Spirituality Guide

Capricorn (23 December-19 January) – Element: Earth / Quality: Cardinal / Ruler: Saturn

Realistic, goal-oriented, sensible, ambitious, accepts responsibility, socially aware, values reputation and integrity, seeks successful outcomes, can be opportunistic.

Ah, Capricorns. They are some of our leaders, bankers, and quiet planners who usually seem to know the right things to do and exactly where problems lie in society. While they may seem a bit harsh around the edges sometimes, their feelings usually come from a truly good and meaningful place.

However, those feelings of duty and wanting to put the world in a better place can sometimes get our responsible Capricorns in a bit of trouble with some of the more prickly or sensitive signs. Capricorns need to be careful to present their views in gentle ways.

You also need to make sure to have fun. It’s all to easy for Capricorns to take on more work than they can handle and stop having the fun that helps them bond with friends, family, and lovers. Taking out time for the pleasures in life is something the Capricorns don’t always find easy and child Capricorns often become more like adults faster than other children.

While it might not always be the obvious type, Capricorns do like romance and the feelings of loyalty associated with such relationships. The Capricorn likes an open mate who will like the Capricorn’s dependability. Fiery partners may find themselves attracted to the loyalty, but these relationships usually either work out well or don’t work at all. There isn’t a lot of grey area.

Sources:
JanSpiller.com
Zodiac Signs
Wikipedia

When it comes to Western astrology, things can get a bit complicated when you talk about charting down to the precise degree, what planets are in what houses, what ascendants are, what your lunar sign is… There are quite a lot of components to learn about.

For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to give you some terms and definitions you should know. Call them astrology basics (even though I will probably miss something that another astrologer considers basic but absolutely necessary to know).

Your Chart: Your personal chart is a circle mapping out the position of the planets (plus the sun and moon) in particular houses at the time of your birth. The 360 degree circle is split into twelve 30 degree houses…

Houses: Each 30 degree ‘slice’ of your chart is a house, and each house has its own meaning. Houses are what lie behind our urges in life. In astrology there are ten planets and twelve houses, so the houses with no planets are the areas of life you aren’t particularly interested in. The more planets you have in one house, the more focused on that area of life you are going to be.

Signs: The signs are probably what you already know about. There are twelve signs, including Capricorn, Aries, Saggitarius, etc, and each of these signs, like the houses, have their own meanings and basic personality traits.

Aspects: Aspects are the relationships between planets. There are different categories planetary relationships fall into. For example, if you imagine your chart as a clock and have one planet at 9.00 and one planet at 3.00, these planets are in opposition. As you can imagine, the urges associated with the planets in opposition ‘battle it out’ in our personalities.

Of course, things definitely get more complicated than that, but I’m just here to point out the basics. If you want to learn more, that’s up to you.

From checking our horoscope to the newspaper to taking our personal chart to an astrologer, many people have at least a slight interest in modern western astrology. ‘Western’ astrology? The kind with twelve zodiac signs, all of which have corresponding calendar dates equaling up to a year.

I like checking my horoscope when I can. It’s amusing when it’s right on and not surprising when it has nothing to do with what’s going on in my life at the time (which is the case, most of the time). I put a bit more credibility into it when an astrologer takes a look at my personal chart, but even then things…aren’t quite right.

Obviously modern western astrology – or any astrology for that matter – is by no means an exact science. However, there is one big thing that could be leading to a lot of the ‘not quite right’ statements…

The problem with modern astrology is that it still uses the planet positions from hundreds of years ago. Do you feel like your horoscope only ‘kind of’ fits you? Or perhaps you don’t fit your zodiac sign whatsoever but find yourself fitting another sign. That could be because the planets have drifted since then but there hasn’t been any accommodation of that fact in modern astrology.

That is also why some people feel more ‘in tune’ with their Chinese zodiac sign and element. The Chinese zodiac is based on year as well as time of year to get a better ‘feel’ for zodiac influences on personality.

This is not to say that modern western astrology can’t tell us anything about our lives. With the use of a personal chart, astrologers can tell you a lot – a lot more than your weekly horoscope in the local newspaper, that’s for sure.

Here’s a quiz to see what your ‘true’ zodiac sign is. It’s not a serious method of determining this, but it might be fun and interesting to you anyway.

Quiz