Capricorn

Capricorn begins at the winter solstice, the shortest day, when the Sun is at its lowest and starts its climb back. The sign carries that sense of a long, steady ascent. It inclines toward ambition, discipline, realism and respect for what has been built over time. Capricorn tends to take responsibility early, to plan for the long term and to earn what it gets. Its gift is endurance and mastery; its difficulty can be severity, or treating rest and feeling as luxuries it has not yet earned.

Element, mode and polarity

Capricorn is an Earth sign of the cardinal mode. Earth makes it practical and concerned with results; the cardinal mode means it initiates — it sets goals and starts the work of reaching them. It is feminine (receptive) and nocturnal. Its fellow Earth signs are Taurus and Virgo; its fellow cardinal signs are Aries, Cancer and Libra.

Rulership and dignities

• Domicile: Saturn, its night house (Aquarius is the other).
• Exaltation: Mars, traditionally at 28° Capricorn.
• Detriment: the Moon, whose home Cancer lies opposite.
• Fall: Jupiter, opposite its exaltation in Cancer.

Saturn rules Capricorn in both traditional and modern astrology.

In a chart

Planets in Capricorn tend to work methodically, with an eye on status, structure and what will last. The Sun here often finds itself through achievement; Mercury inclines to a sober, organised, practical mind; Venus loves loyally and shows it through commitment. Mars, exalted, favours disciplined, effective action. The Moon, in detriment, may keep its feelings in check and find it hard to ask for comfort. Jupiter, in fall, tends to grow cautiously, trusting what is proven over what is promised. The house with Capricorn on its cusp is often where a person takes on duties and builds something solid. With Capricorn on the Ascendant, Saturn becomes the chart ruler, and the person often seems serious, composed and older than their years when young.

The tradition

Ptolemy names Capricorn one of the two solstitial signs, because the Sun turns there and brings winter. He gives it to Saturn, cold by nature, as the sign opposite the luminaries' houses, and explains Mars's exaltation here because that fiery planet is farthest south in Capricorn. Lilly calls Capricorn "the House of Saturn", "nocturnal, cold, dry, melancholly, earthly, feminine", solstitial, cardinal and moveable, Southern, "the exaltation of Mars". It governs the knees. Its places are cowsheds and sheep-pens, stores of farm tools and old wood, fallow, thorny and barren fields, and in a house the low, dark places near the ground or threshold. Lilly describes a lean, dry body, not tall, with a long narrow face, thin beard and dark hair. Its colour is black, russet or a swart brown; among its countries and cities he names Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Oxford and Brandenburg. The Earth triplicity is ruled by Venus by day and the Moon by night.

In the tarot

The Golden Dawn's correspondences, which most English-language decks follow.

Major Arcana: The Devil

Its three decans: Two of Pentacles (Jupiter, 0°–10°), Three of Pentacles (Mars, 10°–20°), Four of Pentacles (Sun, 20°–30°)

Suit: Pentacles (Earth)

Related

• Cancer, the opposite sign
• Saturn, its ruler
• Tenth House, its natural house
• Earth · Cardinal