| July 9th | Full Buck Moon | 12:07 am |
Here it comes, the full Capricorn moon. Capricorn is a (cough) energy (cough! cough!) that is consciously in the center of my life.
(I feel like such a fruit bat using this language, but there are worse things I could be, and this is the language that's grown up around these things. I wish I could be like Iris and talk about things that have been described in new-age Secret-speak without falling prey to all those linguistic conventions. It's a process, I guess.)
Literally, in the center of my life, because I come from a matrilineal Capricorn family (grandmother and mother). I have a very conscious relationship to the qualities and tendencies of Capricorn women. I also have a Capricorn moon in my chart; yep, my feels are filtered through the fractured Capricorn granite.
This morning's Deep Thought is about Work and the Capricorn full moon that calls our attention to it.
This morning's Deep Thought is about Work and the Capricorn full moon that calls our attention to it.
Work is what our mind turns to. "You are what you think about doing all day long," says the fortune-cookie wisdom taped to my computer. Work is what we are called, inexorably, to do; work is the Capricorn wheelhouse, work is a weird and perverted concept in late-stage capitalism.
I understand that my friends are exceptionally creative, exceptionally intelligent, and often exceptionally driven. Not everyone has the little demon in the brain with the neon signs saying "not enough," "not good enough," and "you're a hack"...but i think that my friends (and probably most people) do.
And most of my friends will know in their feels what I'm talking about, both in terms of their "job," and also in terms of the work that they take on as their True Work--their art, or their activism, or whatever they feel called to pursue. Some of us are lucky enough to have those two things be the same, or at least similar: that is, we find some way to have our job serve or encompass our True Work in what we do under capitalism in order to be a part of society--which mandates a minimum level of consumption to be considered a "normal" life.
And most of my friends will know in their feels what I'm talking about, both in terms of their "job," and also in terms of the work that they take on as their True Work--their art, or their activism, or whatever they feel called to pursue. Some of us are lucky enough to have those two things be the same, or at least similar: that is, we find some way to have our job serve or encompass our True Work in what we do under capitalism in order to be a part of society--which mandates a minimum level of consumption to be considered a "normal" life.
To say that Capricorns are ruled by Work, and vice versa, is to short-sell the complicated way that Capricorns show up in the world. Capricorn has a deep need for structure, like Virgo on a macroscopic scale, and a desire to embody and align with capital-A Authority. This is a very hard moment in human time to have that relationship to Authority.
Systems of Justice, systems of Education, systems of Governance are all crumbling. It reads like hyperbole; but really, anyone involved with any of these systems can allow for these to be true facts. How are we supposed to support and believe in systems that have passed beyond disfunctionality into surrealism?
Well, glad you asked, because we're not. We are supposed to do the work of creating new structures, new systems, with a different relationship to Authority. This is truly a Capricorn meta-moment; one where Capricorn has to confront its own fear that it's all a humbug--that nobody is accountable, that nothing is worth being accountable to.
Systems of Justice, systems of Education, systems of Governance are all crumbling. It reads like hyperbole; but really, anyone involved with any of these systems can allow for these to be true facts. How are we supposed to support and believe in systems that have passed beyond disfunctionality into surrealism?
Well, glad you asked, because we're not. We are supposed to do the work of creating new structures, new systems, with a different relationship to Authority. This is truly a Capricorn meta-moment; one where Capricorn has to confront its own fear that it's all a humbug--that nobody is accountable, that nothing is worth being accountable to.
Many of us--to return to the little brain-demon--have had to work hard with our own internal Authority. That guy is a total dick! As above, so below, right? If our external Authorities are dysfunctional and collapsing, why would our own internal versions of that larger system be any more effective or kind?
But we know (from bitter experience) that the asshole in our head has to be taught to be less shrill, less mean, and less unreasonable, in order to be more effective. There is a diminishing return on self-cruelty. There is a difference between pushing oneself to grow as a person and as a worker, a maker...and pushing oneself as a reflexive, habitual expression of eternal less-than; an eternal doomed struggle to find self-worth. This is not the fuel we need to move the world, or move with the world, into a better expression of shared humanity.
But we know (from bitter experience) that the asshole in our head has to be taught to be less shrill, less mean, and less unreasonable, in order to be more effective. There is a diminishing return on self-cruelty. There is a difference between pushing oneself to grow as a person and as a worker, a maker...and pushing oneself as a reflexive, habitual expression of eternal less-than; an eternal doomed struggle to find self-worth. This is not the fuel we need to move the world, or move with the world, into a better expression of shared humanity.
But Capricorn eats fear and shits victory--to a point. At some point, you are what you eat. A lot of Capricorn's impressive roster of accomplishments in the world is fueled by that fear: the fear of being unworthy; the fear of being a dilettante, a person of no substance; the fear of poverty, of failing to achieve that "normal" level of consumption, and the corresponding "success" of going above and beyond the baseline.
Another idea that is useful to consider is that "the great is the enemy of the good"--what, exactly, is success? Making it to the baseline is sometimes the best we can possibly do with the resources and energy we have at hand. Sometimes when we look too far ahead, the journey seems so long, we fuck ourselves out of even starting. Capricorn's sense of pride demands that starting makes finishing mandatory. We have to know and feel that finishing might well be impossible, with much of our work; and that The Work can eat our happiness if we let it. How to undertake one's life's work with a light heart? How we answer that question is a life's process, and we may greatly aid one another as we search for strategies that make us more flexible, crafty, and kind in the ways that we answer.
There is a feeling of loss, of the quiet dance of deep space with Saturn, whose rings are said to represent human limitation. Capricorn buries the nut. Capricorn scans the shore and laments its lost babies. Capricorn holds, keeps, and uses. Capricorn is the world of the real, the material, the literal. Capricorn would have no time for such fruit-bat meditations.
Remember to balance your ruthless devotion to making meaning with and of your life...with a care and tenderness for everyone, even yourself; even that brain-demon who flashes those neon lights. Have the demon make a neon sign that says "Good Job!"--because our Capricorn side needs that one most of all; and may eventually come to believe it.
Another idea that is useful to consider is that "the great is the enemy of the good"--what, exactly, is success? Making it to the baseline is sometimes the best we can possibly do with the resources and energy we have at hand. Sometimes when we look too far ahead, the journey seems so long, we fuck ourselves out of even starting. Capricorn's sense of pride demands that starting makes finishing mandatory. We have to know and feel that finishing might well be impossible, with much of our work; and that The Work can eat our happiness if we let it. How to undertake one's life's work with a light heart? How we answer that question is a life's process, and we may greatly aid one another as we search for strategies that make us more flexible, crafty, and kind in the ways that we answer.
There is a feeling of loss, of the quiet dance of deep space with Saturn, whose rings are said to represent human limitation. Capricorn buries the nut. Capricorn scans the shore and laments its lost babies. Capricorn holds, keeps, and uses. Capricorn is the world of the real, the material, the literal. Capricorn would have no time for such fruit-bat meditations.Remember to balance your ruthless devotion to making meaning with and of your life...with a care and tenderness for everyone, even yourself; even that brain-demon who flashes those neon lights. Have the demon make a neon sign that says "Good Job!"--because our Capricorn side needs that one most of all; and may eventually come to believe it.
