Eleven degrees of Capricorn, and the old word for the planet whose house she is staying in.
The record for 17 October 2026
11° Capricorn
Waxing crescent, about four tenths lit.
0h · 6h · 12h · 18h
Sign
Capricorn, eleven degrees
Phase
Waxing crescent
Condition
Her detriment
The word to know today
Dispositor
The ruler of the sign a planet occupies. Saturn rules Capricorn, so Saturn is the Moon’s dispositor today, and the tradition read her partly through his condition.
Dispositor is the old word for a host. The Moon stands at eleven degrees of Capricorn this morning, a waxing crescent about four tenths lit, and the sign belongs to Saturn, so Saturn disposes of her.
The dispositor of a planet is the ruler of the sign it occupies. The tradition read a planet partly through its host: a well placed dispositor could steady a weak guest, and a poorly placed one compounded the trouble.
Saturn is poorly placed. He stands at ten degrees of Aries, the sign of his fall, where the tradition held him at his weakest. So the Moon, already in her detriment in Capricorn, answers to a host who is himself in fall.
At 09:51 UTC the two met in a square, the ninety-degree aspect the tradition counted as hard. The medieval writers had a name for a host that looks on its guest by aspect: reception. A guest in reception was taken up by her host, though what that was worth depended on the host’s own condition, and today it is not worth much.
Tomorrow afternoon she reaches her first quarter, half lit, still in Saturn’s house.
From the shelf
William Lilly, Christian Astrology
London, 1647, whose table of essential dignities lists Aries as the fall of Saturn and Capricorn as the detriment of the Moon.
Six short letters and one long one, every week
Read the record each morning.
Monday to Saturday, the Moon's sign today and what the old texts made of it. On Sunday, the week ahead for all twelve signs. Free.
