New Moon in Capricorn | January 2022

New Moon in Capricorn

1:33pm EST

2 January 2022

Image by Ray Hennessy via Unsplash

Welcome to the first New Moon of 2022. Astrologically speaking, this is a big month, but I sense positivity and change on the horizon for us, so let’s all take a big breath and welcome in some new energy. 

It’s all about Venus in the sky this month. In January alone, Venus completes one cycle, starts another, meets up with the moon, meets with the sun, activates the star Vega, and rises as a morning star for a whole new 19-month cycle. 

My Honoring the Whole 2022 astrological planner, which you can get here, and my blog article about 2022, here, offer more about Venus’s cycles if you’d like to dive further. 

Jupiter is finding its early steps back into its second of three explorations of Pisces in 2021-2022.  Mercury retrogrades mid-month. Uranus goes direct a few days later.  And the Nodes change from the Sag-Gemini axis to the Taurus-Scorpio axis. 

This is a lot of changing energy, my Cosmic Compadres.  Let’s have a closer look. 

New Moon Sky Signatures

VENUS MOVES INTO HER CHRYSALIS PHASE

Shelter for Opening by Autumn Skye Morrison

On Jan 2, retrograde Venus moves into her chrysalis or metamorphosis stage, which is a short but potent conclusion to her larger 19-month cycle in Gemini, which began in June 2020.  Venus’s new 19-month cycle with the overtone of Capricorn begins January 14.  During this short but potent window of transformation between Jan 2 and 14, Venus will meet with the Sun, closest to Earth, at 18º Capricorn on January 8.  (Many say this is the start of her new cycle, but in Shamanic Astrology, which is experientially based, we don’t see her cycle beginning until she rises as a morning star, since that is what the ancients would have observed as her “new beginning”)

Venus’s Chrysalis Phase is one of transition, resting, recouping and reflecting on her journey as the Gemini Goddess, integrating and releasing what was created, learned and journeyed through.  Offers her wisdom back to Great Mystery.  She is building a bridge from one journey to another.  She notices that this ending holds the seeds of a new beginning. She is metamorphosizing.  This is a time where she cannot be observed in the sky, which has long been noted by the ancients. 

This is a big signature change for our beloved Venus, the inner planet representing the feminine principle in creation. She is completing her exploration around the themes of information, perception, communication, storytelling, being the multi-dimensional messenger, breaking free of old rules and structures, and youthful creativity. 

In her new 19-month cycle in the signature or overtone of Capricorn, Venus is exploring what it means to be the Wise Woman, the Elder, the one who knows how to create systems and structures that truly serve the planet moving forward, who anchors into her own inner authority and personal power, who weaves the feminine back into our lifeways. 

Venus rises anew in the morning sky on January 14 with the star Vega. 

The Lyra constellation is connected to the lyre and the swooping eagle.

In astrology, we often say that a star needs a “planetary activation” (via conjunction) for its energies to reach Earth –– therefore Venus is activating Vega upon her rise into this next cycle, carrying Vega’s imprint into the entire 19-months to come. 

Vega is a bright white star of the Lyra constellation (imaged as a lyre or as an eagle or vulture in lore), located about 25 light-years away from Earth.  It is the fifth brightest star in Earth’s night sky.  Astrologically, Vega is considered to have Venusian energy, with a splash of Mercury and Neptune for good measure.  The Babylonians called Vega “the Queen of Life.” (If you want to dig further into Lyran energetics, Google “lyran starseed”). 

Venus stations direct on January 29, when she will also meet up with the moon for her first conjunction in her morning star phase at the Crown Chakra Gate.

MERCURY MOVES INTO AQUARIUS

Mercury, that quick-moving messenger circling between us and the sun, moves into Aquarius on this new moon.  Later this month Mercury will take his first of four retrogrades this year, mostly through Aquarius and back into Capricorn.  If you have planets in these signs, you might feel this Mercury retrograde more intensely. 

Remember, Mercury Retrograde doesn’t have to be a bad thing –– it’s a time when our communication, cognition and perception arrows are meant to point back toward us so that we can reflect and come to more deeply understand ourselves.  It’s a time for internal exploration, not time to forge ahead in the material world. 

JUPITER IN PISCES 

Jupiter has moved into Pisces this week and all the astrologers are thrilled! Many of us anticipate this as a welcome energetic change from Jupiter’s recent run in Aquarius.  You might consider what expanded between May and July of 2021, as this was Jupiter’s first foray into Pisces.  You can find more about what area of your life is being impacted by this ingress over on my Instagram or in the email I sent to my community December 28.  (Not on my email list? Let’s fix that straightaway!)

New Moon in Capricorn

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times ;) The new moon is an opportunity for us to “become new” with, and walk with the archetype of, the current astrological sign.  So, for the next month, our invitation is to walk with the themes of Capricorn.  (And in some ways, we may walk with them longer, as Venus’s new 19-month cycle will carry this archetypal flavor all the way through). 

Capricorn is associated with the bones: the teeth, the joints, the skeleton.  It is an earth element feminine sign, associated with the female matriarch and wise elder.  It is a culture bearer sign, meaning that it is interested in how we create sustainable systems and structures of familial and communal cooperation that will not only be of present benefit but serve the seven generations to come. 

Photo by Cristian Newman

ILLUMINED EXPRESSION OF CAPRICORN

·      Wise, effective, benevolent leadership

·      Managing matter for the benefit of self, community, and those to come

·      Building healthy infrastructures

·      Wise stewardship of land and land use

·      Applying elder wisdom practically to serve society

·      Inner authority

·      Ability to succeed and achieve in the material world

·      Patience, determination, responsibility, integrity

DISTORTED EXPRESSION OF CAPRICORN

·      Nationalistic or separatist based on some faddish “dividing line” (ahem)

·      Authoritarianism

·      Top-down or power-over dynamics of control and coercion | control issues

·      Being bound to old laws and old ways; achieving by old cultural paradigm’s rules

·      Patriarchy

·      Conformity

·      Feeling overly responsible or over-burdened (weight of the world on your shoulders)

·      Perfectionism

·      Workaholism

·      Lost joy in the pursuit of success or responsible service

What is your relationship to these archetypal qualities within?  What among these two lists lights up for you as relevant to your current life experiences?

I encourage you to walk with the inquiry of how you might integrate these aspects into the wholeness of your being.  What are they needing so that you may thrive? 

New Moon Chandra symbol

CAPRICORN 13
A very old wrinkled brown paper sack.

Use and misuse. Taking advantage of your own beast of burden endurance to get the most out of yourself you possibly can. Extracting productive results from all other factors and fixating upon these. Eventually you get what you put into it.

And if there is a self-exploitative or a darkly-abusive side to your way of operating, it generates the karma of aging and death and blight. It becomes crucial to develop, against the grain, compassion and all the gentler feelings.

Because if unchecked, the heavy-handed self-demand to make the world work better at all costs will decimate the inner self.

Reflection Questions

• What is your relationship to your inner “beast of burden” right now? 

• What might be more important to you than “extracting productive results?” And, how might you live in accordance with what matters more to you? 

• What are your paths to developing compassion and the gentler feelings?  What would be required for you to take these paths more frequently? 

January 2022 Astrology Overview

Jan 2: Venus heads into her chrysalis phase; disappears from the evening sky until she rises, with Vega, on Jan 14 as a “morning star”

Jan 8: Venus meets with the Sun in her interior conjunction during her chrysalis phase

Jan 14 (to Feb 3): Mercury Retrograde in Aquarius and Capricorn: Venus rises as a morning star–– NEW CYCLE BEGINS

Jan 16: Sun-Pluto conjunction Capricorn

Jan 17: Full Moon in Cancer; Jupiter conjunct Fomalhaut

Jan 18: Uranus Direct | Nodes change into Taurus/Scorpio axis (see my blog article on the astrology of 2022 for more)

Jan 19: Sun into Aquarius

Jan 24: Mars into Capricorn

Jan 28: Mercury conjunct Pluto #2

Jan 29: Venus Direct; Moon-Venus conjunct at Crown in Capricorn

Cheers for Reciprocity!

If you enjoyed and received value from this blog, please share it with a friend. I pour a lot of time and energy into these offerings and would love for them to reach the people they can support. Many thanks. Consider it a way to reciprocate, if you are so moved. 

I still have a few more openings for 2022 astrology readings if you’d like to get some clarity about the year ahead.