Capricorn Full Moon: A Legacy That Lasts

I spent the five days spanning the Full Moon out in the woods, completely removed from anyone but my 12(ish) camping compadres. Dispersed camping – the kind that doesn’t involve an established campground but just the ingenuity and gear you bring along for the ride – has been my favorite way to commemorate the July 4th holiday since the first time I did it back in 2006 or so. I have so much love and respect for the land I dance on. My relationship with the nation I am a citizen of is more complicated.

Dispersed camping really brings the benefits of Capricorn structures to light. Spending five days without indoor plumbing definitely pushes me to fling some mad gratitude towards the marvels of modern sanitation services. Capricorn’s focus on infrastructure, building and status quo can at times feel boring to my electric, change-oriented Uranian mind. But something about having to responsibly and quite literally figure out what to do with my own shit while camping makes the toilet in my condo seem down right revolutionary. 

And, I mean… for a time it was. And still is in parts of the world.

But I digress.

I spent a lot of time during this camping trip thinking about legacy, which is one of my favorite Cappy key words. And perhaps it would be worth taking a pause while reading this, or during the waning lunar cycle between now and July 17th to contemplate your own relationship with the concept. 

Legacy is, to me, about examining the impact I want my life to have on the world around me and then being intentional about behaviors that support that goal. I try to think of legacy in terms of my personal sphere of influence (family, friends and lovers), my professional sphere of influence (my clients and students and the astrological community at large), the land I inhabit, and the earth I make my home on.

In the natal chart, the MidHeaven/MC is the point that is most strongly associated with legacy. By sign, it describes a style through which we might most easily enact our legacy. Its ruling planet adds more details, giving us an access point for actualizing our legacy.

Planets that are placed in Capricorn in the natal chart can have a similar vibe to them. They represent parts of our personality that are potentially most attuned to legacy and the work it gets to support the goals of legacy. But it gets complicated because Capricorn is also associated with societal conditioning. When it comes to legacy, our society – at least the one I’m a part of – tends to wrap legacy up in terms of property, monetary wealth and children. Estates, if you will. 

I went down an etymology rabbit hole to track the roots of the word, and it is true that the modern usage – which revolved around property ownership – goes back to the middle ages. Part of its roots go back to the Greek legein: "to say, tell, speak, declare; to count.”

Over time, the notion of legacy has become a power play, as folks try to hold onto resources so they can be given to their descendants. 

What we have here is a very nuanced topic, and I’m not one to say that providing for your children is a bad thing. Nor am I here to act like I haven’t benefited from generational wealth myself. I have. But, as with all things Capricorn, fear can be placed in the driver’s seat. After all, we live in a system that overtly and covertly punishes those with lack of access to resources. Money first and foremost. It makes sense that we are driven to hold onto it. And despite notions of America being a country where anyone can rise in prominence (aka wealth), it is very difficult to pass a certain threshold without being born into wealth. 

The most compelling notions of legacy have been, to me at least, the stories I hear of indigenous cultures and frameworks many have about how their actions impact seven generations into the future. Or Joanna Macy’s notion of deep time and its reverence for ancestors past, present and future. Or the common “law of three” rule you’ll hear associated with many forms of witchcraft (whatever you put out into the universe comes back to you x3). Or the ways ecologists and environmental scientists are able to see the potentials of climate collapse decades down the road – insights and data which could be used to inform regulations,  behavior, innovation and standard business practices on a mass scale. 

Throughout the Capricorn Full Moons of the last 5-6 years, all rivers tend to lead to one question (for me, at least): How do we incorporate a culture of care and gentleness into rebuilding the systems that are currently dying? So that future generations don’t have to inherit systems that perpetuate violence? This is a legacy goal that speaks to my soul.

Cappy Full Moons and their associated Cancer New Moons always bring to mind the importance of ancestral shadow work, and the unraveling of years of violent colonialism and capitalist exploitation that have contributed to this current moment. They have a very “the center cannot hold” feel to me, as they highlight the polarity of the needs of the the hard, tangible physical world versus the needs of the soft, vulnerable, delicate inner world. 

This lunation carries with it the imprints of several intense planetary configurations that span astrological modalities and elements – which, in translation, means that everyone around you is probably feeling some kind of tension, fatigue, irritability or undulation of grief. Whether they know The Reason for it or not. Whether or not they’re tied up in the Cancer-Capricorn game or not.

I can’t count the number of people who have told me in the last few days that they feel like they’re standing in the calm before the storm. I just went through some old articles and realized I have written about that exact feeling during several Cappy new moons over the last several years. 

Not all of us are prepared or able to do the deep diving that this kind of lunar cycle invites. We have fears. Defenses. But more than that, perhaps: we have responsibilities. Capricorn knows all about responsibility. Responsibilities can make it genuinely difficult to have enough down time for self reflection and insight. They can also produce a whole system of guilt that serves as a fortress around our inner worlds. Cultures that center grind, work and that have conflated “work ethic” with self-sacrifice push us into alienation from the ways our bodies tell us to stop, go, eat, move, play, focus…

And so again, I arrive at this question. About how to tap into and re-prioritize care and gentleness. As a legacy. As a social contract. As a system of values that gets pressed into the stones of the society we get to build over the ruins of our current system. With recognition that tapping into the tenderness of the Cancer polarity can feel painfully vulnerable and uncomfortable. 

The Cancer-Capricorn polarity has a lot to do with the masks we wear - in our personal and private lives versus out in the world in our professions or careers. The rest of the cardinal axis shows us the lessons of masking as well -- with Libra being the masks we wear in interpersonal relationships and Aries being the absolute absence of mask -- pure instinct. 

When it comes down to it, Capricorn is just as sensitive and emotionally changeable as Cancer. But Cancer is instinctive emotionality. Capricorn energy brings with it more conscious awareness of cultural expectations about emotions and their expression. Consciousness awareness that brings at times  painful awareness of vulnerability and therefore is highly adept at employing mechanisms to repress emotional responses. 

The cycle we are in now, as well as the incoming astro-weather and impending Venus Retrograde, have initiated us into a cycle of clearing emotional baggage. The current phase is particularly focused on the baggage associated with our deepest fears and shadow parts. 

Here’s a helpful hint: sometimes our shadow material is actually good stuff. Qualities that would normally be deemed “positive” by society, but were shut down within us for whatever reason. Perhaps as a child you had a whimsical knack for speaking to fairies or plants that was shut down by the adults around you. Perhaps your gentle feeling nature went underground as you were told again and again that you were “too sensitive.” 

Societal conditioning (Capricorn), while it has its purposes, can also be a brutal slam against natural law and human intuition. Accessing your own ways of knowing is a vital part of living your truth. Reclaiming, honoring and integrating all parts of yourself can be an integral part of your legacy. 

My tip for the NOW of it?  Perhaps it has a little bit to do with that calm-in-the-eye-of-the-storm thing. Stop and breathe. Feel your feet on the ground. Breathe some more. Connect with the strength within you, however that comes forward. Imagine the world as you dream it could be, and let yourself experience what it might be like to live in that world. 

And then, in good Capricornian style, come up with three steps you can take in the next six months to move towards that goal. 

Bonus goal? Examine the shoulds and what ifs that keep you stuck in the status quo in ways that don’t serve you. Use the waning power of the current lunar cycle to gently release patterns that are ready to go. 

And remember:  your fears can become your allies. Although best done with the support of a magical, relational or therapeutic container, shining lights on your fears can hold great power. Your fears sometimes hide behind the masks of the “what ifs” and the “shoulds”. You can use the energy you spend fearing things and transmute it into fuel for better pursuits. That is very much the crux of the Capricorn Moon’s conjunction with Pluto: How do we transform our fears into something useful? For the sake of a living legacy that honors what came before, what’s happening now, and what will be… far into the future. 

Amanda is a queer astrologer who is very into relational, evolutionary and psychological astrologies. You can support her work — and get rad incentives like monthly AstroCircles, New Moon ritual guidance and one on one sessions if you want them — on Patreon. Please share this article if its contents were meaningful to you.