New Moon in Capricorn

“There’s a world in our soil—suspended in the rich darkness, a vast microbial web that we've only just begun to understand.” Merlin Sheldrake.

A new moon occurs when the moon is directly between the earth and the sun, with its shadowed side pointing towards us. This arrangement – the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies in a gravitational system – is called a conjunction or syzygy. This is why we experience a new moon as lunar darkness. It is a time of mystery and dreaming. A time to create visions for the future. This new moon in Capricorn is the first new moon of 2024 and provides a distinctly earthy and grounded medium – much like earth itself – in which to plant new seeds and intentions.

The modalities of the zodiac represent three universal life conditions: creation (cardinal), preservation (fixed) and transformation (mutable). Each element – fire, earth, water and air – contains each modality. As cardinal earth, Capricorn initiates sustained action over the longer term. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, which represents responsibility, structure and, in terms of time, the long term and the ancient.

One way to think about this new moon in Capricorn is as a way – as an opportunity – to create a more magical structure in our days, by setting up practices and rituals that become part of our daily lives; of turning routine into ritual. This doesn’t have to be over-rigorous; the practice could be something that lasts five minutes but that, over the year, becomes transformative because we do it every day.

Start initially with how you want to feel, as opposed to what you want to do. Next, ask what helps you feel that way. Experiment with practices that nurture this state within you. Some will feel right, and some won’t. Capricorn, as ruler of the skeletal system, is more about creating something that gives us shape and definition to find our true selves. In supporting our weight, the skeletal system allows for movement. Without it, we couldn’t stand or move. There’s freedom in this particular structure; one that manifests as different modes of expression and activity in the physical world (all earth signs relate literally to the earth, and also to the body).

This beautiful earthiness is further augmented by the sun and the moon trining Uranus in Taurus and Mars in Capricorn trining Jupiter in Taurus. Uranus – a transpersonal planet – speaks to generational themes and collective issues. When Uranus is in Taurus, we are supported to look at our very foundations and, in this trine with the moon in Capricorn our relationship with the earth, our bodies and resources (the earth’s and our own: our life force). We are invited to see and to feel that there is so much beyond the mind. And we are reminded that there is so much earthly abundance: so much life.

Fungi are a Saturnian organism. Plants have been around for approximately 700 million years, but fungi have been here for much longer: around 1,300 million years. These vast and complex networks can live for centuries, stretch over hundreds or thousands of miles and communicate with each other, and facilitate the communication of trees in the forest.

In 1997, Suzanne Simard's doctoral research was published in the journal Nature. In her paper, she describes the way trees communicate via mycelial networks using phrases like “forest wisdom” and “mother trees”, and which she compares to neural networks in human brains. “Some trees have lived for thousands of years,” Simard tells us. “They get along, develop sophisticated relationships and listen – they’re attuned. Attunement is something we all need too.”

This moon is very much about attunement. About coming into harmony or sympathetic relationship to the earth; to that which is outside of the mind and the intellect. In reiki, a form of energy healing, there is a ceremony dedicated to attunement called Reiju, in which a reiki master opens and expands the main energy channels of the student's body. This allows universal energy, or chi, to flow more freely and deeply through them.

With Mars in Capricorn, our physical attunement will be highlighted. Pleasure and sexual desires will be amplified. Mars is exalted in Capricorn – exalted meaning it is in an auspicious position expressed in a positive and harmonious way energetically – which encourages us to embrace our earthiest desires. It is about having fun and being playful.

How to work with the energy of this full moon? A great way to connect to earth energy is practices involving salt. A salt bath not only connects us to the earth, but also to the watery moon. Salt cleanses and purifies; it makes energetic space for our dreams. A good salt blend is half a cup of Epsom salt and a quarter of a cup of Himalayan pink salt, but you can use whatever salt you have in the house. You can also add an essential oil blended with carrier oil (it needs to be blended as essential oils are very potent and can irritate the skin). Frankincense, with its deep earthy notes, is wonderful, or lavender. Begin running the bath and mix the salt and oil in a bowl.

Before getting into the bath, think of an intention is for this moon cycle and then turn out the light. Meditate on your intention while bathing.

"Allow the water to enhance your deepest feelings to help transpire the vision of what you are creating for this new cycle," says Corina Crysler, an evolutionary astrologer. "Imagine pulling your mind down into the water, clearing out all the thoughts and worries and just be in your body. Remember that emotional wisdom is your truth, and that's what you're connecting to in this bath: your truth.”

Another way to earth and ground is by meditating with Mirari Life’s black obsidian crystal shield. Formed from rapidly cooled lava, black obsidian is often called ‘the stone of truth’. Like salt, it is used for purification, transformation and removal of blockages. It also supports us in feeling more grounded, focused and clear by absorbing and cleansing negative energies. It is perfect to use with this guided mycorrhizal meditation from Feral practice, which: “choreographs a connective journey through the human body and down into a dynamic, semiotic underworld of living soil and mycorrhizal mycelium. The spoken word entwines with sound recordings made in wooded places, including sonifications of the shifts in electrical current emitted by plants and fungi. It complicates a notion of nature as ‘ultimate digital detox’, and guides the user towards the intelligent responsiveness of beyond-human nature, the ‘wood-wide-web’ that predates our digital connectivity by millennia.”

Image credit: Mathew Schwartz on UnSplash

Corina Crysler’s website

Lynsey Allett11 January 2024