Insights for Virgo

August 22:
Sun enters Virgo: 04:33 PM EDT
Venus square Chiron
We live between Above and Below. We worry about everything. Dominator society has done its best to turn Virgo from its inherent ability to adapt and integrate the world in which it lives, to an anxious worrier. Anxiety proliferates when we can’t make things, use things, and live between sky and soil as if we are part of the Great Round. If we can’t see the sky in the dark night or if the ground is covered over in cement, we forget our connection. At summer’s end we are used to seeing, smelling and enjoying the harvest as we anticipate shorter and cooler days. There is something delicious both literally (think peaches) as well as in the anticipation of changing seasons. Well, there used to be. Nowadays we mark the seasonal change with the massive storms, the sheer unpredictability of the weathers, the precariousness and vulnerability of our shelters, homelessness and the food insecurity. And yes, peaches. Come what may, from our perspective here in the Below the realm above us remains predictable and consistent. The seasonal shift is the same as ever in the angle and play of the light, in the rise and set of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars. The same as it has been since the dawn of human consciousness. So far, at least, the dominators have not changed these Great Turnings. Nature does not simply exist below us, it is also found above us and most importantly, within each and every living thing, your beating heart and mine, as well as in all those that amble, fly, swim upon and eat from the earth.  Virgo take heart!
Even Venus in today’s struggle with Chiron supports this notion in our frustration regarding how to be true to our values in such a troubled world as this.
As the Sun journeys through Virgo this year it will square Uranus, conjunct the south node and oppose the north node, inviting eclipses somewhere on our planet. It will sextile Jupiter and conjunct Mercury. You can follow along below.  

August 23
New Moon: 00* Virgo: 02:05 AM EDT   
The first degree of Virgo is a powerful place as it has relatively recently (2011) found itself conjunct the fixed star Regulus. There is much lore about this Royal Star. The first degree of any sign is like an acorn which holds within itself, a mighty oak. In Virgo we come to understand and apply the workings of nature, including our own. Residing beside Leo, the ultimate ruler, Virgo is meant to advise and guide the heart that it may have wisdom as its greatest power.
Focus on your own heart today and tomorrow. Using the greatest wisdom you have, based on understandings and observations of the natural world and its cycles, the vastness of the sky above, and your own place in this Great Wheel of Life, make an intention for the month or the moment, maybe for the rest of your life. Let it be inspired by the notion of service to the greatest power imaginable, in humble alignment with the integrity of your own existence and the boundaries that keep you safe and whole.

August 24
Sun square Uranus
Maybe it’s not cool to be ‘woke’ but neither should we be asleep at the wheel of our days. Today is a bit of a WAKE-UP call. Jarring, inconvenient, possibly something to be curious about, interested in, inspired by. Don’t just take my word for it. If you want more about Uranus, try this.  

August 25

Mercury exits shadow

Venus enters Leo

Venus trine Saturn

Creativity, being the ultimate signature that we are alive, expresses as much through you as the next person. How do you see it at play in your world, in your life, in the way you meet the moment? If you’ve been cultivating a spark of creative expression over the last month or so today is a good one for committing yourself to the project. Play is the real work of life. Not goofing off, not acquisition of one more experience like a notch on your belt but truly living spontaneously and intuitively, prompted by the urge and the ability to express yourself in all you do.

August 26 & 27
Venus sextile Uranus
Venus trine Neptune 
Venus opposite Pluto
Venus is on a roll… engaging each of the outer planets. (Even Sedna.) It’s never too late to fit your values to your actual life: to change the habit of over consumption, the habit you don’t even know you have. It’s never too late to see yourself in a world that is endlessly created and creative and to remind yourself that chaos is change – moving too fast for comfort but inevitable just the same.  

August 28
Neptune Rx sextile Uranus
The influence of this aspect has a wide arc over time. We might say it has been with us since mid-July and remains until the end of October. And that’s just for this year. It speaks to the spirit of the age, the overarching themes of the times in which we live. Many people look back to see where we are going. History has a tendency to repeat itself. These planets are in forward looking signs however. They pull us toward the notion that we’ve never been here before. We have stepped into that river you can never step into twice. Both things are true. What repeats are our tendencies as humans to react in predictable ways. What is unique and new are the actual conditions of the moment. What prepares us to meet the moment are stories we have read, movies we have watched, predicaments we have imagined; neither conditioning nor reason but, once again, imagination. Use it freely and with good intention.

August 31
Mercury trine Chiron
Whatever you think about the world and your part in it, we are here to learn. We are learning all the time. It’s a classroom but you don’t have to sit at your desk. It’s a lot of field trips, a lot of falls, and fails. We don’t really graduate once and for all either. We just keep getting wiser or not.

September 1
Saturn enters Pisces
Here begins Saturn’s last stay in the sign of Pisces, lasting until mid-February when, once again, Saturn will enter Aries. Pisces is the sign of the ‘full catastrophe’, the wild storms (of feeling as well as weather) generated by things we can’t control. Saturn reminds us that all our suffering gives us the power, the ability to feel what others feel. There is nothing unique about how we feel, no feeling that isn’t shared by others. This is the root of compassion. Through the lens of Saturn’s stern gaze we are tasked with taking responsibility for extending our compassion to all beings.

September 2 
Mercury enters Virgo
Consider the notion of applied cleverness. Mind alone is not enough. We are embodied and therefore meant to integrate what we think we understand with how we actually live. Life is more than a word game. It’s a 3 dimensional puzzle, a craft. Never completed. At home in Virgo, Mercury encourages us to use the tools and materials that are available. Make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, if you can. But if you can’t make exactly that you can still make something.

September 3
Mercury square Uranus
Right out of the gate Mercury gets tangled up in too many possibilities. The sorcerer’s apprentice is at it again, playing with magic they don’t understand. Try not to blow up the house with your chemistry set. But if you do, hopefully you will have learned something.

September 4

Mars square Jupiter 

Apparently, the course of true love has never run smooth, particularly not when Mars, the planet of strife is in the sign of Libra, sign of relationship and square to Jupiter, planet of judgment. Neither does diplomacy run smooth under these influences. Are we mere playthings of the planets (the gods)? Not so! We have the power to elevate the energies, to create dynamic interactions which could offer a challenge (Mars/Libra) to the assumptions (Jupiter/Cancer) that things have to be a certain way. What if we made more love, less war? What if we made kindness and compassion the weapons of choice? Maybe not, ‘what if’ but ‘when’.

September 6
Uranus stationary retrograde   
If life was a sentence Uranus would be an exclamation point, meant to awaken as well as to shock us out of complacency and remind us that chaos is change moving faster than most of our body/minds can fathom. Uranus seeks to bring on the revolution. As it retrogrades through the earliest degrees of Gemini back into Taurus we might reflect, if we have a mind to, upon the changes that have come and how they foretell of changes ahead.

September 7
Full Moon:  15* Pisces: 02:08 PM EDT eclipse
There are outer changes and then there are inner ones. Inner change tends to ebb and flow like the Moon which waxes and wanes. Inner change fluctuates and never looks the same from one moment to the next. It’s mysterious and flows inside the banks of a river we never really know. Maybe it’s that darn river into which we can never step twice. The river of time, appearing to flow in a line but actually flowing in spirals. How are your feelings adapting to changes you could not imagine even a year ago? How are you aligned with Nature’s genius for adaptability?

September 12 & 13
Sun sextile Jupiter
Mercury sextile Jupiter
Mercury conjunct Sun
Remember when you were a kid and used a magnifying glass to focus the sun and burn a hole in a leaf or a piece of paper? How do you focus your mind on the thing you want to catch fire? One way is to hammer at your project until you think you’ve nailed it. Another way is to gather information through reading, thinking and discussion and then to let all that go as you sit gazing at nothing, breathing in and out or just going about your business, trusting that the next time you bring your focus to your project you will know where to find the ignition. The mind works especially well, according to Mercury in Virgo, when it alternates between focus and spaciousness.

September 15
Venus sextile Mars
Creative opportunities are littered like colorful autumn leaves after a good wind. Having focused your attention on your projects now’s a good time to bring on the art of it. Word, image, movement are the building blocks. There’s no telling what can be created unless and until you step into the realm of creative play. Today’s a good day…

September 16
Venus trine Chiron
Mars oppose Chiron
Creative play continues with the added factor of expertise. Who are your teachers? Whom do you teach? Where is the wisdom and excellence in your art?

September 17
Mercury opposite Saturn
Even as you work hard to perfect your endeavor you know there will be a time when you must let it go, offer it to the greater world; That world which is filled with seemingly unresolvable sorrows and profound mysteries. Let joy be in the mere fact of being alive in the world. Nothing more or less than that.

September 18
Mercury enters Libra
Mercury opposite Neptune
We can only take so much injustice before we react. Whatever aspect of this calls to you it’s time to set sail into the winds of change.

September 19
Mercury trine Uranus
Mercury trine Pluto
Venus enters Virgo
Powerful ideas, like seeds are looking for a place to root. Talk to any and everyone who is interested in the kind of change which you embrace.

September 20
Venus square Uranus
We don’t have to agree with each other to foster change. We don’t need to get it right and we can’t even pretend to be perfect! 

September 21
New Moon: 29* Virgo: 03:54 PM EDT Eclipse
Sun opposite Saturn
This world comes apart and back together faster than we can digest. Affirm the adaptive genius of nature, even as the wheel seems to spin fast and faster. Standing firmly in the radical present, the gap between what was and what will be, what is your intention toward a future you can hardly imagine?

 

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Insights for Leo