Capricorn Stereotypes That Are Kind Of True In Theory
Photo: @lefawnhawk
My completely anecdotal guess is that Capricorns are the sign most likely to dislike pop astrology because pop astrology Capricorn stereotypes kind of suck. Unless your spiritual ideal is that of a wooden Mr. Big Business Man who only thinks about work, promotions, and when to pick up the drycleaning, you’re probably going to balk at a personality assessment that basically makes you sound like a Sim. That, and because you’ve been slightly skeptical of most things ever since your parents insulted you by trying to get you to believe in the tooth fairy.
In reality, Capricorns hate to feel embarrassed. They may or may not be status-seeking in the conventional sense, but a sought status can be one where they walk away with their self-respect and their dignity intact. Capricorn always seems to be talking about integrity because they can intuit, perhaps better than anyone else, how precarious it is to be corrupted.
As the sign of cardinal earth, Capricorn is forever attempting to enact a correction to all that is precarious, flimsy, and unstable in this world. Capricorn may or may not care about their job all that much, but they do make good architects. There is probably nobody better equipped than a Saturnian earth sign to lead the charge of creating something structurally sound that can house and sustain the rest of us.
Capricorn desires accountability from others, even if they don’t always necessarily expect it. Saturn teaches you intimate lessons about responsibility, and it also teaches you to see the value in cynicism when historical trends point to a cynical outcome. Capricorn is like this not because they hate fun, but because they want us to be prepared. They’re usually the first to poke holes in someone else’s ideas because it’s probably going to fall on them to pick up the pieces anyway. More than anything, Capricorns are tired of being right.
Moving with the assumption that the other shoe may very well drop is a very classic Capricorn experience because so much of the time, these lessons are internalized early. There is something about planets in Capricorn that makes them less capable of getting away with things, or less capable of not being noticed for getting away with things. This doesn’t make life a Dostoyevsky novel per se — it just means that you can only understand your role as a standard-bearer, as a living example of what it means to live on the right or wrong side of divine law, as a guardian of sacred limitations, by first coming up hard against your own.
These are all qualities that derive from Saturn’s punishing hand. Saturn can be rigid and uptight, and to be fair, so can Saturn’s children. But Saturn also makes Capricorn gifted with a nose for enduring quality, with a deep abiding respect for the fact that good things take time. Mountains can be moved, but often only incrementally. Capricorn may or may not be a hard worker, but they almost certainly understand the power of patient effort and the importance of not taking shortcuts.
Capricorn represents the very interesting existential condition of being the only sign where both malefics (Mars and Saturn) perform really well, as well as being no country for Moon or Jupiter (the Moon is in detriment, and Jupiter in fall, in Capricorn). What this basically means in a nutshell is that Capricorns are uncomfortable, but they’re strangely comfortable with being uncomfortable. There is a lot of vital and necessary action that doesn’t feel good in the moment. There is a lot of vital and necessary action that must take place even when we’re not hugely optimistic about the results. Capricorn is where we locate our own agency and capability when hopes and prayers are not enough to sustain us.
As the sign where Mars exalts, Capricorn is extremely effective when they want to be. Capricorn presents as the face of competence, even when they’re internally having a crisis of impostor syndrome. Capricorn is usually the one people call on in a crisis because they tend to know exactly what to do, or at least how to diffuse the panic by appearing to have it all under control. The exaltation of Mars is all about knowing how to conserve your energy and apply it where it counts. This is the logic of a mountain climber.
Capricorn is also way more than just a mountain goat. It’s a sea goat — a SEA GOAT, you guys. Its true form is half goat, half fish, suggesting that it’s got its chosen mountain peak to climb, but it also contains a deep primordial memory of its own mystical origins. Capricorn is probably more spiritual and poetic than people give it credit for, but it’s a specific type of spirituality that measures time in eons.
The joke is that inside every Capricorn is an old, crotchety person. Because Saturn. But if Capricorn is a bit of a curmudgeon, it’s probably because a Moon in detriment and a Jupiter in fall both tend toward melancholy and brittleness. This is the experience of knowing that ice cream would make you feel better but refusing to give it to yourself because you can’t justify having a little treat today when you stack it up against all the other days you may have wanted a little treat.
It’s also precisely this disposition that makes Capricorns so funny. Capricorns have the dry, sarcastic, self-deprecating humor thing down to an art form because as we’ve seen over the last couple years, the jokes seem to get better when things feel really bleak, and that is probably one of the deepest Jupiter lessons of all. A Jupiter in fall can’t comfort itself as easily by pretending things are better than they are, but it can use humor as an extremely effective coping mechanism. Jupiter is all belly laughs, even when shit is really fucked.
Capricorn keeps it real — that’s a given. Capricorn can also be surprisingly raunchy and crude for someone who everyone else pegged as the adult in the room. At the end of the day, it’s not that deep. All this really means is that there’s no such thing as being too old for “that’s what she said.”
This post was originally published on 1/10/22 on thedailyhunch.com.