Together, But Alone

Illustration: Creation by Deborah Singletary

New Moon | January 18, 2026 | 28 Capricorn 44’

 “Each knight entered the forest in the place which was darkest for him.” – Joseph Campbell. 

The knights were on the same quest to find the holy grail, but each had to conquer their own darkness. When we say that the world is a mess, we are not usually including ourselves. “They” are divided. The world is them. The world is out there. I am fine. I am good. I am right. The bad guys are messing it up for me.

The problem and the solution flow into each other. The four planets in Capricorn conjunct Venus and Pluto in Aquarius. The planets from Capricorn to Pisces represent the collective with Capricorn and Aquarius representing the outer world flowing into the inner world of Pisces. This is the fourth quadrant of the zodiac representing a responsible collective.

Trump, for example, is not someone visited upon us. He is somebody we have shaped by refusing to own our own darkness. We can’t seem to stop him, but neither can we be stopped from drowning in our adverse projection and rejection of him. Take the story of Jonah and the great fish. Jonah is “angry even unto death (Jonah 4:9) Jonah hated the Ninevites and didn't want them to receive God's mercy and be spared from judgment. He feared they would repent and be forgiven, which he found abhorrent, so he ran the opposite direction to escape God's command and his duty to preach to his enemies. 

That is how Jonah ended up on the boat headed for Tarshish to escape his Nineveh task and ended up having to be thrown overboard in a great storm and swallowed by the whale.

I believe Jonah represents the part of us that wants to hate to the death. We don’t want to see our enemies spared, whoever they may be. We think they are unredeemable and our hatred is righteous.

It is not that we need to forgive Trump. However, we must stop pushing righteous hatred so that we ourselves can be released.

As Jung asks, “What if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself—that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness.”

We are upon the Saturn return of social media, meaning that we’ve had roughly 30 years of it, and true to Saturn, we are having to learn tough lessons about collective being. It isn’t about making others behave. It is about taking personal responsibility for what we put out there. I was struck by a woman saying recently that the algorithm advanced for our online engagement is anger. Our anger is being stoked, and we buy into it because it is addictive. It gets our endorphins going, makes us feel like venting on the Internet is a good thing for us to do.

Practicum

The planets in Capricorn sextile Saturn and Neptune in Pisces, give us the opportunity to make the spiritual work on a practical level. The thing we must face as a challenge is represented by the square between the Capricorn planets and Chiron in Aries. We must take responsibility for our world, personally and individually. The buck stops here. Peace on earth is our job. Next time something you hear riles you up, pause. Vow to be present instead of letting your anger divide you from your own blessing, your own peace and composure. We must perform, and not on a platform. As Ntosake Shange wrote, “I found God in myself, and I loved her. I loved her fiercely!”