[Him:] Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine, he cried… . Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything? the tap-tap from his school replied… . Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?
[Her:] Wendy was grown up. You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls.
When a Capricorn man receives a gift, although he’ll be shyly and secretly pleased, he will, nonetheless, accept it with some slight suspicion and examine it with caution—including the gift of love.
And so, if the Goat appears to treat the Capricorn woman’s gift of love a little suspiciously, and examines it with great care, before accepting her devotion and returning to her his own total commitment, she really has no right to become unduly upset. This happens to be exactly the way she handles his gift of love to her. It’s a matter of who capitulates and gives whose heart to whom first. Whichever one takes the lead in this 1-1 vibration must suffer the penalty of cautious acceptance from the other. But somebody has to make a move sometime. A man and woman who are powerfully attracted can’t go on silently stalking out each other forever.
Seldom do Cappies fall in love at first sight, or overnight—or even after a few days, weeks or months. It can happen, of course; anything can happen when the element of human nature is awash in romance, but it normally takes a respectable length of time for both the boy and the girl Goats to admit they’ve lost their self-control to the extent of needing another person, that they’ve permitted themselves to place personal happiness within another’s power to bestow—or to refuse to bestow, as the case may be. Cappy does not usually release the reins of power, without a long, hard struggle. A Capricorn does not like to need. The Goat believes that needing is a synonym for weakness.
With all their wisdom and good sense, the Capricorn man and Capricorn woman could use a few lessons in the subject of human emotions. They have to learn to recognize the great role need plays in real love. It may seem presumptuous of a mere Ram to attempt to teach anything to Saturn people, but even they can stand an occasional refresher course in the intangibles of the heart.
To love, and know that we are loved in return, allows us to approach gloriously near the higher levels of happiness of our aptly named Higher Selves. To love is not, by itself, enough. Nor is it sufficient to simply be loved. Reciprocity is the necessary ingredient for any romantic recipe, the yeast, the leavening—without which the emotions will starve for the lack of complete nourishment.
Another way to say to love, and be loved in return—is: to need, and be needed in return. No matter how desperately the Saturnine man and woman’s pride in their self-sufficiency may struggle against the knowledge, love and need are identical twins—though not in the context of a need for material things. Everyone, especially Capricorn, knows that one doesn’t have to love one’s banker, although one surely does need one’s banker, from time to time. Or one’s dentist. Or auto mechanic. Or the telephone company. Admittedly, we desperately need Ma Bell, but I know of no one who really loves the greedy, Midas-wealthy, domineering, monopoly-minded Matriarch (and never mind her Public Relations sweet-talk). When I say that need is synonymous with love, I’m speaking of needing in an emotional sense, in the context of needing something related to the heart, not related to things of intrinsic value. However, under the law of the macrocosm-microcosm (as above, so below), the material type of need is what makes the pairs called strange bedfellows, in politics and other areas of life.
You Capricorns must remember that, in order for you to be able to love, the one you love must be vulnerable in some way, must have some weakness that only your strength can support, only your compassion can overlook—in short, must need you. In order to be loved, you must, yourself, be in some way vulnerable, possess some weakness, which only the strength of the one you love can support, only his or her compassion can overlook—and love you anyway—in short, you must need that person, just as that person must need you. Only when need is thus mutually experienced and exchanged by both partners, does love begin to grow.
Such a delicate miracle as love can be so easily overbalanced, on one side or the other. It’s impossible to love when all we feel is respect and admiration for someone, yet can find no vulnerabilities in him—or in her—which cause that person to need us, therefore causing us to feel needed. Conversely, it’s equally impossible to love when all we feel is sympathy or compassion for another person, yet can find nothing in him—or in her—to respect or admire, nothing that causes us to need the other person in order to make our own happiness complete. This sort of interchange of need is why love must be a two-way street—or be simply unrequited infatuation, on the part of the man or the woman. End of the Ram’s lecture to the Goat.
Now that we’ve established, I hope, the necessity of need, we’ve removed the largest boulder in the path of the Capricorn man and woman who genuinely care about each other. Once they’ve learned that mutual need is permissible, even desirable, they’ll be ready and willing to make an also mutual confession that they’ve fallen in love. The next obstacle, which is a rather sizable rock, although nowhere near the immensity of the first, is the sticky situation that occurs should their families not happen to get along together. This is a tough one.
Here he is, ready to accept her Capricorn gift of love, having carefully inspected it for endurability—and his contrary cousin Horace refuses to join them for Thanksgiving dinner because he’s not speaking to her trigger-tempered Uncle Tony, who was invited as long ago as last Easter. Here she is, ready to commit herself to her Goat for a lifetime, having assured herself that he’ll be a faithful husband, earn enough money to keep their heads above water and be a good father, who will make sure the children have braces, the proper vitamins and go to a good college—and his family is threatening to spoil it all by this emotionally immature attitude toward her family. If his cousin Horace and her Uncle Tony refuse to call a truce, the two Cappies may not break off their marriage plans over it, perhaps—but they might do something that tragic and drastic if the antagonists are closer relatives, like siblings, Mama or Papa. It’s advisable for the male and female Goats to test the compatibility of their mutual families before things get serious, if they want their relationship to remain stable and trouble-free.
It’s seldom that a Capricorn man and woman in love will find discussions of money a troublesome aspect of their union. If they’re typical Goats, about the only quarrels they’ll have over money are which would be the safest bank to salt it away in, and which interest plan is the soundest in the long run (unless the Moon or Ascendent of one or both should be in a Fire or Air element; then there might be some scattered disagreements).
The reason the typical Capricorn woman is so cozily compatible with a Capricorn man is that, not only is he as quietly ambitious as she, but he may be the only male prepared to face her outward toughness head-on, yet still be able to sense her hidden softness, and appreciate her as a woman. The Goat Girl is amazingly self-sufficient, and that puts off men who view it as a threat to their delusion of women being the weaker sex. Not so this man. He admires her toughness and her strength, her refusal to allow sentiment to rule her decisions or her life, and the fact that she looks for happiness in the same location where he digs for it—on solid, secure ground. A Goat Girl seldom indulges herself in ultra-feminine, excessive sentimental behavior, unless her heart happens to catch her when she’s not looking.
That’s just what the male Goat may do, if her heart doesn’t do it—catch her when she’s not looking. The average Saturn-ruled male underplays his emotions so instinctively, possesses such a great sense of romantic timing, is so patient and so willing to wait for the right opportunity, that she may allow him to become an integral part of her life, thinking they’re only friends—until she suddenly realizes he means much more to her than just another Capricorn chum, with whom she can discuss her practical dreams. But dreams are dreams, practical or not, with a powerful hold over the emotions. And when she finds someone whose aspirations are as high as her own, who smiles with her gently when something’s really amusing, rather than laughing loudly over nonsense, who never lies to her, and has a way of looking into her eyes calmly, with his own quiet ones . . someone who can be tender, without being embarrassingly emotional, who’s kind to her family (and his), knows how to fix his own car (and hers) when it breaks down, and has a respectable bank balance attached to his plans for tomorrow … some bright afternoon when he’s mending her clutter boots, she will recognize him as one of those practical dreams, maybe even the most important one.
Chances are, by the time her slow awakening to the truth of the matter occurs, he will already have selected her—privately—as the woman he wants as the mother of his children, the custodian of his home (the one he’s going to build that’s on his carefully calculated schedule for the future)—and the only woman he would ever permit to use his treasured chain saw to cut wood. He will be prepared for her realization that she loves him, and will have been long expecting the new light in her eyes. He’ll know exactly what it means. Furthermore, he’ll know exactly what to do about it. All the while he’s been waiting, he’s been planning this moment, so there’s no chance he’ll fumble it. Everything he says—and does—will be just right.
One thing with an excellent chance of being just right between them will be the physical aspect of their love. It can be an earthquaking expression, of deep feeling a way to release all the emotion they both keep under such strict control in other facets of their lives—with other people. The joyous discovery that they can allow their emotions full scope in the privacy of their intimate sexual relationship can be compared with the thrill Columbus must have felt when he first sighted land. To be able to free your inner and controlled, but insistent desires with someone you trust, someone who understands you totally, brings peace and contentment to both the mind and the body.
This sort of fulfillment from the physical demonstration of their love may not be discovered overnight. Neither did Columbus discover America overnight. The first sure sign that his dream would come true was when he saw the floating twigs and soaring birds that meant land was just beyond the horizon. So it is with this man and woman, when they see the first signs of gentleness and affection from each other. Patience and tenderness are strong building blocks for passion.
Very few male or female Goats are jealous by nature, but they are often possessive. There is a difference. If they’re not alert to the potential problem, they may gradually grow to possess each other to the exclusion of missing the benefits of individual freedom. When I use the term individual freedom, in no way do I intend to convey the permissive individual freedom theories promoted by the open marriage fanatics. Individual freedom need not be the freedom to indulge in sexual experimentation with multiple partners. An emotional commitment between two people that includes this sort of freedom is not a commitment at all, but self-delusion. What I mean by individual freedom is the wisdom that allows both partners in a relationship to be themselves, since that’s the only way they can remain exciting, interesting and challenging to each other. The Capricorn man and woman who tend to smother each other should hang one of those posters over the fireplace that says: If you love something very, very much, let it go free. If it does not return, it was never meant to be yours. If it does, cherish it forever!
All 1-1 Sun Sign Patterns create an over-emphasis on both the positive and negative qualities of the sign, and so Cappy and Cappy will have to realize that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. The good thing of their caution, when doubled in intensity between them, can become a dangerous restriction that could slowly but surely bury their dreams beneath tons of earth. Their mutual innate reserve with strangers, if overdone, can cause them to appear to be a cold couple indeed to those who could become richly rewarding friends. The combining of their natural Saturn economical tendencies can stifle any chance they have of reaching the top of the mountain, sort of boomeranging back upon their shared ambition—and delaying their goals. Taking a chance, now and then, whatever the odds, would be a very healthy thing in this relationship. Capricorns tend to seek the glittering bauble of Fame persistently, then reject it for fear it may burst. This sort of self-imposed restriction buries many of their most shining daydreams beneath mountains of unnecessary caution.
It’s no use asking the Cappy man and woman to take a chance on Life to the extent of cashing in their insurance policies, and recognizing that these indicate a fear of the future, rather than confidence. There’s hardly a Capricorn on the face of the Earth who doesn’t own a paid-up insurance policy on his own life, his wife and children’s lives, their home, their health, their cars, his chain saw, her sewing machine or artist’s drawing board, the silver-framed group photo of their families, the oil paintings of their great-grandparents—and everything else of a material value it’s possible to guarantee against loss or theft. We’d get nowhere trying to convince this man and woman to trust in tomorrow or reminding them that the most effective way to insure and guarantee that something negative does occur is to expect or to fear that it will occur—and the most reliable insurance that anything negative will never happen is the inner security of knowing it won’t—because the typical Saturn-ruled Goats wouldn’t comprehend this sort of spiritual advice. (Neither would a lot of Cancerian Crabs, Taureans or Scorpions.)
And so, instead, I’ll remind them that none of the insurance companies that have become fat corporate cats through providing people with a sense of security by anticipating every major and minor worry of which the human mind can conceive, have ever been able to figure out a way to make a profit from offering an insurance policy on love. Because the lovers themselves are in control of the destiny of their love, the human element makes it too risky a venture. There are no money-back guarantees attached to love—no large cash pay-offs in case of loss, theft, accident or death-of-the-relationship.
I’ll bet you never thought of that, did you, Cappy? Just imagine. The absolutely most valuable, precious thing you own in all the world … uninsurable. A true tragedy. But not unless you allow it to be. Actually, your love is as easy to guarantee against future damage as everything else you’ve both always sought to insure—including your health, your property and your life. No monthly premium payments required. The name of the policy is: Faith. You won’t find it listed in the Yellow Pages of your phone directory, but you’ll find it if you look inside your hearts, under M . . for Miracle.
Capricorn | Aquarius |
Earth—Cardinal—Negative | Air—Fixed—Positive |
Ruled by Saturn | Ruled by Uranus |
Symbol: The Goat | Symbol: The Water Bearer |
Night Forces—Feminine | Day Forces—Masculine |