WEEKLY ASTROLOGY: 5TH–11TH JANUARY 2026
Venus and Mars in the Capricorn Furnace
This week, the sky becomes an alchemical vessel as Venus and Mars travel through Capricorn, pressed close to the Sun, combust and moving into cazimi then returning changed. The sacred feminine and the sacred masculine ride the Sun’s chariot, bringing refinement and a new expression. By the end of the week the story becomes visible in symbol, even if not yet visible in the literal sky, when Venus returns as the Evening Star and Mars returns as the Morning Star.
This is a week of surrender that strengthens and dissolution that purifies in a furnace that forges integrity.
The main storyline of the week is Venus and Mars moving through the heart of the Sun in Capricorn and what it means when Venus becomes an Evening Star and Mars becomes a Morning Star, through a Hellenistic lens.
As always, use this as a mirror, Astrology doesn’t remove your agency, it gives your choices a mythic language.
The Week at a Glance
We begin the week with a building conjunction between Venus, the Sun, and Mars travelling within a degree or two of each other in Capricorn and combustion grows into cazimi where the heat intensifies and the meaning concentrates. We end the week with Venus and Mars again close together, but now carrying a different charge, because both have passed through the heart of the Sun in their chariots and entered a new synodic cycle. Venus returns with a different quality of desire whilst Mars returns with a different quality of will.
Although both planets remain under the Sun’s beams for a while, and won’t be visible in the sky until later, the invisibility is part of the initiation because some transformations happen in the dark as they are sacred.
The Capricorn Furnace - What This Conjunction Means
Capricorn is ambition and also the architecture of a life. It is the Temple of Saturn and so brings structure, standards, consequence, time and integrity. It is the mountain path you climb one step at a time, sometimes slowly but with discipline and care.
Therefore, when Venus and Mars enter the furnace in Capricorn and are pressed into the Sun, the questions becomes very specific; what are you building that will still be true a year from now? What are you maintaining that is not worth the cost and where is your structure beautiful, life-giving and harmonic because it’s built on a real foundation rather than upon a performance?
Venus and Mars together are desire and action, value and will, attraction and courage. When they are combust, when they are within the Sun’s heat, it’s easy to feel like something is being taken from us, or burned away. But in Alchemical terms, combustion can be a distillation, the Sun is scorching and also bringing illumination and revelation.
So this week you may feel a refining in the realm of;
Your relationships.
Your boundaries.
Your money and resources.
Your sense of worth.
Your drive.
Your will.
Your devotion to what you say you value.
Saturn and Neptune: The Larger Tide Behind the Week
Capricorn’s ruler is Saturn and he is in late Pisces, applying to Neptune, moving toward that conjunction that perfects in February at 0 degrees of Aries. Whilst Capricorn is asking for structure, Pisces is dissolving old realities. Neptune blurs the boundary between what we hoped was true, and what actually is. This is why the Capricorn Furnace matters because when Saturn and Neptune are in aspect, many people feel unmoored, foggy, disillusioned, or uncertain. The old map doesn’t work, the old story doesn’t hold.
Capricorn answers fog with form not a rigid form but a sacred form, the kind of structure that holds the soul instead of imprisoning it. The action in Capricorn this week is not happening in isolation, it is taking place on the edge of a collective re-dreaming as this conjunction at the absolute beginning of the Zodiac portends a generational change.
If the world feels like it’s dissolving, the question then becomes what is the true vessel you can build inside yourself to carry yourself forward?
Jupiter in Cancer: The Witness Across the Sky
Midweek, and especially as the week unfolds, we also have Jupiter in Cancer acting as a witness and an opponent. Capricorn is the summit, known as the Gate Way of the Gods, whilst Cancer is the hearth and is known as the Gate Way of Soul into the material. This axis is encapsulates the meaning of ‘as above, so below. Capricorn is the standard whilst Cancer is the need and Capricorn is responsibility and Cancer is belonging. Oppositions exist to reveal polarity and so you may feel this week like you’re standing between two truths, one truth says, grow up, build it, commit, define the standard whilst another truth says, soften, protect the tender, choose what nourishes you.
In Hermetic philosophy it is not an either/or it is a question of integration where the question becomes; can you build a structure that protects the tender? Can you pursue ambition without abandoning your emotional truth and can you become disciplined without becoming cold?
Full Moon Context - Harvest, Prune, Compost
We’ve just moved through a Full Moon in Cancer and Full Moons are the revelation point, they show what is ripe, what is ready, what has been building since the New Moon two weeks prior plus the fruition of what was sown at the New Moon in Cancer 6 months previously (June 25th 2025). This week is not only about forging the future it is also about harvesting the fruit that has grown and composting the rest. It is a period of harvesting what has proven itself true, pruning what drains life-force and composting what must decay so that something new can grow.
This Capricorn work is moving toward a fresh seed point later in the month, when the New Moon in Capricorn arrives, which is a metaphorical offering to the Gods of your intentions. So if you feel endings this week, understand that they are preparation, fertile decay and a necessary sacred pruning.
Morning and Evening Stars - The Hellenistic Mask Change
Now I want to teach one key idea, because it gives this week its mythic spine. In Hellenistic astrology, a planet’s phase relative to the Sun acts like a costume change, it is the same deity wearing a different mask. When a planet rises before the Sun, it’s called a Morning Star and when it sets after the Sun, it’s called an Evening Star, it is symbolism which describes how the planet expresses itself in the world of form.
Ptolemy the Greco-Roman Astronomer and Astrologer is explicit that the expression shifts as Morning Star planets take on a more “masculine” mode and Evening Star planets take on a more “feminine” mode. Masculine and feminine here are not referring to gender but to polarity with the Masculine as initiating, projective and direct whilst the Feminine refers to the qualities of receptivity, magnetism and drawing inward.
So here’s the heart of the week
Venus, after passing through the Sun, begins her Evening Star chapter, in her feminine expression.
Mars, after passing through the Sun, begins his Morning Star chapter, in his masculine expression.
And even though you may not see them in the literal sky for a while, you can feel them in the psyche with each phase being an archetypal instruction.
Venus Evening Star - The Lantern at Dusk
Venus as the Evening Star is dusk-Venus, she is like the temple lamp, the one who draws people closer by warmth and not by force. Here Venus becomes more receptive, more magnetic, more harmonising, she is not chasing she is calling.
She is asking us what kind of atmosphere we are building between us, does it feel beautiful, nourishing and worth returning to? What is the quality of the container?
Venus Evening Star in Capricorn is seeking;
Harmony as craft.
Beauty with bones.
Devotion expressed through consistency.
Shared values made tangible.
Venus Evening Star might show up this week as a desire to clean up your environment or to refine your commitments. To choose relationships that are mature and mutual and to stop pouring beauty into places that can’t hold it.
If Venus is speaking through you, she may be asking you to stop begging for love and start building a life that love can live inside.
Mars Morning Star - Sunrise Steel
Mars as the Morning Star is the daybreaker, he is the forge being stoked and the will that goes first. He is not hinting, here, exulted in the Cardinal sign of Capricorn he is initiating action.
Mars Morning Star, exulted in Capricorn brings;
The first honest move.
The first no.
The clean boundary.
Courage that’s visible.
Action that doesn’t wait for permission.
Mars is in Capricorn and expressing beautifully by building the architecture and he is asking, what is your standard, where does your discipline leak and what do you tolerate that quietly corrodes your integrity?
Mars Morning Star is not about to start pointless battles because he is here to stop the slow violence of avoidance. If Mars is speaking through you this week, he may be asking you to take one decisive action that protects your future self. Not ten actions just one clean one.
The Relational Spell - Soft Invitation, Firm Action
This weeks Astrology is carrying a particular relational medicine, Venus is the lantern at dusk and Mars is sunrise steel and so the instruction is simple. It comprises of a soft invitation along with firm action.
Let Mars speak first, in one clean sentence
“I’m not available for this.”
“I need consistency.”
“I want to talk about it today.”
“This isn’t working for me.”
Then let Venus speak second, the relational seal
“And I care about us, so here’s what would feel good instead.”
“Here’s how we can repair.”
“Here’s what I’m choosing because it honours my values and our connection.”
If you’re dating, Mars sends the message, Venus sets the tone and if you’re partnered, Mars brings the truth whilst Venus brings the warmth that makes truth survivable.
A useful mantra for this week is, clarity is kind and warmth is wise.
Let your love be a welcome.
And let your boundaries be a blessing.
“Clear is kind. Warm is wise.”
Collective Weather - Steel First, Velvet After
Collectively this is, metaphorically speaking, like sunrise decisions inside a dusk-lit social world. Mars Morning Star brings catalytic action, boundary politics and first moves. We could see strikes, campaigns and bold declarations because the collective nervous system wants resolution. Venus Evening Star brings the question of values to the forefront within culture, aesthetic and belonging or what we gather around and what we deem worth preserving.
It is likely, that we will see this week, standards hardening into shape, that we will watch consequences arriving and we may experience a longing to restore beauty and meaning, not as escapism, but as nourishment.
In Hermetic principle of correspondence, the sky is a mirror, so if your outer world feels strict, make your inner standard sacred and ask yourself;
Mars - what must be named today before it calcifies into resentment?
Venus - what deserves commitment, not just desire?
Capricorn - what structure will hold your future without costing your soul?
If you enjoyed this blog and want to deepen your practise working with this weeks transit - see Solve Et Coagula - Surrender And Union
