Today is about defying gravity. The Sabian symbol at 10° Gemini is An Airplane Performing A Nose Dive and it is ruled by the sign of Capricorn in a twelve-fold sequence. Makes sense. Capricorn is the Sea Goat, its hind quarters a fish tail. So the fact that it’s associated with the mountain (cardinal-earth) and the steady climb that symbolizes the sign’s consistent, enduring character, speaks volumes on the challenges and determination associated with the sign. Mountain goats themselves defy gravity—have you ever seen them casually crossing some vertical cliff?—but were they to have fish tails, as the Capricorn symbolically does, it would be all the more miraculous. And so it is. The paradox of Capricorn is that they tend not to be very showy people and yet they often accomplish feats others might find so challenging as to be impossible. The Capricorn woman chapter in our book Sextrology, for instance, is titled The Sleeper because they have a way of achieving their successes almost unawares, over Time, old-father Saturn with his sickle, ruling the sign.

It takes superior ability to challenge nature and natural laws. And there is a certain sense of immortality that is gained in getting to the top of Everest or breaking the sound barrier or nose diving and pulling out of the dive at the very last instant, playing chicken with these natural laws, gravity being the one which holds us all together, keeps the world intact and weighted—this is exactly the energy of Saturn, that of containment (in contrast to Jupiter, which rules the previous sign of Sagittarius, which expands). The cautiousness of Capricorn is often chalked up to this “restrictive” Saturn energy but here we see how it is employed, as Capricorn people often do, as a power of protection in taking the most death defying risks. The goat is equipped to be sure footed and therefore can defy gravity more than the rest of us.

Yesterday we fired arrows outward, widening our scope and expanding our minds. Today we go further and actually pierce the fabric of what’s possible. We are challenging matter with our mind which will win over. If gravity is a symbol of fate, we test its boundaries with the force of our will which we’ve supercharged with faith. There are no half measures when playing chicken with the universe. We are all in. We are not keeping a safe distance shooting arrows that may or may not hit a mark; we are on the front lines confronting universal forces, in effect, challenging the gods. This is also expressed in the climbing to a mountain. It is the seat of the gods in all myths, including the classical model of Olympus; Moses (whom God commanded to build his tabernacle out of goat hair) climbs to the summit of Sinai to receive his fabulous new hairdo—becoming like old-man Saturn, wise and spouting rules and regulations, Saturn’s restrictive thou-shalt-nots. The mountain is the place where we receive the gift of divinity, or what we humans often more casually refer to as true greatness.

It is all or nothing. Perhaps the prospect of going up in flames makes a challenging endeavor all that more exciting. And seriously I have never truly thought in terms of Capricorn, literally “goat horn” as in the horn of plenty, the container of proverbial bounty, as being about pushing to the limits. That said I live with a Capricorn who is naturally designed to challenge herself all day every day and in every which way; in fact unless she is achieving beyond the point she achieved yesterday she can be none too happy about it. And what about that fishtail? Well I do believe it can’t be easy to drag up mountains, however it is surely a symbol of the realm of the sea, that of intuition, imagination, and emotion as a gateway to spirituality. It’s just the right kind of baggage to pack for a gravity defying life journey. It is tantamount to gravitas.

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