Once a year, the Moon is new in the mutable earth sign of Virgo, and this will happen on September 2 at 6:56 p.m. on the Pacific West Coast. Virgo season is late summer in the Northern Hemisphere. There’s a hint of autumn, and the September 22 Equinox coming.
Each of the signs is a complement to those on either side of it. After the season of Leo with its creative displays, and before Libra’s emphasis on cooperative partnerships, comes Virgo, the sign of modest discernment and attention to detail. Virgo comes from the word “virgin,” which under Christian hegemony became synonymous with control of women’s sexual behavior. But virgin originally, and still, means independent and sovereign, a woman who is whole and free from a need for male approval.
Virgo is associated with careful tending and harvesting the earth’s abundance.
Leo, Virgo, and Libra are all socially oriented signs, in different ways. Leo loves basking in the honor received from others. Libra wants balance, equanimity, and justice. Virgo seeks improvement, and is willing to say so, willing to be critical of self and others. Thus, the association of Virgo with health and orderliness, even micro-management. Virgo is the craftsperson, honing skills, striving for perfection, making oneself useful to others.
When we think of skill, we might think of the intricacy of something like lace knitting or fine carpentry, the work of coordinating hands and eyes to shape one of earth’s raw materials, be it wool or wood. At a Virgo New Moon, we might just want to play with one of our favorite crafts, like auto repair, cooking, sewing, photography—you name it.
I think of skill more broadly, though, to include not just the crafts of hands and eyes, but also of the mind and heart. Writing is a practiced skill. So is astrology, a studied craft. I began my daily study of astrology about this time ten years ago, during Virgo season.
Meditation, too, is a skill, not something we can just drop into easily, but something that requires repetition. Skill comes from practice. A practice relies on devotion, and it is devotion that nurtures a habit. Virgo is associated with our daily routines, which need not imply drudgery. Skillful habits include a daily walk, taking our vitamins, doing what’s right, doing what’s good. Virgo represents ethical behavior, uprightness. Therein lies a sense of purity, harkening back to the best meaning of the word virgin, to be uncorrupted and, therefore, to be free.
A couple of transiting aspects stand out at the September 2 lunation. The Moon and Sun in Virgo will be “applying,” meaning approaching, an opposition with Saturn, currently in Virgo’s opposite sign of Pisces. Among other things, Saturn speaks to hard work and growth toward maturity. While in Pisces, Saturn’s themes turn toward dissolving boundaries that separate us and working indiscriminately for the sake of others. Saturn in Pisces is an excellent counterweight to the Virgo New Moon because it reflects the idea of cultivating skills—even if that means hardship—because we’re inspired by some higher ideal than just doing a task correctly.
Virgo’s ruling planet is Mercury, now moving direct in its orbit and in the creative fires of Leo. Mercury is making a tense square with Uranus, the planet of unexpected breakthroughs. Mercury square Uranus means “thinking outside the box.” Around the time of this New Moon, we might feel an urge to take a chance, to speak our minds, even if it’ll be controversial. Why the hell not? Mercury’s in a harmonious trine aspect with Chiron, the asteroid known as the “wounded healer,” in fearless Aries. “Be realistic, demand the impossible,” a revolutionary slogan from the 1960s, captures the Uranian mind, ready to shake things up.
At each New Moon, there’s an invitation to contemplate the element of the sign involved, now Virgo, a sign of the earth element. A foundational practice in the esoteric traditions is to ground and center oneself as often as possible, throughout the day. One way to do this is to stand and walk with consciousness of our feet touching the ground, breathing in and out as if through the feet. We can ground, as well, while sitting, feeling our butt and legs on the floor, or on a chair with its legs on the floor.
“Earth is both womb and tomb and the recycler of everything,” writes the renowned astrologer-witch Ivo Dominguez, Jr. in his book The Four Elements of the Wise: Working with the Magickal Powers of Earth, Air, Water, Fire. The qualities of the earth element include stability and reliability, the forms and boundaries of our own bodies, our fertility, instinct, and intuition. “The memory of the Element of Earth is embedded into the shapes, substances, arrangement, and timelines of all things in existence,” Domingues writes. “Earth has the power to take negative decay and turn it into the raw materials for positive renewal.”
At the Virgo New Moon, pray for increased devotion to your Craft, and to the element of earth that gives every Craft its strength.
Blessings for the Virgo New Moon and with prayers for peace!
~Sara
Sara R. Diamond, an astrologer based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a life-long student and practitioner in several esoteric paths. Her style of astrology combines modern-psychological astrology with insights from traditional astrology. Sara is also an estate planning attorney. In addition, she has published four books on right-wing movements in the United States and earned her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. You are invited to contact Sara via her website at www.SaraDiamondAstrology.com.
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