Sun in Capricorn

Astrologers first drew the zodiac under northern skies, where the Sun enters Capricorn on the longest night of the year and the light comes back a little more each morning after. On that day the Sun stands overhead at noon on the Tropic of Capricorn, its farthest point south, a line on every globe that still carries the sign’s name. The picture is the sea-goat, half goat and half fish: something that climbs out of deep water and keeps climbing.

As a child you had made the list while the others were still waiting to be told, and you were the one who knew where the fuse box was.

The clipboard

You set goals and meet them, and you measure yourself by what you have built. You plan well, lead calmly and keep your promises, and you understand structures, a business, a family, a body of work, well enough to build ones that last. The host is Saturn, the slowest planet the old astrologers knew, and the tradition also made Capricorn the exaltation of Mars: effort at its best, in the old view, is effort that is patient and aimed.

At the worst moment of a family year, the list is in your hand: who calls the insurer, who collects the children, who needs a meal on Thursday. Afterwards, when everyone thanks the person who cried the most, you do not mind. Somebody had to hold the clipboard.

Dry

Your humour is so dry that people miss it the first time and laugh later, alone, in the car. You are loyal to institutions, old friends and good tools, and you have kept all three in working order for years. Your Sun is at its best with something difficult to carry and a long road to carry it down.

Tidy when tired

You work too hard and rest too little, and you judge a year by what it produced. Feelings get held back until they come out sideways, on a Sunday evening, over nothing. Control feels safe; needing help does not. Your family reads your exhaustion from how straight the cushions are.

Saturn rewards whatever is given time, and it rewards you. The Capricorn at fifty laughs more than the Capricorn at twenty, and has earned every minute of the ease.