In Capricorn, the Call takes the quality of the sign: holding, lasting and taking a real place in the world. I would like to show what this lack demands of each of the three Black Moons, and where it finds a livable form.
What Capricorn does to the Call
Capricorn is the sign of earth that climbs: structure, responsibility, the long time, the summit. When a Black Moon stands here, the lack lodges in solidity. I see this placement in people who measure their worth by what they have built and pursue a mastery that never lets them feel they have arrived; and in others who despise fragility, their own first of all. The lack is not ambition. It is a place left open in what must hold, and that place calls.
I then read the three Black Moons separately, because they do not ask for the same thing in the same sign: the Mean seeks a course there, the True brings up what calls in the body, the Corrected seeks attunement between the two. For each, here is what I wrote in volume 1.
Mean Black Moon in Capricorn: the Alicorn
The Mean holds the course, and in Capricorn that course takes the quality of the sign. The demand is fine and it is formidable, and the answer is never to reach the absolute perfectly:
In Capricorn, the Alicorn indicates a direction in which something must be able to hold, endure, and take a real place in the world. The demand for solidity can lead to despising fragility, measuring one’s worth by what one has built, or pursuing a mastery that never allows one to feel one has arrived. The response is to give time a structure without identifying oneself with it: to build what deserves to last while accepting that the work remains greater than the position attained.
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 1
True Black Moon in Capricorn: Athena
The True shows what calls in the instant, in the body. In Capricorn, matter rises in its own way, and Athena reveals what can no longer be deferred:
In Capricorn, matter reveals itself in the need to hold, build, take responsibility, or give lasting structure to what until then remained formless. It can also appear through exhaustion when the body has too long carried a load no structure supports. Athena reveals what must acquire a framework, and the response is to build a form solid enough to carry life without crushing it under its own weight.
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 1
Corrected Black Moon in Capricorn: the Unicorn
The Corrected seeks attunement between the course and the push. In Capricorn, that attunement has its own terms:
In Capricorn, attunement is sought between the demands of building and the actual limits of matter, time, and the body. Structure can become rigidity, duty, or control, while the refusal of all constraint prevents the work from holding. The Unicorn seeks a form solid enough to endure without becoming a prison: accepting limits without confusing them with condemnation.
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 1
The open cross in Capricorn
Each Black Moon unfolds a cross: four stations that go from the call to the trial of the return, and that occupy the four signs of a single cross of the zodiac. The one starting from Capricorn passes through Aries, Cancer and Libra: the call in Capricorn, the price of passage in Aries, the response at the point in Cancer, the trial of the return in Libra.
In volume 2 I set side by side, station by station, the two respondents that travel this cross, Apollo for the Corrected, the form made habitable, and Priapus for the True, the power made present. At the first station, I have Priapus say, in Capricorn:
"I want to command, now. Merit is a story told after the fact; power, meanwhile, is taken."
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 2
And Apollo:
"I want to build cathedrals, just laws, traditions that carry the generations. The mountain is an observatory from which to guide, not a throne from which to crush."
The Black Moon, the three faces of the Call, volume 2
The three other stations, and what each one costs, are read in the book.
What the book adds
Volume 1 gives for each Black Moon the complete portrait of the sign, and volume 2 unfolds the open cross in Capricorn over its four stations, for Apollo and for Priapus, with the relationship to the world, to constraint, to otherness and to the future that each one engages. That is where the reading becomes precise, and that is where I left it.
Frequently asked questions
What does Lilith in Capricorn mean?
That the Call of the Black Moon takes the quality of Capricorn: holding, lasting and taking a real place in the world. I do not read it as a shadow, but as a demand seeking a livable form, and that form is not the same for the Mean, the True and the Corrected.
Are my three Black Moons in the same sign?
Not always. The True can stray from the Mean by up to about thirty degrees, and the three are often found in two different signs. The application tells you which ones are in Capricorn.