Capricorn

Saturn and Capricorn speak of age, or more accurately, of maturity. In Capricorn, the principle of limits is focused into the limits of a cycle, and specifically the limits of a phase or cycle of human development that we call a maturity level. The outer boundary on human cycles is old age. Until recently, this was considered the age of wisdom, the crowning achievement of a well-lived life.

Perhaps the reason for the seemingly arrested development in our religious/moral structures was that for many centuries tribal thinking overshadowed civilization even as labor was divided into categories such as agriculture, crafts, and trade. Almost every family owned a business which was inherited through the generations. Extended families lived close together or even under the same roof. There was no difficulty because it allowed individual progress within the family and its business.

With the arrival of the industrial age, tribal family systems began to disintegrate. New laws of relationship were needed to define new kinds of roles. Fathers and grandfathers lost their authority, mothers and grandmothers lost their security, and children were just lost. All were left without practical guides for living. Responsibility guidelines got so confused that sometimes no one took responsibility for anything. This took down the walls of homes, left women undefended and children uncontained.

When belief systems tried to contain human behavior in terms of the past, it merely arrested the motion of change. Behavior regressed and produced a massive explosion in the incidence of abuse and violence. This encouraged more governmental intervention leading to new and more advanced abuses of authority. It may seem as though Saturn has gone crazy and Capricorn has gone to the devil.

Today, with ever-increasing speed, changes in consciousness are occurring. New solutions are being proposed for old problems, and we may conclude that change is also a self-limiting process. Humankind has reached a turning point, the end of a phase. The old limits must be expanded (Jupiter) or changed entirely (Uranus). Humankind has come of age and must now set out on a new journey toward a new kind of maturity, a new boundary.

Capricorn signifies age, and, in its aspect as cyclic limits, the concept of astrological ages. It also refers to corresponding levels of development in consciousness/awareness. Capricorn will always be the place where Sagittarian expansion stops--whether temporarily or permanently depends on our beliefs. It is the horizon beyond which we cannot see without moving forward.

Capricorn and Saturn are connected to authority in the sense that our rights are our authority. Those to whom we grant authority over our lives define its limits by telling us what our rights are. Whenever we arrest the forward movement of our belief systems, we give to a dead or dying concept of life the power to set boundaries on our spiritual progress. These beliefs become our moral laws, and because we believe them, we give them our power and manifest them in form and reality. This fixes them as "scientific" laws. They define the way life works.

Doing this, "old age" becomes a time of physical and mental disintegration. What might have been wisdom, collapses into senility and we return to childhood--reflecting the metaphysical truth of choosing to remain on the karmic wheel.

Capricorn and Saturn have traditionally been regarded as restriction. In some ways, they are that. Whenever one phase is ending, the energy that had formerly been directed to it will be rerouted into the next phase. The channel or flow of energy into that which no longer serves a purpose will be restricted. If we are attempting to stop change or arrest development, we experience pain. This is the source of Capricorns’ tendency toward depression. This condition is a symptom of feeling that we are pinned against an uncrossable boundary. The remedy is to realize that there are no uncrossable boundaries, only walls of obsolete beliefs.