already within 1° of the Sun as the Sun makes its ingress from Sagittarius to Capricorn on 21st December. In fact, it’s only 4.5 hours after that ingress that the Capricorn 4 Sun and Saturn make an exact conjunction, bringing light to just how much the power the institution is wielding, and just how restricted and controlled people are about to become. There will be no choice but to focus your energy on who you want to be in the world and how you are going to align your goals with the institutional changes which are occurring. Though Saturn in Capricorn will stabilize things a great deal, that stability is likely to feel more like suppression or oppression, challenging you to find ways to reach your goals despite the conditions and circumstances.
The good news? We will all be called to set goals and get things done. In fact, the Capricorn New Moon on Tuesday 16th January will be the perfect time to set your goals into motion. (If you’re a vision board person, this is the date to set your intentions through board creation. If you’ve already created your board before then, you may want to take your first action toward manifesting your goal(s) on the 16th.)
This next 2.5 to 3 years is going to be quite a ride. Remember to set your goals and keep your eyes on the prize, and you will be able to get through this AND you’ll be able to meet the challenges of whatever else may come your way in the future to produce and achieve results.
Daddy Saturn will indeed be proud.
Thank you for reading and sharing Signs and Numbers. Until next post…
~ Light, Love, and Blessings,
Grace
