Digging and distilling on the threshold of a new world: Reflections on Venus in Capricorn

Venus entered Capricorn on November 11th, and will remain there until December 6th. She will be the first planet to conjoin Pluto after its final egress from Capricorn in our lifetimes, meeting the underworldly prince at 0 degrees Aquarius. Consolidating, fortifying, and committing to your values before Venus crosses the threshold to meet Pluto is crucial, but before you can get there, you must be willing to deeply interrogate what you truly value—not just for yourself, but for the collective. This transit challenges us to redefine and root our values outside the structures of control and scarcity that Saturn (and by extension, Capricorn) can often symbolize.

Under capitalism, the archetypal Venus is often reduced to monetary value or base desire—how much we’re “worth,” what we “own,” or the status we can project. The myth of value here is that something (or someone) is only worth as much as they can be commodified or capitalized on. But Venus in Capricorn invites a different kind of reckoning: What are your values when stripped of capitalism’s metrics? Is it possible that living within your values would mean failing capitalism’s standards? What is your relationship to failure, particularly when it comes to not meeting prescribed milestones or failing to live up to a role you’ve been assigned?

On November 22nd, Venus will form a supportive sextile to Saturn in Pisces. This is a particularly harmonious setup, as Venus in Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, and Pisces is the sign where Venus exalts. There's an opportunity to realign your values with a more sustainable, more intrinsically connected vision of worth, and it begins by interrogating your beliefs around deserving—who deserves what, and why do they deserve it, and when do they deserve it, and are unalienable rights really universal?

If the consensus is that your ability to live up to capitalism’s standards determines what you deserve, where can you identify opportunities for this consensus to be weaponized?

What is the alternative to deserving?

I believe the alternative to “deserving” is need. A needs-first approach is extremely utilitarian for Venus, but remember that the Moon exalts in Venus’s domain; meeting others’ needs is a sacred form of connection. The opposite of scarcity isn’t abundance, it’s having all of your needs met. It’s not about having more than enough, but simply having enough. And in the kingdom of Saturn, Venus is concerned with sowing her values so that we may all reap the rewards of her care—so that we all may know the warm comfort of enough.

Venus’s sextile to Saturn in Pisces, a sign that dissolves boundaries and invites surrender, challenges the myth of control with the stark reminder that while your sphere of influence may be much smaller than you think, especially in the face of global systems of oppression, the responsibility you have within your sphere of influence is also much greater than you think.

This sextile provides the opportunity to build a foundation of responsibility that is not just resilient, but also adaptive and supportive of your community’s well-being, as is the nature of sextiles. Venus in Capricorn is a time for strengthening your root systems, not through exerting control, but by nurturing genuine connections. You cannot have control over yourself and someone else simultaneously, but you can be responsible for yourself and for someone else simultaneously. You can be deeply connected to yourself and to someone else simultaneously.

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Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, deals with control, boundaries, and the structures we rely on to feel secure. Under capitalism, the myth of control is that if we just work hard enough or plan meticulously, if we follow the rules set out before us and never stray from the prescribed path, we can secure a future of stability and safety. In a way, that very myth is one of the structures we rely upon to feel secure in our reality. However, this particular transit asks us to confront the reality that control is almost always an illusion—especially in a world where systems of power are becoming increasingly unpredictable by the hour.

This is where the notion of finality comes in: What structures need to be dismantled to make space for a liberated future?

Venus in Capricorn, just before crossing into Aquarius, feels like the final stitch in a tapestry of values that you’ve been weaving throughout the year—and throughout the last 15 years. The confluence of Venus’s material focus and Saturn’s structural integrity is like the final phase of reinforcing the foundation before a major shift. Venus is speedrunning everything Pluto’s been doing throughout Capricorn since 2008, and with the help of Saturn, distilling everything down to what’s most valuable, what’s actually worth bringing with us into a new world.

The deeply felt sense of finality oozing out of Pluto’s November 19th ingress to Aquarius is also, in part, due to the “changing of the guards” which Pluto is heralding: Uranus and Neptune are also both poised to permanently shift into new environments within the next 18 months—Uranus from Taurus into Gemini, and Neptune from Pisces into Aries. While these imperceptibly large movements are occurring, there will be many chances to toss a wrench into the machine while the grown-ups aren’t looking.

The beauty of astrology is exactly this: it allows us to put a finger on the feeling that we are at the end of an era, to identify this feeling, and then to validate it as evidence of the truth. We are indeed at the end of an era. Venus won’t be in Capricorn for very long, but the seeds you sow until December 6th will inevitably be reaped in the light of a fundamentally different world.

Thank you for reading.

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