You Have Been Assigned This Mountain To Show Others That It Can Be Moved

Full moon at 18° of Capricorn

Our Capricorn inspiration is Mikael Hallstrøm Eriksen, a painter who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. He uses repetitive and accumulative mark-making as a way to explore structure and meanings. The works in this letter are from his Strata-series, inspired by geological phenomena— where the natural world is also playing with repetition and accumulation. I’m moved by his use of watercolor to make such earthy images, ones that recall, to me, sediments, horizons, caverns, labia, tree rings.

Upcoming Live Gathering

A quick reminder, the first live Zoom for paid subscribers is happening next Thursday, July 17th, at 6pm PT. This one will be one hour only, and you are invited to come hang out with me and our fellow moon lovers here. We will be doing a little guided gathering ritual, tuning into the currents, and talking about what’s been happening in our own charts and lives. The link will go out in an email 3 hours before, and I look forward to dropping in with whoever comes!

Full Moon in Capricorn

On Thursday, July 10th, at 1:36pm PT, just after high noon here on the west coast, the moon peaks in fullness at 18° of Capricorn, the holy sea goat and sign of Great Works. Capricorn is cardinal, initiating earth. It’s the third and final earth sign in the Zodiac development sequence, corresponding with the peak of adulthood and maturity and the mastery of the material realm that comes with that. And while all of the earth signs teach us the work of manifestation—how to take something from just an idea into real, actual form—Capricorn is the most ambitious one, and the one most responsible for architecting and executing our big dreams. It’s supported by Taurus’ generativity and stability, and Virgo’s ruthless pragmatism and gift for process, and its job is to build on that; to shore up our foundations and get us planning for the future, taking things up to a whole other collective, structural level. Ultimately Capricorn wants us growing resources in such abundance that they are overflowing, and there is enough for everybody. It wants us safeguarding that abundance, and the wisdom that produced it, so that future generations can be led and fed by it. It brings the kind of vision and industry and perseverance that builds pyramids, that makes whole cities and movements, that writes entire chapters in the history of things.

It’s intimidating in scope, now that I’ve put it that way—but in practice, it’s really not; Capricorn is so good at meeting us where we are at, and helping us work with what we’ve got now, building and walking the path brick by brick. Its ruler is Saturn, the great Gateway of Form herself, who is so good at making us get in relationship with reality on reality’s terms. And that’s what it takes to play on Capricorn’s level: staying in relationship with reality, embracing it and respecting it, making sober assessments of the limits on the ground, and then honoring and using those limits to make the things happen that can happen—to slowly and carefully encourage new realities to crystallize. We think that growing up and taking on these heavy responsibilities is going to be so hard and painful—and it is. But Capricorn’s ultimate teachings are about cultivating joy, lightness of spirit, and an enduring love for ourselves and all of creation, the kind that softens the obstacles inside of us to being with what is. When we can be with what is, and we are doing work that is worth doing, we unlock all the gifts that challenge brings, like first and foremost a willingness to meet difficulty and challenge—an understanding that difficulty and challenge are the way. We also get less fixed on the outcome of our efforts, because there are things worth doing regardless of outcome. We slowly but surly realize the dream of being real, healed adults who can bring that real healed adult spirit to the life party, rising to the occasion every day, climbing the impossible mountain of life, singing most of the way.

This full moon in Capricorn is arriving right on time, and Capricorn is so glad we are here. It wants to sit us down on a hard wooden bench and give us a cool glass of water to drink. It wants to really check in, have a proper strategy session. It might even be giving a light, invigorating slap on the back. How is our health? Have we been honoring boundaries we set? Eating enough fiber? Maintaining our protection spells? Have we been celebrating our small victories? Honoring our feelings regularly? How are we staying prepared, mentally, for the long game of fighting back the latest rising tide of fascism? A Capricorn moon is full of genuine love and care, but it’s also discerning—it can be a harsh mirror. It’s got no patience for our messiness and sabotage. It does not have any sympathy for the parts of us that want things to be easier, or that want to not be the adults. It doesn’t like wasting time and energy on wishful thinking. But it does have some strong medicine for us if we need it. Full moons can really spin us out, but this one can ground us and slow us down if we need it to. It can give us a strong dose of clarity and energy to meet what’s hard. It can reinspire our devotion.

The surrounding conditions for this full moon are good and solid. Jupiter is in Cancer with the Sun, in loose whole sign opposition to the Moon, and it’s bringing something very fairy-grandfatherly to this full moon. Mars is in Virgo, offering a supportive trine and this robust energy for getting organized. Capricorn’s ruler Saturn is still in the first degree of Aries, a degree away from Neptune, and both are a loose square to this full moon, along with Chiron over at the end in Aries. Our attention will likely be drawn back to that project, if it’s ever left—the project that began with Saturn’s transit of our dream life in Pisces, and is now being converted to action on the ground in Aries. Saturn will be stationing retrograde on Saturday evening, beginning it’s journey back to the final degree of Pisces in September. That could help us, again, with the pausing and grounding and slowing down, if we are feeling like we are on a train that is hurtling us through this time of big change.

And on that note—if you noticed a kind of wild energy shift at the start of the week, a kind of Mercury retrograde-like energy, or a need to be doing things differently, or just some extra chaos, that’s when Uranus finally entered Gemini. It’s the final sign-change of in this year when all the slower moving outer planets are changing signs (Pluto into Aquarius, Neptune and Saturn into Aries, Jupiter into Cancer, Uranus into Gemini). Uranus is an archetype of innovation and revolution. It’s known to be disruptive and bring change quickly. During its transit of Taurus, many people described its energy as earthquakes, and it was breaking up old patterns and starting shit in the sign of our material resources. Gemini is mutable air, its where we adapt and learn and change by communing and communicating with each other, so Uranus here will be more whirlwind like, wind gusts and static-electricity and lightning storms. We will need to meet it like whirling dervishes—like people who know who to spin and dance devotionally. This is the beginning of a 7 year transit, so we will not be feeling it acutely the entire time, but entrances and exits can be strong. It’s in a tight trine with Pluto in Aquarius, especially this opening year, and together, historically, these transits have accompanied revolutionary wars. That’s not news to any of us here—we know we are in the opening year of a Civil War in the U.S., and a more global battle to install a new generation of leadership that cares about the future of all life on earth. We know we collectively have the chance to change things on a scale most of us have not known in our lifetimes. That change energy is going to land for all of us personally, too. These are liberating signatures, but there might be a part of you that is feeling very intimidated by this level of difficulty. Like, I can’t do this.

Several birthing doulas reminded me this week, that when a birthing mother says “I don’t think I can do this,” it is the universal sign during any labor that the mother is, in fact, just about about to be doing it, and delivering the baby into the world. It’s a signal of transition. What’s coming is going to be messy, and hard, and harrowing. There will be teamwork happening, on all dimensions, to pull it off. Like Diane DiPrima taught us, “No one way works, it will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down.” It’s going to ultimately lead to the birth of a new way, a new world. That’s what we’re striving for. That’s what we’re in for. If the Capricorn full moon had something to offer us in how to meet this difficult time, it’s this: we don’t have to, we get to. What a gift. What a huge gift it is to be alive in this time when we get to enact the revolution, and be the laborers that deliver humanity to a whole new phase. What an honor it is, to get to grow up. The Tao Te Ching says, “Being loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” May we have both. May we be real adults. May we write the story that future generations read, and feel proud of, and galvanized by. May we become the ancestors we are here to become.

Ritual & Writing Prompts

And now a little extra love for paid subscribers — a collection of links to the archive of writings on Capricorn lunations in In the River of What’s Happening Now, should you be wanting to immerse yourself in Capricorn pathways; some journal prompts and ideas for working ritually with this new moon; and a creative writing prompt for those of us who practice writing magic.

(Disclaimer: Prompts are suggestions, not instructions. They are jumping off points. Play with what inspires you, ignore what’s doesn’t, adapt in all the ways you see fit.)

The Capricorn archive (in reverse chronological order)

The Angels of Our Better Futures - new moon at 9° of Capricorn (end of the year / winter 2024)

Being Serious Enough to Live the Life We Are Entrusted With - final weeks of Pluto in Capricorn (fall 2024)

The Good, Hard, Worthy Struggle - full moon at 29° of Capricorn (summer 2024)

The Joy That Makes The Impossible Task Possible - full moon at 1° of Capricorn (summer Solstice 2024)

What We Will Make - new moon at 20° of Capricorn (winter 2024)

Summiting a Mountain to Discover it is the Base of Another Mountain - full moon at 11° of Capricorn (summer 2023)

How To Manifest- new moon at 1° of Sagittarius (winter 2022)