#63 | Capricorn | The Goat

It might be a good idea just to go through a little recap of where we've been so far . So we began in Aries . Chapter one was the initial and initiating fire of Aries that went into the grounding influence of Taurus and then the disseminating energy of Gemini . That was chapter one .

Then we moved into chapter two , which was from Cancer , the mother energy , into Leo , the child , and then into Virgo , that sense of self-containment .

From there we moved away from the self and into the realm of the interpersonal through Libra , which took us from the scorpion's claws of Libra , the scales , into the underworld and intimate realm of Scorpio , and then out into the meaning making of Sagittarius .

Now we enter the sign of Capricorn , which will take us through Aquarius and then Pisces to finish off this epic year of exploration of the zodiac . It's been a real pleasure . I just want to take this moment to thank everybody for joining me along the way and hopefully we can really stick the landing as we go through these final three signs .

So Capricorn is a cardinal sign , which means it is a starting energy , it's starting this final chapter and it's sort of considered to be really I consider it to be like the apex , like the top of the sky , the great endeavor .

So , as always , I want to start with the consensus reality depiction of Capricorn , where we just get a bit of grounding and sense of what this sign is and how it's talked about collectively , what we are talking about when we talk about Capricorn and , as always , I'm drawing from the faculty of astrological studies .

I highly recommend checking them out and if you're looking to get yourself a nice solid foundation and basis in astrology , you might like to look up the faculty . There are many different options these days , but that was where I did my foundation training with the faculty of astrological studies .

So the first things to think about is the key phrase of Capricorn is I achieve . So we have that sense of aiming at something and attempting to achieve something in the world , to set our tasks and set our goals and then make it happen , bring it into the earthly realm , because Capricorn is an earth sign , which means it's sensory , grounded reality .

It's negative as in it's less outward and more inward focused , which is an interesting one for Capricorn because it's whole purpose in some ways , is out in the world . So by the time we get to Capricorn , we have plenty of paradoxes that are happening .

So negative in the sense that it's not necessarily this introverted sign , it's more of an internal , disciplined sign . As I said , it's cardinal Saturn , the planet Saturn is its ruler . We'll get into Saturn , who's known as Cronus in the Greek tradition , and it rules the knees , which I've always found quite fascinating .

For all those of you out there who have had knee troubles , it might be interesting for you to look into the moment that you had those knee troubles and see if you were struggling in some ways with Saturn at that time in your life . I know that I was when I tore my ACL many years ago .

That was a time of great transition for me where Saturn , as the threshold guardian , was definitely there in play . The key words for Saturn are patient , organized , serious and conservative , and I'll give you a few positive , negative expressions . So the two sides of the same coin . So on the positive side , Capricorn is controlled .

That's an interesting positive , and on the negative is guarded , on the positive side Frugal , another interesting positive , and on the negative side of that is ungenerous , the positive expression ambitious , the negative expression ruthless . Positive is strategic and the negative calculating .

So the mountain climber is another image that is given to us through the faculty's work here . It represents the archetypal father as opposed to the mother of cancer , which is its opposite sign . We'll get into that soon .

Later in the episode there's a sense of duty and responsibility , the protection of public persona and reputation , the aim or the goal to be the top of one's profession .

It's generally thought to be quite a serious sign , although I'd like to emphasize that there is definitely a lighter side to the sign of Capricorn and I think we'll see that as we get into the Great God Pan later , as the really the two gods that we can explore through the myths are going to be satan on the one side and Pan on the other , and we'll get a

bit of a better sense for that more playful , fun , dry humor and wit side to the Capricorn archetype . There can be somewhat of a Benjamin Button process here with Capricorn natives , where they start life old and then get progressively younger with age .

So there's the sense of children of Capricorn , or children of satan , being quite serious and almost sorrowful , like the children of sorrow earlier in their lives , and then this , this loosening up process that happens later as life goes on , there tends to be an expectation that things will be difficult and therefore Capricorn natives are hardworking , they're aiming at

long-term success and generally we'll get to that long-term success . But the big factor there is self-confidence , and if there's a lack of self-confidence there can be the tendency to become bitter and deeply anxious and stressed , and that stiffness can kick in to the Capricorn . Experience and sobriety is also something associated with this sign .

So that's our sense of what Capricorn is , and now I think what we'll do is we'll just go through , like Capricorn would want us to do , systematically , having a look at each of the different things as we go . So we'll look at the symbol , the actual glyph itself of Capricorn .

If you have the opportunity , you might like to just google that glyph right now so that you can have a look at it while we talk about it . Then we'll talk about the goat and what the goat represents , which is the animal associated .

Then we'll go into some mythology through exploring satan , who , as I said is known as Cronus and Pan , the great goat god , and have a look at a few other elements of Capricorn satanalia , which always happened in in Capricorn season , a few other gods that were , I guess , capricornian , like Jesus Christ and Dionysus .

We'll have a bit of a peek into how Pan became the devil and satan became satan , a deeper dive into the archetypal father , and then we'll wrap up from there . So I hope Capricorn is happy with how I have systemically gone through that with you here in this episode . Okay , we're going to start with the symbol .

So it is a series of straight lines and angles . So you see , if you've got it in front of you , there can be these three lines , maybe four , a very sharp angular lines on the left side of the glyph and then it goes into this wild expression , this big flowing , floating expression on the right side of the glyph .

So we've got these straight , edgy lines on the left and this curved shape on the right . So this is actually a bit of an element of the sign to watch where we can see that stiff and brittle side and oftentimes Capricorn energy .

If it's , if it's entering a social scene or a party or something , it can be quite stiff and solid , almost overly brittle , and in that brittleness it's just making an assessment of what can I do here , how is it ? It's very heady and mindy in that sense of getting almost stuck .

But then , as there's that sense of establishing what one's place is in the situation and what can be done here and what , how one can be useful or where the fun is , or kind of just like getting the set and setting right and understanding what , what the situation is , once established , that flow that's on the other side could really come into play .

So you often see both sides of the Capricorn experience . It's one of those really curious things about this sign that I often see in action , that I don't necessarily see in the write-ups about Capricorn .

Is this wild side , this playful side , this fun side of the sign that I've seen in many of the Capricornian-signatured friends of mine , often the most wild , the most fun , the most playful in fact .

But there can be that serious side to , or there often is that serious side , whether that's something they need to overcome or just something that sits there in the background of the sign . Underneath that could also be a deeper meaning , which could be , as humanity , our relationship to nature and the wild . What are we meant to be doing ?

As , as per the wild , you know , agriculture from 10 000 BC that experiment or that process has been the experiment of controlling the wild so that it's manageable for us , and so therefore Capricorn can be associated with that process and the civilizing process are becoming more refined and and taking control of nature , so that we're not at the whims of nature ,

which is an understandable movement , I suppose . Or are we supposed to be as nature , or combined with nature , or still in nature , say as as hunter-gatherer societies , where there's no separation between self and nature and we're really just in the circle of life , just another animal ?

So you can see Capricorn as the top or the apex of the zodiac , as really an attempt to separate humans outside of nature , but also , maybe that is from the bias of 12 000 years of the civilizing process , because perhaps in a hunter-gatherer society you could see Capricorn as the ability to be one with nature , to have this sort of mastery that is embedded , so

that one is embedded in nature and able to know where to hunt and how to hunt and how to be in right relationship with nature . So another way to look at that symbol is is that it is a depiction of the seagot , which has the tail on the left side and the horns on the right side .

We'll get into the seagot in a minute , so , but before we get to the seagot we'll look at the goat itself as a symbol or the animal

. I remember very vividly once , melanie Reinhart , in a training that I was in with her , she , she gave us this image of the goat sitting perched on a ledge and being very still and seemingly quite idle , and it's just sitting there and you're not really sure what it's doing . It just doesn't seem like it's moving or doing anything .

And then when it does move , it moves very quickly up to the next level , like scurries up the mountain . So we see in this image that she gives us the sense of Capricorn energy needing that time of making an assessment .

And although it can look very idle , as though it's very still and nothing much is happening , it's just having a look around and almost like it's imagining the path or making an assessment of which is the easiest path to go up here , and then , once it's made its assessment , moves very quickly because while it looks like it was idle , it was actually figuring out

the best way . So that's something very Capricornian in that goat figure that sits assessors and then moves quite quickly once it gets moving . So it looks like it's moving very quickly and moving very swiftly and with such ease of the mountain .

But it's actually been doing all of that work in the background to map things out and to get a clear sense of where to go and what the best way is .

It's interesting , this figure , the goat and in the last I don't know how long it's been , maybe the last 10 years or so , I'm not sure when this first came into the more popular vernacular , but goat or G-O-A-T has become known as its acronym , which is the greatest of all time , which is a very fitting image , also for Capricorn , because Capricorn does desire to

be the best and the greatest . And an example in sports can be found in the NBA , in the basketball of Capricorn native LeBron James , who just had his 39th birthday on December 30th , who's still playing at an elite level in his 21st season .

He's the oldest player in the league and he's still putting up big numbers and having one of his best seasons , so he's managed to have this incredible longevity to his career , which I see as a real exemplification of that Capricorn energy , the long-term goals and the ability to see a very long-term strategy here .

This guy , he , he went to a staggering 10 NBA finals in a row , which is just really crazy . Hasn't really been done since Bill Russell a long , long time ago , and he said to spend a million dollars a year just on his body alone .

And then the irony of somebody like LeBron James is that he'll probably forever be chasing Michael Jordan as the greatest , which can be part of the tragedy of this sign for his propensity to getting almost to the top , but not quite so .

Yeah , that is a good example , I think , of Capricorn energy when it's really in full swing , that incredible success and longevity combined together . So there we have the goat , this , this goat trying to get to the top of the mountain , and also the goat as the greatest of all time .

So , yes , let's move from the symbol and from the goat into a little bit of mythology here and see if we can take a bit of a deeper dive through the imagination and through the collective imaginings of how this we have really kind of animating and bringing this sign to life a little more .

So Capricorn's ruler is planetary ruler is Saturn , the ringed planet who has a 29 and a half year cycle that goes around the sun , and so something we talk about within astrology is the Saturn return , when Saturn comes back to the place of which you were born . So you can see , even in that symbol there's the longer term process .

If you split that 29 and a half into four , you get just over seven . So Saturn also is that ruler as a planet . It's the ruler of the seven-year cycle , all the phases of maturity that happen around 7 , 15 , 22 , 29 , 37 .

These times when we sort of outgrown the old way and we're yet to really move into the new way , and those are often very painful experiences and there's a lot of limitation and a lot of struggle that happens as we try to make our way from the old way into the new way , in that pain , you know .

This is why Saturn ultimately is ruling over pain and struggle and discipline . This is what that planet and that archetype is generally known for the struggle that we have to go through in order to become who we really are . It's kind of like the individuation process and these different moments of rites of passage .

So understandably , saturn has been given a pretty bad name , I would say . In astrology it's definitely elaborated on by Liz Green in her book which is called Saturn a New Look at an Old Devil , and that book has been through many prints now .

But it's a great exploration of Saturnian consciousness and trying to actually see the positive side as well as the negative when it comes to something like Saturn , because generally it can be considered as this thing that it's just not good .

It's kind of just like one of these malevolent planets that just has it in for you and there's nothing really very positive about it . It's just something to endure or try to make it through . And we can see that that energy and that attitude towards Saturn definitely creeping in and into the modern day understanding of this planet .

And of course that can be this self-fulfilling prophecy when these Saturnian times are very hard and struggling , we sort of blame Saturn , as though this figure is just purposefully making it difficult for us without seeing the other side of the planet . So anyway , saturn , as we know , is Cronus , saturn .

Cronus , same archetypal figure , same god , not a god , actually a Titan , so same mythological figure . So if we go back into the Greeks , we have to drop Saturn off and pick up Cronus , because that was his name in Greek .

So in mythology and I've been through this story a few times before in the podcast , so this will be more like a little refresher for those who've listened to the other episodes and are hopefully quite familiar with the story .

If you are familiar , it's always good to just go back and revisit in a different context these old stories , because it's such a classic the story of Cronus and it's like the origin story of Greek mythology in a way , and when learning Greek mythology it's really good to go back to this particular time so you can sort of see how everything formed and those

clashes that happened in this time . That sort of gives way eventually to the humans being born into this universe and everything that came before us and some of the struggles that continue between us and each other and with authorities and things like that .

So Cronus Cronus was a titan and in his story he overthrows his tyrannical father , only to become one himself . So it begins with Cronus's father , uranus , who was repulsed by his children because they weren't perfect . So Uranus is the skyfather , and as a skyfather .

So his realm is the starry skies of the heavens , and the Greeks saw the heavens as a sphere that sat on another sphere , which was the earth . So both spheres were rotating the sphere of the heavens was rotating and the sphere of the earth was also rotating .

And in this saga we get the figure of Atlas , who was said to be punished by Zeus , and he had to hold the sphere of the heavens above his head .

Of course , that got confused somewhere along the line as to be the sphere of the earth that Atlas was holding on his head and that's why we have Atlas for the map of the earth and all of these kinds of things but in fact he was holding the sphere of the heavens .

Uranus was repulsed by his children because they weren't perfect , and rather than let them live , he shoved them back into the earth from whence they came . And the trouble with this is that the earth was not just some inanimate rock , but in fact it was personified in the form of Gaia , who was his wife .

And so , therefore , this is the original abusive relationship between Uranus , the skyfather , and Gaia , the earth mother , who is experiencing these children being shoved back into the womb , which I'm sure is a very , very uncomfortable experience .

And it was so uncomfortable that Gaia went to her 12 children and asked if anyone would help her out of this very troubling predicament . Eleven of her children , the first eleven born all said no .

And then Cronus , the 12th born , was actually quite delighted by the idea of overthrowing his father , who really never really liked anyway , and so Gaia fashioned a sickle for him .

And one night , when Uranus came down to lie with Gaia , cronus sprung out and cut off his testicles , throwing him into the sea , and this very act was the catalyst for the birth of the Furies , the race of giants and , of course , the birth of the goddess Aphrodite .

So we can see these extremely negative and extremely positive consequences of pretty much everything that happens within the world of Greek mythology , even something as violent and as over the top and exaggerated as this eventually gives birth to the great goddess Aphrodite , which is ultimately saying the birth to love and beauty from such a violent and explicit moment .

So as Uranus limped away from the scene , he turned to his son and cursed him with a prophecy that one day the same thing would happen to him and that one of his children would also overthrow him . And so , to avoid this , cronus did what we would all do in this situation .

Just be honest with yourself he ate his children as soon as they were born , and this led to Rhea , who's the wife of Cronus and his sister .

After he had already eaten five of his children , she whisked away Zeus , who was the sixth born , and wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and gave that to Cronus , who was fooled by that and ate a stone in the place of Zeus , which also gives you an idea that he was really swallowing them whole and that he wasn't chewing them or anything like that .

That becomes a bit important later on . So then Zeus is . So then Zeus is whisked away to be raised in the faraway island of Crete , which was a real paradise . And while he's being raised in Crete , we actually get to meet another Capricornian figure , the figure of Amothea , who is the sister of the half goat god Pan , who we'll get to in a minute .

So Amothea was a nanny goat and she raised baby Zeus with her milk , helped him to become strong enough to overthrow his father . This figure of Amothea is actually a very important one , I believe , in the understanding of Capricorn archetypally , this life-giving , nurturing energy of Amothea .

In fact , when Zeus eventually took the throne , he honored Amothea by giving her a place in the stars as the constellation of Capricorn . This is one explanation of how Capricorn came to be , as well as turning one of her horns into the cornucopia or the horn of Plenty , which symbolized the abundance of a good harvest .

Here we see two sides of Capricorn consciousness the desire to make things right in the world and bring a new order and overthrow a tyrant , on the one hand , and the shadow side of this , which is to become the tyrant oneself . So that's in that first chapter . You know Saturn .

What's often forgotten about Saturn's story is that , yes , he swallows his children , but before that he was able to overthrow a tyrant . And sometimes we need that Saturnian energy if we're going to actually come up against tyrannical forces in the world , the tragedy being , of course , that then he becomes a tyrant himself .

And that is certainly one of the great risks when it comes to any of these Capricorn processes . Where someone is in rulership , maybe not doing such a good job , gets overthrowing , that person that overthrows also falls into the same traps .

And we also see the two sides of the Capricorn energy , where we have the nurturing and life-giving quality of the sign symbolized by Amos Thea , and the opposite energy , symbolized by Saturn , of the devouring .

So this idea of what can be life-giving can also be devouring , and we can see this with our creative endeavours and our ambitions and our dreams of who we want to become in the world . It's like we can sometimes have a choice , and the choice can be to swallow these ambitions and add the hands of that harsh inner critic which Saturn is known for .

Or , alternatively , we can bring Amos Thea to the play and we can feed and nourish them until they strengthen and make their way into reality . Or maybe , deeper Still , is a way of communicating with both sides of these , because that's what Capricorn ultimately represents is the ability to be healthily realistic .

It's not like the dreaming of Sagittarius . Sagittarius doesn't even need to be realistic . It just needs to point that arrow at something ultimately potentially unreachable in order to get the journey going . But , capricorn , that's not working anymore .

We have to get real , we have to embed ourselves within the limits of the human experience , time limits and the fact that we do grow old and there's a limit to how much we can do , and there's things that we can do in one era of life that we can't do in another era of life .

So we get that sense of Capricorn's real gift to us , in a way , is the ability to be realistic , whatever that means to us , being realistic so we can understand both our potentialities but also our limits . We can be that kind nurturing mother's milk , giving Amos Thea , whilst also encountering the reality of what is possible and what's not .

And if we get it right and if we get into our zone and into our lane and do it right , we can experience also that corny copia , that abundance , that feeling of being really in the essence of our gifts and bringing it to the world and those gifts being received , which is again what Capricorn wants , and out of that create a certain amount of wealth and

well-being that comes along with Capricorn's hard work . So on the one side we have Saturn and everything Saturn represents . On the other side we have quite clearly associated with the sign of Capricorn is this god , pan . Pan is another one that I've mentioned along the way in different episodes .

Obviously I have a soft spot for this particular god because he's just such a mischievous and fun being and such an interesting story for the evolution of humanity in a way , and the paths that we've chosen and what's happened along the way across history , and Pan being a really interesting symbol for that . If you'd like to get a better sense of Pan .

I strongly recommend Tom Robbins' book Jitterbug Perfume , in which Pan is one of the main characters in that story . We can start with the birth story of Pan and it starts with Hermes . And Hermes was , as Hermes does the tricks , the god known as Mercury in Roman . He was just looking for something else to do besides being a god .

I think maybe he was a bit bored with all this god work and ended up becoming a goat herder for a little while . While he was doing all this goat herding he fell in love with the daughter of the goat herder and she fell pregnant . Eventually , little Pan was born , and he was born complete with goat hooves , goat legs , goat horns , but was essentially human .

And this made his mother terrified of him and she leapt up and ran away , which is a big part of Pan's story actually . But Hermes just was transfixed by this figure .

It was something very beautiful that he perhaps had never seen before , never experienced before , and he took little baby Pan up to the gods and they all loved him , but particularly Dionysus loved him the most .

But he was loved by all and that's why they called him Pan as a little Pan or a play on words of the word Pan also meaning all , and because he was beloved by all of the gods , they gave him that name of Pan .

He has that sense of like in his birth story that he has fear , that he is a bit scary and a bit rustic maybe and a bit wild , and to the uninitiated he is probably quite a terrifying figure , as he was for his mother , but to the gods he was very much loved and through that he became this personification of nature itself and the terrifying components of

nature , but also the beauty of nature , which was also with the Pan pipes as being his instrument . The Pan pipes themselves were a part of his story too , where he was chasing a nymph's syrinx .

She turned herself into some reeds in order to get away from Pan and as he exhaled and in despair of seeing her disappear like that , it made a beautiful sound amongst the reeds , and so he plucked the reeds and turned them into these pipes which we now refer to as Pan pipes . So there's this real musicality to Pan .

This is his association with Dionysus as well , and ecstatic states and play and fun and being in nature and being in the senses and in the sensuality and enjoying having a body and having these senses that can dance and play and listen to music and all the glorious parts of nature , as well as being , as I said , quite terrifying .

So there's a sense of Pan also being a celebration of sexuality and libido , as the goat was a symbol of the nature in Greece , and I was thinking while preparing the episode of perhaps this is where we get the idea of being horny is from those goat horns .

We also call children kids , which is interesting as well , which is baby goats , so we maybe have that sense of the goat running through our humanity which Pan ultimately represents .

So , yeah , that's something that we may not consider as part of the Capricorn experience , but that sex drive and that libido being a big part of this particular energy , and , of course , the opposite side of that too , as we were discussing within the symbol itself , maybe the more rigid and stuck side on the left and the more flowing and free side on the right

Something to consider when looking at the Capricorn energy and seeing if there's something of the libido in Capricorn itself . Pan also shows up in the story of Psyche and Eros and if you'd like to hear the elaboration of that story , that's back in .

I think it was around March last year that I told the story in two parts on the podcast , so worth going back to that . When Psyche is only just lost Eros and she's separated from him , she just can't really imagine or take the idea of life without Eros .

So she throws herself in the river , but the river doesn't accept her body and washes her up at the shore . And who should be there playing his pipes ? But Pan ? She sees Psyche in such a devastated state , overwhelmed , completely drenched in this water and just a mess really . And he just has this way with her .

He just allows her to be messy and allows her to be in her disgrace , in her lostness and in her confusion . And that you get the sense in this scene where he's just able to sit with her . I think that's also a really beautiful component of Capricorn energy . It's not expecting life to be other than the way that it is .

So it understands that there's going to be devastation and tragedy in life and there can be a beauty in that , in this really beautiful what I might call masculine wisdom . He just says to Psyche you know , it looks like what you really need is to go and find Eros without realizing that it's actually Eros , the God himself that's at the heart of Psyche's dilemma .

He's saying , ultimately , you need to pray to the God Eros , but ultimately not really knowing that he's also speaking on several layers to her experience . I always see him in this scene as having this gentle , sorrowful presence and the ability to really listen and connect with another's pain , without the desire to make things better or fix things up .

So the other thing about Pan is that what he was most known for was chasing these nymphs through the forest and causing all sorts of mayhem with this chase . And this is where we get the word panic from . And fear is deeply associated with the sign of Capricorn too , and it can be really crippling for the Capricorn native .

Perhaps this is because they always , like sadden , have to come again up against a foe bigger and stronger than themselves , which is the testing of strengths or the movement through these phases of maturity .

And so , because we have this association with the word panic , I've always considered this scene to be quite instructive , when we have these panic attacks or anxiety attacks and if we imagine ourselves running away from Pan .

But , as I've elaborated here , pan is not bad , he's not evil , he's not , he's not wrong , and maybe Pan is actually chasing us , not to cause us harm , but maybe is chasing us with a message that would be good for us to receive , just like Psyche was able to receive that message .

So perhaps when we're feeling that panic , when we're feeling chased by Pan , the right move is to slow down and to stop and turn around and see if maybe Pan has something for us . So Pan also has this relationship with Echo , the nymph .

Before Echo's voice was taken away , the two of them were able to , you know , run through the hills and make all sorts of music and merriment . Echo is the character that is in the story of Narcissus . She loses her ability to speak her own words and can only repeat back what others say .

It's unclear to me whether the relationship with Pan happens after or before , or even if that concept of before and after is a bit irrelevant to mythology . But we do have good documentation of the relationship between the two . We've always found that to be quite a sweet companionship between the nymph Echo and Pan .

I sort of see them running through the hills , making all sorts of fun and mischief and having a good play with each other .

So one of the things around this time of year during Capricorn season , was the ancient festival of Saturnalia , and I know I've talked about this as well before , but I'll just go through a bit of a recap of what this , what this time was . I bring up Saturnalia because it's sort of a this combination of Saturn and Pan that brings forward Saturnalia .

So in ancient times and it was actually originally known as Cronalia , which is like Cronus , named after Cronus , then named after Saturn . So this is a very ancient festival that went went for a really really long time .

That would happen over several days or weeks around the time of the Winter Solstice , which is December 21st or 22nd , so it would begin there and it was considered to be this time out of time . In ancient times , the calendar would stop during this time and start again a few months later . So we had this sense of like that's it .

We're no longer in this time-bound reality , we've moved out of that , and in this time slaves became masters and master slaves , debt were forgiven , and in later centuries , when Christianity took over , saturnalia was continued well into the Middle Ages and through the Middle Ages , right up until the Renaissance .

I believe that it was right up until the 17th or maybe 18th century that this was still in practice and they would have all sorts of things like throwing , throwing the whole society upside down .

So instead of the priest , of the old man , a young girl would take his spot and the congregation would respond not with those sombatones and chants and everything , but with sounds of a donkey . So we can imagine this kind of titillating scene , this big shake-up of the rules . Everybody gets to break the rules .

For a while it was also a sort of a resetting of the , of the social order and a chance for people to step out of their designated roles .

And the festival , you know , this idea that you would also forgive debt Sometimes that was , that was every seven years where debts would be forgiven Like this big , this big sort of resetting of the game which ultimately brings forward more , more equality and more chances for people , more second chances for people to give it another try and see if they can get on

top of things again and have another go at this game of life .

So then that was obviously replaced by Christmas and and everything became very much in the realm of the church , not outside of it , because that nearly really existed outside of the realm of church activity , speaking of church , speaking of Christianity , gods that clearly have that Capricornian signature or at least have Capricorn sons .

We see Jesus Christ and Dionysus , who both share the birthday of December 25th , giving them those sons in Capricorn and in some ways we can see those as two competing images for Capricorn , you know , on the one side , the sacrifice and seriousness of Jesus Christ .

We generally see him on the cross , matter and spirit crossing each other and he's right there , which is very Capricornian image in itself , sacrificing himself for some greater ideal , a very serious and somber image . And on the other side we see Dionysus , who is that god of musicality , ecstasy , going out and enjoying the senses in nature .

So two very different sides of Capricorn , through Dionysus and Jesus , and perhaps we're just left with the Jesus side of Capricorn in our modern astrology and we may have lost track of or lost connection to the more Dionysian side or the more pan side .

It's definitely something , I feel , within the sign , within the symbols , within the guards , within all associations with the sign . You know , although it does have its very serious side , I don't think that really gives the full picture of what this sign represents .

So , staying with Christianity , we also have the figure of the devil , because Satan , as you can hear , sounds a lot like Satan . So somewhere along there there's a bit of a confusion going on . And then , of course , pan , this goat god .

If you were to Google Pan , then at least half of the images that would come through for you would be the devil with the goat horns and the hooves and everything Of everything wrong and evil and dark and sinister .

So isn't it a curious thing that this God , you know , was so beloved by all in his origin story and then would go through such a transformation as to be associated now , in the modern day , you know , several thousand years later , as dark and evil ? It was declared in 2nd century AD that the great God Pan was dead .

There's a lot to be said about that declaration , but perhaps it can also be , you know , it could be one of those unconscious symbols of how the expansion of the empire at the time was the retraction of nature .

And you know again , another question that is posed within Capricorn consciousnesses can civilization and nature exist together , or they sort of pitted against each other like these mortal enemies ? And the more civilized we become , the less natural we become in multiple ways ? Something pondered there .

So yeah , finally , I'd like to explore a little bit about the archetypal father , because that is also something that is associated with Capricorn . A year ago I proposed that maybe Capricorn cancer is the axis of the mother and Aquarius , leo is the axis of the father , like mother , daughter , father , son .

But as consensus , reality would have it , it is considered to be the father and so we'll treat it today like the father , with a few question marks of like , well , is Capricorn really associated with the father ?

But I can see the argument for that as two sides of the , of the nurturing axis or the caregiving axis , one being the Capricorn side and one being the cancer side , the father-mother combination .

You know , while that moon-based , lunar-based mother is able to provide love , care and nurturance , the father is there to provide a different kind of love and of course I'm talking archetypally , but this obviously plays out , man manifests itself as well into the world .

It's not that it has to be like this and of course women can play father and men can play mother and all of those kinds of things . That's all available in the archetypal realm . But it's important also that we get that archetypal basis , for you know these two different kinds of nurturance and caregiving .

So the archetypal father , yeah , it's a different kind of love .

He's there to help the child get a glimpse into the world out there that's beyond the mother's world , and to help him understand the rules of that world , those that can be bent and broken and those that cannot , and sort of help his children have access to that world that otherwise they may not be able to see .

So that is the father's , ultimately the father's role , but like Saturn in astrology , the archetypal father can can also be like the threshold guardian .

You know , the threshold guardian can either be the encouraging voice that tells the child to come forward it's okay here or the menacing voice that tells them you know , don't go here , you can't pass here , this is not where you can go .

And generally we think of Saturn as the latter of those , the one that stands at the threshold and goes and says to us you cannot come here . So that critical , harsh voice that says like you have no place in this world , you need to turn back and go back to something comfortable for you .

You're probably better suited to other things and this , when we're dealing with Saturn in our chart , wherever it is in our chart , tends to be that place of like where we have to struggle , where we have to go through hardship and hard times in order to eventually , hopefully , if we keep showing up to Saturn's challenge , saturn then eventually becomes that more

encouraging voice it's like . But we have to earn Saturn's respect before he , before he's able to show us that voice . And oftentimes we're so confronted by that threshold , guardian , that we rush back to an earlier phase of maturity and we we sort of stay there and stagnate .

So confronting that archetypal force at the threshold is also an important part of any coming of age ritual , whether that's actual ritualized process or just life naturally throwing that at us . As I said before , we have those , those Saturn numbers , the 29 and a half year cycle .

Splitting that into four we get approximately we get 715 , 22 , 29 , 37 and we can go forward again . These are the ages that they're associated with Saturn's process and you can keep going forward with you know it's just under seven and a half . You can't just go as simple as like 714 , 21 . You need to add a little bit every now and again .

But those are the years of these changes and it's an interesting process to look back through those times in your life , or if you're in one right now , and just get a sense of like , what is Saturn asking of me right now , because often during those Saturn cycles we're being asked to leave something behind and go into another phase of maturity .

So you can think of these ages as like those ledges you know when Melanie was talking about the goat just sitting at that ledge and then scurrying up the mountain . It's like those ages , or those ledges of the mountain that we find ourselves at and then move through as we climb up to these new phases and new elements of development up this mountain .

And I want to bring also the element of later in life . It may be . It equally could be a time when Capricorn is required to make his way down the mountain as well . So this could be when we're moving into the second Saturn return occurs around 58 , 59 , 60 around that time .

So we get that next phase where we have to start looking at , well , what's the way down this mountain , like we've come up to the mountain top , and then we have to start looking at , like , what's the way down ? So we can have that that time of 58 , 59 , then also at 66 , and then also at 73 , 73 , 74 .

So these times when we're starting to feel into like how can I make my way over the peak and down from the mountain and doing this with graces perhaps another Capricorn lesson and enjoying the cornucopia , hopefully , of our Capricornian endeavors during life and being able to reflect and rest , and one of those Capricorn images is like the elder who's able to pass on

that wisdom to the younger generations . I think this is a really beautiful Capricorn image . In fact , in my Capricorn interview , which is coming up in two weeks , I'll have Michael Mead on the podcast .

It'll be a celebration of his 80th birthday , which is January 16th , and it's a chance to listen to a real elder who is able to still be very active as he moves into his 80s .

He just has so much to share , so much life experience , so many myths and stories , so much wisdom , and that has fueled him into the later phase of his life , kept him really , really active and ultimately turning back to the generations that are coming up and attempting to share wisdom with them , and so I look forward to sharing that with you soon .

So , yeah , this archetypal father is an interesting one , you know . I think it's really a healthy thing to look at the father through the archetypal lens and so we don't get stuck in the political lens or the family lens . We can stay with the archetypes .

It's like there's been this observable trend where this archetypal father has been going through the chronosat and experience of being overthrown by his children over the last few decades .

You know , this could be from depictions as this useless and futile father in pop culture dating back to the Simpsons through Homo Simpson , married with children with Ed Bundy , tim Allens , tool Time , you know , with this kind of goofy man , goofy father and countless others that you can probably think of if you grew up in the 80s and 90s , like I did .

So we see this change from the father being depicted as solid and dependable , capable , maybe a little distant , but this father figure of old , to this bumbling , incompetent fool that we get in more recent times and then even in more recent popular movies , like in Star Wars and in Indiana Jones , and certainly happened in Marvel , where these legacy male characters

who we grew up with and saw do all sorts of remarkable things and go on wild adventures . They returned to the screen , but now they have these dull , depressing and failed lives , despite all those successes that we witnessed in their more youthful days . You know , then we have this word patriarchal word .

That means the ancient father and the idea that that's to blame for all that is wrong in the world today , which is a pretty dangerous idea really , because the archetypal world obviously does filter into our everyday world . But you know , archetypally this is quite a common occurrence throughout history where a new order comes in to overthrow the old , broken king .

It's just Zeus and Kronos all over again and multiple other iterations of that same thing . But we have to make sure that the culture doesn't literalize such an archetypal battle , even if that is the battle that's happening . If it literalizes it , then we can have this experience that we see today .

We can imagine if it's literalized and then fathers or men are felt like they had to blame for everything in the world .

We can see that the role of men and males in society is it just gets belittled and diminished , which could lead to all sorts of unforeseen consequences , such as soaring depression and suicide rates in men and a severe decline in the mental health of males in general . So it's a dangerous path to tread .

Where we blame , we put that blame , or not necessarily that it's even intentional , but the blame ends up landing on males , masculinity and fathers , which is just really an oversimplification and a literalization of an archetype . What might be real in the archetypal world can't be really literalized into the experience of .

Men are like this and women are like this , these oversimplifications that get us into all sorts of trouble . Okay , so , to wrap up , capricorn is the tenth sign . It's like the apex of the journey of the wheel , in a way .

In the house system , the cusp of the tenth house , which is Capricorn's house , is the mid-heaven , so it's like the very top of the sphere of the sky and represents the highest achievement of human endeavor .

It's aiming at the creation of systems and structures in which we can all live better lives , more abundant lives , and that's what that energy is ultimately aiming at and is this desire , this strong desire of overthrow tyranny and create abundance for all . That's the beautiful , lofty goal of Capricorn . But of course it rarely , if ever , achieves this goal .

So it's destined to be challenged and disrupted by the next sign of Aquarius , or it regresses and gets reimagined by the sign before it of Sagittarius .

So it's sitting in between two very visionary signs of Aquarius and Sagittarius , and so it can be very difficult for Capricorn to really hold on and create , of course , just like Cronus , when it feels it's going to be overthrown . That tends to be when it holds on even tighter .

Nevertheless , capricorn and Cassata will continue to attempt to achieve its goals and climb up to the summit . Whether it delights in this process along the way is up to the native themselves . It doesn't have to be so serious , it doesn't have to be so stressful , it doesn't have to be so tense . It can actually be fun and quite an enjoyable experience .

Even in the pain , even in the discipline , even in the hard work . The ability to enjoy that process is not dictated by the chart or by the stars . That seems to me like a choice . So thanks for joining me for this exploration of Capricorn today .

I'm really , really excited for our next episode in which I get to release to you my conversation with Michael Mead that I had a few months ago . It was in October . It's like a bit of a peak experience for me , to be honest , to be able to talk to him , to be able to talk mythology , to be able to talk about his life .

It's a real ode to the life that he's had , the impact that he's had on so many of us . I'm sure many of you are listening , no , michael Mead and his work . If you don't , I strongly recommend going and listening to the Living Myth podcast and having a look at his books .

The different things that he's done over his life is a real inspiration to my work and the work of many around me that focus on the more mythic element of reality , so I'm looking forward to seeing you

then . Thanks for joining me and everybody go well . Thank you for listening to On the Souls Terms podcast . To support the show , please consider leaving a five star review , sharing with friends or becoming a patron at patreoncom . Slash on the souls terms Until next time . Rock music .