Thru the Darkness of the Future-Past
Ending and Beginnings with the Capricorn New Moon
In David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, the demonic inhabitant known as Bob monologued a riddle regarding “the Future Past” as one totality.
Instead of the mutually exclusive idea we know the past and the future to be, amongst the crypticism of the famed series was this combined concept of impossibility which stuck to my psyche significantly, striking the heaviest chord. What is the “Future Past”? The future’s past and the past’s future would be now. Perhaps it was just a poetic way of referring to the present. Did this term refer to the future humanity held in the minds of people in the past, an ideological future now behind us? How have our assumptions gone awry, misdirected? Pre-destinations are always questionable, but societies from the beginning of time naturally cling to prophecies.
Indications of “Future Past” have undoubtedly penetrated philosophy. In humanity’s cling to illusions and in my own limbo, now more than ever I find myself drawn again to the in-between, the wish to timeline jump. Combining “future” and “past”, processing “time” both behind and beyond, our hopeful confrontations are littered with contradiction. Can fates and destinies gain traction simply through beliefs of outcomes? What of accumulated patterns of the past? Data attempts to determine what is “inevitable”. In a present wracked with climate crisis, the expansion of class consciousness if not class war itself, gun control and genocide debates… morality hangs by a thread.
What is to be of our future?
In its immeasurable meanings, “Future Past” has been flirted with in classic works of science fiction and magical realism, exploring society’s propel to future environments of crumbling human rights and techno-fear (Pluto Aquarius problems for the next 20 years if you ask me). The religious judgment echoed in the The Handmaid’s Tale and climate crisis of Parable of the Sower not only enraptured readers due to complex world-building by the authors, but in the speculation of humanity’s horrific need for control and tendency for destruction. Power in big industry and government have shown a factual ability to terrify populations and restrict basic freedoms. The people are starting to fight back (and sorry not sorry, Luigi Mangione has been the most refreshing Robin Hood of viral news in a long, long time).
Capricorn has had quite a presence in 2024.
2024 saw 2 Full Moons in Capricorn during Retrograde Summer with the year book-ended by 2 Capricorn New Moons. Additionally, Capricorn’s last breath in Pluto during its brief Retrograde over Autumn felt like a scheming moment of traditional threat that rose in ranks during the Sea-Goat’s previous reign in the Underworld Planet from 2008 to 2023. Since January 2008, increased interest of “conservative” values, enforced militarism and dissatisfaction with social progress lead to the demonizing of the Left and the Dems becoming more to the Right in their policies (and hypocrisies) than ever before.
The diversity of discourse in American society also led to hoards of Trump supporters “pushing back” explosively, white supremacy and transphobia to the forefront. The knee-jerk fear that these men lack a “voice” (or entitled authority) is exemplified in their sharp disdain of “wokeness”, literally the platform Trump ran on to win the recent Presidential Election. AND since 2020, the U.S. pandemic witnessed more layoffs and business closures, worsened in the past couple of years as a “delayed” result of the economy. Unless you are some kind of psychic, no one saw this massively disruptive 5 years of chaos a-coming. We’re certainly still dealing with the consequences.
And forward, no one truly knows what the Future holds.
What we do know of are certain alignments from the Past.
The Future/Past promenades through our brainwaves and yet again, we are only left to imagine the best or the worst as we turn the corner into a New (hopefully happier, healthier) Year. But I must admit it looks grim to return to Trump’s America (which I honestly believe never really left in Biden’s term). A sense of doom lingers over 2025, PTSD-inducing, acutely aware of the ways in which our private experiences with abuse were triggered daily through the shock of news FOR YEARS with Trump’s 1st Presidential onset. In absurdism, absent of sense, once again, we prepare for the information onslaught and rolling back of rights.
Currently walking “in the Darkness of the Future-Past”, unsure of where history may repeat, unable to take a breather from the perpetuating suffering brought forth in our everyday sphere, fearing an intense rise in violence, especially towards marginalized people, how does the loop end? How did we receive a reality TV show host / generationally wealthy business man with ties to the KKK as merely a CANDIDATE FOR THE U.S. PRESIDENT? When I interviewed queer cult director John Waters (a Capricorn Moon) in 2015, he laughed about Trump’s campaign, “who is going to vote for him?” So many thought the possibility ridiculous, that it could not happen. And yet… it did.
I will not diss Capricorn and suggest the Sign in any way tied to hateful tradition, but in Underworld Pluto, the worst of a Sign’s shadow side can come up. The Summer/Autumn 2024 Pluto Rx in Capricorn was a major build-up moment to the US Presidential Election with Trump suddenly in lead again. Pluto Cap’s last breath in our lifetime appears to have brought an aggressive anxious-attachment to the Old Guild, chained to arcane ways (though Harris upheld the 2-party tyrannical trap, too… neither choice was ideal). And yet Pluto in Capricorn was responsible for uncovering corruption, exposed systemic racism, honed in on corporate greed.
Capricorn’s responsibility to goodwill is an earnestly heartfelt strength and at the end of the day, the truest essence of the Sea-Goat.
Capricorn’s reign rings in with the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year.
The full circle of the Seasons, a true tiptoe into a period of Darkness, we wait. We wait when Light shall slowly return amid the cold and damp until Spring blossoms forth and we feel alive again. In order to not let the panic persist, we take inventory of what feels right in the way of rest. The celebrations end-of-year tend to follow a Winter Depression come January for me. Suddenly it is So Quiet. It’s just me and my thoughts. Thoughts of What It Should Be Like and What I Should Be Doing. And in navigating isolation and frigid weather, we are tired of shivering in the enormous ominous shadow of financial dooms and illness (yes, we’re still in a pandemic), no outdoor gatherings in sight.
As December 21st marked the Winter Solstice and the start of Capricorn, we are in a new disposition as we try to ground in a new season. The Capricorn New Moon shall help us do so tremendously, though scheduling the space to dedicate to this 4th major Capricorn Moon of 2024 will take some power-move maneuvering. Hopefully your Winter Solstice weekend has been reflective. I share these words by Chiara Acu as they enlivened my sense of responsibility in this hurried havoc of scrambled hardship, bringing me back to Earth and warming my core purpose, a knowing once again:
ON THIS SOLSTICE DAY OF 2024 MAY WE LOOK INTO THE DARK HOURS AHEAD NOT WITH POWERLESSNESS, BUT WITH PURPOSE ALIGNED AND CLEAR IN WHAT WE ARE ABOUT: LIBERATION & REVOLUTIONARY LOVE - MEANING RECIPROCAL, REVERENT RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LAND, OURSELVES, AND EACH OTHER. NOURISHING FOOD, MEANINGFUL WORK, DIGNIFIED HOUSING, BODILY SOVEREIGNTY, FREEDOM FROM TERROR AND COERCION AND ACCESS TO THE TOOLS WE NEED TO HEAL AND TRANSFORM THE INHERITED BURDENS THAT SIT DEEP IN OUR BONES. ON THIS SOLSTICE DAY OF 2024 MAY WE GROW BIGGER THAN THE PAIN WE CARRY AND THAN THE GRIEF WE MUST FEEL AND TRANSMUTE TO MAKE SPACE, ALSO, FOR OUR FULL ALIVENESS AS IT COURSES THRU OUR WARM BODIES - RED BLOOD, SUPPLE BONES LET US MAKE OUR CHEST CAVITIES AS WIDE AS THE PRAIRIES AS MUTABLE AS THE TIDES ABLE TO EXPAND AND CONTRACT AS WE NEED TO AND CHOOSE TO WITH ENOUGH ROOM FOR OUR BREATHS TO SYNC EVEN AS OUR HEARTBEATS MAINTAIN A RHYTHM OF THEIR OWN EACH OF US FULLY EMBODYING OUR DIGNITY AS WE LEARN TO EXTEND PAST OUR SKIN TO FIND EACH OTHER SIDE BY SIDE PAIN IN ONE POCKET AND THE FUTURE WE ARE BUILDING IN THE OTHER.
WHAT: Capricorn New Moon
WHEN: Moon-day December 30th, 2024 5:27 PM EST
THEME: Where There is a Will, There is a Way
On New Year’s Eve’s Eve, it may be difficult to take a small sliver of a moment to reflect in all the busy-ness. This New Moon is obviously the last of the Year and asks for consideration before diving back into the bittersweet merriment of the last day of the year. The want to take stock of the building blocks from which we feel a need to lay a foundation is currently halted thanks to the Mercury Rx shadow period and the current Mars Retrograde. And yet the eagerness for some shred of security stews.
I know I’m personally seeking so much information in my situation and right now the need-to-know’s are cloaked in pitch black darkness. Yet the devil in the details is what I must acquire to move forward. I can not imagine what 2025 will possibly bring politically or personally but I do know I see very clearly how the personal IS political. I smell this concept in money, sex and the hierarchies of not just work but social dynamics, relationship structures.
We are no strangers to worrying about humanity’s future. The borders, boundaries, binaries have been threatened for years now. To secure what is sacred, we put forth a lot of energy that we do not always have, constantly negotiating not just invisible contracts but merely defending a right to exist. I would like to think the “Future Past” could hold an ability for positive and mindful deconstruction and reconstructions of our collective consciousness. Sometimes the Patterns are hard to change. There are Patterns we can barely change in ourselves. But we hope that if we look hard enough at the Pattern, we will find the loophole.
“If you don’t know your past, you don’t know your future.”
Whatever the Patterns of the Past may be, there are Ponderers and there are Sculptors. And those that try to shape the Future for fair livelihood are the creators of our reality in the long run, welding character as a catalyst for a better tomorrow, creating community in their wake. Right now, overloaded with The Questions, the deeper darker unknowns that wake us in the night, following us down into the depths of our despair sometimes until we reach our own end, hearts halting to beat, the corpse of Once we all inevitably become… There is a difference between obsessive rumination and analysis that leads to action. And we can NOT change our Past. That is fact.
More often than not, Capricorn’s “tradition” lies in the protection of what deserves to not just live but to thrive. Capricorn stands on top of the mountain and has a message that Life is precious and worth fighting for. That we do need to change the course when it has become overrun with a blood-lust for power, when people no longer have agency, when there is a turn for the worst in the most devastating way possible. The devotion Capricorn gives to the health and happiness of its circle is beyond a doubt one of the most generous and loyal of the Zodiac. In the struggle of 2024, I truly hope you have felt the guiding hoof of the Sea-Goat as you have navigated fearsome terrain. And I hope you continue to feel supported by the energies of the Earth, our Home, in the New Year to come.
Capricorn Caprice for the New Year:
12/24 Jupiter Rx in Gemini squares Saturn in Pisces on Christmas Eve. AH! Criticism can be really poignant, though perhaps around logistics and taking on too much at once (as the Holidaze tend to make happen, ugh!). If these criticisms are rooted in structures or systems that in truth you do not really honor, this can be a good gander to reject the need to appease. Conditions can cause us to blame ourselves and others (and sometimes that shit is the case, but the system is usually the biggest root). Hence the urge of the Gemini Full Moon (and Sag New for that matter) to reject the expectations that exhaust us. Take this with you into Winter, lovies!
12/26 Mercury in Sag opposes Jupiter Rx in Gemini for greatly inspiring ideas, but don’t let them fly away or go up in flames. Keep a jot-down handy! On the same day, however, Mercury in Sag will square Saturn in Pisces, so being led astray with misinformation is a little too effortless. No big moves and all things we need to be re-reviewed later, okay?
12/27 Venus Aquarius squares Uranus Rx in Taurus for tension around relationship security and a little want for freedom, though perhaps flung from fear. Again no rash decisions but re-orientation may be in the Future for you and yours. While Uranus Retrograde turns direct in January, we may have some further feelings on the subject matters as Venus will also be in a different Sign. More information to come!
12/29 Chiron in Aries FINALLY goes direct. I have been talking about the Wounded Healer more and more in the Moon Muses, especially with Aries in the North Node as well, and we are finally reaching some understandings about how to handle our inner-child sadnesses a bit better. Lots of healing in the Future and a blessing for the Cap Moon.
12/30 New Moon in Capricorn has arrived! A great time to actually write down possible goals and resolutions before the party-mode of NYE. And truly think about what success authentically looks like FOR YOU, not for others. Capricorn has the ability to really hone in on values and is underrated for its huge capacity and strength of heart. Pop culture has man-handled Capricorn with “boss bitch” bullshit. It’s not like Capricorn is not a bit of a dommy mommy, but there is major respect for the safe words, consent and comfort that goes unnoticed. Apply this metaphor to your life however you’d like and you’re setting yourself up for more moments of Life’s aftercare than you realize.
1/3/25 Venus enters Pisces, making philosophical whimsy very pretty.
1/6/25 Mars Retrograde in Cancer begins! This is a major Rx switch; all info will be included in the Cancer New Moon Muse.
1/8/25 Mercury enters Capricorn. Love a direct, diplomatic communicator whenever possible. The first week of the New Year will have some frustration but mostly be productive. Astrological shifts can be uncomfortable but when “cabin fever” hits, these changes can make the layout of our lives less lackluster and give us a renewed sense of excitement. Can chaos be mind-candy? Sometimes! Depends on your outlook always but Capricorn-time always tends to work it out.
Last but not least! Use the Capricornian Season, New Moon and Mercury to ground in your values and apply them to your reality. As Trump is set to take the Presidency in 2025 with his hateful agenda and denial of climate change in tow, the Future of the Earth in general looks more bleak than ever. Hell, it already did BEFORE his win! But the people, which is made up of groups and groups are made up of individuals, just like you and me, will have some shit to say and some action to take.