Capricorn III: What is the sun doing in this dark corner of the year?
By Elly Higgins
Capricorn season marks the winter solstice - the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Ruled by Saturn, the dimmest, furthest visible planet - this is a time of year that feels like it should have very little to do with the Sun. During the winter months, we are forced to contend with lack - lack of sunlight, lack of fresh food, lack of opportunities for easy connection. Saturn’s cold embrace envelops us, reminding us that we are not promised safety or comfort. And yet, the third decan of Capricorn is the domain of the Sun. Under the auspices of Saturn - the planet of time and boundaries, the greater malefic who makes for “careworn, self-deprecating, downcast, sad-looking” people (thanks Valens!), we find a spot for the warm, eternal flame of the sun.
The sun is the planet of authority, power, and raw, life-giving potentiality. This decan is nicknamed “The Throne” by astrologer Austin Coppock, which is appropriate given the sun’s associations with the king. This final decan of Capricorn is the place where planets may take their seat upon the throne after climbing their way up the rocky mountainous Capricorn terrain. There is an association with this decan and material success or support which makes sense given that by triplicity, Mercury, the planet of commerce, is in charge of Capricorn III. The combination of the Sun’s association with kings and Mercury’s association with commerce means that planets in Capricorn III are royalty who may sit on the throne. They’ve made it. But planets in Capricorn III find themselves in a very precarious position. Despite their relative comfort and safety, they cannot escape Saturn’s looming shadow. Especially in a cardinal sign, a sign which initiates material change, they’re haunted by the question: what if this isn’t permanent? What if they lose access to the throne?
With such little new growth around it can be easy to get caught in a trap, in this feeling of, “I need to hold tight to what I have or else I will lose it, and who knows if I will be able to replace it.” These fears are not unfounded. Capricorn is a malefic sign - the home of Saturn and the exaltation of Mars. The third decan in particular contains the degree of Mars’ exaltation as well as the bounds for both Saturn and Mars. The malefics say no to life. They block, they sever, they deny. So planets in the third decan of Capricorn know this harsh reality, they know nothing is permanent and that the only thing promised to each of us is death.
The tarot card associated with Capricorn III is the Four of Pentacles. In the Raider-Waite-Smith image, a person sits with one pentacle on their head, another wrapped in their arms, and one under each foot. This defensive stance is reflective of what we will see of planets in Capricorn III. The person is holding tight to their resources, hunched over them because they are afraid to lose them. They seem weighed down by the coin on their head and the one in their arms appears like a hypnotizing crystal ball. But this defensive stance is hard to maintain, like the pentacle upon the head, it is a weight that keeps planets trapped in this cycle of forever searching for more, hypnotized by the (false) promise of material safety.
As I write this, Pluto is stationing direct for the final time in the last degree of Capricorn. Pluto first entered Capricorn III on Dec 13, 2018. By the time you’re reading this Pluto will be solidly in Aquarius but for the better part of the last 6 years, Pluto has been trudging through this final decan of Capricorn - taking the malefic planetary energies to their extremes - allowing us to experience the full nature of the throne. Between January and March of 2020, the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and Pluto all took turns meeting up in Capricorn III. In the United States, we watched the government abandon people in the name of profit and push for a “return to normal” without adequate public health and safety measures for COVID-19. Between March 2020 and October 2021, the five richest people in the US saw a 123% increase in their combined wealth while everyone else experienced high rates of unemployment and a lack of protective equipment or public health guidance for their severely underpaid jobs. If Pluto unearths things from the underworld, Pluto’s journey through Capricorn has in large part been about the exposure of the failing system of a government which continuously values profit over people, companies over lives, and greed and expansion at any and all costs. We have watched the ecological and human destruction, the loss of life, culture, and community that happens when those who have access to the throne are so fearful they will lose the crown that they’re willing to sacrifice anything to keep it.
Capricorn III: “A man who wants it all, and doesn’t understand anybody telling him he can’t have it all.”
In 36 Faces, Austin Coppock describes Capricorn III as the place of the religious leader, the CEO, and the king. He says,
“The power of this face is to draw one close to high seats of power. The attention of people of influence can be gained, as might a throne of one’s own.”
And indeed we see people who have important placements in Capricorn III filling those roles in society.
Jeff Bezos - one of the five aforementioned richest people in the United States, CEO and founder of Amazon, has his Sun and Mars in decan III of Capricorn. He personally saw his wealth rise from $113 billion on March 18, 2020, to $204 billion by September 2024. During this same period, Amazon delivery drivers filed a lawsuit against Bezos and Amazon because workload expectations were so harsh that workers were forced to pee in bottles rather than stop for bathroom breaks.
Rupert Murdoch, media mogul, who owns the Wall Street Journal, Harper Collins, and Fox News, is a Capricorn rising with Saturn, his ascendant ruler, in decan III of Capricorn. His company, News Corp is the parent company for hundreds of publishing outlets around the world and Murdoch was described by one of his employees as “a man who wants it all, and doesn’t understand anybody telling him he can’t have it all.” His Saturn in Capricorn III brought him close to one of the highest seats of power in the world in 1981 when widely hated conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher secretly helped Murdoch acquire the UK “Times Newspaper” in exchange for unwavering support of her government. In a symbiotic relationship, Murdoch helped keep Thatcher in power and Thatcher destroyed labor and union protections allowing Murdoch to take advantage of his employees and make even more money.
Another notable Capricorn rising with Saturn in Capricorn III was cult leader Jim Jones. Jones was a preacher who proclaimed his own divinity and founded the Peoples Temple. Jones forced members of his cult to give over their income and property. His reign ended with a mass murder-suicide that killed over 900 members of the Peoples Temple.
With Bezos, Murdoch, and Jones, we see some of the worst of Capricorn III. Highly influential men with a hunger for power that leads to individual material “success” at the direct expense of others. When left unchecked, Capricorn III’s drive for and ability to access material success, coupled with the fear of loss of resources, plays very well in a capitalist worldview that says that you must keep amassing wealth, no matter the human, ecological, or spiritual destruction necessary to do so.
Capricorn III has so much to do with scarcity - and this scarcity is real. In 2023, 78% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck. Given this uncertainty, the desire to defend the resources you have, to keep amassing for fear of future loss makes sense. And yet - we know that this scarcity is manufactured - often by the people who are amassing the most. There are approximately 600,000 people experiencing homelessness and about 17 million vacant homes - or more than 27 homes per person in the United States. In New York City, the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) surveyed rent-stabilized apartments and found that over 20,000 apartments were vacant but unavailable to rent. Coppock says that Capricorn III’s “struggle is not to build but to administer to the world.” And when capitalism sits on the throne, bureaucratic obstruction makes it easy to administer manufactured scarcity.
Capricorn III: “Fuck your profiteering. We die while you play business.”
But this isn’t how it has to be. Take for example AIDS activist Peter Staley who had a Saturn Mercury conjunction in Capricorn III. Staley’s story is interesting. Before becoming involved with activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power), Staley was a closeted bond trader on Wall Street. He could have gone the way of Bezos, Murdoch, or Jones but his life took a different trajectory. After being diagnosed with HIV in 1985, he joined ACT UP in 1987. In 1988 and 89 he returned to Wall Street but this time as a disruptor to protest the profiteering of pharmaceutical companies charging high prices for AZT (at that time the only drug available to treat HIV/AIDS).
Looking at the chart for Staley’s first demonstration with ACT UP, we see that Mars had just ingressed into Capricorn III and was conjunct his natal Saturn/Mercury conjunction. Here we see the malefics, Saturn and Mars coming together not to cause harm but to expose and fight back against resource hoarding.
In a later demonstration, Staley and others chained themselves to the balcony above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange and dropped fake bills which read “Fuck your profiteering. We die while you play business.” Within days of this action, the price of AZT dropped 20%. I hope that we can use Staley’s shift, from Wall Street trader to direct action disruptor as a helpful framework for re-thinking Capricorn III.
“I'm aware of the ways in which, especially in capitalist societies, there's a tendency to focus on the individual at the expense of allowing people to understand that history unfolds, not as a consequence of the actions and the words of great individuals, but rather as a consequence of people coming together, joining hands, and uniting with their differences -- not across their differences, but with their differences -- in a quest to create more freedom and more happiness in the world.”
— Angela Davis
We can also look to Marxist feminist Angela Davis, who has her midheaven in Capricorn III. Davis’ life work as an activist and scholar has been about drawing connections between racism, capitalism, sexism, and abolition and fighting for radical sociopolitical transformation.
Or Martin Luther King Jr. who was one of the foremost leaders of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. His Sun and Midheaven were both in Capricorn III. Like Davis, he argued that
“White America must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society.”
Perhaps Capricorn III does not need to create a business magnate. Perhaps this final decan of Capricorn simply allows us to understand the ways that power, money, and government work. It gives us critical knowledge for understanding how scarcity and material security interact with each other. For people like Bezos or Murdoch, that knowledge is used for personal gain. For Staley, Davis, and Martin Luther King Jr. it is used to gather people together, to be spokespeople for understanding and changing the structures that harm people, to fight back against fear and scarcity and insist that there really is enough, that the sun will shine another day.
If the view from atop Capricorn III’s throne allows us to see power structures and make use of them, we have an important choice to make. Will we be tempted by hubris and greed or will we use our power to tear down the structures which do not promote life? Will we work through fear towards collective liberation?
Sources:
Inequality.org, n.d. Inequality and COVID-19. Available at: https://inequality.org/facts/inequality-and-covid-19/.
Inequality.org, n.d. Updates on the billionaire pandemic. Available at: https://inequality.org/great-divide/updates-billionaire-pandemic/ [Accessed 19 Dec. 2024].
NBC News, n.d. Living paycheck to paycheck. Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna51569351.
The Guardian, 2015. How Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch made a secret deal. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/28/how-margaret-thatcher-and-rupert-murdoch-made-secret-deal.
Forbes, 2024. Living paycheck to paycheck statistics 2024. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/#:~:text=or%20lost%20income.-,How%20Many%20Americans%20Are%20Living%20Paycheck%20to%20Paycheck%3F,paying%20for%20their%20monthly%20expenses .
Medium, 2023. CHIP survey shows more than 20,000 permanently empty apartments could be available with simple policies. Available at: https://medium.com/@CHIPNYC/chip-survey-shows-more-than-20-000-permanently-empty-apartments-could-be-available-with-simple-e5a7b16c4e72 .
Texas A&M Today, 2022. What Martin Luther King Jr. said about systemic racism. Available at: https://today.tamu.edu/2022/01/15/what-martin-luther-king-jr-said-about-systemic-racism/#:~:text=Archives%2FGetty%20Images-,Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr.,Texas%20A%26M%20University%20sociology%20professor .
Advocate, 2022. Angela Davis: Abolition, capitalism, politics, and coming out. Available at: https://www.advocate.com/books/2022/7/29/angela-davis-abolition-capitalism-politics-coming-out .
Coppock, A., 2014. 36 Faces. Portland: Three Hands Press.
Ryberg, K., 2022. The 36 Decans Guidebook.
Valens, V., 2nd century. Anthologies. Translated by R. Schmidt, 1994. Cumberland: Project Hindsight.
About the Author
Elly Higgins (he/him) is a consulting astrologer interested in the archives, third spaces, queer temporalities, mixed-media art, embodiment, interdependence, and community. He hosts Star Gays: The Queer Astrology Archives Podcast, which examines the lives of queer artists and activists through the lens of astrology. He has a certificate in Hellenistic astrology from Chris Brennan and offers natal and timing consultations with the goal of meeting people where they are at, helping them find their path and trust their agency by becoming co-collaborators with the cosmos.
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