The Moon in Capricorn
The Moon is in detriment in Capricorn, and crosses it in about two and a half days each month. This page says what the tradition makes of that, and gives the exact local times of the next six crossings.
- Ruled by Saturn
- The Moon is in detriment here
- About two and a half days a month
The Moon in Capricorn
Alan Leo, Astrology for All, 1899. Public domain, and the full text is readable online.
In a birth chart
Brought before the public, and with a drawback attached.
Leo says this position brings the native before the public for good or ill, for popularity or for notoriety, and that there is always some drawback attaching to it. Well placed, it can make a popular head of an undertaking; badly placed, the publicity is of an unpleasant kind, and the reputation may suffer deservedly or not.
He gives it a degree of rulership, generalship and administrative ability. He also calls the nature careful with money, calculating and cautious, knowing how to influence others, and often cold, thinking too little of what other people feel. Warmth here is shown in what gets done rather than in what is said.
The doctrine of dignities, standard in Western astrology since the Hellenistic period
Where the tradition places it
The tradition calls this the Moon's detriment.
Detriment is the sign opposite a planet's own. The Moon rules Cancer, so it is in detriment here, in the sign directly across the circle. The tradition reads that as the Moon being asked to work in the opposite manner to its nature: to be useful instead of comforting, and to be measured instead of warm.
It is not a verdict on a person. It is a statement that this Moon does its job by another route, and that the warmth is real but arrives as reliability rather than as sympathy.
The doctrine of the elements and the modes, and habit built on top of it
What these days are used for
Duty, structure and the long view.
- EarthSolidEarth holds still. The tradition gives these days to making something that will last, to money and to the body, and to work that shows a result.
- CardinalOpeningA cardinal sign opens a season, so the two and a half days are read as an opening: the impulse is to begin.
The tradition gives these days to the work nobody enjoys, and reads them as poor days to ask anyone for sympathy.
This is tradition and habit, not a measured effect. It is here because it is what the sources say, and each part carries the name of the source it came from.
The next six Capricorn Moons
| Enters Capricorn | Time | Leaves for Aquarius | Time | Stays |
|---|
The three that come up most
Questions people ask
How long is the Moon in Capricorn?
About two and a half days each month. The exact length changes a little because the Moon's speed changes, and the table above gives the real figure for each crossing.
Is a Capricorn Moon the same as being a Capricorn?
No. A Capricorn Sun means the Sun was in Capricorn at your birth, which is late December to late January. A Capricorn Moon can happen in any month of the year.
Does the Moon sign depend on where I was born?
The sign itself is the same everywhere at the same moment, because it is measured from the centre of the Earth. What changes with your place is the local clock time it starts and ends, which is exactly what decides your sign if you were born near a crossing.
Positions and times are calculated in your browser with an open astronomy library and match published ephemerides to the minute. The birth chart reading is written from Alan Leo, Astrology for All, 1899, which is in the public domain. The dignities and the doctrine of the elements are standard traditional astrology. Tradition is labelled as tradition throughout, and the sources page sets out what is calculated and what is not.