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| CAPRICORN THE GOAT |
Preface: As I do every month for each of the signs, I want to emphasize that if your birthday does not fall during the Capricorn timeframe for the year you were born, this DOES NOT mean that you do not experience the energy of Capricorn, because somewhere in your natal birth chart, it is present. All twelve signs of the zodiac are expressed in your being, although some signs, and therefore their corresponding energies, may be more emphasized than others. The Sun sign is about your essence, your vitality (what makes you feel alive), and your self-image. Whatever your Sun sign, you are on a life-long journey to discover and fully embrace this sign’s energy. You may be tested in life to experience the meaning of your Sun sign’s energy.
The Sun began its transit of the sign of Capricorn at 12:30 am EST on December 22, 2011.
INTRODUCTION
When I think of the zodiac sign of Capricorn, I inevitably start hearing the Donna Summer tune, “She Works Hard for the Money.” Being of worth to society is important to those born under the sign of the goat. They are willing to work hard to accomplish their goals, and they exhibit the patience required to persist with a process that includes defeat as well as success. The Capricorn hotel magnate, Conrad Hilton, once said, “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.”[i] Successful Capricorn actress and businesswoman Mary Tyler Moore offered this advice: “Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”[ii]
Sometimes descriptions of the sign of Capricorn can seem rather grim. However, some may simplistically equate restraint and seriousness with an austere personality. Every Capricorn is unique in terms of sign combinations in their chart. I do observe that individuals with significant Capricorn energy may be sociable, but they often express reserve and maturity. Think about the personas of prominent Capricorns like First Lady Michelle Obama, singer/songwriter Joan Baez, TV journalist and program host Meredith Vierra, and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Do you agree or disagree that they may be friendly, but they also show a contained and responsible Capricorn air?
CAPRICORN SYMBOLISM AND SIGN RULERSHIPS
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| Glyph of Capricorn |
The glyph of Capricorn, shown above, resembles the angularity of a goat’s horn at the top and a curving tail at the bottom. The sign is represented by the mountain goat (as shown in the medieval painting preceding the article) or the sea goat. Astrologer Deborah Houlding explains that the sea goat symbolism may represent the “cross of matter,” where the psyche (equated with the impressionable ocean) is forced to meet the challenges of the material world (as in the earthy, concrete mountains) in a quest for individualization.[1] Astrologer Caroline Casey distinguishes between the domesticated goat and the wild goat, proposing that these two states of being reflect a dual nature in the Capricorn personality. The domesticated goat reflects the side of Capricorn that assumes a preordained role established by an external authority, resulting in living a life in accordance with duty. This type of Capricorn may feel responsible and law-abiding, but may feel a deep gloom. On the other hand, the wild goat lives in an environment of freedom, and it establishes its own path, leading to a more joyful existence.[2]
The name Capricorn, or Capricornus, derives from the Latin, with “caper” meaning goat, and “cornu” signifying horns. Horns are an ancient symbol of fertility, abundance, and prosperity. In ancient mythology, the goat Cornucopia nourished Jupiter as an infant. In ancient rituals, horned animals were sacrificed to draw power from the gods, leading later societies to misinterpret these “scapegoats” as representations of evil. In the Tarot deck, Capricorn is often associated with the horned Devil card. Astrologer Bruce Nevin says that the Devil is often referred to as the “Father of Lies,” meaning the lie of separateness. He says that the Capricornian lack of fulfillment in the pursuit of earthly manifestations and concentrated power can only be addressed when those born under this sign understand earthly limitations and overcome the illusion of separation and isolation.[3]
Capricorn is ruled by the planet Saturn, which represents the principle of contraction, the opposite of Jupiter, which symbolizes expansion. Saturn is the taskmaster, from whom we learn lessons after committing ourselves to a process or path. Saturn places boundaries on our activities and thinking, and represents the concept of time, thus the planet is often synonymous with “Father Time.” The terms commitment, effort, discipline, mastery, and authority are all key words associated with Capricorn.
Capricorn is a cardinal earth sign. As such, Capricorn represents the initiatory energy of a new season, emerging at the winter solstice. As an earth sign, Capricorn is concerned with manifestation, and with the creation and maintenance of structures.
Capricorn rules the 10th House of the zodiac, at the top of the astrological chart. The tenth house involves social participation. This house oversees activities such as one’s career, public standing, political power, and one’s relationships with authorities (including those within the family, such as the mother or the father).
THE TRANSITION FROM SAGITTARIUS TO CAPRICORN
Sagittarius completes the public relations and sales activities of the harvest season. Now winter emerges, and Capricorn maintains the harvest’s stockpile to be consumed during the severe season of winter. While autumn displayed the horn of plenty, winter requires conservation. The most difficult weather is yet to come, but the light of day will gradually increase as the season proceeds. Whereas Sagittarian energy is externalized, Capricorn energy withdraws inward, consistent with the season’s energy.
Sagittarius utilized its exuberant energy to set lofty goals and explore diverse experiences. Capricorn now chooses those elevated sights that are most likely to bear fruit. Capricorn says, “We’ve done enough exploring–it’s time now to establish some solid structures and activities that will move us forward.” Capricorn energy is responsible for the building of cities and their infrastructures.
THE PURPOSE OF CAPRICORN
Astrologer Steven Forrest (a Sun Sign Capricorn) posits that Capricorn's purpose is to fuse the essential character with a suitable public identity to best serve society, whether that be through a job, volunteer work, or civic service. This societal role must match the Capricorn individual’s value system and interests. Forrest says that Capricorn utilizes patience and self-discipline in this arduous process of finding one's proper place in the community. Furthermore, this author contends that solitude is a strategy utilized by Capricorn to learn how to be content with his or her thoughts and projects so as not to rely on the praise and approval of others. In this way, observes Forrest, solitude transforms a burden into an opportunity. He says that Capricorn's practicality keeps it focused on its intention, allowing sign natives overcome feelings of fear, frustration, and resistance. Capricorn's iron will is among its greatest resources. [4]
When Capricorn fails to find, or loses sight of, his or her true nature and goals, sign natives can become isolated and alone. They may turn to false pursuits, pursuing success for the sake of success, acquiring money as a sign of success, or hoarding tangible items as a validation of self-worth. Hence, as this sign's symbol suggests, the Goat must find the right mountain to climb, so that it is not duty-bound, but instead is free to climb heights in alignment with its nature.
SNAPSHOT PROFILES OF SUN SIGN CAPRICORNS
J. Edgar Hoover
Born January 1, 1895
The subject of a contemporary movie (J. Edgar) in 2011, J. Edgar Hoover served as FBI Director for over four decades (1924-1972). He was born and raised in Washington, D.C. While working as a clerk at the Library of Congress, Hoover attended night classes at George Washington University. He passed the District of Columbia bar examination, and with the assistance of his uncle, a judge, he landed a job with the Department of Justice. After two years, he moved into an Assistant position to then Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Appointed to the position of Director of the newly created Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1924, Hoover modernized operations with technological innovations, expanded personnel training, and successfully obtained increased Congressional funding.
Known for his rabid anti-Communist views, J. Edgar Hoover focused his criminal pursuits on activists of the political Left, labor leaders, and those in the civil rights movement, demonstrating a particular obsession with Martin Luther King. He utilized controversial tactics, such as evidence planting, illegal wiretaps, infiltration, false innuendos, and burglaries.[5]
Frustrated by legal barriers that denied him the authority to prosecute and deport individuals for their political views, Hoover created a secret program named the Counter Intelligence Program (or COINTELPRO) that operated unexposed until 1971. The program utilized covert, and often illegal, tactics to discredit and dismantle the work of various political and social movements, like the Black Panthers, anti-war groups, and the Socialist Workers Party. J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972, the year after COINTELPRO became public knowledge.[6]
In my mind, J. Edgar Hoover represents the difficult side of Capricorn energy. For many years he reigned as a tyrannical authority figure, feared by others in power, primarily because they knew that he collected information that could damage their careers. Hoover personifies a Capricorn whose behavior becomes “weird” because he has become too insular, terminology used in Caroline Casey’s observations. Hoover exhibits the Saturnian tendency toward insecurity and corresponding overcompensation with overwork. As Casey theorizes, these outwardly successful people are often surrounded by “yes men” who are unable to offer this personality type the feedback necessary to curb their unhealthy idiosyncrasies.[7]
Richard M. Nixon
Born January 9, 1913
The 37th President of the United States, and the first commander in chief to resign, Richard Milhous Nixon hailed from the town of Yorba Linda, California. He faced difficulties in his early life, saying, “We were poor, but the glory of it was we didn’t know it.” The family experienced the tragedy of losing two sons. First, Richard Nixon’s younger brother died after a short illness, and later his older brother died of tuberculosis. Limited economically with respect to a choice of schools, Nixon completed his studies at a local institution, Whittier College. He earned a scholarship to attend Duke University’s law school. Following graduation, Nixon moved his family to Washington, D.C., and later joined the military during World War II. When he returned as a civilian to Whittier, California, a group of Republicans approached him to run for Congress. Utilizing his fervent anti-Communist views and redbaiting techniques, Nixon won a Congressional seat against a Congressional veteran. Employing the same tactics four years later, he won a California U.S. Senate seat against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, who had stood up against the era’s Red Scare campaigns. Nixon won this Senate seat in 1950. One California newspaper referred to Nixon as “Tricky Dick,” and the less than flattering nickname stuck with him the rest of his political life.[8]
Nixon drew the attention of Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for President. Seen as an asset to winning voters in the West, Eisenhower selected Nixon as his running mate in the 1952 run for the White House. The Republican team ran a successful race. With the end of Eisenhower’s last term, Vice President Nixon declared himself a candidate for President in 1960. He was defeated in the race by the charismatic Senator John Kennedy. Nixon returned to California, resuming a private family life for a short while before declaring himself a candidate in the California gubernatorial race in 1962. He faced a popular incumbent, Governor Pat Brown. Nixon lost this race by a wide margin. Many political observers declared Nixon’s political career over.[9]
Richard Nixon took an eight-year sojourn from the public eye, moving his family to New York where he practiced law. Meanwhile, he continued to cultivate relationships with influential Republicans, and in 1968, he declared himself once more a candidate for the highest office in the land. After a tumultuous year of anti-war demonstrations and violence, Richard Nixon won the presidency. He was re-elected to office four years later in a landslide victory, with an impending scandal that would remove him from office. As part of his re-election effort, Nixon’s White House aides had engaged in an illegal break-in to the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) office in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Republican operatives also wiretapped the DNC offices. After the burglars were arrested, Nixon and his aides attempted to cover up their involvement in this affair, obstructing an FBI investigation and authorizing secret cash payments to operatives to discourage their implication of the White House in the scheme’s direction. With a Congressional committee poised to present Articles of Impeachment, Richard Nixon resigned in August of 1974. He died of a massive stroke two decades later on April 22, 1994, less than a year after his wife Pat’s death from lung cancer.[10]
Richard Nixon reflects the tenacity and staying power of a Capricorn. Despite losses and controversy, he maintained his will to succeed in his goal to assume the role as the nation’s chief executive officer. However, like J. Edgar Hoover, his authoritarian drive and thirst for power overtook the common sense of the Capricorn nature. Once again, perhaps too few of those surrounding him in his administration were unable to show him the folly of his ways.
Robert Bly
Born December 23, 1926
Capricorn journalist, poet, and author Robert Bly functioned in a much different role in the 1960s than J. Edgar Hoover and President Richard Nixon. He co-founded the group American Writers Against the Vietnam War and he remains an anti-war activist. His work A Light Around the Body won a National Book Award. Born in Minnesota, Bly attended St. Olaf College, Harvard University, and the University of Iowa.[11]
Bly is credited with beginning a mythopoetic men’s movement after writing Iron John: A Book About Men. The book addresses the perceived decline of the father’s role in the American family and probes the male psyche. He posits that modern males lack the rites of passage and role modeling of the past, and thus, contemporary males are trapped between childhood and maturity. He views this dilemma as influencing the lack of mature leadership in the business world and politics. To compensate for this, Bly explored the mythic tradition that offers men guidance, and he established men’s workshops to explore male mythic traditions.[12]
My purpose for presenting Robert Bly as a Capricorn example is not to critique his mythopoetic men’s movement, but rather to emphasize that Saturn, Capricorn’s ruler, is concerned with the role of father and male tradition. Capricorn is the upholder of tradition, and Bly is looking to the past to abstract what he sees as valuable aspects of maleness in the role of the modern male.
Betty White
Born January 17, 1922
More popular than ever, 90-year-old actress Betty White is the consummate symbol of Capricorn longevity, displaying the sign’s propensity for overcoming barriers, including Hollywood’s preference for youthful stars. At the age of two, Betty’s family moved to Los Angeles from Illinois. In the 1950s, she began a career in television, becoming one of the first women producers in the industry. White guested on several television series in the 1960s. She gained recognition in the 1970s in her role as the clever Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later starred as the naïve Rose Nyland on the Golden Girls in the 1980s. In the 1990s, she appeared in Boston Legal, and in the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Her popularity expanded in the last decade as she made appearances in movies, commercials, and in television, with a leading role in the sitcom, Hot in Cleveland. Betty White became the oldest celebrity to host the long-standing comedy show, Saturday Night Live.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Born January 4, 1943
Following a Capricorn passion for history, Doris Kearns Goodwin studied at Harvard University, earning a doctorate in Government. As a historian, teacher, and author, she is best known for her studies of American Presidents. Appointed as a White House Fellow in the Johnson Administration, she met the President who became the subject of her first book in 1976. Her next book on the Kennedys in 1987 became the source for a television miniseries. Since then, she has written about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as Abraham Lincoln. Her work, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995. Goodwin has also written about another passion, the Brooklyn Dodgers, her home team as a youth.[13] [14]
Doris Kearns married Richard Goodwin, an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. She appears regularly on Meet the Press and she has guested on The Charlie Rose Show.
Michelle Obama
Born January 17, 1964
As the wife of the 44th President of the United States, First Lady Michelle Obama reflects the persona of a modern day, ambitious Capricorn woman. Born Michelle Robinson and raised in a modest apartment in the South Side of Chicago, she developed into a high achiever in the Chicago schools, participating in programs for gifted children. With a vision of receiving the best post-secondary education, Robinson attended Princeton University, and later Harvard Law School. She became an attorney, working for a brief time for a Chicago law group, where she met Barack Obama, a student intern. She later worked for the City of Chicago and the University of Chicago Medical Center.
As First Lady, Michelle Obama has become actively involved in issues concerning military families, a very Capricorn theme. She is a proponent of community gardens and organic foods, an interest one might expect from an earthy Capricorn. Putting parental responsibility first, Michelle Obama has stated, "My first priority will always be to make sure that our girls are healthy and grounded," Michelle said. "Then I want to help other families get the support they need, not just to survive, but to thrive."[15]
ENDNOTES
[1] Houlding, Deborah (December/January 2008). Capricorn the Goatfish. The Mountain Astrologer. Issue #136, pp. 40-47.
[2] Casey, Caroline (1998). Making the Gods Work for You. New York: Harmony Books, p.48.
[3] Nevin, Bruce (1982). Astrology Inside Out. Rockport, Massachusetts: Para Research, Inc., p.80.
[4] Forrest, Steven. (1988). The Inner Sky. San Diego: ACS Publications, pp.81-85.
[5] J. Edgar Hoover. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 01:45, Jan 08, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/j-edgar-hoover-9343398
[6] Ibid.
[7] Casey, Caroline. Op. Cit., p.48-49.
[8] Richard Nixon. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 03:27, Jan 08, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/richard-nixon-9424076
[10] Ibid.
[11] Robert Bly. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 04:42, Jan 08, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/robert-bly-39656
[12] Retrieved on 1/8/12: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bly
[13] Doris Kearns Goodwin. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 06:10, Jan 08, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/doris-kearns-goodwin-38566
[14] Retrieved 1/8/12: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Kearns_Goodwin
[15] Michelle Obama. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 06:35, Jan 08, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/michelle-obama-307592
[i] Retrieved on 1/2/11 @http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/conrad_hilton.html#ixzz1iMI6JNRP
[ii] Retrieved on 1/2/11 @http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mary_tyler_moore_2.html#ixzz1iMJr2JZm
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