Moon in Capricorn

Friday evening through Monday morning

Tonight at 9:57pm EDT, the Moon steps into dour Capricorn, just as the weekend begins. Bummer, right? 'Cause Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, is the sign that blows the whistle, yelling "everybody out of the pool." This is the energy of work, so not what we want on a Friday night.

But the cosmos, amazingly enough, is not geared to the human work week, and here we are with a Capricorn Moon for the weekend. What do we do now?

steam engine

We can look at the whole "work" thing, which we have some funny ideas about in the US of A. Americans work hard, with less vacation than anyone else in the developed world, but many of us put in the time to pay for a life we may not even like. Work is admirable but boring, regrettable but required. In a perfect world, we'd all be following our bliss, not working at all. Maybe.

The first thing the Moon does in Capricorn is square Uranus in Aries, cardinal Earth squaring cardinal Fire, where flaming radicalism meets the laws of physics. Mechanical work is a force acting through distance, a transfer of energy. Uranus in Aries has certainly been transferring a lot of energy lately.

Energy is transformed into work when it encounters an object, which has its kinetic energy changed as a result. We are being worked on––maybe worked over––by Uranus, and this weekend's energy may help us connect with the feelings we have about that (Moon) and figure out what to do about it (Capricorn).

We humans need work, and not just to pay the bills. As physical beings, we need to express who we are through action in the physical world. Somehow, we need to find meaningful work.

The connections the Moon makes during this Capricorn transit bring this up again and again. Saturday, the Moon squares the Aries Sun, the last quarter of this waning cycle. This is the time when pigeons come home to roost, and we reap the harvest. The Moon joins Pluto later that morning; we see how this cycle has transformed us.

Later, the Moon squares Jupiter in Aries and Saturn in Libra. We are asked to look squarely at the work we do, and why we do it. What is our praxis? In ancient Greece, praxis was work done by free men. In philosophy, praxis is the process of making ideas real. With this Moon transit through Capricorn, we look at the connection between our ideas and what we do, between our values and how we act.

Capricorn is not much associated with values, usually, just with goals and how they can be pragmatically achieved. But the Moon is about our emotions, and about our traditions, what we value. Saturday, Venus calls our attention to values, as she joins Neptune and then swims from Aquarius into Pisces, a transition from big ideas to deep feelings.

Sunday, the Moon squares Mercury in Aries, keeping us in that space of questioning what we want, what we do to get it, and how we feel about it. The tension between action and values is sounded again, as the Moon flows energy in sextile with Mars (the actor) who is still in visionary Pisces, her last aspect. The Moon will be void of course overnight, stepping into the bright light of Aquarius early Monday morning.

So, this could be a serious sort of weekend. You might decide to stay home, find yourself getting into philosophical discussions, or feel the urge to clean the basement. Here's one way to work with this energy: If your taxes aren't done, do them. Mercury turns retrograde on Wednesday, March 30, and doesn't turn direct until April 23. So this is the time to get important paperwork taken care of, and the Capricorn Moon can help that feel like the right thing to do.