Venus in Capricorn: New Rules of the Goddess

Morning Star Venus rose in the sign of Capricorn on January 18, 2014, beginning a 19 month Venus Synodic Cycle in the sign of Capricorn.   The Capricorn Goddess now has the stage, and she will guide humanity on our initiatory death and rebirth journey over the next 1 ½ years. What does this mean for each of us, and for human culture?

It means a time of casting off, of shedding layers of old rules, old norms, old consensus reality, getting down to the true bones of what it means to be a human being—and building new rules, new structure, a new consensus reality from there.

This journey is an acceleration of what I like to call The Great Unraveling. It began with Pluto’s entrance into Capricorn in the winter of 2007, and accelerated with Saturn’s entrance into Scorpio in October of 2012.

Now Venus in Capricorn steps up the process. Like the Sumerian Goddess Inanna, whose Descent Myth was based on the Venus Cycle itself, we can consciously to strip away our too-civilized selves, and get naked and real as we approach Great Mystery, or Source, for a renewal process.

We see and feel the Great Unraveling everywhere. And what is it, exactly, that is unraveling? The rules or operating manual set down by the desert fathers who 5000 years ago put the masculine at the head of the table and in the councils of power and made the Holy Father singular, separate, distant—dwelling far from Earth. The same fathers who banished the Feminine Divine to the Underworld.

The Old Rules of the Patriarchy

The nomadic people whose One-God religions have evolved into our present culture had a primal drive to survive a harsh world, to become stronger than the desert winds, to harden themselves in order to stay alive. These early, fear-based origins still deeply shape the current consensus reality, which has enabled humans to dominate and ravage the Earth, indigenous communities, the feminine and finally even our life-giving atmosphere.

Many of us have adapted this cultural paradigm via the Calvinist mythology which tells us that God loves best those who work the hardest, and advises us to apply might and will power to every problem at hand. We have found it reflected in the Darwinian emphasis on competition and “survival of the fittest.” We have celebrated it as the rugged American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy which has degraded into the “greed is good” mentality of the global marketplace.

Yet more and more of us are awakening to the reality that this culture and worldview is overripe and is in a natural descent or “composting” phase. Those of us at the leading edges are learning to make fertile and beautiful gardens from this waste, and to grow the seedlings and saplings to construct our new world. The Capricorn Goddess, she who serves the Circle of the Grandmothers, is helping us to do just that. She’s changing the rules of the game, so listen up!

Capricorn Goddess’s New Rules for 2014 & Beyond

Less is More
I loved recently reading inspirational author Sara Avant Stover proclaim her intention for 2014. She had decided to apply the 2/3 Ayurveda rule: eat until your belly is 2/3 full to enable easier digestion—to her life design. This meant taking 1/3 of her day, week, and year—for open space, free time, creative exploration. I want to live in a world where this is a possibility for EVERYONE—to live well with time and space for community, creativity, and contribution.

New Capricorn (and Saturn) says this: pay attention to how you use your energy, time, space, set clear boundaries around what you love, what inspires you, what makes you come alive, and work around THAT. Be deliberate and focused in your actions and you can accomplish more, way more, than by running around like that proverbial headless chicken.

Of course—the truth is that for many of us, as we step more and more firmly into the sacred work that makes us feel fully alive, we might find ourselves doing more than ever before. That’s fine: just remember to leave some empty space to digest life’s experiences most effectively!

One final thing—less is good for the planet. When we work less, we often experience fewer cravings to fill the empty spaces with meaningless junk or activities.  When we are in our aliveness and creativity we step out of passive consumer mode and into empowered creator mode. So truly, less IS more, for the quality of our lives, our relationships, and the well being of the Earth.

Play First
One of my teachers, Robert Moss, is an extremely prolific author. I love seeing how he is constantly putting out a new book, each one bursting at the seams with new insights about dreams, synchronicity, how to live our “bigger story.” His enthusiasm for his craft and his practice of constantly venturing into new terrain is inspiring.

He was asked recently what the secret is to living a creative life and said: play first, work second. I have begun to follow his advice, beginning my day with an action that inspires me instead of what feels heavy and “must be done.” For me, play sometimes means spending time on a creative project that doesn’t immediately translate to money, or reading a passage from a book that excites me, or putting on my own little “dance party” in the living room to get the energies moving.

One of my most beloved guides who came through for me in 2013 was a female hummingbird. In a twilight state between dreams she buzzed before my eyes in a flash of green and posed the koan: Magic or Middle World? You Choose! And so I have. Yes, I have! I am convinced I will be more productive this year than ever before.

New Capricorn, like her predecessor, wants to be productive, to make things happen, to build structures that last. And in order to do that, love, joy, and play create an extremely strong foundation.

Let Something Go
I recently stepped out of a circle of women though I had been afraid to leave, afraid of abandoning my sisters, and of what that said about me as a leader and responsible community member. It finally occurred to me that my lack of enthusiasm was draining the circle. It was my responsibility to leave. Capricorn is all about responsibility—i.e. being capable of responding to life in an authentic and true manner—which sometimes means letting go.

Since that time I’ve been paying attention to other areas in my life where I APPEAR to be showing up, going to meetings, going through the motions, but I am in fact only half-hearted. Who do I think I’m fooling? New Capricorn demands that we claim our firm ground and stand in it with strength and personal power. We do this best when we acknowledge our priorities and pour all our juice, gratitude, and enthusiasm into them, allowing the rest to fall away—or consciously choosing to prune them back.

Claim Your Inner Authority:
I recently said goodbye to a Business Coach whose tools had helped me double my income in 6 months. Why the heck did I do this? I had received some really powerful tools to empower myself and become more focused, and I had been healing my relationship with money. And she had been very clear that it takes at least two years to master her systems.

Yet when I gave myself a pause to consider the choice I saw that there was a misalignment of values. I was encouraged to convince my clients that they could not do it without me, something I always felt resistance to. When I hesitated to sign the contract her message to me was the same—you can’t do it on your own. You need me.

I said thank you for the many tools I will continue to use, and promptly committed to crafting my OWN way of doing business, using more natural magic, more dream wisdom, more tapping into my intuitive guidance. And guess what? My work is growing in leaps and bounds—in part because I am not resisting its natural flow by using systems that feel inappropriate for me.

This is how the new Capricorn works. We gain wisdom and insight from the authorities who have mastered the existing systems, bless and thank them, and give credit where it is due. We claim what works for us, and then transform what we have learned into our own clear form. And we are willing to bless those who use and transform our own wisdom in this same way!

Do it for Love
The old Capricorn rules said–do it because you have to. Because you must.Because if you do not, you will not survive, you will be cast out of the tribe, God won’t favor you. Venus in Capricorn urges us to cast off those shackles and do it for love.

Sometimes it does mean paying attention to the areas of our lives that feel heavy, or out of alignment and releasing them with gratitude and grace. Yet just as frequently “doing it for love” means looking at our lives with new eyes. We might need to “re-purpose” our relationship to our beloved, our work, to our lives, recognizing all that is in perfection there.

A radical gratitude practice can help us to see and pay attention to all of the ways our present life serves us. Recently I have developed a practice of daily prayer, giving gratitude for my clients, for my partner, for the beautiful sunrise, for a million things that bring joy to my life.

Again and again I see how this practice renews me, no matter the mood I started my day with.

When we begin to focus our attention all what we love, what inspires us, what brings us joy–and not uncommonly our moments of greatest joy come about when we recognize the gift in a challenging or imperfect situation–we become masters of our lives instead of slaves to circumstance and duty.