New Moon in Capricorn 2024
The sea-goat's salted prayer for renewal.
The new year unfurled, quietly, last week. Since January 1st, all has felt awash in a sea of sleep and stillness, colored by a deep exhaustion due to December’s Sagittarian antics. I have felt like a sleep-spell has been cast over my home, and have been doing my best to honor the simplicity of that feeling. Now, though, our first New Moon of the year arrives, drawing us deeper into a space of wintry reflection, then sending us out into the world to call in the new.
The New Moon in Capricorn arrives on January 11th, 2024, at 3:57am PST. The Sun and Moon commingle at 20° Capricorn, activating the part of our charts that contains the sea-goat’s symbolism, urging us to listen closely for messages about the path ahead. This New Moon is squared by the Nodes of Fate, and forms a grand trine to Uranus in Taurus and Juno in Virgo.
It is also, notably, conjoined to Pluto, who hovers, ghostlike, at 29° Capricorn. This is the last time in our lifetimes that we’ll have a New Moon in Capricorn co-present with Pluto, as the planet of death and rebirth moves into Aquarius this year, never to wander Capricorn’s pastures again.
This lunation brims with a sense of materiality. Activating the third decan of Capricorn, our New Moon is connected with the Four of Pentacles card in the tarot, a card that tells us stories of having and holding, in both body and environment.
Saturn, Capricorn’s ruler, describes the foundation that underlies all things, and a New Moon in Capricorn invites us to rebuild that structure from a heart-centered place. Let’s contemplate the symbols contained in the Capricorn New Moon, together.
Capricorn Mythos
The constellation Capricorn is on of our most ancient, acknowledged by cultures since the Bronze Age. Babylonians saw in this constellation their sea-goat god, Ea, who proliferated the waters of creation. The Greeks saw both Pan, the goat-legged god of nature, fecundity, and mischief, in this constellation, as well as Amalthea, the goat who raised and protected Zeus from the murderous gaze of his father, Cronus (interestingly, Cronus = Saturn, the planet that governs Capricorn).
Pan’s Capricorn story says that in order to escape the monster, Typhon, Pan transformed himself into a half-fish half-goat creature, and leapt into a river. Here, I find one of the more mysterious aspects of Capricorn come alive, which is its innate talent for transfiguration.
When we think of Capricorn we’re often offered buzzwords like “driven, ambitious, focused, high-achieving.” And indeed, Capricorn has a deep connection to “work” and all its associated qualities, due to Saturn, the sign’s planetary ruler. When we imagine Capricorn, we think of goats climbing high mountain peaks with ease, and turn this into a metaphor for our own arduous “climb to the top.”
But what often gets left out is Capricorn’s fish-tail, a spiralitic, shimmering facet of the sign, which belies a deep connection to the imaginative and emotional realms. Some early depictions of Capricorn even show Capricorn as a goat housed in a beautiful seashell, complete with spiral design. The spiral, a symbol for expansion and contraction, the labyrinth, the revolving heavens, is an ancient reminder of the innate connection of “as above so below, as within so without.” We should keep this in mind when contemplating the sea-goat.
At a simpler level, the intermingling of earthen goat body and aquatic fish form shows a blending of the elements of earth and water, materiality and emotion, practicality and imagination. Capricorn thrives not because they’re driven by pure Saturn, but because they know how to transform creative ideas into something tangible and real—bringing the visions of the water element into earthen existence with focus, tenacity, and inspiration.
New Moon Thematics
This is the first New Moon of the year, offering us a portal to new experiences, new storylines, and new creative success. With the Sun and Moon meeting at 20° Capricorn, our external (Sun) and internal (Moon) realms collide, and we’re asked to answer a few questions:
What does it feel like in your body when you consider your success?
How can you better blend your creative impulses with a sense of earthen focus?
Are there underlying emotional, ancestral, or inherited patterns that limit your beliefs that can be healed?
Setting intentions with candle-work, petition writing, meditation, reflection, or mindful conversations with loved ones is encouraged here, and through January 16th, when the first quarter Moon arrives.
Astrological Detail Work
The New Moon’s perfect square to the North and South Node suggest monumental leaps onto the fated path are possible. Dream widely, dream wildly, about what calls to you, and what your vision of “highest self” looks like, from all perspectives. The trine the New Moon strikes to innovative and electric Uranus shows us that we can choose something radical, new, and surprising, to align our sense of self with. Uranus urges us to leave behind the status quo for more futuristic pastures, where we as a collective get to upgrade, get our needs met, and live brilliantly. What does that look like, for you?
We also see luna form a trine to the asteroid Juno who sits at 21° Virgo, suggesting there is something deeply relational at stake here. Juno the asteroid relates to the stories of Juno, wife of Jupiter, in Roman myth. Typical interpretations of Juno tell us that she was a jealous and vindictive partner to Jupiter, but pushing back on those narratives, scholars of myth reveal that Juno is an emblem of the original force of feminine consciousness, an earth goddess, “cow-eyed” and beautiful, a representation of nature in all her complexity.
The grand trine formed between the New Moon, Uranus, and Juno suggests a supportive, earthen opportunity to reframe and reorient ourselves to our loves, our bodies, our resources, and to hold the higher vision of peace and progress in mind, for the collective.
Happy New Moon everyone,
xoxoCF
Beautifully written, as always. My Capricorn Sun feels understood and inspired. :)
Love your writing and interpretation. So deep!