the full moon in capricorn for writers
ICYMI! My brand new container for the upcoming Venus Retrograde, Roses & Thorns: A Venus Rx Cloister for Creative Recovery, is currently open for pre-sale at a reduced price through this Friday, July 7th. The full price will then be instituted for the duration of the registration period, which ends July 21. Hope to see you there!
Also, I’m doing a Q&A about all things Venus and creativity on IG stories today! Submit your questions!
The Full Moon arrived at 11* of Capricorn on Monday July 3, 2023 at 7:38am Eastern. Sitting opposite Mercury in Cancer, there is a lot to say here about the constipation that is moving through the body: about the feelings we are digesting, individually and collectively, and voicing, slowly but surely.
In Capricorn, the moon - the body, the feelings - wants an extra security blanket, the extra layer of assurance before speaking up, before making a move. But communicative Mercury in Cancer says, feel your feelings. Trust the body. Things don’t have to be “logical” (aka, fit in a patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist framework) to still make sense.
So there is an unpacking, a digesting happening here with this lunation, which is especially potent coming as it is during the so-called “holiday” of American independence (whose?) in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action, gut LGBTQIA+ rights, and attempt to prevent economic justice for millions suffering under extreme student debt.
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For many of us, these last six months have been a hard lesson in trusting the body. The New Moon in Capricorn, on December 24, 2022, was conjunct asteroid Hygeia, which brought our attention to our health and the literal structures that supported the wellness of our bodies, especially. There were also themes of safety in the home of our body.
Which, personally, at least, proved apt. Mere days after the New Moon in Capricorn, there was a devastating pipe burst in our building. Think water quite literally rushing down the hallways of common areas like that scene of Jack and Rose trying to outrun the water; think us bucketing six inches of standing water out of our apartment at 2, 3 in the morning.
Over the next few weeks, black mold grew in the walls; eventually, a construction team arrived, unannounced, and knocked those walls down, with us still in the apartment. Cue us frantically calling management asking what the fuck exactly was happening. Would they put us up in a hotel for this unending construction project? (No, of course not.) We had plastic sheets hung between us and our neighbor, and also, for a time, between our apartment and the hallway.
We spent hours on the phone with two separate housing lawyers, who both advised us that we had grounds to break our lease. But money, you know? We didn’t have a few extra thousand lying around to just pick up and move then and there.
This, coupled with a multitude of other all too regular flooding (and property damage), building maintenance, and appliance issues and breakdowns, led to an escalating feeling of unsafety that contributed to health issues, both mental and physical, and also impacted both our relationship and our ability, as self-employed people, to work in our own home. Meg’s chronic health issues worsened considerably; I am unconvinced that all the mold was removed from the apartment. And in February, I was attacked on the street a mere block away from our building, something that has never happened to me in seven and a half years of living in New York City.
I said over and over again that it felt like the building was trying to drown itself. And, much as I loved the neighborhood and Brooklyn, generally, it felt like my time there was done.
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Cut to six months later: the Full Moon in Capricorn arrives mere days after my partner and I have moved into our new house. After an excruciating apartment hunt, we got this place — an apartment truly beyond our wildest dreams, within a 10 minute walk of half a dozen of our closest friends — on what was essentially a handshake deal and vibes. No ridiculous week-long wait period for the application. No financial colonoscopy. No exploitative, unexpected fees. No guilt trips for being self-employed. Just an old fashioned introduction through a friend of a friend and feeling each others’ energy.
Drenched in Sphere & Sundry Venus and Doorkey materia, we met the landlady and her son, toured the place while squealing, and, at the end, they asked us, “So, do you want it?”
And that was that.
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Capricorn loves to build, to deliver. The Full Moon loves to realize a physical, literal structure.
And the moon, in Capricorn, sometimes has to try every wrong option before accepting help. The moon is, technically, in its detriment in Capricorn, which is simply to say that the emotional, nurturing moon has more difficulty accessing qualities of tenderness and vulnerability in the archetype that craves a lid for every container.
Feelings are messy, the process of being human is non-linear, and these are processes that the Capricorn moon can struggle to engage with. Especially in times such as these, where the overwhelm is profound and the temptation to suppress and repress everything is real.
Understanding that this is the challenge, we can, instead, lean into the friction. Simply by acknowledging and engaging in your process, you are already doing it right.
The only way out is through, and we can choose to approach the mess as its own kind of task: not one to “win,” nor to “slay” or “overcome,” but merely to embrace and learn from. And to know that we are, none of us, alone, but are together, communally: far more of us, the many, than there are of them, the 1%, the few.
This work can feel lonely. But trust, we are here.
Writing Prompts for the Full Moon in Capricorn
What in your life is coming to completion, or to a height? How does this feel to you?
What in your life were you beginning, intentionally or unintentionally, around that New Moon in Capricorn last year? How does this connect to your life now? What kind of growth or, alternately, letting go have you seen?
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Oh, Jeanna! I'm so glad to hear about your new place. Fellow Cap here with a deep need for home and place and somewhere to call MINE. Without that I am, quite literally, adrift on every level. But now you can ground down and feel safe and settled. Good, good, good!
I am so glad you and Meg not only found a new place but didn’t have to settle for anything less than a HOME in the coziest, Canceriest sense. I’m just sorry you both had to endure so much grief and trauma and bullshit to get there. 🖤