Virgo New Moon, September 8, 2010
The Heart is the storehouse of the human soul all its memories, deeds, words, emotions and longings. . . . The ma'at (truth) of the heart connects a man with his Osirian nature, with his continual regreening. It is that small light part of the self light as a germ of a seed that is the source of one's renewal. (Jean Houston)
The Virgo New Moon, exact on September 8th at 6:30 am EDT/ 3:30 am PDT, is interesting for a few reasons. As Stephanie Austin points out, it's the second of three Super Moons, meaning the Moon is very close to the Earth at this time, generating greater electromagnetic shifts within the Earth and within each of us. On top of that, this Virgo new Moon makes no aspects to the other planets, which is unusual. This means that it's free to work on its own, drawing us down like a seed to germinate within our souls a fresh sense of who we are. That's Virgo's mission to help us know ourselves and belong to ourselves.
Virgo heralds a quieter time of introversion after the bright, golden days of Leo. Characterized by the virtues of patience and purification, Virgo puts great attention on technique and methodology, which is why it rules alchemy and the process of transformation. Virgo's ruler, Mercury, becomes Hermes the focused mind who purifies the unconscious mind and creates psychic wholeness or the Philosopher's Stone.
Virgo also rules ritual magic and supposedly the Celtic druid Merlin was a Virgo, born on September 4th (my youngest son's birthday). But it is the goddess Isis, the Virgin bearing the sheaf of wheat, who symbolizes the best of Virgo. Isis is the mistress of magic and healing, and it is she, with her husband Osiris, who brought the gifts of civilization and healing to the ancient Egyptians. Most importantly, it is Isis as Mother that is the essence of Virgo. For it is only when we give birth to our wholeness that we can be of service to humanity. The Virgin bears the sheaf of nourishment and new life.
The Sabian symbol for the Sun and Moon at 16* Virgo is: Children crowd around the orangutan cage in the zoo. Orangutan is the Malay word for "person of the forest'. Orangutans very rarely leave the tree tops and feed on fruit and other food sources found in the top of the trees. Perhaps the lesson here is that we have to understand how we imprison our instincts and our wildness, along with our heart's desires. To live in the treetops symbolizes a return to our original selves, since trees are a symbol of life itself. Let your inner child set those orangutans free!
This new Moon in the mutable earth sign Virgo offers us a chance to take the essence of what we learned at the Pisces full Moon two weeks ago and begin the process of self-integration yet again. The Pisces full Moon illuminated the state of your trust in yourself and in life. It probably brought up some old limiting beliefs as well. Have you reverted to an old pattern of despair and depression or have you expanded your view of the possible? Either way, you now know what you have to face and deal with.
Virgo is the sign of the zodiac that deals with how we bring together body, mind (intellect and feeling), and spirit in a balanced whole. Virgo's energy pushes us to know ourselves, both the good parts and the not so good parts. Virgo demands we see the truth and stop lying to ourselves. And we get to that truth through deep analysis of our behavior patterns. With Virgo's ruling planet, Mercury, still retrograde, we have the opportunity to really root out behaviors that no longer serve our life's purpose. These old patterns developed to protect the child ego, and as we've developed and grown in consciousness, these patterns get replaced by choices based on our values. But the old patterns are deeply rooted, and they spring up again whenever we fall back into unconsciousness. Now is a good time to finally weed them out.
After Saturn's 2 1/2 year journey (9/2007-7/2010) through Virgo, our Virgo energy has been restructured, refined and hopefully re-aligned with our spiritual purpose. Did you spend the past few years taking care of your physical health, your mental perspective and your emotional well-being? Hopefully you did. This is the first time since Saturn's passage through Virgo that the light of the Sun shines in Virgo on that new re-structuring. What has the Sun in Virgo brought to your attention this year? Despite the usual Mercury retrograde jams we find ourselves in, it helps having Mercury retrograde in Virgo, for it gives us a chance to go back over some issues we still have to deal with.
Virgo as well as Mercury retrograde gives us the patience to wait, to humbly perform routine tasks and to spend time looking within. With Mercury's retrograde back through Virgo just days before the Pisces-Virgo full Moon, perhaps you've experienced a "time out' when you've had to confront situations or issues that still need resolving. Whether these inner issues get constellated through trouble with your home, your car, your computer, your work or your relationships, these Mercury retrograde breakdowns may have pushed you back into old behavior patterns that are probably emotionally draining and certainly no longer viable.
Mercury retrograde in Virgo asks us to reconsider what these breakdowns are really saying to us. Just around the full Moon, my car's starter and alternator broke down. Sometimes the car starts sometimes it doesn't. Then the brakes went. Symbolically, this speaks to my energy levels, my ability to start things up, and perhaps to my inability to put the brakes on to some of my old habits. Eating that pint of espresso fudge ice cream last weekend while my car languished in the garage did not help in the long run!
Do you get the picture? We all still have work to do! The Virgo work of discernment, of being able to know what issues you can work on and which ones are the "set-up'. My car is older and just needs maintenance. My Virgo work is about my limiting beliefs that the car trouble brought up.
We need to understand and defuse old emotional habits of powerlessness, sorrow, betrayal, insecurity and selfishness. The more inner work we do now, the better able we'll be to meet whatever the next years bring us. Although the most stressful part of the cosmic T-square (Jupiter/Uranus in Aries; Pluto in Capricorn; Saturn in Libra) is over, we still have 5 squares between Pluto and Uranus in the next 5 years to deal with. The revolutionary energies of the 60s are at a crossroads will we evolve into a peaceful society or will we let repression and violence continue to strangle us. This is going to be a long haul and the forces that don't want to change both in society and within ourselves will get repressive before the new energy finally settles in. The world economy isn't going to get better any time soon. We're going to have to re-invent the whole thing in the coming years. So prepare yourself now by taking small but important steps to become the person you want and need to be to meet an uncertain but interesting future.
Like the princess in the fairy tale, we have to work in our mantle of furs before we can use our mind, heart and spirit in new ways. To recap: There is a beautiful princess whose father wants to marry her. In order to stop him, she demands that he make her a dress of the sun, one of the moon and one like the stars. And she must have a mantle of furs with a bit of fur from every animal in the kingdom. The king gets his subjects to make these dresses and mantle and so the princess has to escape from his power. She does it by leaving in her mantle of furs and running away to the forest. There she is found by a new king, an earthy king, who takes her back to his palace where she works in his kitchen, hidden in her fur mantle.
Now after working long and hard in this kitchen, the princess appears at three balls the king gives. In the first she wears her dress that shines like the sun. At the second she wears the dress that glows like the moon. And at the third ball, she wears the dress that shimmers like the stars.
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