The Cosmic Story: Virgo New Moon & Autumn Equinox
The Cosmic Story: Virgo New Moon 2020
The Wheel of the Year: Mabon/ Autumn Equinox
Helping the Dawn Appear
Hafiz
Strange the way my shadow began to fall.
I was standing in a field helping the dawn
appear, and when its body, the sun, was
fully lifted into the sky
I was amazed to see my shadow in
front of me as I faced that
luminous candle we all know.
I turned around in amazement, wondering
what could possibly be there;
it was the soul, our soul helping God
to find new horizons.
Strange to some, but not love evolved,
no longer any shadow . . . I now cast.
(A Year of Hafiz)
Hafiz got it right – for this time, for this moment of our personal dawn. It’s time to see and recognize our souls. It’s time to step outside our society’s materialistic paradigm to bring in the new dawn – so when we do, we can recognize and embrace our soul and its mysterious purpose. Perhaps all along, our purpose is to be fully present in this moment and take action on our values and beliefs. It is the time to become citizens instead of consumers. This is our call to rebuild our world.
Only if we want it. Only if we ‘make it so’.
We don’t often think of Virgo as dealing with authority, but in many ways, this humble sign of service, which is all about integration of body, soul and spirit, is the beginning of true authority. Virgo’s energy is the archetypal demand to ‘know thyself’. This is the first step on every spiritual path. Virgo is also The Virgin, She Who Belongs to Herself. When we learn to belong to our Self we are ready to take on our authority.
To know yourself you have to encounter your soul, the soul Hafiz speaks to which ‘helps God find new horizons’. When we do our inner work of self-discovery, we become authentic (which originally meant ‘authoritative’ as well as ‘original and genuine’) and become ‘the author of our own life’. Real self-authority means you’re the leader of your own life. And that often becomes the source of leadership to help others develop their own sense of self.
We are seeing a crisis of leadership in the world, because the old form of leadership – patriarchy, the rule of the fathers – is not longer viable. All too often it now descends into domination and control because it won’t go gracefully and let go.
It’s clear that each of us has the potential to be a leader in some way. Because the most important aspect of leadership is to tap into the potential of what is unfolding. If you’ve been brave enough to explore who you are, then you already know how to follow the potential that is unfolding in the world.
For you dreamers, this New Moon opposes Neptune, signifying the need to dream the world into being. Looking around, none of us can predict the future in this unprecedented time of societal collapse and regeneration. But we can follow the potential and see where it leads us. We can dream the future into being.
The surprise (Uranus in Taurus) is that the potential is right in front of us, like Hafiz’s shadow. Look to the Light and your soul will appear. It’s time to dance a harvest dance with it.
We have to become future-oriented, even as we look back to the past to discover where we’ve come from – including the good, the bad and the ugly – and integrate it into a whole new form. The 3 Amigos in Capricorn – Pluto, Jupiter and Saturn – have brought up our past karma as a society, and we have to deal with what we’ve sown. But this coming December 21st, Jupiter and Saturn will join together in the sign of Aquarius to help us to look forward and see new potentials.
Just remember, it will take a few years of really intense work to ‘turn this ship around’. The next few years will test our spirits and work our souls. But we were made for this, we were born for this. So know that whatever you step into as you step out into the world is what has been waiting for you your whole life.
That’s why this Virgo New Moon is so important. We need to know who we are so we can ride the wave of the future without getting lost in the chaos of our times.
The Wheel of the Year: Autumn Equinox, September 22, 2020
This year, Autumn Equinox (Spring Equinox down South) or Mabon occurs on September 22, 2020 at 5:31am Alaska time/ 6:31am PDT/ 9:31am EDT/ 2:31pm GMT.
When we arrive at the Autumn Equinox, we once again come back into the balance of light and dark. But unlike Spring Equinox, when new life and light comes back, we are entering the time of growing darkness. It is the harvest time, when we look at what we’ve learned this year. We look to what we’ve birthed this year.
Autumn, when the Sun enters Libra, arrives with a Sagittarius Moon, giving them a creative connection called a quintile. Associated with the number 5, which is concerned with harvesting or bringing ideas into manifestation, quintiles speak to exceptional gifts, especially regarding the style of how we do things. This quintile between the Sun and Moon indicates creative thinking about uniting the feminine and masculine principles. Since this chart also features a fire trine between Venus in Leo and Mars retrograde in Aries, we can begin to unite these two energies in artistic, creative ways.
The Sun in Libra is all about balance, justice, beauty and connection. The Moon in Sagittarius wants us to speak our truth. The chart calls us to stand up for social justice, protection of our environment and the beauty of life.
The other important aspect in this chart is a Finger of God or YOD aspect – two planets in sextile (60*) to each other with both forming a 150* quincunx/inconjunct to a third planet. In this case, Neptune in Pisces sextiles Jupiter in Capricorn, offering us the opportunity to open to our spirituality, since both planets rule Pisces and spirituality. So they provide us with a spiritual basis to connect with the third planet – Venus in Leo – and work towards creative ways to stimulate our collective values. I still say that it is our artists who can open our hearts to cosmic truths. Instead of the rhetoric of the media and politicians, we could use the beauty and heart-openings provided by the Arts to find our center in these chaotic times.
In any case, the Autumn/Spring Equinoxes invoke a moment of balance. The hours of light and dark are equal. Our work is to find a way to maintain that balance as we head into the fall (or into the spring).
Virgo New Moon 2020
The New Moon in Virgo occurs on September 17, 2020 at 3am Alaska time/ 4am PDT/ 7am EDT/ 12pm GMT.
This Virgo New Moon plants the seed of Neptune in Pisces, the power of imagination, spirituality, dreams and our connection to other dimensions. We usually think that oppositions imply conflict and having something that confronts you. In reality, oppositions imply energies that complement each other, that need each other to be whole and balanced. Virgo’s practicality needs Piscean vision and imagination now to imagine what we need in the future world. So use your discernment (Virgo) to work out your vision.
So this Virgo New Moon calls us to see our souls as Hafiz suggests. Virgo is the sign of integration of our body, mind (soul) and spirit. It pulls all of our parts together and makes a wholeness of it. We usually think of Virgo as trying to be perfect, but in reality, Virgo calls us to our wholeness.
And that implies standing in our integrity.
Mercury, the ruler of Virgo, is in Libra. If we can stand in our integrity, we need to tamp down on negative rhetoric and stay open to other people’s right to have their own opinions. Mercury squares all the Capricorn planets, giving us the discipline to discern what needs to happen or be said, but also gives us the hope of better times. As trickster astrologer Caroline Casey says, we have to have a cool ingenious response to a hot unbalanced world. Instead of arguing, ask questions like “What is your vision of government?” or “what do you want in the future?”. Listen to their answers. It’s time for conversations about the state of our world rather than throwing opinions at each other.
Mars retrograde is still challenging the Capricorn planets to bring about the necessary changes the world needs. Sometimes we get so caught up in what’s happening in American politics that we forget that these transits are effecting the whole world. Take a look around and you’ll see the same unrest and dissatisfaction with ‘business as usual’ all over the world. There are political uprisings all over the world. People want a say in how the world is working for them. At the moment, it seems most governments are not working for the people or for the Earth. That’s what is driving the Mars energy to take a stand. Just don’t let it descend into anger or violence. Let Mars’ energy be the driving force behind our purpose.
The fires on the West Coast of the US are just one manifestation of Mother Earth’s displeasure with us. Or perhaps it’s a reflection of our own anger/fire over what’s going on in the world. The pandemic also seems to be a symptom of our collective inability to breathe, to be inspired by spirit rather than to be overwhelmed by fear in the midst of change. There is drought in much of the world. There are many hurricanes stirring in the Atlantic. And still, the world doesn’t get it together to take climate change seriously. This is much more important than what is going on in the economy or even with the pandemic. While each pandemic death is horrific, just think of all the people who will die because we aren’t seeing that climate change is the most important issue we face.
The Capricorn 3 Amigos – Saturn, Pluto, Jupiter (which just turned direct) – support this Virgo New Moon, especially Jupiter. So have hope that things will proceed as spirit dictates. Pluto and Saturn can give us the discipline we need to make progress with out plans. So walk slowly and take things one step at a time, using our minds to chart our course.
The most important thing we can do right now is to take on our own authority, figure out what we want our future to look like and then find ways to make it happen. It does us no good to obsess about what’s going on in the news or on social media – we need to know what our truth is, not what other’s believe is the truth or the lies being spread. In times like this, we have to take responsibility for our own beliefs and truths. That’s what integrity means – soundness, wholeness, completeness.
This idea is supported by the squares from the Lunar Nodes to this New Moon and Neptune. The Nodes in Gemini/Sagittarius ask us to question our beliefs (Sagittarius) and stay open to new ideas and perspectives (Gemini). If we can go within (Neptune) and access our own inner knowing (Virgo), we will know our truth. It’s time to stop looking outside ourselves and look within.
There are some issues we have to deal with at this New Moon. Neptune and Mercury are positioned so that they can’t see each other and so we really need to step up our meditations so we can learn to articulate our vision of the future. Otherwise we’ll just confuse the issue. The New Moon has the same issue with Mars retrograde – it has a hard time knowing how to act right now. Once again, do not act without deep reflection. Now is the time for all of us to grow up and act responsibly, speak responsibly, live responsibly.
Venus in Leo has just moved past a tense square with Uranus in Taurus, urging us to make new connections to other people and to Mother Nature. There might be some trouble with relationships that don’t give you the freedom to be who you are. The main issue with any connection between Venus and Uranus is the need to be free to love and connect with those people and things that attract you. And with any Leo planet, we have to ask ourselves how do we express what we know and who we are through our art and our creations.
This is also a call from the Divine Feminine to open ourselves to her Wisdom, which can be found in Nature, in our dreams and in the stars.
I leave you with this thought. Virgo is not about perfection. It is about wholeness.
Blessed Be!
Cathy
When I Walk Among the Trees
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."
-Mary Oliver
© 2006 by Mary
Oliver
Published by Beacon Press in Thirst, p. 4
Thank you - nourishing food for thought as always
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