The sign of Capricorn hosts the winter solstice, and conjures all that is cold, practical, and tangible. It is an earth sign after all and loves nothing more than to feel the ground beneath its feet. Capricorn initiates the maturation process and all forms of due diligence that ensure definition, solidity, and endurance. Archtypally, we associate it with executive function, hierarchical structure, rules, consensus reality, and the ultimate reality of death. In popular astrology it’s presented as patriarchal. Its symbol, the mountain goat, comes to mind when we think of the way it slowly and diligently climbs a mountain to reach its peak. This is just one interpretation of the sign that tells one side of Capricorn’s complex story.
Many astrology students have a hard time wrapping their minds around the fact that Capricorn, with all of its authoritative and patriarchal leanings, is a feminine sign. Speaking energetically, and not in terms of gender, it works its magic by conserving, limiting, and contracting. It pulls things in and down, as opposed to the masculine direction of out and up. People also get caught up in the earthy nature of the sign and cast its denizens as materialistic, ambitious for worldly success, and rigid rule-followers. While Capricorn can possess some of these traits, it’s just as likely to be earthy in terms of sensuality.
Capricorn also has connections to the satyr and fertility god, Pan. Pan represents the feral aspects of nature and our lustful drives to merge with those around us and act on the body’s instincts. In this representation, Capricorn is a symbol for pagans and the wild feminine. This might seem like too far a departure from the rules and regulations of corporate and governmental versions of Capricorn, but not when you take into account the ultimate rules of life. Nature can be harsh and we are at the mercy of its chaotic intelligence and laws, and the harshest law of all is that everything dies. There are echoes of this in The Devil card in the tarot, which has a correspondence to Capricorn. The Devil card speaks to the ways we are enslaved by time, desire, and the material and natural worlds.
There’s also the mystical experience of Capricorn that is captured in the emblem of the sea-goat, a creature that is half-goat, half-fish. It represents the people and situations that thrive in the thresholds of becoming and returning. Think of all of the interstitial places that you’ve inhabited in your life—times when you weren’t quite “here” or “there,” but in transition. The mystical aspect of Capricorn takes the intuited and imagined aspects of life and synthesizes them in a body. Capricorn is the way station that transforms a seed into a tree. It’s the doula that escorts living things back into the earth’s grave (another way station). If we were to take a snapshot of these transitions in process, it would look a lot like the mystical sea-goat.
The planet in charge of all these expressions of Capricorn is Saturn. When looking into the night sky, the ancients only saw seven planets, and Saturn was the end of the line. When people first started recording their planetary observations, the average life expectancy was around 30 years old, the approximate length of a Saturn cycle. Saturn represents the last discernible things we can see with our naked eye. Whatever lies beyond this threshold exists in the realms of the imagination, mystery, and possibility. With this in mind, we can see Saturn in all the expressions of Capricorn: hard limits, 3D reality, death, and the mystery that surrounds that transformation. It’s also seen as the lord of time and karma. In an individual’s natal chart we can analyze Saturn to get a sense of one’s relationship to time. Is it seen as a prison or an achievement? Is there a lack of patience, a reverence for maturity, or concern about longevity?
This winter marks Saturn’s last days in Pisces. Pisces is the final sign of the zodiac, which means that Saturn is nearing the end of its cycle. One of the main significations of Saturn in Pisces is structural collapse and entropy. In February 2026, Saturn enters the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, to begin another trip around the wheel. Saturn can be quite forceful and confronting in this fiery sign that symbolizes birth. I’m wishing all of us a reenergized sense of purpose and Saturn’s legendary stamina to build new structures that last.
