The extraordinary upshot of this adventure ... but we have
not decided yet that this is the adventure we are to narrate.
Picture Old Man Saturn, with his lined face and beard, scythe and sickle stern-looking, severe, strict but kindly. Now picture wild Uranus, thundering riddles in a booming voice, flashing lightning from his eyes, wearing daffodils in his hair, and playing with a yo-yo. Can you see any similarity or grounds for intimacy? Well, there are some but..................
It's extremely difficult to predict the outcome of any kind of getting together of these two Sun Signs. Mostly, it will depend on the Moon Signs, Ascendents,and such. It may also depend on how tolerant Capricorn can be of the slightly pixilated Aquarian personality. Or how quickly Aquarius gets bored by the Goat's eternal insistence on the status quo, when the Water Bearer's whole purpose on this planet is to shake up the status quo. Being a 2-12 Sun Sign Pattern,Capricorn dimly senses some intriguing lesson to be learned from Aquarius,the sign ahead of the Goat on the karmic wheel of Life and Aquarius tends to be more sympathetic toward Cappy's little flaws and compulsions than of the peculiarities of the other eleven signs. Aquarius has already been there,has lived through the Saturn experience during at least one past incarnation,and therefore tends to understand the Goat's hang-ups regarding duty, responsibility,and tradition. But this time around, he (or she) is here to break with tradition - even though Aquarius still recalls how it was during that lifetime when such things assumed great importance, remembering it all subconsciously.
Despite the rare occasions when Capricorns exhibit a quiet and delightful humor, they are essentially serious-minded folk. Their Saturnine dry humor,accompanied by twinkling eyes and a shy little smile, is mostly tongue-in-cheek.Along with their basically sedate dispositions, Goats have a strong sense of the practical, which is usually more visible than their humor. Although Aquarius is a Fixed Sign and Aquarians can therefore be quite determined and purposeful,these men, women, and children are not anywhere near as serious as Capricorn.Aquarius, in fact, enjoys toppling the sedateness of other signs - in particular,Capricorn's. The Water Bearer will inevitably shock the Goat in various major and minor ways when Capricorn least expects it. Aquarius does everything when people least expect it. That's the whole point of shocking. If people expect it, there's no surprise element - and Aquarius simply adores being the bearer of surprises.
A Capricorn associated with the Water Bearer may read these words, murmuring. . . "I've never been surprised or shocked by this person I know so well."The Goat should say "this person I think I know so well." Because one fine day Capricorn will find a Brussels sprout in the toothpaste glass that hangs over the bathroom sink - and do a double take. Aquarius will wonder what all the fuss is about. What difference does it make anyway? I mean, didn't you ever get to wondering if a Brussels sprout would sprout in a glass of water, like other plants do - and get curious about the same time you started to take a shower?Doesn't everyone?
No. Everyone does not. Capricorn, especially, never wonders about anything that isn't practical. The Goat is unconcerned about whether Brussels sprouts will sprout in water, or whether cauliflower will flower, for that matter unless he (or she) is a gardener by profession or owns a vegetable market.Even then, Cappy's most consuming interest will be profit and loss. Capricorns of both sexes need the security quilt of a reasonable bank balance to avoid breaking out in a rash, with their ultra-sensitive but often lovely and translucent skins. Not as large a bank balance as Cancer needs to prevent trembling in terror of poverty, but reasonable.
Aquarius seldom does anything reasonable by Saturn standards. To Aquarius,a thing is reasonable if it adds to the knowledge of the world and what makes it spin on its axis. Never mind what other people think. What other people think is the last thing Aquarius worries about. The very last. The next-tothe-last thing these Water Bearers worry about would be, let's see . . . social customs and personal appearance. Typical Aquarians make their own social customs, set their own rules. As for the Uranian appearance, these people sometimes look so strange and unreal in their choice of threads and hair styles (weird is actually the more fitting word) that you'd be surprised how many of them are
mistaken for immigrants from an errant UFO. This studied carelessness and originality of dress, manners, and public opinion naturally mortifies and distresses Capricorn, to whom the most important thing in Life is to be well thought of by one's neighbors. No, first by the members of one's family. Then the neighbors. After that - friends, acquaintances, and business associates. On reflection, perhaps best to reverse the order, and place business associates first. And finally the whole world. It would disturb the typical Cappy if some stranger in Scotland didn't approve of his (or her) shoes, and the Goat somehow got wind of this humiliation. That's another thing. Along with Pisces and Virgo, Capricorns are all uncommonly interested in their booties. Their footwear is a major concern - and the purchase of new shoes or boots is a matter to be considered carefully, from all angles, with the cost, the proper fit, and the serviceability of equal importance.
There are, however, some ways in which these two are alike. One of them is that the judgments made by Aquarians are based on firm principles and rockbound facts (something most people don't realize). These always determine the final decisions of both Sun Signs. But Uranus bestows upon Aquarius flashing streaks of intuition, enabling Water Bearers to skip over all the useless principles and rockbound facts to the real truth, somewhere beyond. Still, he or she began the judgment with principles and rockbound facts. I know it's a little confusing, but "confusing" is a word invented by Uranus people. Aquarians think and plan so far ahead, with such an odd mixture of practicality and vision,their ideas and ideals may not manifest for many years - so they appear to be dreamers to the average mind, particularly to the level-headed Capricorn. You must always remember that Aquarius is the sign of genius and insanity, in just about equal proportions. The Goat sympathizes with neither. In fact, to most Capricorns, the two words are synonymous (which they are, in an intricate way).So there could be problems of communication.
It's usually difficult for Capricorn to believe in the illogical, the unreasonable,the impractical, or the nonfactual. To Aquarius, there is no such word as impossible in the Uranus dictionary, and the Water Bearers believe it should also be stricken from every thesaurus, unless it's defined as a word describing an attitude that should be avoided. Aquarians all have in common a most curious,inquiring nature. They're unusually susceptible to the illumination of inspiration,having few or no prejudices - and this includes prejudice against facts.Aquarius has nothing against a theory with facts to support it any more than he or she has anything against a theory without facts to support it. The Uranus ruled mind is so wide open you'd think their brain cells would catch their death of pneumonia. But they seem to thrive on it, like the Eskimos thrive on the ice floes. Brain cells, being electronic, are very Aquarian-like themselves. Even Saturn brain cells - if Cappy would give them a chance to leap around on the trampoline of the imagination more often.
I have known, admittedly, Capricorns who are deeply involved and interested in matters such as UFO research, astrology, reincarnation, and metaphysics but not many. And those who are have other planetary configurations in their horoscopes, giving them more daring instincts of imagery, more simple faith in the unseen, more childlike trust. The typical Goat is anything but childlike.The closest most of them get to childlike innocence is during the second half of Life, when they at last begin to enjoy the carefree abandon they missed as youngsters - about the same time Aquarius is cartwheeling through the marvelous Uranus brand of "second childhood" (unkindly and very falsely called by some "senility"). So one might say that these two get along famously when they're both older - but the younger they are, the more they'll be inclined to think each other's personalities and habits are freaky.
Capricorn novelist Henry Miller is an archetype example of the glorious freedom and childlike glee the Goats experience after they've released themselves from Saturn's prison. The older Cappy Henry gets, the brighter the twinkle in his eyes, the younger he looks, and the more outrageously he behaves.
When one of Henry's ex-wives left him, she took all the furniture and furnishings along with her, leaving Henry sitting there on the floor, literally. The first thing the Goat did was quite properly Saturnine, practical, and economical.He got boxes from the grocery store to sit on and eat on. Made a dining room table out of them too. After a while, he says, "I got this sudden idea. I said to myself, Henry, goddamn it, why don't you get a pair of roller skates and go roller skating through the rooms here? I had a marvelous time!"
You see? As soon as Henry was paroled (as all Cappies are, at various individual ages past thirty or so) from Saturn's stern grip of propriety, an onlooker couldn't outwardly tell the difference between this Goat and a Water Bearer.But a Capricorn is still a Capricorn at heart, paroled or not. Only recently, as I write this in 1978, the Saturn-ruled novelist criticized the student protests of the sixties by remarking that their protesting was too feeble. "You don't do it by getting drunk and insane," he intoned. "You've got to have all your wits, to be more clever than the man you want to beat." Pure Saturnine philosophy.
A Goat is a Goat, even taking into account Capricorn's reverse aging process,but I'm sure Henry wouldn't be above wearing a garland of daffodils when the mood hits him - and if a yo-yo happened to be handy, he'd have it spinning like a champion. The young at heart and otherwise youthful Goats reading this might want to send Henry a yo-yo as a kind of code between them . . . . and the Water Bearers could send him some daffodils (which he'd promptly paint painting being his newest hobby, proving he's as talented an artist as a writer).Pacific Palisades, California, will reach him. He'd be delighted.
While the Goats are still trying to reach the mountain peak of their ambitions,however, they frown on foolishness and frivolity of all kinds. The Aquarian who has such a simple, merry knack for stringing together fascinating words that make no sense.... who is touched by the wonderful madness of genius
. . . . tosses stars into wishing wells and dreams of pink frogs . . . . can appear to be strange indeed to the earthy Capricorn, who believes in working to make wishes come true. Goats normally speak only words of common sense, so naturally the Uranus natives may sometimes seem to them like creatures from another world, not sensible, ordinary, day-to-day Earthlings. How can frogs be pink, and moreover, why should they be? Green is a perfectly good, satisfactory color for frogs.
I can attest to this Saturn reaction to Uranus. On my mind's canvas will always be painted the clear image of the look of utter puzzlement and annoyance in the chocolate-brown, steady eyes of my Capricorn daughter, Jill, when her dreamy-eyed, slightly pixilated, Aquarian brother, Bill, walks into the room dangling weird sentences, wearing a hairstyle like no other human has ever worn, his feet sporting one red sock and one yellow sock, carefully hiding his genius IQ beneath mumbles of, "Cool, man, cool."
To give Capricorn credit, after Aquarius blazes the pathway to new inventions and discoveries, the Goats come plodding along to guard the wonders and the miracles - to make them practical enough to eventually benefit us and keep the planet spinning on course. One of the areas of dissension between these two is that Cappies will accept nothing without rigid scrutiny, often through negative criticism. They allow no fallacy or incoherence to cause them to believe the unbelievable. Normally, the Goat will insist on having the meaning of every word they speak clearly understood before they utter it, the meaning of every idea or proposition clarified in their own minds before presentation. Suggestions that don't meet these strict standards are frequently discarded or deliberately stifled, whereas Aquarius questions all things with two eyes - the cold eye of scientific dissection and the perceptive eye of lightning intuition. The true Water Bearer isn't sure the idea Capricorn is trying to stifle is a false one, and even if it were, the Uranus-ruled believe that stifling it would be an evil in itself."Live and let live" is the Aquarian motto. "Get rid of the dead wood, and save only what is useful" is the Capricorn motto. "Save everything, because eventually all will be useful in the light of new understanding" argues back Aquarius. I have no intention of entering their argument. So we'll leave them here, with only the suggestion that Aquarians might do well to pull up their socks - and the Goats might have more fun if they learned to play with a yo-yo.
