Capricorn - the container holder
In recent years I have become more and more intrigued by the idea of a container. Not the physical object, don’t worry, I’m not going to try to sell you Tupperware - the metaphorical and archetypal symbol. A container is a rigid vessel that holds space for whatever you put in it. It keeps whatever is in it contained and protected and allows you to move it around, not necessarily without disruption, but with ease.
Containers hold space for us both physically and emotionally which allow us to feel safe, contained, and provided for as we go about our lives. A strong container provides the structure we need to make meaning of the world around us, to form connections with our needs, values, and cosmologies, make tough choices in alignment with those needs and values, care for ourselves and others, and navigate change. Containers provide the comforting boundaries that are the gifts of structure - elements that help us feel both loved and safe. Containers ground us and help us grow, they are foundational and essential for our overall well-being whether we are traversing territories of the physical, spiritual, emotional, or structural or the interconnection between them all. A healthy container may have rigid sides, but it is also flexible and emergent - responding to change and movement with openness, compassion, precision, bravery, and care.
Capricorn is the great container holder. Like a mountain basin, Capricorn holds shape for us: for our lives, for all of our parts, for the pieces that rise with confidence, and the pieces that slide to the bottom looking for a warm hug and a cozy place to rest. This sacred container helps us accomplish our goals and dreams, be true to our values, and live a life of alignment and authenticity.
In the cycle of the year in the northern hemisphere Capricorn is the deepest part of winter, beginning yearly on the Winter Solstice. Capricorn knows that life can be wintery, and it doesn’t shy away from this sometimes harsh reality. As a wise parent to themselves and others, Capricorn reminds us that sometimes to be loving, to provide a container of care and safety in service to our highest good, we must create firm boundaries. Boundaries that at first may come off not as warm and fuzzy, but as cold and wintery. Sometimes the structure we need is firm, it requires we let go of conditions, patterns, or feelings of comfort as a means to achieve a desirable end and ultimately to serve our highest good, and the good of all. Capricorn gives us the strength to set the container as such, even if it is hard, to help us stay focused on what really matters and to stay in service to our largest visions.
This last bit is key - the larger vision, what really matters - manifestations of personal and collective essence and values. Remember, Capricorn follows Sagittarius and is in the realm of universal signs. It is happiest when it is creating structures that support their deepest values and priorities, which are inevitably concerned with the greater good. When they have a plan for how they can achieve these goals they will move forward with profound self-discipline and determination. You may not want to get in their way, and they certainly would prefer you not.
Capricorn leads and loves with the loving hand of a wise parent - one who knows that sometimes we have to sacrifice and embrace hard, unappealing realities, tasks, or activities to meet our greatest good. We all need a strong Capricorn inside us. And, we need to know when to ask it to simmer down and take a seat in the back row. Because Capricorn also needs to learn how to let loose and slow down. Sometimes this looks like having fun, other times like carving out time for solitude and contemplation. It always looks like prioritizing time away from “work” in its many forms - with the firm, loving reminder that this time away is essential for staying connected to the ultimate goals that the “work” they are so committed to is in service to.
Here in lies the flexibility of our container - one that is emergent and responds to needs that are not just achievement based, but also hold space for the food Capricorn needs to continue to develop its essence. Without it, Capricorn can become so focused on achieving its goals that it forgets what the goals are in service to. Taking time to step back, relax, have fun, and explore, brings perspective and fuels the values Capricorn works so hard to make space for. In other words, Capricorn can lose sight of what the container they create is in service to - and here, Capricorn meets its shadow.
The goal of a container is not to control but to contain, and in containing it creates a structure that yields freedom. Capricorn lives in service to a much larger and esoteric commitment to integrity, service, and inner freedom. When Capricorn loses perspective and forgets what matters most, it ends up working in service to societal expectations and the values imposed by opressive systems. These implicit and explicitly modeled societal values manipulate Capricorn’s sense of purpose and overshadow their personal essence and integrity. Capricorn can become devoted to what capitalism and other systems of oppression have taught us our personal worth is made of - money and power. Capricorn comes to believe it must work in service to scarcity.
Such a fierce commitment to hold structure for a misguided end can also turn on the self, controlling one’s actions and experiences through judgment, perfectionism, and self-restraint. These are not Capricorn’s goals, they are the values of a society so misguided in the earth element we have forgotten how to nourish.
Capricorn is a cardinal earth sign. Earth is the most wounded element in our society. Modern, industrial, capitalist society has reduced the value of the earth to a series of resources and exploited it in the name of progress. Forgetting the earth is a living system that serves the needs of all living beings and has intrinsic value, the values that are archetypally and symbolically associated with the earth element fall victim to the same level of exploitation in our culture. Self-care, personal boundaries, space for slowing down, and working in service to personal goals and aspirations rather than toward practical achievements are all undervalued. The tasks that nourish a living organism and the human psyche that are invisible to the capitalist value system are so severely undernourished and poorly modeled that it takes a profound amount of emotional labor to provide them for ourselves.
It can be hard to know how to direct our emotional labor and how to reconnect. We each need to find our own ways to self-nourish, connect and reconnect. It is from this inner place, grounded by the container modeled to us by the earth and the endlessly wise teachings of the life cycle, that our containers must be built from.
To illustrate this I want to take a seasonally relevant example - the New Year’s resolution. New Year’s resolutions have a specific flavor to them that is often about self-betterment - a concept that in and of itself I could critique at length. Generally speaking, New Year’s resolutions have a flavor of creating structures in one’s life that upholds goals around health and well-being that usually reflect external value systems. New Year’s resolution’s are often a commitment to the structure needed to implement change that makes us seem or feel more wrothy through the value lense of the cultural. These choices and the will power required to impliment them rely on Capricorninan tools and skills to motivate and achieve goals. Yet, they run counter to Capricorn’s core values - which are enactment and creation of structure in service to personal freedom in alignment with collective integrity.
The lessons and wisdom of Capricorn call us into the void during the season of Capricorn and the New Year. It is in the calm, quiet, introspective place of the Capricorn season winter retreat that we connect with ourselves. Only then, can structure, in service to the safety and wisdom of a loving container emerge. Once this is in place, Capricorn and the Capricorn in us all will rise with authority, precision, and perseverance. No matter the season, Capricorn teaches us to approached our achievements and set out to accomplish our goals starting from a place of deep introspection.
At its most macro, the earth is the container that holds us all. Every day, each of us needs to bow to this in service of healing. When we can connect with this container first, and let the wisdom of the life cycle inform and guide our connections and aspirations, we remember what we climb for and we know in our bones it is in service to the greatest good and the good of all. As we learn to set our goals realistic, but high, alongside the wise, loving guidance of a great container we forge a connection to faith - even in the face of harsh wintery conditions, we can live a life of integrity, born from what matters to us most.