Winter Solstice Conjunct Saturn | longest night of the year, Mercury standing still, tradition, accomplishment, report card time

come see inside my bones by natalia drepina

Happy Solstice everyone!

Doesn't it feel better to call the Winter Solstice the longest night rather than the shortest day?

The shortest day sounds like I am missing out on something. The longest night sounds like I can lie in bed and finish my book and still get a good night's sleep.

This is a good time during the busy holiday season to take stock of where we are, what we've done and where we are going.

This is the time of the season, especially this year with Saturn joining the Cappy party, when melancholy can set in.

We have to remember when looking at the bad stuff that was or the good stuff that never was - to own the fact we have survived it!

We are still here!

In Capricorn, the Sun gets serious. We are heading into the serious time of year - the time our ancestors could starve if they hadn't stocked up properly or catch a cold that would turn into pneumonia.

(Can a cold turn into pneumonia? I am one of those people who think it can, although I guess the cold has just left our lungs in a weakened state. I also think I can catch a cold from getting wet on a cold day, although science, and my local doctor, tells me it doesn't work that way. I know it happens though.)

If they hadn't prepared for winter, they wouldn't survive.

They would celebrate the Winter Solstice and go into hibernation for a few weeks (exhausted from the harvest, escaping the cold and, intuitively, the germs, too, I'm sure), venturing back out sometime mid-Aquarius season for some social interaction and hoping to trade whatever they still had plenty of to restock whatever had grown scarce.

This is true for us today, too. Without structure, responsibility and discipline - mandated by Capricorn's ruling planet Saturn - we'll be in trouble when the cold settles in and the stuff we need to survive is covered with two feet of snow and ice.

Today is the Capricorn ingress (Sun into Capricorn) and sets up the next 3 months. I can't remember a Capricorn ingress with the Sun conjunct Saturn (Capricorn's ruler).

It seems the time between today and the new astrological year (Sun into Aries) is going to be serious. It is also excellent energy to be building something, likely from the ground up, that will last.

Saturn isn't about rushing and neither is Capricorn. We can catch our breath, take stock of where we are and what we have (probably more than we think we do) before starting this new chapter.

Mercury stations direct tomorrow. He has been pretty much standing still all week and is uber powerful - imagine putting your finger through a lit candle flame, you are OK if you keep your finger moving, but if you halt your hand over the flame then you are suddenly not so OK. Ouch.

His stationary energies (the fleet footed messenger, he rules all forms of transportation) often seem to increase transportation accidents and acts of violence using transportation within the collective.

We can help to alleviate some of this by choosing to consciously release a bit of the Mercury stuff we are carrying in our own lives that needs to go.

Maybe the wrong word we said at the wrong time. The conversation we didn't have. The email we didn't send or the one we did and wish we hadn't. The idea that didn't work out. The research we didn't do. The thought that stopped us in our tracks and so we quit or the thought that kept us going when we should have quit. The sibling crap. The lemon or 'beyond our pocketbook' car we bought when we knew better. The times we were less than neighborly.

When we personally let go of shadow Mercury the collective Mercury shadow has less to work with/release during these intense times.

Drive carefully and with a cool head. Take care with machinery.

The Sun meeting up with Saturn is our annual report card time. I still can't believe it is happening at the Winter Solstice!

Once a year these big guys meet up and we get to see clearly what is really happening in our world and in the collective.  

A light (the Sun) is thrown on reality (Saturn).

If things are not going well, if stuff is falling apart, if we are beating our head against the wall - these are all signs we need to change direction. 

If things are going well, if we have achieved something, there will be rewards now for a job well done. 

With Saturn (hard work, commitment, time, responsibility) so close to the Sun (our life force) there will be limits to whatever we are dealing with. 

If our relationships are stifling or non-supportive or money is tight (Venus is going to hit this space on Monday) we will feel it.

The good news, if things are not going well, is changes made now can smoothly and simply move us toward different timelines. We are at ground zero.

A new semester always starts after report cards are given out. We all get a fresh start. We don't get a do-over though. That report card is on its way home to Dad. Doing the same thing we did before will not work.

Doing something new gives the energies at play something to work with!

Our muses grow tired of seeing us bang our heads against the wall, too. They whisper to us to go outside and shovel the snow (stretched muscles create the space for us to stretch ourselves in other ways, too).

I was born during one of these Saturn/Sun conjunctions (I have these planets within 1 degree) so can't really feel this energy clearly because I am always feeling it - it's background noise and probably a bit like carrying a stern father around in my head. And yes, he sounds like Dumbledore and likes to be called "Albie" ... but only by me.

This is a good time to care for the basic structures of our life - the stuff that supports us.

We are living in a time of disintegrating safety nets, but there are things we can do to give ourselves a steadier ground to walk on. It could be as simple as cleaning our house and putting in place sustainable systems to keep it clean. The same could be said about our money/resources.

What astrological house holds 0 degrees Capricorn in our natal chart? This area of life is being brought to our attention now.

Saturnian issues around aging, tradition, heritage, the past, ambition, authority, business, government, sobriety, depression, our physical bones, skin and teeth could be in the spotlight now as Saturn sits with the Sun.

This is the longest night of the year - what are we going to do with all this darkness? Christmas tree lights can help. Christmas tree lights always help.
 
If you have planets or points around 0 degrees of the cardinal signs - Capricorn, Aries, Cancer or Libra - you will feel this Solstice energy strongest.

xo all

(of course in other parts of the world it is the longest day of the year! I wonder how it must feel to lay on a beach today? I would like to find out!)

2 comments

stregata said...

Hoping you had a lovely Winter Solstice... may you be blessed by the sun, the moon and the stars! xo

Catherine Ivins said...

Thank you Renate - blessings to you and your family also! xox