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Vesta in Capricorn

the asteroid Vesta in the sign Capricorn, in modern Western asteroid astrology

What the tradition reads

The modern delineations read Vesta in Capricorn as devotion organised into an office. Always Astrology reads the placement as devoted to history and to duty, believing in discipline and obligation, organised, persistent, good at planning, capable of great accomplishment and of excellent leadership, working, as it puts it, from within; it reads such a person as willing to sacrifice themselves for duty and security, as feeling real guilt when they cannot measure up, as expecting others to share their commitment, as slow to challenge an authority they judge competent, and as severely self critical. Astrology Club reads the same placement as keeping the flame of tradition and integrity safe, focused on maintaining whatever in the established order is sound and worth keeping, dedicated and disciplined, with a keen sense of personal responsibility and obligation which it promotes by example, and with attention set on building strength and integrity in a life and in the world. By that page's pattern of renunciation, possessions and resources are what such a person is likely to deny themselves, along with the structure and stability that financial assets bring. Cafe Astrology's keywords for Vesta, hard work, structure and tradition, sit closest to this sign of any.

The story

The service Vesta's fire required was an institution with rules. Wikipedia's account of the Vestal Virgins records that they were unlike any other public priesthood: chosen before puberty from several suitable candidates, freed from any legal tie or obligation to their birth family, and enrolled in a college of six, supervised by a senior Vestal but chosen and governed by Rome's leading male priest, the pontifex maximus, who in the imperial era was the emperor. They vowed to serve at least thirty years, to study and practise the rites on behalf of the Roman state, and to keep their chastity throughout. Under a law of the third century BC candidates had to be of patrician birth; membership was later opened to plebeians, and eventually to the daughters of freemen, because it grew difficult to find families willing to commit a daughter to thirty years. The chief Vestal oversaw the work and morals of the rest and sat in the College of Pontiffs; Tacitus records one who presided for fifty seven years. Most Vestals, the same page notes, retired with a generous pension and universal respect.

Written from

Corpus key point:Vesta:sign:Capricorn.