A Stellium on the "Master Builder" Degree of Capricorn Kicks Off this New Decade

 Saturn-Pluto conjunction at 22 degrees Capricorn on January 12, 2020 in a stellium with the Sun, Ceres, and Mercury, along with Jupiter - click to enlarge

 

The Sun enters Capricorn on December 21 (8:19 p.m. PST), marking winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the beginning of Capricorn season. Winter solstice is always a celebratory date to observe in Canada, as it marks "the shortest day," and daylight hours begin to lengthen soon following this yearly marker.

This year's solstice is followed by a Christmas Day New Moon at 4 degrees Capricorn (9:13 p.m.) which will be conjunct Greater Benefic Jupiter, officially launching us into Capricorn season.  

True to the Jupiterian astrological marker, this Capricorn season is a big one!

It involves a massive stellium of bodies in Capricorn (Jupiter, the Sun, Mercury, Ceres, Saturn, and Pluto, along with the South Node of the Moon), including the historic conjunction of Saturn and Pluto at 22 degrees Capricorn on January 12, 2020. 

As you can see in the chart above, Earth Mother dwarf planet Ceres will be exactly conjunct Saturn and Pluto at 22 Capricorn at the time of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction. The Sun and Mercury will also form exact conjunctions to Saturn and Pluto on this degree around that time.

This indicates a bit of a "getting serious and taking stock" moment as we survey our progress over the past year and over the past decade while preparing for new responsibilities up ahead. We're solidifying current positions while simultaneously contemplating new vistas that are opening to us. 


Previous responsibilities, obligations, and achievements that have now run their course are in the process of being discharged, and there is a bit of a Plutonic shedding process underway as we restructure our priorities in light of our updated circumstances in this new decade. Certain responsibilities are being taken off our shoulders as we prepare to commit to new ones.

The Capricorn stellium kicking off this new decade indicates a consolidation of previous work and effort with new status, position, and opportunity available to us as the year (and the decade) proceeds. A public/professional "leveling up." The houses where Capricorn lies in our natal and Secondary Progressed charts indicate the areas where concrete progress is being solidified in our lives. New footholds will be presented to us based on the efforts we have put in previously. It could be time to really buckle down in order to accomplish what we know we can accomplish. Unrealized potential is a grievous sin under this much Capricorn influence! What was once an area of immense challenge and fear can now become an area of authority and status - as long as we're ready and willing to rock it like a boss. 

In numerology, the number 22 is associated with the master builder. In Capricorn, we are dealing with structures, frameworks, decisions, commitments, and rules. We're building career paths, public standing, status, achievement, accomplishment, position, and finances.

In many ways, since Lord of the Underworld Pluto in Capricorn started exposing the rot in our structural hierarchies in earnest (as of Economic Apocalypse 2008), we have had to define these things for ourselves. In a world being intentionally driven mad, in a world being taught to forget its soul, its spirit, its purpose, we have been required to define and redefine, to shape and reshape, our own versions of success. We've been required to set our own benchmarks for success and to ensure we are meeting these in ways that truly satisfy us. We've been required to forge ahead in our own lives in ways that keep us out of reach of the top-down coercion, manipulation, dishonesty, and illegitimacy that have been built right in to the structural hierarchies as they currently exist.

As we move into this new decade, the 2020s, there is a top-down control structure attempting to tighten its grip all over the world. A top-down control structure where human beings are officially under the thumb, turned into compliant little citizens living compliant little lives.

But then there is what's really going on, beyond the carefully-crafted official narratives. There's the resistance. There's the rebellion. There are people refusing to give away their own power, authority, and autonomy to the machine. There are the people who remain wild at heart. There's us.

As we enter the 2020s, we're required to make a choice, and this choice sets the tone for the decade ahead. 

Do we make our own decisions, or do we allow our decisions to be made for us? Do we take charge in our lives, from our own positions, or do we allow someone or something to take charge for us? Do we accept full responsibility for authority over our own lives, or do we pass that responsibility on to other people or bodies or entities? 

The 22nd degree of Capricorn, the master builder degree, will see a lot of astrological action over the next couple years, and we can see a building framework of decisions, commitments, and opportunities being laid out before us. 

Nothing exists in a vacuum, and this includes astrological events. It's all connected. One event leads to a future event. Another event plucks a particular degree of the zodiac and picks up threads from the past. One stepping stone leads to another. One opportunity morphs into another. We can see this developing framework in the astrological indicators.

Major 22-Degree "Master Builder" Activations in Capricorn, 2020 - 2022

January 12, 2020 - Saturn conjunct Pluto at 22 degrees Capricorn, also conjunct Ceres, the Sun, and Mercury

March 20, 2020 - Mars conjunct Jupiter at 22 degrees Capricorn. This is a bit of a super-charged activation of the degree, indicating a propulsion into new position or areas of achievement. New goals are being solidified and activated in a big way. There may be public recognition of previous efforts or a nice validation of one's trajectory.

November 12, 2020 - Jupiter conjunct Pluto at 22 degrees Capricorn. Jupiter will form three conjunctions to Pluto during its transit of Capricorn - April 4, 2020; June 30, 2020; and November 12, 2020. Only the final conjunction will fall on the 22nd degree. This indicates a grand-scale but ultimately beneficial restructuring process, particularly on a professional front, that takes place throughout 2020.

December 2021 to February 2022 - Venus will go retrograde in Capricorn (from 26 degrees to 11 degrees) from December 19, 2021 to January 28, 2022, activating the "master builder" degree of Capricorn three times: December 4/5, 2021 (direct); January 1/2, 2022 (retrograde); and February 24, 2022 (direct). This indicates beneficial professional/financial growth building on things that were initiated in the first quarter of 2020.

February 24, 2022 - Venus conjunct Mars at 22 degrees Capricorn. Following the retrograde, Venus will go direct into a conjunction to Mars on this degree.

As we see with these major activations of the 22nd "master builder" degree of Capricorn from early 2020 through early 2022, the cosmos is outlining a grand framework that we're working on, building on, and bringing into existence step-by-step over the next couple years. The earliest steps are solidified under the Capricorn stellium in January 2020.

Both the Greater Benefic (Jupiter) and the Lesser Benefic (Venus) will be activating this 22nd degree of Capricorn, indicating a period of blessed progress and achievement in the material realm - so long as we are building something necessary, responsible, beneficial, and long-range. 

Capricorn is a sign of collective progress, as well as personal achievement, and when we align those two things - our personal achievements with the needs of the collective - we are much more powerful.

Tackling and mastering challenges in our own lives - especially with work, business, institutions, or structural frameworks - has ripple effects in the collective. 

During the 22nd degree activations of Capricorn, we must hold awareness of the invisible, catalyzing influence of stepping up where we can step up, of taking responsibility where we can take responsibility. This has power. It spurs new things. It inspires leadership and action from others.

When we take responsibility for breaking new trail or for addressing things that have long needed to be addressed, we make things easier for those who come behind, creating at least the possibility for needed structural change. When we do what we can from the positions we hold, we create a blueprint or a path or a protocol for others to follow. We relieve some of the heavy lifting and provide an example that shows people it's not so hard to do something about it. 

We're working with this catalyzing influence, fully establishing it, as the 22nd degree of Capricorn is repeatedly activated. 

One of the great public disservices done by mainstream media and "pop" astrology is an overly-simplistic (and often over-hyped) take on astrological events. This is the idea that each event is occurring randomly, existing in a bubble, and that it alone is a Great Big Deal!!!, rather than being another event in a continuum of events. 

When you look more deeply into astrology, you see that there are really no isolated astrological events.

The major concentrations of energy on the 22nd degree of Capricorn over the next couple years illustrate an ongoing process, not an isolated event or theme.

This is one of the comforts as we navigate these challenging times: as we are building our own little piece of this gorgeous universe, as we build on our own hard work and effort over time, we build on the challenges, the difficulties, the achievements, the successes, and the glories of those who came before. We benefit from their toil and struggle. We build on their victories. 

We honour the master builders who came before, who didn't have it in them to give up. They didn't know the meaning of the word "quit," and neither does the sign of Capricorn, truth be told. While not discounting our own efforts, the status and position we enjoy today is, in large part, due to them. It was a foundation painstakingly, often heartbreakingly, built by them - for their benefit but also for ours.

With Jupiter in Capricorn forming three exact sextile aspects to Neptune in Pisces this coming year (February 20; July 27; and October 12, 2020), we feel very strongly the spiritual lineage behind our own material efforts and toil. We feel the support (both spiritual and material) coming from those who toiled before, encouraging us and steadying us as we continue our own advancement in the material realm. 

We are achieving things they once only dreamed about, things that were off in the furthest reaches of the mind's eye during their Earthly lives.

And so it's an honour, an absolute honour, to move things forward on this Earth in their name. To work with our full hearts, with our full steam, with our full weight behind it. To play our part in the glorious cosmic continuum.

This is part of the legacy we take on now, as the Sun, Mercury, Ceres, Saturn, and Pluto come together on the "master builder" degree of Capricorn to set off this new decade. 

Aim high. Challenge yourself. Own your authority. Own your sovereignty. Don't be afraid to step up when called upon. You have more power and influence than you think, right where you are. The universe is behind us now to build something big, something substantial, something we've needed to bring into existence for a very long time now.

We are able to take up our own authority, our own experience, our own work ethic, and our own position to address areas of chronic shortfall and even full-on corruption over the next years. 

If we do not give our power and influence away, if we do not fall into self-doubt and confusion, we can achieve progress that will benefit generation-upon-generation to come. We can achieve progress that was once just a glimmer of a dream, just a flash of a hope in the people who came before.

Capricorn works the long-range game. 

From early 2020 through early 2022, we're putting a grand framework in place that will sustain us (and others) for many years to come. Each activation of this degree indicates another stepping stone, another building block to work with, and the earliest footholds are about to make themselves known...

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, and Happy New Decade, Readers! Take a moment to look back on your own astounding progress in the past decade, and look forward to what's to come.

 Tip Jar - $3.00 (Canadian)

Tip Jar - $5.00 (Canadian)

Become a Willow's Web Astrology Patron