Capricorn 14° (January 4)

 

Capricorn Woman

As the sole cardinal-earth sign, symbolized by a mountain, Capricorn is as initiative, directive and pioneering as the other cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer and Libra. But, being in the element of earth, we aren’t subject to any fiery aggression of Aries or emotional urging of Cancer or ideological instigation of Libra. Rather, Capricorns scale, or move, mountains, slowly, quietly, over Time, with little regard for notice, let alone, notoriety. Capricorn woman is her own authority, looking to herself, and her own growth and achievement. On the shadow side, if she’s not tending to her own success and fulfillment, she will embody melancholy, elevating it to monumental status. A daughter of Saturn, old father Time, she isn’t lamenting but she does draw on the past, the golden days of yore, whether her personal own or universal ones. She thus projects a timeless, classic quality—not one prone to trends or obvious taste or behavior. She is an elegant creature disposed of an unapologetically self-contained character. You go to the mountain—she doesn’t come to you. Thus Capricorn has gained the reputation of being haughty, high and mighty; which is rarely the case. She merely personifies an ascended state of being that isn’t subject to scrutiny or censure, especially not by any patriarchy. She inhabits a private and rarified emotional retreat that serves her need for self-preservation; and while other signs might find her modus operandi too lonely-making to adopt themselves, she cultivates an enduring quality of self-reliance that trumps any need for outside validation or even support. Like a creature in hibernation, a nod to this winter sign, she conserves her energy for both the time and the travel ahead. She knows where she’s going, but is in no rush to get there. Her pace may be off-putting to others, but she is as sure-footed in her ascent as her symbol goat, a sea-goat actually, with a long fishy tail, symbolizing the store of emotional insight and intuition she carries with her and continually draws upon in her singular life journey, which she can be reluctant to share with, not to burden, others. Ah, those iconic Capricorns: Janis Joplin, Susan Sontag, Ruth Wilson, Diane Keaton, Dolly Parton, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Carla Bruni, Helena Christensen, Sade, Joanna Newsom, Marianne Faithfull, Mary J. Blige, Patti Smith, Pat Benatar, Annie Lennox, Marlene Dietrich, Stella Starsky (born the same day as Dietrich, no big stretch there), Ethel Merman, Imelda Staunton, Gypsy Rose Lee, Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Shirley Bassey, Nigella Lawson, Zooey Deschanel, Tippi Hendren, Dina Merrill, Holland Taylor, Sienna Miller, Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White, Maureen Dowd, Simone de Beauvoir, Ava Gardner, Sissy Spacek, Susan Lucci, Katey Segal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eartha Kitt, Tracy Ullman, Nichelle Nichols, Anna May Wong, Betsy Ross.

Nichelle Nichols.

 

It’s from the grand mother goddess Rhea Cronus that we derive the word crone, the wise woman, the goddess in her wizened third aspect. Rhea is the Titan mother of the Olympian gods who saved her son Zeus from being gobbled to death by her husband, Cronus (Saturn), taking goat form as Amalthea to feed him from her horns o’ plenty. She also bequeathed her estate of orgiastic rites, leopards and wild retinue to her grandson Dionysus, Zeus’s heir apparent. The noisy cymbals are named for her as she is also called Cybele. She is the archetype of preservation, the personification of Capricorn’s cardinal-earth energy, emblemized by the aforementioned mountain—indeed, Rhea is the mountain mother who made her home on Mt. Ida. Capricorn women—Parton, Spacek, Fanny Bullock Workman—do love their mountains. The zodiac’s Mrs. Beasley—gunnysacks and granny glasses not withstanding—the Goat woman rarely thinks of herself as The Second Sex, despite it being the ironic title of Capricorn Simone DeBeauvoir’s tract. She naturally wears what might be traditionally considered men’s clothing. Enter Annie Lennox, Marlene Dietrich, Paula Poundstone, Patti Smith, Diane Keaton, Susan Sontag and even Mary Tyler Moore who fought a network to be able to sport her aptly named Capri (Goat) pants.

 

Capricorn woman makes no apologies for herself, neither explaining nor complaining. She is endurance incarnate who achieves over time. But she’s no mere climber—she personifies the astrological super power of ascension, for she is not a subscriber to struggle. She rises to the top of her achievements—the crème de la crème—via an outsized faith in her inner resource and the slow, steady outlasting of others who, by comparison, seem like flashes in the pan. They do, as the above list of Capricorn icons suggests, boast career longevity and often have their greatest successes later in life.

 

Typos happen—I don’t have time or an intern to edit.*
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