The Winter Solstice begins December 21 as the Sun begins its annual trek through Capricorn. We experience the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere – and the longest night. This symbolizes going within the darkness of the womb to rebirth, of the old dying off and beginning again as the days, a few minutes at a time, start getting longer from this Solstice point.

Humans made their calendars, or measurements of time, beginning near this time of year as we make those infamous New Year’s resolutions; the Capricorn determination to set a new goal and/or change a pattern of behavior.

The early Christian Church could not get the pagans to stop their ancient customs of honoring the planetary rhythms, so they decided to move Jesus’ birthday to this same time period as an attempt to stamp out the Winter Solstice. Almost all religious occasions have been planted over much older ceremonies and rites of passage based upon natural laws, many times adopting similar meanings that have become distorted over time.

The Evolutionary Astrology mantra for Capricorn is: I achieve my goals with emotional self-reliance. Cancer, the opposite of Capricorn, brings the emotional energizing to those changes we wish to make. As we desire those outer Capricorn materializations, success comes from realizing inner creates outer.

This is our deep message through the Sun’s passage in Capricorn. This physical inhabitation of a body leads our soul to desire an outer security. It ultimately is dependent upon our level of inner security. And as Capricorn, and its ruler Saturn, teaches us the reality of space and time, we also learn mortality. These bodies are only temporary temples for the soul that respond to our soul’s beliefs, thoughts and emotions.

As we learn to evolve our beliefs, thoughts and emotions, we evolve our outer world of career, finances and social positions. We watch the consensus state attempt to control the world through positions of “apparent” outer security, yet the vibration they give off is anything but secure.

As we really get that inner creates outer, we can become more and more self-determining and live in this world without being of this world. Self-empowerment creates a deep sense of inner security that lesser-evolved souls cannot control or manipulate. This is the opportunity we have through Sun in Capricorn as we respond to the consensus state choices in the last U.S. presidential election. Our real point of power is within us as we align ever closer to God/Goddess and natural spiritual laws and principles.

The Sun makes a waning sextile to Uranus on December 24 at 3-4 degrees Capricorn-Pisces. Sun-Uranus aspects always connect us to our creativity via the Ultimate Creator. What are the creative ideas and goals coming through for you at the end of this calendar year? What are your spiritual goals and how can you manifest them?

Here is also a chance to remember the interconnectedness we all share as living beings on this living, breathing planet. When is the last time you astral traveled with the four-legged? How do you think they look at us humans and our interference with natural law?

Mars enters Sagittarius for the next six weeks on December 25. Mercury, Venus and Mars are all following the Sun at this point, so the inner planets are still bringing us those spiritual messages and greater understandings as they pass through Sag. Initiate a desire to know natural, spiritual principles.

Mars is the conscious desires of the soul. Mars in Sag can desire truth and it is always revealed when we desire it strong enough. Do you desire the whole truth and nothing but the truth? How do you think Jesus would like us to act on a day we chose to call his celebration of life? Strive to bring those actions into your life every day.

As we watch some souls choose limited versions of “what Jesus would do,” quest to find the words they can understand to create unity versus division, love versus fear. We must act out our beliefs with Mars in Sag, and Jesus taught by example. How can you do the same?

Anger and judgments toward religious dogma makes one no better than those we judge. Natural spiritual laws and principles, which were the real message Jesus imparted, means finding a way to include versus exclude.

All the human-made conditioning we have now has taken the symbol of Jesus’ birthday and replaced it with the most material day on the planet. Jesus was more aligned with spirituality then today’s religions. It is ok to claim the connection again and bring out the truth of what he really taught and how he really lived.

The Full Moon of Cancer is December 26 at 5/6 degrees Capricorn-Cancer. Is it any wonder that this is the most depressing Full Moon of the year when most of the time it follows the most materialistic time of the year? Material goods will never substitute for emotional bonding, yet most of us have been taught to replace the love of family with the material, and usually from our own family.

Every year, we get to balance the inner with outer during this holiday time set aside for loved ones. Yet human-made conditioning has distorted natural laws to the point that families of origin are filled with these very distortions and dysfunctions in giving and receiving love. We sweep them under the rug and suppress things. Then we come together for this holiday season and all those unspoken wounds sit around the table with us.

Can you recognize that you chose the very family of origin that would provide you with the lessons you most needed to learn? Can you love yourself enough to realize that the love you desire from others must come from within first? And as you find that inner love then it will lead you to whatever actions are necessary with your family of origin in order to heal.

Mercury makes the third and final waning sextile to Neptune on December 26/27 at 13/14 degrees Sagittarius-Aquarius. The first two waning sextiles were November 13 and December 14. As we finish up this Mercury retrograde cycle with its third passage through Sag, we can intuit more and more insights about our lives and the world we live in.

Do you feel like a victim? If so, where are you giving your power away? What evolving beliefs can you grasp to empower yourself? We can watch those around us make unevolved choices and get caught up in their beliefs, or, we can detach and realize we get to choose our own world as we align ourselves with nature and natural laws.

Venus then follows and makes a waning sextile to Neptune at 13/14 degrees Sag-Aquarius as well on December 27. All month these two planets march along together, making two conjunctions, first in Sagittarius and then Capricorn. So here are the inner, personal lessons to deepen our understanding of the world we find ourselves living in.

Venus-Neptune is always looking for love, and many times projecting it on to our partners as though they are the gods and goddesses who will save us. And then we find out our loved ones are all too human. Venus waning sextile Neptune is that annual time to release the projections of love and search for the Ultimate Lover. HINT: it is always found within to the degree we find the Ultimate Source within.

Where are the differences in beliefs showing up with those you are close to? How is this translating into your material world? What deeper understandings are coming in to take giving and receiving love to the next level?

The end of this calendar year is a time for review with our partners, family and friends to find the inner/outer values we can agree to inter-relate to. Venus overtakes Mercury for most of the solar month and their first conjunction to each other is December 28 at 15/16 degrees Sagittarius. We must figure out our values and then base our relationships around them.

We get to have more of those honest back-and-forth conversations. Absolute honesty is always the best policy. At the ending of this Mercury retro cycle, can you do it? Can you find the words and language your loved ones can hear? Can you listen?? Strive for the common ground.

Some souls may be realizing that their beliefs and values are just too far apart to continue their intimate relationship or friendship. Sun in Capricorn is the inner strength to go forward on your own. Some souls may realize their current job or career just isn’t meaningful anymore. Is it time to move on?

Venus makes a waxing sextile to Jupiter at 17/18 degrees Sagittarius-Libra on December 30. Nice party energy for New Years. And, the energy to bust out on our own if it is necessary. Ask for clarity. As Venus and Mercury interact with the Neptune-Jupiter waning trine be careful of settling for what you want to see in your relationships, versus what is really there.

If you find yourself in unhealthy giving and receiving patterns you get to choose to reach for the truth and change things.

Mercury follows Venus and makes the third and final waxing sextile to Jupiter on December 30 as well at 17/18 degrees Sagittarius-Libra. The first two waxing sextiles were November 11 and December 12. Mercury continues to get to the bottom line of things. Give honesty and it will come back to you no matter how much another may try to conceal and manipulate.

There is great opportunity for relationships to find another level of understanding and common goals this solar month. Talk it through, again. Relationships are always evolving and as we work through the equality and intimacy details via Libra and Scorpio, we then get to take our relationships out into the world in larger and larger circles with Sag, Capricorn and Aquarius.

Career and work, self-responsibility and self-determination, are taking up more and more of our time. When our personal relationships are in healthy growth cycles, they can support us in the outer world. If the opposite is true, it is hard to concentrate on work when our inner world is in upheaval. Back to those values and beliefs if that is the case.

Venus and Mercury are searching for an inner self-reliance that allows us to look at the world with an open mind and grow with it however necessary. Are you energizing your problems or the solutions?

Mars makes a waning square to Uranus on December 30/31 at 3-4 degrees Sagittarius-Pisces. Ah, perhaps some upsets too during this New Years Eve. Let go of those old beliefs and lies. Again, natural law: give as you wish to receive.

Mars and Uranus are both headstrong and want their own way. Compromise isn’t easy for these two. And yet in Sag and Pisces, they are both asked to look at the larger pictures. Where do you get to do that as you review this year? There are definitely old belief systems to let go of now.

In Sag and Pisces, Mars and Uranus will also bring out any sadomasochistic, or victim/victor patterns. The waning square is a crisis in beliefs so what old behaviors based upon old beliefs are frustrating you? Angry? It is just pointing out where you give your power away, or, where you look for power outside of yourself. Find it within.

We all create our world, consciously and unconsciously. Sometimes Mars-Uranus painfully points it out. The Sag message is to understand the beliefs that create this painful world and make different choices. Healthy Capricorn is initiating a greater and greater sense of self-responsibility. If trauma is in your world, how are you energizing things and how can you change your energizing patterns?

As 2005 brings in a New Year, it changes the world’s vibration from a six to seven. A seven year brings deeper understandings, almost like a Sag year of questing. The harmonics of seven relate to the septile aspect in astrology: septile, bi-septile and tri-septile. They all bring that famous Y in the road that realigns us with where our soul deeply desires to go. This is a year of realignment with what is really important.

If Mars-Uranus brings you a crisis, see it as that chance to make a big change. If you find yourself depressed, where are you trying to hold on to the old ways? The beauty of natural laws is that we get as many chances as we need to get things right. It doesn’t matter how many times you say you are going to change. What matters most is that you try until you do change.

Venus makes a conjunction to Pluto January 3 at 22/23 degrees Sagittarius. The New Year continues to allow us to initiate new beliefs and value systems. Venus-Pluto is the opportunity to love ourselves as deeply as possible, and Sag can sure point out the ways we need to do so.

Every year as Venus passes over Pluto is another chance to find a deeper level of self-reliance. Again and again, natural spiritual laws show us we get to do everything over and over until we get it right. So, is this an excuse to procrastinate? No, it only gets harder when we do. Yet, this is an understanding that allows us to be gentle with ourselves.

I love myself the best I can at the moment, and each time I try I get better and better at it. Where do you find yourself compulsively wanting to cling to an old way of looking at your desires in relationships? If it is not working, ask for a deeper understanding about the situation. Then, utilize Sun in Capricorn to change things.

Sagittarius and Capricorn can work quite nicely together to figure things out and then do something about it. Go for it.

Mercury follows and makes its third and final conjunction to Pluto right after Venus on January 4 at 22/23 degrees Sagittarius. The first two conjunctions were November 20 and December 7. Here we are finally finishing up Mercury’s retrograde cycle, and in the opposite sign of its rulership (Gemini), Mercury as been expanding how we look at the world.

Time for those big, deep conversations one more time. Clarify those desires.

Cover-ups may be exposed. Quest for the truth yet again. This can be a time period for some great answers. Sun in Capricorn can be a reality check. The consensus state world cannot separate the human-made conditionings from what is natural. They keep repeating the past and projecting it forward until sooner or later reality crashes through.

Ask for the deepest level of truth possible and then your world will be ok.

The Sun makes a waxing square to Jupiter at 17/18 degrees Capricorn-Libra on January 7. As Jupiter makes its yearlong passage through Libra, expanding our ideas and beliefs about relationships, the Sun now pushes us to look at where those relationships are taking us. Capricorn desires security and control. Jupiter in Libra wants opportunity and choice.

Some souls may be ready for the next level of commitment with others, and some souls may feel controlled by others in their lives. The collective lessons over the definition of marriage come to mind. Jupiter in Libra can look at the many possibilities of intimacy and Capricorn wants a one woman – one man marriage vow.

Jupiter in Libra will expose the coming Aquarian Age and its need for relationship freedom. Sun in Capricorn will defend the past and judge anything new or different. Natural laws will gravitate to relationships between a man and a woman. Yet the suppression and distortions of sexuality will create a boomerang in relationships through the Aquarian Age, as we learn to love the soul regardless of the gender or race or nationality.

Where are you judging how others have a right to love one another?

Venus enters Capricorn on January 9 for a three-plus week journey. This can bring on more collective controls over relationships. Remember whatever is suppressed just comes through in distorted ways. Those who judge homosexuality may find it in their immediate families and friendships.

Venus is deeply sensitive in Capricorn and tries to cover it up with no feelings at all, only to be surprised by the intensity of experience it then draws in. Get in touch with what is real for you. And remember on the heels of our most material holiday, that the outer world cannot substitute for an inner world.

Perhaps the “things” we just had to have are losing their value here, or the bills are coming in. Get in touch with the values and resources that are meaningful and weed out what really doesn’t satisfy, or just brings temporary comfort.

When Venus in Capricorn goes for inner security then the material world is free to manifest and sustain, and naturally be exhausted. The material world ebbs and flows like everything else. Yes, it is ok to utilize money for the exchange of energy it really is. However, to equate a bank account with security might bring up a few surprises.

Whenever we get too caught up in our outer world for security it gets ripped away to teach the real lesson of inner security. Let Venus help you get another cycle of this important lesson.

Mercury enters Capricorn on January 9 as well for a three-week journey. Mercury joins Venus for those security lessons. Mercury in Capricorn doesn’t have time to waste. After two months in Sag, Mercury is now ready to do something about all this deep reflection.

What is important in your life right now? Get to it. Get down to business, whatever that is for you right now. Revamp those goals. Conversations will now turn direct and to the point. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

The New Moon of Capricorn is January 10 at 20/21 degrees. Now we are starting to feel the Capricorn archetype as the inner planets catch up to the Sun. Life is serious here and it’s ok. We need this annual time to reassess and renew our goals in life.

Social maturity is a Cap theme and it comes from emotional maturity. Where do you need to “grow up?” Can you participate in this world, holding the intent of what you want to create, regardless of the fear and chaos around you? How large can you create your sense of community?

Venus makes a waning sextile to Uranus on January 12/13 at 4/5 degrees Capricorn-Pisces. Reality or illusion, what is your choice, or, can you choose both?

As Uranus in Pisces teaches us about the world of quantum physics, we will learn the lesson of seeing the reality of the world we live in, while we learn to energize the world we wish to create. In other words, facing reality yet not letting it pull us down when we see the separating forces at work.

The physical world of polarity comes from the holographic world of energy. As we learn to tap into the world of energy we can change the physical. We sometimes call it a miracle, yet it is tapping into the larger, returning forces of the universe and co-creating with them.

Let Venus in Capricorn help you step down the Uranus in Pisces holographic world into the reality you desire to create. Put your energy towards the values that are important to you. Energize your inner values and your outer world will follow through.

What self-empowerment this will create as we understand these natural laws of the universe. May you see this as the real reality. And, if your illusions of reality are crashing down, then you know how you can change things.

Mercury makes a waning sextile to Uranus on January 13 at 4/5 degrees Capricorn-Pisces. More of the same as we add our conscious, left-brain to the energizing and manifesting. We combine our mental and emotional worlds to bridge the metaphysical and physical worlds.

Mercury in Capricorn can bring us back to our focus of energy again and again. We have all known the fear of not enough resources, be it food, shelter or money, etc. We can dwell in the fear, or energize the means to create the material resources we need in the material world. It is like the Aquarian Age means of linking up to God/Goddess, the Ultimate Creator. Dwell in the fear and create more of it, or dwell in the energy of being ok and create more of it.

Separating forces will always try to draw you into the fear. Meet them head on, acknowledge them, and – acknowledge your choice, point of power, to energize the returning forces and directions, again and again and again, however many times you have to try until you get it.

Mercury and Uranus can really get this mental choice here. Go for it. Set that New Year’s resolution to change the way you will think and feel and energize your world. Did you stop learning how to ride a bicycle because you fell off the first time? Did you stop learning how to walk because you fell down the first few times you tried? Or, did you try again until you learned how to walk and then run?

The Sun makes it annual opposition to Saturn retrograde on January 13 at 23/24 degrees Capricorn-Cancer. This is the highlight of the Saturn retrograde cycle. We have seen the world buy into the emotional fears of security. Consensus state will probably see more of the same here.

You can choose differently. What are your emotional fears? How can you energize the solution to those fears? Inner security, inner connection to Source changes your outer world. Oh what a beautiful, different, Capricorn message to get. I achieve my goals with emotional self-reliance. I create my outer world - from - my inner world.

Perhaps you can try again with healing your family of origin, or perhaps you get to walk away this time. Whatever is the right choice for you to make, and it is your choice.

Another Sun in Capricorn – Saturn in Cancer lesson is gender equality. Regardless of our current gender, we each have an inner female and an inner male. When we balance both, we do not need to project it outward. We then get to naturally express both sides of our soul through whatever gender we are this time around. We will then attract a vibrational match to us.

As we balance our inner male and female we can heal our inner child wounds because we will learn to “mother” and “father” ourselves inwardly. Saturn’s two-plus year passage through the opposite sign of its rulership has been teaching this lesson.

Saturn is making stressful aspects to Uranus and Pluto over 2004-2006 (see end of forecast). As it gets ready to make a waning inconjunct (compromise and adjustment) to Pluto, our soul, on January 19 at 23/24 degrees Cancer-Sagittarius, we are asked to look at the larger social, collective soul community.

The tendency is to judge and force conformity. The lesson is to love the soul first, gender second. It doesn’t mean engaging in sexual relationships that “freak” us out or force one soul upon another. It doesn’t mean legislating morality. It means allowing souls the freedom to explore their own sexual choices as they each heal their gender and sexual woundedness. It means exploring androgyny as souls move beyond gender through both genders and naturally exhaust sexual desires.

Again, much of these lessons come from thousands of years of suppressing natural sexuality.

Mercury makes the second conjunction to Venus this solar month at 5/6 degrees Capricorn on January 13. Now Mercury moves ahead of Venus again. Ponder your own inner values. Ponder what resources are really important to you. Choose how you will use your finite resource of time to create your world of resources that will support you.

There is opportunity to socially mature to another level the end of this solar month. This will come from an inner self-reliance that recognizes the need for self-responsibility. We are each completely responsible for our own needs. As we get it, we can help others figure it out. Unfortunately, the opposite – co-dependency – is what the westernized world supports. What do you choose?

Finally Mars makes a waning sextile to Neptune on January 15 at 14/15 degrees Sagittarius-Aquarius. Mars is finishing up those annual Sag lessons. Do you walk your talk? Do you live your truth? Weed out any illusions coming to the surface. Let go of any games you play for they will only come back to you sooner or later.

Mars can utilize Neptune to manipulate for selfish reasons. It can also understand that world of quantum physics again through Neptune in Aquarius. What do you choose to energize into action this year?

May God/Goddess bless you through Sun in Capricorn!