The Sun in astrology symbolizes the core essence of who you are -- your individuality and sense of self. It describes what is likely to motivate you, and why. The Sun Sign describes the prime focal point within the personality structure, and is of major importance. Understanding and developing these aspects of the self will help you to develop and expand your sense of being the authentic self you truly wish to be. Understanding the house in which your Sun is found will give even greater detail. If you do not feel much like your Sun Sign, then consider if you are giving yourself permission to be who you truly need to be?

Capricorn: Cardinal Earth          

Ruler: Saturn

Keywords: Authority, Mastery, Completion, Organization

Positive Expression: Capable, hard-working, industrious, serious, applied, prudent, self-sacrificing, trustworthy, executive ability, deep awareness of personal, social and spiritual needs, pillar of community

Negative Expression: Miserly, dictatorial, punishing, severe, brutal, task-master, cold, unsympathetic, reckless ambition, fear, material success is supreme, opportunistic, greedy, calculating

When the Sun is found in Capricorn, the urge is to achieve mastery over one’s material resources. For this reason Capricorn is considered the most ambitious sign of the zodiac, for Capricorn individuals are often primarily concerned with making the most of what is available to them. Usually, this involves learning lessons of patience and perseverance born out over years of persistence, focus and application. Your sign gives you the motivation to reach the top of the mountain, and your planetary ruler Saturn gives the restraint and lessons necessary for achieving success over the long-haul.

Capricorn is a Cardinal Earth sign, which implies the need to exercise executive abilities, usually around material resources. This is the sign associated with tradition, convention and the maintenance of established order. At this level, the Capricorn individual is likely to be hard-working, practical and realistic, with an innate sense of duty and responsibility around how resources are best used. Here we meet the Capricorn who is driven by long hours and the promise of tomorrow to achieve. You are likely to have very particular ideas about what you expect of yourself, and how you anticipate going about it. Accepting your need to be a master within your domain is useful. You are likely to have strong leanings toward executive positions in life, aiming for managerial positions because of your strong need to exercise authority within your chosen domain. Your urge is to reach the top of your chosen mountain peak. This can be within the home, within the schoolyard, within the office or within the corporation. Whatever you set your sights on as your ultimate peak and responsibility is what you will work tirelessly on to achieve.

As an Earth sign concerned with material resources, you tend to favour the tangible and concrete over the aspirational or ideal. You will take a realistic and strategic approach to your goals, and systematically set about reaching them, one by one. You are likely to have high expectations for yourself and others. You are also likely to be reserved, dignified and proud, aware at all times of the impression you could be making on others, for you value protocol and reputation. Usually, Capricorns hate waste, for this represents a failure to make the best use of what is available. Yet within all of this achievement building and strategic positioning lies the seeds of failure and doubt, for Capricorns often find that their road to the top is plagued by false starts and limitations that feel as if they are holding them back. This presents the temptation to fall into cynical, fearful and severe modes of being. Your response to life’s challenges can become embittered if you cannot see a reason for all of these obstacles. The stern hand of experience can become an even sterner approach to life if you do not give yourself a break. Learning to see yourself as a work in progress diminishes tendencies to become corrupted with self-doubt.

Your ruler Saturn teaches valuable lessons of endurance and application through making you work hard for your results. You may have to face many challenges along the way, and overcome all sorts of crippling fears and inhibitions. Often Capricorns find that success only begins to show after the mid-30’s stage of life, so that you seem to have to work twice as hard as those around you who seem to leap frog into positions of prominence. This is as it should be, for Saturn teaches you to build your success on solid foundations. Although your efforts may take a little longer to pay off, in the end you can feel secure because no-one can take them away from you. Capricorns usually achieve success through perseverance and application and therefore, master their chosen realms. This means you can then go on to enjoy all of the benefits that mastery involves, such as inner certainty, conviction, wisdom, moral fortitude and importantly, the ability to foster and develop others.

Capricorn is a sign connected with material benevolence. The desire to build strong families, communities and dynasties through positive matriarchal or patriarchal qualities often emerges once you feel satisfied with your lot. Your hard work pays off when you see all the benefits you have accrued flowing down to your children, employees or community projects you have become involved with. At the end of it all, you are able to assist in many ways through your practical wisdom and material strength.

On another level, Capricorn is a very sensual sign, and although you may be very reserved and dignified in public eyes when the door is closed and curtains pulled, another story unfolds. As much as this is a sign of hard work and endurance, it is also a sign of celebration and indulgence in the pleasures of life. After all, the festival of Saturnalia, a celebration of wild abandon, was celebrated during Capricorn time. You are likely to have a highly developed sensual nature that needs to be expressed. Staying in touch with your body through exercise and play is essential. If work time and ambitions become too consuming, your best bet is to schedule time away from it all, when you can enjoy the things of the earth to their full advantage. Many Capricorns have a powerful sex drive that will need an outlet, and have a way of making up in the bedroom for all the straight-laced behaviours they show on the outside.

Another dimension of this sign that is often left unmentioned is the spiritual wisdom many of this sign possess. Capricorn is symbolized by the mer-goat, a half goat-half fish creature that derives its wisdom from the depths of things as much as from their heights. There is often a pronounced willingness to explore the spiritual dimensions of life, but not in a wishy-washy or soft-focussed way. Capricorns take the getting of wisdom very seriously and are often prepared to face their faults with honesty and candidness. This means that they are able to quietly liberate themselves from many binds of the ego, and can then become motivated by spiritual concerns that transcend the personal and everyday. This is the sign of institutions and civil society. In fact, civilization itself is symbolized by this sign. For cohesive physical structures to endure, there must be a will-to-good that penetrates the majority of society. This is the basis and longevity of the Capricornian spiritual wisdom. Many spiritual teachers, including Jesus Christ, are associated with the sign of Capricorn, for it is an ancient sign of great mystery and depth. Some esoteric astrologers call this the sign of the initiate, who achieves mastery over the physical form before offering transpersonal service in the following signs of Aquarius and Pisces. You can teach the lesson of practical spirituality through its application to the everyday.

Capricorn is a fascinating sign with much more to offer than the usual descriptions of dour seriousness and hard work would have us believe. When the Sun is found is Capricorn you bring the gifts of practical wisdom achieved through learning to master your material resources. Although your ruler Saturn will place many obstacles along your way, you can triumph in the end through patience and application. If success is yours, you have almost always earned it, and the secrets of this success become the stuff upon which civilizations and dynasties are founded. Enjoy your serious minded-ness and remember to plan for the long-term, with the momentary just another step for you to climb along the way.