This is it. The Sun has entered Capricorn today, marking the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere, after the longest night of the year. From this moment onward, the days begin to lengthen, and light slowly returns within the densest of the zodiacal signs. Capricorn is Cardinal Earth, the realm of structure, ascension, and discipline, ruled by Saturn, the planet of lead, skeleton and bone. It corresponds to the tenth house, the highest point of the sky, the vocatio of Latin tradition, the zenith of the chart, the medium coeli, the southernmost point of Archangel Michael. This is where the Sun reaches its culmination after completing three quarters of its zodiacal journey starting from the Ascendant.
It is one of the angular houses, turned upward toward the heavens, a place of stability through form. Ruler of Sunday (the very day of its entrance this year) the Sun is reborn in the mountain, in the cave, like Mithras emerging from the rock. It is spiritual ascent that demands density and incarnation, because the soul can only rise through the weight it can endure.
Right after Sagittarius, where the Sun had found meaning in mutable Fire and in the ninth house of Divine thought, it now enters Capricorn bearing that synthesis into proper form. Mars already stands exalted in Capricorn, to be followed by Venus and Mercury. The Sun will preside over a cazimi between Aphrodite and Ares, purifying them in the structural prison of Capricorn to inaugurate 2026 under the sign of discipline and reconstruction.
But their ruler Saturn stands on unstable ground. Still in the final degrees of Pisces, Saturn moves through a martial bound right now, approaching its own saturnine bound, the final two degrees of the zodiacal wheel (358°–360°), moving direct and preparing to enter Aries, the beginning of the next cycle. The master of Capricorn, patron of this multi-planetary congregation in the tenth, attempts to solidify instability, but is like ice forming upon a shifting sea. To this we must add that, only five days ago, while still in late Sagittarius, the Sun formed a square to Saturn. Light is already born under tension.
In Capricorn, the Sun is peregrine, stripped of essential and accidental dignities, entirely subject to the law of Time and Space. In the tenth house, however, it symbolises vocation and fulfilment, the moment when the spirit, having matured within, becomes visible in the world. The numerology of ten reinforces the symbolism: the Pythagorean Tetractys, the sum of 1+2+3+4, signifying total manifestation. It corresponds to the Tenth Arcanum of the Tarot, the Wheel of Fortune, the perpetual motion that rises and falls, joining macrocosm and microcosm. Reduced theosophically (10 = 1 + 0 = 1), it signifies return to unity, the eternal rhythm of descent and ascent. The tenth house thus marks the end of impulse before fixation in the eleventh and dissolution in the twelfth: the last thrust before return, the highest point before the slope. The solar ascent in Capricorn is paradoxical, as it rises by means of density, fulfils itself in matter, and learns to shine through cold endurance.
The current first decan of Capricorn, extending until December 30, is ruled by Jupiter, planet of growth and faith. But, in this decan, Jupiter is in its fall, since its expansive, moist nature is compressed within cardinal Earth. This produces a striking paradox: growth imprisoned in stone, movement struggling to begin. It mirrors perfectly the newborn Sun of the solstice, whose light increases timidly amid the winter dark. The mystery is reflected in the nativity of Christ, the star rising above the longest night. In the Tarot, this decan corresponds to the Two of Pentacles, where the impulse of the Ace divides into the dyad, the creative spark learning balance and adaptation within the material world. As the Ace creates, the Two shapes: the Sun in Capricorn begins the labour of light within form, the first movement within the fixed structure of matter.
The current transits reinforce this atmosphere of tension and promise anew. The cluster of planets in Capricorn will form successive conjunctions. Meanwhile, both the Sun and the faster planets will oppose retrograde Jupiter exalted but retrograde in Cancer at the Nadir. It is the decisive confrontation between the root and the crown of the cosmic tree (the Imum Coeli and the Medium Coeli), where the force that builds attempts to reconcile its own foundation with its culmination. Solar gold in cardinal Earth faces jovian tin in cardinal Water: two hot principles bound to matter by different laws, one striving to crystallise form, the other to protect life in the lunar womb. This opposition stretches the axis of vocation itself, demanding that what rises toward the light remain anchored in what feeds it from below.
Kύριε ελέησον