New Moon in Virgo: Integrate
The New Moon in Virgo is September 6 (or 7th, if you’re across the Atlantic), and it’s a hand-lettered invitation to us to collect ourselves, sort our priorities, and integrate all our parts.
It’s the perfect time to clean up the part of our everyday that’s haphazard, to establish some good, fertile stability with routine or ritual, and to create time and space for an emerging identity to express itself.
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Mentioned:
Get the New Moon in Virgo self-reflections worksheet.
Read Nadège’s re-write of Virgo’s virginity.
Check out my brilliant friend Bonnie Gillespie, aka The Astrologer’s Daughter.
Transcript: New Moon in Virgo: Integrate
Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Hello, my friend. How are you? I really do want you to check in for a moment, and see how are you today? I have to tell you I’m in a great mood after a couple of very cranky days. I had two cranky days in a row. But here I am, feeling really buoyant and happy, and I’m so excited to talk to you about the New Moon in Virgo, September 2021.
So, in this episode, I’m going to talk a little bit about Virgo season, and about maybe like a bit of a reframing of the archetype, the Virgo archetype, which I think she deserves. [laugh] And I’ll talk a little bit about the trine aspect.
So, in astrology, one of the things that we are interested in is what’s the geometric relationship among the planets that kind of gives us ideas of how their energies might be interacting? So, I’ll talk a little bit about the trine aspect because this Moon is so rich in trines. Oh, my gosh. PS, that means that this Moon is such a good one to work with, so I’m really glad that you’re listening today.
And then, as I love to do with each New Moon episode, I am going to give you specific questions to ask yourself, specific things to reflect upon that are inspired by the messages and the metaphors that the sky is offering us for the New Moon in Virgo this year.
So, this New Moon is happening on September 6th in the United States; the 7th across the pond. It’s happening at 8:52 p.m. Eastern Time, Eastern Daylight Time, so pretty late on the 6th. As far as I am concerned, doing the self-reflections for the New Moon is welcome anytime. [laugh] It’s welcome in the days leading up to the New Moon. That’s why I’m giving you them a little bit early. And it’s also welcome in the days after. So, I don’t want you to feel like, well, it’s September 5th or it’s September 17th, so I can’t do this.
I want you to know that, you know, what the sky is offering us are metaphors that get us thinking in a particular direction. And that’s really what I love to do with these episodes is to take these different messages, and then figure out, hmm, what perspective is the sky inviting me to try on? What are some of the things the sky is inviting me to think about? So, you can do that anytime.
And/but if you want to do it right around the New Moon, that can feel really potent and lovely. So, feel free to set aside some time on the 6th or 7th to maybe light a candle, make yourself a nice beverage, and have some quiet time to think through these questions.
And, of course, I have collected the questions in a worksheet. In the Show Notes, you’ll find a link where you can go and get them, and you’ll find that on my website as well in the episode page for this particular show. So, if you want to click there, I will send you a link to the worksheet, and then you’ll just be signed up to get it right away. So, every New Moon, you’ll just get the worksheet, and you won’t need to go and hunt it down.
OK. So, Virgo season. I think that Virgo is one of the sort of most misunderstood signs [laugh] or most—maybe it’s most stereotyped signs. Virgo gets stereotyped as a fussy and rigid perfectionist. But, very frankly, I think that is some sexist bullshit. [laugh] I found on the interwebs—the wonderful interwebs—this really fascinating essay by a woman named Nadège. I’ll link to it in the Show Notes.
And she talks about how with Virgo, part of what happens is that because patriarchal history has kind of redefined the Virgin, like the figure of the Virgin, as pure and perfect and untouched, rather than the Virgin as what it was sort of initially understood as powerfully fertile and self-sufficient, right—like, patriarchy comes in and is like, “Oh, no, no, not powerfully fertile and self-sufficient; pure, untouched, perfect”—I think the same thing has sort of happened in our conception of Virgo as a sign.
We think of Virgo as the perfectionist who is really uptight. But, actually, I love to think about Virgo as the refiner, the editor, the nurturer. It’s not so much that Virgo is striving for pure perfection, but Virgo is wanting to integrate and attend to all the parts. She’s refining what works well. She’s editing out what does not work. And in so doing, she’s creating this more integrated, harmonious like healthful vibe.
So, of course, I’m going to offer you a metaphor. It’s actually [laugh]—it’s barely a metaphor though because it’s actually quite literal. I want you to think about mutable earth. So, you can just remember really quickly that the signs have four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. And three like modalities: cardinal, which initiates; fixed, which sustains; and then mutable, which integrates and transforms.
So, Virgo is mutable earth. It’s earth element but mutable modality. So, the metaphor, the kind of literal metaphor [laugh] I’m going to use is a garden. Think about mutable earth as a garden. So, here, the earth can be nurtured in such a way that it bears flower and fruit. I want you to think about Virgo as the gardener. The gardener is attending to so many environmental details. It’s pulling so much information together, right.
When you’re planting a garden, you’re thinking about the light. You’re thinking about the time of year. You’re thinking about the temperature. You’re thinking about the soil, its composition, and its pH. You’re thinking about sort of what you know generally to be true, but then you’re also paying attention to what’s actually true.
Huh. Usually, the danger of frost passes by May 1st, but this year, it’s actually a lot warmer, and I think we’re out of the woods in mid-April, right. So, that will affect then my choices, what I’m going to do with the seeds, right. Oh, and PS, that’s a whole other set of details to attend to.
There’s all these various plants, these various seeds. Where is the right place for them? How much light do they like? What are the plants they like to be near? What complement one another? When are they going to flower? What do they need to thrive?
So, the gardener is assembling all of this material information, and then arranging it in such a way that she can plant her garden. Then, once the garden is planted, she’s paying attention. What’s growing well? What’s not growing so well? She’s thinning out the plants that aren’t viable. She’s nurturing the ones that are. She’s noticing, oh, some bugs have taken up residence, and she does something about that, right. She’s watching. Oh, it’s not raining as much as it usually does. I’m going to add a little more water, right.
So, that’s really Virgo. Virgo is like kind of taking all of the parts, and pulling them together into a whole that then functions in its own fertile, harmonious, and co-creative way. It’s assembling all these individuals into a collective.
So, if that gardening metaphor isn’t working for you, if you’re like, “Ah, it’s too much,” then you can just know Virgo is also like an orchestral conductor, right. She’s considering all the different players and all the different instruments, and then the needs of the piece that she’s looking at, and she’s pulling it all together to make something beautiful and whole.
She’s a magazine editor pulling together all kinds of different contributions from different artists to make a magazine that really makes sense as a whole. She’s an integrative health practitioner. She’s a parent of four children with different schedules and desires and needs, right, the assembler.
Or, as my friend, Bonnie Gillespie, said—I love—this is my new avatar for Virgo actually. She and I—Bonnie and I were having a conversation, and I’ll put a link to Bonnie’s stuff in the Show Notes as well. She runs The Astrologer’s Daughter, which is fabulous.
So, Bonnie was saying, “Oh, Virgo is like Julie McCoy,” the—you know, the activities director of The Love Boat? Exactly. [laugh] There she is. She’s got her clipboard. She’s figuring out, like, “How am I going to create an activity schedule that really engages a bunch of different people where it will all sort of flow together on this journey that we’re on?”
So, I invite you to begin to open up your perception of Virgo, and think of Virgo energy more in this way. You’ll notice I was using she/her pronouns as I was talking about it, and that was on purpose because Virgo is in the kind of traditional astrology, it’s a, quote, unquote, “feminine” sign. And I don’t think it’s an accident that this kind of patriarchal reduction of what that arranging, harmonizing energy is. Oh, it’s fussy, it’s perfectionistic, it’s—you know. I don’t think that’s an accident. So, I went ahead and I kept the pronouns for that one.
So, I hope you will enjoy this kind of hearkening back to the goddesses of earth-tending and fertility, that sort of vibe, this idea of Virgo, and thus Virgo season, as nurturing, editing, refining. So, we might think about Virgo as creating fertile stability, right, kind of like an ecosystem that grows and blossoms. And it does so because it attends to all the parts, all the variables. It looks for what’s working, and it says, “Let’s enhance this.” And it looks for what’s not working, and it’s like, “Let’s get rid of this.”
So, Virgo season is about creating a schedule that cares for everyone. Virgo season is about creating a garden that yields a harvest. And, I mean, here in the northern hemisphere, it is harvest season. In the southern hemisphere, it’s planting season. We are working the earth in this moment on the globe.
It’s also here in the northern hemisphere back-to-school season. And, oh, my gosh, for me, this New Moon has major back-to-school vibes. It’s that kind of fresh energy of, all right, let’s get this together. Let’s get some projects that we’re working on and, also, let’s express ourselves in a new way. Over here, I have two girls headed to middle school next week, so I’m very steeped in back-to-school vibes.
But, right, it’s the like, hold on, this backpack’s got like a rip in it. I need a new backpack. This isn’t going to work anymore. Let me get something that works better. Or, you know, that’s not really my style anymore. I’m ready to change my style a little bit. That’s very Virgo season. Let me let go of what’s not working, and begin to integrate and express what’s under-expressed.
So, there are lots and lots of reasons that the New Moon in Virgo is always a special one. I mean [laugh], partly, right, like, the Moon literally is mutable earth. The Moon, according to our best theory, is Earth chunks that assembled after the Earth was hit by a large object, right. So, the Moon is kind of made of bits of Earth, mutable earth, and the Moon is really happy in Virgo because the Moon is also sort of changeable but in a steady and regular way, right. The Moon has her routines: wax, wax, wax, wax, wane, wane, wane, wane. It’s different every day, but it’s got this kind of flow and routine, and Virgo loves that.
This particular New Moon also, as I mentioned a little earlier, is loaded with trines. So, a trine is when there are two planets in the sky who are about 120 degrees apart from one another. They are in signs of the same element, and so they work really well together. So, the New Moon itself is trine Uranus, the planet Uranus. So, Uranus is in Taurus, and the Moon and Sun are in Virgo. Those are both earth signs.
And, so, the Sun and Moon are in Virgo sort of saying to Uranus, “You know what, we’d really like to make some changes around here.” And Uranus is like, “Well, welcome. I’ve been in Taurus doing this for years now.” [laugh] And they want to support one another. It’s like they’re on the same project, and they want to do—they want to help one another to do that.
There’s also a trine between Pluto and Mars. Pluto and Mars are both in earth signs. It’s funny [laugh] this trine. I was thinking about how would I describe this trine? And do you know what came to mind? It is a song from probably the early ’90s by SNAP!, if you remember SNAP!. You’ll know the song though. It’s [sings] I’ve got the power! [laugh] You know that song? Yes, that is the theme song for Mars and Pluto in earth signs. They are like vitalized, energized. They’re like, “Let’s go. Let’s do it.”
So, look at all of that energy right there that’s like, you know what? Things can be different. Routines can be different. The components of my life can be different. OK, OK. But, wait, there’s more. There’s also a trine between Venus in Libra—Venus is so happy in Libra—and Jupiter in Aquarius. So, these are both air signs. Libra and Aquarius are both air signs, and so air signs are about how we express, how we think about things, that kind of like mental, intellectual realm.
And, so, Venus and Jupiter here are like, “Oh, my gosh. What is beautiful? Where are we growing?” They’re so excited to have a conversation with one another about what’s possible and what’s great. And it’s really nice to have that trine in air signs, supporting the trines that are happening in earth signs.
So, we have all of this, like, impetus to make things better, to make things more functional, to make things more harmonious. But we also have this kind of orientation mentally toward gratitude and growth and generosity. So, it’s not too heavy-handed. It’s not all work and no play. There’s going to be play infused with the work. OK. So, I hope hearing all of that makes you as excited about this New Moon as I am.
There’s one more aspect I want to point to, and I have to thank my friend Leslie Tagorda for pointing this out. There’s an opposition in this New Moon. So, an opposition is a different relationship. In an opposition, one planet is directly across the sky, directly across the Zodiac from another planet. And, so, I like to think of this as they’re sitting at a table together in a bistro, a close, little table where they’re facing one another, and they’re able to have a really good conversation.
So, Mercury is in Libra, opposite Chiron in Aries. Chiron is the wounded healer. Chiron is always showing us where we are human, where we are growing, where we are learning. And Mercury is kind of about how we think and interact in the world. And, so, this is an invitation with those two sitting right across the table from one another. It’s an invitation to really upgrade the way that we talk to ourselves, and the way that we present ourselves.
It’s like, “Hey, you know what? There’s some stories that aren’t working for us anymore.” “Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. Hey, you know what? We’re not being very self-honoring in this way.” “Yeah, you’re totally right. Maybe we could think about it like this.” So, that is one more really fruitful, evocative aspect in this New Moon.
OK. Let’s move into the questions. Hmm. Also, in the spirit of Virgo season, this time around, I decided to do something new. I collected all the questions onto a single page at the end of the worksheet. So, I don’t know. Maybe you like to print out the whole worksheet, and to, you know, work inside of it. But if you really just like to have the questions available, now they’re available on one page. So, you’ll have to let me know if that was—if you’re excited about that or not. It just struck me today that that’s how I sort of use them when I do my journaling, so.
OK. Here we go. So, here is the first question, and this is just a straight Virgo season question. What aspect of my life or part of my day is feeling haphazard lately? Like, where’s there a mess, my friend? Then think about your morning routine or maybe around, like, exercise. Maybe your, like, money habits are a mess. I don’t know. Maybe your sleep is weird. What is an aspect of your life or part of your day that’s feeling haphazard?
And if you’re, like, (e) all of the above [laugh], then what’s the aspect of your life that you know getting some stability there would be really helpful for your entire organism? Right. OK. If I clean up the sleep thing, I know everything is going to get better and feel better, right.
So, the next question is, what is a simple, sustainable ritual or routine that I could try here to incorporate fertile stability? And I love this phrase “fertile stability” because the stability is not meant to lock you down or in. The stability is meant to be sustainable. It’s about a sustainable cycle, so it’s got room to flex, to shift, to accommodate your reality. I think this is so important.
Virgo’s not really looking for locking down a one, two, three, one, two, three kind of ritual. It’s more again like gardening, like conducting an orchestra. It’s sensitive to the variations in the actual world around us. So, what’s a simple, sustainable routine or ritual to incorporate in this place where you’re feeling haphazard?
OK, really important, what distractions or obstacles might keep me from actually doing this ritual or routine? So, for example, I have this great morning routine going where I wake up. I make my coffee. I sit in a lovely place in my house with my planner/journal. I do some thinking about my day. I do a little self-coaching. I make a schedule for the day, right. It’s very nice. If I check my email [laugh] anywhere in there, it’s all shot to shit. [laugh] Like, that is instantly going to disable that whole routine. So, that’s one example.
And then another example is now my children are going back to school, and so that means that they won’t be sleeping at that time. They will be not only up but up and in go mode for school. So, that’s something I need to plan for. What am I going to do? Am I going to do that routine afterward? Am I going to wake up a little earlier so that I can still make that happen? That’s sort of what I’m talking about there.
OK. One more question. This one I hope will be inspiring. When I sustain the ritual or routine, what benefits and rewards will I reap? That is, why do I want to do this? What am I going to get out of this? And that’s important because you want the actual, the ritual to have the same vibe as the reward. Do you see? So, I want my morning ritual to give me a sense of calm and integration and potency.
OK. I’m going to gather my attention. I’m going to look at my day from a place that is calm and intentional. And this is so that my day will feel calm and integrated and potent. Right. The ritual has the same vibe as the reward.
It’s almost like if you’re wanting to feel at peace in your body, and the way you’re going to do that is with a HIIT workout at 5 a.m., hmm [laugh], I don’t know, maybe that will work, but maybe not. Now, if you want to feel powerful and potent in your body, that totally matches with a HIIT workout at 5 a.m. You see what I mean? So, just a consideration there.
OK, next questions. These are inspired by that trine. It’s like so exact. It’s all three are at 14 degrees: the Sun, the Moon at 14 degrees of Virgo, and then Uranus, planet of revolution, planet of doing things differently, planet of expressing fuller truth, saying, “Bet you didn’t think of this.”
So, for me, that aspect is asking what part of myself is ready to burst forth with radical integrity and authenticity? Like, what is the part of me, the aspect of me that is, like, ready to emerge, ready to come on the scene in my life, ready to shake things up a bit in order to express the fuller truth of who I am?
The next questions are, how does this part want to express itself? Like, what are you wanting to do or say to bring this aspect of you into fuller fruition, to nurture this aspect of you? And then the question, of course, what can I do to support that expression? I really need to sit with this question for myself. I can feel it. It’s deep, deep down.
So, it might not be obvious to you. You might need to sit with it. But you have felt glimmers of this part of you, and the glimmers maybe even have been a little—I’m going to say the word “alarming.” They’ve been a little eyebrow-raising, like, whoa, I want to say that? I’m ready for that? I want to be that? So, I’m excited to see what happens there.
The next question is going to integrate that opposition between Mercury and Chiron because it becomes really useful here, and that question is, what old untrue story must I disbelieve in order to express this deeper truth about myself? So, there is some old story either about you or about an identity that you have. It’s a story that goes something like a good leader does da, da, da, da, da. Or a good mother would never da, da, da, da, da. A good daughter has to this and that. To be a good friend, you must beep, beep, beep. Right? It’s that old story, and that story is in the way of you allowing yourself to be fully who you are, allowing yourself to express this part of you, integrate her, bring her into the whole.
Next, since I am going to disbelieve or let go of or edit an old story, what are the better, truer, more growth-oriented thoughts that I am ready to nurture? That is, what’s the new story I want to tell about myself or about people that share the identity that I have? What is my new contribution to the thinking about these kinds of people? How am I ready to revise, to edit, to update how I think and feel about this?
OK. Next step, that beautiful trine between Jupiter in Aquarius, and Venus in Libra. The question this evokes for me is, where and how am I feeling called to be more generous with myself? And if you listen to this podcast, you know that, for me, generosity is one of the highest and best values. I am a Pisces rising. I’m a Jupiter-ruled sign. My Jupiter exists in a gorgeous, grand water trine. That’s all just to say, like, I’m so here for generosity, and I love this question. Where and how am I feeling called to be more generous with myself?
And then here’s a second question. What pleasures, people, art, and studies support my intellectual fertility? Which is really to say, like, what lights you up and makes you want more? What lights you up and makes you want to know more, to get more, to connect more? That is all fuel for these changes that you want to make, fuel for these new rituals or routines, fuel for this more deep and integrated self-expression. You can find support in pleasure, in people, in studies, in whatever it is that lights you up, so incorporate that.
OK. One more question, and this one is all about that Pluto-Mars trine: Pluto in Capricorn; Mars in Virgo; the ones that got the power. [sings] [laugh] So fun, right? But I want you to think about it that way because Pluto and Mars are, hmm, they are toughies [sp]. They [laugh]—Mars is a malefic, and Pluto is just a misfit. And, so, they are rather blunt [laugh] in the ways that they show up in our lives, often.
But this signature, this relationship between them, a trine in earth, it has so much power and vitality. It is basically saying, “What do you want to build? We are here to build it.” It’s like when if you’ve ever hired movers, and the movers show up, and they are, like, muscled, and they’re, like, got their belt wrapped round their waste, and they’re just ready to take your shit, and get it out of there. That’s who these guys are. Mars and Pluto have come together in that way, blasting a SNAP! song [laugh] or actually probably something a little more badass than that.
So, the question here is, into which endeavors do I want to channel my growing power and vitality? That is, what is all this for? What do I really want to grow? What do I really want to change? Where do I want to channel all of this energy that I’m going to get by being my truer self, by establishing some stabilizing, nurturing routines, by tapping into that in the world that lights me up, by letting go of old, shitty stories that don’t serve me, by revising my own narrative? What am I going to do with all that power, right? Pluto and Mars are here, ready to go. So, take a moment to really think about that. How do you want them to help you?
All right, my loves, as you can see, no wonder I’m so excited about this New Moon. There’s just so much in it. And, you know, those final questions on the worksheet always are intended to help you do the Virgo thing, actually, and integrate all of that self-exploration down to what are you releasing? What are you done with? And then for this New Moon, how are you nurturing your integrity and your potency? That is what Virgo and Virgo season is all about.
How can I refine, adjust my life so that I get to be more of who I am, so that I can be of better service, so that I can be more integrated and well and harmonious in my own self, and so that I can be a gardener in this co-creation that is so hungry for whatever it is that you are growing?
All right, my friends, enjoy your self-reflections. Happy and blessed New Moon to you. Take good care, and bye for now.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.
Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.