Oh hello Virgo

Happy Virgo new moon wishing day friends.

I'm sitting at my kitchen table about an hour before the new moon, watching the light on the horizon change. It's the time of year that I really notice the light changing. My early mornings have been bright for the last few months, but in the last few weeks they've become darker. I have a sweater on for the first time since May. My full day ahead doesn't seem as bothersome as it did last month when a full workday also meant no time swimming. In fact, my brain is full of to-do lists for the next few weeks before going back-to-school and a day at the river would maybe feel just a wee bit bothersome right now with all those details to attend to.

Oh hello Virgo. You of the sweet but somber release of summer, you of the slight chill, you who would rather button-up than take-it-all-off, you who are always ready to get back to work.

But then there's more...

Hello Virgo. You who seeks to create a vessel clear enough to hold the inexplicable is that we all know we are capable of, you who are willing to do that work- the work of tending to our collective need to be better than this, the work of remembering how sacred we are. Hello Virgo, you the teacher, guide, and healer who offers humbly from your hard-won knowledge, you who are willing to put your pain to service. Hello Virgo, you who serves the flame that keeps us warm when we forget what we are trying for, you who offers your life to that flame and tirelessly works to clear space for it to burn brighter, brighter.

Hello Virgo. Welcome.

There are a few signs in the zodiac that get a bad rap, and Virgo is one of them. Common descriptors for Virgo include words like, "prudish", "cleanly", "organized", "obsessive", "self-critical", "service-oriented", and "meticulous". Virgo the virgin is presented not as a spiritual vessel contained in herself but rather either as an uptight, cloistered, neurotic nun or the holier-than-though, purest of the pure, lovely virgin maiden of the Disney caliber.

Mythology/worship of virgins in patriarchal cultures (both Eastern and Western) depends upon the contrast between the docile, complacent, "soft" female servants of God and their (wicked) counterparts, the whores. The virgin/whore axis shows up in astrology as the relationship between Virgo and Scorpio, the main stage of today's full moon. In ancient astrology Virgo and Scorpio were adjacent signs and the two constellations were connected in the sky by a serpent. As culture shifted into a patriarchal norm, lineage and property rights became priority as powerful men sought to dominate land, faith, practice and other men. Marriage was institutionalized as a means of ensuring inheritance as well as a means of subjugating women and children as the property of men. Women no longer had a right to their own bodies or sexuality, and the marriage contract (Libra) has since stood between autonomy/independence/self-ownership (Virgo) and intimate, sexual connection with another (Scorpio).

Today's astrology is a big gaping question of a new moon. We ask for guidance, understanding and please just a little bit of clarity to those big questions of life... The Virgo new moon knows that life only matters if it means something and asks us all how we can be of service. This is a new moon that wants to know (conjunct Mercury) but is getting lost in the in-between space of thinking and feeling (opposite Neptune in Pisces). The question in this moment surrounds the instinct of needing to connect our applied intelligence (Mercury), towards being a part of something bigger (Pisces) and the place where we need to let go of our petty thinking and inner criticism, embracing instead the knowledge that we are definitely an instrument for the Goddesses of our understanding to move through.

Mars has been approaching a conjunction with Saturn in Scorpio for the last few weeks and is exact today. This gives energy to the impulse to purge, release, recycle, and compost the shit we've been carrying around for too long now. What's yours? Did you get it from your family? Pick it up from an ex? The childhood trauma? The adult trauma? Mars and Saturn give us the energy we need to clearly decide what and who's baggage we will or will not carry. This is the time to put it down if it's not yours, and to pick it up and dig into the work if it is. This is a time for resolution. And resolution probably also means loss, letting go, and transforming. Add into this potent brew the asteroid Vesta who is just a few degrees behind the Mars/Saturn conjunct. Vesta has affiliations with both Virgo and Scorpio. She is the patron Goddess of the Vestal Virgins, keepers of the Roman sacred hearths. The pre-Hellenic origins of the Vestal Virgins in ancient Greece were the women who kept the fire burning, were wed to no man, were autonomous unto themselves and who performed rituals of sex for healing and pleasure separate from marriage.

Vesta, Mars and Saturn hold an invitation to look into the baggage we carry about shame, specifically sexual shame and the shame we feel in our bodies, because of our body's instincts and desires. This is not an invitation to do whatever you want. This is an invitation to acknowledge what you want to do and then take a long look at what types of thoughts arise around those desires. Vesta, Mars, Saturn are square to Venus and Jupiter in Leo, and trine to Neptune in Pisces. This is a moment when we have some rare kind of grace, a bit of generosity and a whole lot of love, all of which we need in order to look clearly at what arises.

All of us, regardless of gender/sex/orientation suffer from institutionalized violence against women. This hatred and violence of women doesn't only manifest against women, it comes out against anyone who is "other" than the dominant, macho paradigm of cultural ideal. I'm guessing that if you're reading this post you probably don't identify as that ideal, but it might be worth considering all the ways that you take that on... Where do you shut down around your difference, try and fit yourself into boxes or squeeze into the the fragile definitions of who you are, what you can want, or how you should act? This is a time to look at the rules you use to define yourself and ask wether or not you agree with them. This question will drudge up all manner of demons because at least some of those rules have come from a lineage of hurt, fear, and denial of potency: of the human body instinct to connect to God through nature, sex and worship that doesn't make one the property of another.

Hello Virgo, you who claims yourself for yourself. You who seeks to rid your being of all that is not you, and all that keeps you from embodying the biggest, brightest love that you are. Hello Virgo, you who is not afraid to look into dirtiest, darkest corners, who grabs your scouring brush with glee and sets to the task of clearing space for a deeper breath, cleaner reflection and smoother surface. Virgo... You know that you are picky and refined because discernment is a quality to be proud of. Virgo... Your only task is to not give up your quest for self-betterment to the ridiculous ideals of a culture based on hatred and fear, but to remember that you hold space for a sacred flame, and to burn as brightly as you need to means that you must let go of all that is not you, and that includes all of your criticisms. Your radiance Virgo is in your surrender, you are the vessel, the space for spirit to come through, the keeper of the flame, own it. It's all you need.

Embodying the Zodiac present Virgo, Mercury, Chiron and Vesta tomorrow night

7-9PM at The People's Yoga 2nd Studio - 4909 NE 16th St

$10

Everyone has Virgo in their chart, you can get your free chart from www.astro.com. Bring it to class with you to learn more about what this sign and these planets mean for you!

Don't forget to make your new moon wishes today and tomorrow.

Much love, always-

Renée