Co-Creating With The New Moon in Virgo II

Have you noticed the times when the devil is in the detail? That sometimes, getting to grips with the intricate parts can change your understanding of the whole? There have been times when I write, searching for the perfect word to encapsulate my meaning, and so many times when that word eludes me and I have to rely on using many more inferior ones.

Astrology is a practice of noticing patterns in information, whether it is from an ephemeris, an astrological chart, or from gazing at the sky. What is it that helps us to make meaning, to see clearly through reams of data, that allows us to find meaning, to see clearly and to make a different approach possible?

Mercury, the curious planet of communication and information sharing, rules the sign of Virgo and is exalted here, the only planet that has both rulership and exaltation in one sign. In this mutable, feminine earth sign, Mercury refines, distinguishes, interprets, discerns and categorises and helps us to join the dots and draw meaning from information.

Here in Virgo, our thoughts are grounded into practical and pragmatic action as they connect with tangible experience. We find flexibility and adaptability because of the mutable quality, allowing interpretations and understandings to adjust as circumstances shift and change. While the Yin, or feminine receptivity supports the ability to attend to the present moment and respond.

Wherever Virgo lands in your chart, you may find that here you compare, categorise, refine and articulate as you gradually become more precise in your understanding and refine your skills or craft.

The Lunar Nodes have just moved out of the Virgo-Pisces axis after 2 years of shifts in this part of your life. This will be the first Virgo lunation since those eclipses that is not an eclipse and it comes immediately after the August eclipses with the final Pisces eclipse (of that Virgo Pisces nodal cycle).

This is your first chance for the dust to settle, to see more clearly which new circumstances may have arrived to stay in your life or what implications are still emerging for you.

The Longer Story: Hidden Threads With The Moon Family

All New Moons form the building blocks of a longer Moon Family story. This is part of the Lunar Gestation Cycle which is outlined by astrologer Dietrich Pessin in Lunar Shadows III. In a Moon Family, four related and progressing lunar phases return to the same area, or ‘address’ of the zodiac, at approximately 9 month intervals which offer turning points in a developing story in our lives.

We can identify these phases when the Moon connects with the Sun in a New Moon phase, but then returns to that same area 9 months later to form a First Quarter, then a Full Moon and finally a Last Quarter over 27 months.

For this Moon Family, you will find these dates significant:

* New Moon 11 September 2026 18°25′ Virgo

* First Quarter 11 June 2027 20°19′ Virgo

* Full Moon 11 March 2028 20°59′ Virgo

* Last Quarter 9 December 2028 17°41′ Virgo

If you want to work with the Moon Family, it can help to record events, new opportunities, omens, synchronities, conversations, ideas and invitations at the New Moon. You may find that a conversation lingers in your mind, or a decision is taking shape, maybe you keep returning to a particular question. Include any seemingly ordinary details, they may become more significant with hindsight.

The First Quarter may require more direct action from you, this may bring some form of challenge, adjustment, rearrangement or choice. Knowing the timing helps you avoid giving up on your project or idea now; it just needs attention and changes, and the challenge isn't telling you that it isn't working.

The Full Moon may offer you illumination and understanding, there may be some culmination or peak. You begin to fully see the potential results being fruited from your efforts

The Last Quarter gives us a point from which to consider what has changed and what remains useful. I call it a (Dis) Integration, as you allow what you have outgrown now to fall away and you integrate what works well and you will keep to include going forwards.

Look for your natal Virgo house to see what area of life this new beginning in your life will focus on, you can also look at the house where Mercury is in for you too. Do you have any planets or angles within 13 - 22 degrees of Virgo, or the other Mutable signs, Sagittarius, Pisces and Gemini, the other Earth signs Taurus and Capricorn or is Mercury your Lord of the Year or your Solar Return Ascendant?

An astrologer or astro coach can help you with this, or if you have your birth details, comment Moon Family and I will help you privately.

An astrologer will look at the dignity, rulerships, sect, aspects and other relationships to gain further information in a reading and I offer Moon Family readings to help you find Moon Families to work with. In Celestia Circle, we look ahead at the Moon Families coming up in the month so you can plan ahead and get individual and group support working with the Moon Families.

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The Landscape: Virgo II - Learning what the material allows

This New Moon occurs in the second decan of Virgo, a 10-degree segment or division of the sign ruled by Venus and Saturn in the Chaldean and Triplicity systems. The symbolism of this decan deepens our understanding of Virgo’s attention to detail.

Austin Coppock’s image for Virgo II, The Hammer and the Anvil, brings us into this relationship between intention, technique and material, as he explores the reshaping and refinement of matter that results in a beautiful end product and the potential for gains in wealth. However, the visible surface beauty conceals the hard work, the toil and mastery that is required.

Venus brings the understanding of proportion, beauty, pleasure and an appreciation of what has been created. Saturn adds time, limitations, mastery and an awareness of what a structure or material can sustain. Mercury, ruler of Virgo, is able to learn from both, take the information they offer and adapt the process according to what experience reveals.

In the Wild Way Oracle Deck, it is termed “Quality Control,” with keywords to guide us:

* Perfection of Form,

* Eye for Detail,

* and Hard-Won Prosperity

The image of a spider meticulously weaving its web captures the essence of this decan. The spider’s dedication to its craft ensures an intricate creation, though its painstaking efforts are often invisible to the outside world. This imagery reminds us that achieving excellence often requires enduring hardship, maintaining discipline and some element of sacrifice.

As we approach this New Moon, we might ask ourselves: Where in our lives is the pursuit of perfection helpful, and where might it be damaging? How can we balance the desire for quality with the acceptance of imperfection?

The Nine of Pentacles shows another part of this landscape, an image of a cultivated garden, with coins growing on the vines telling us that is abundant. A well dressed lady faces us, but her gaze is on the falcon sitting on her gloved hand.

The card suggests the possibility of enjoying what has developed through sustained attention, both gain and independence, alongside the tendency to continue acquiring, improving or perfecting after something valuable has already been achieved.

Austin Coppock and T Susan Chang, in their discussion on this card and decan also discuss how Venus is in her fall or depression in Virgo. So although on the surface we may perceive an ideal image, there may be significant discomfort that is hidden, or hard work, perhaps there could be trauma as well, that is not immediately visible. The reshaping process, to be under the hammer, is not easy or kind.

That tension feels important as we approach this time around the Virgo New Moon. Further refinement can help us to improve whatever we are making, and using discernment helps us to recognise when something already fulfils its purpose. You might notice the pleasure of using a skill that has become familiar, or realise that something you have created, learned or understood holds more value than you had previously acknowledged or recognised.

Virgo II therefore contains both the craft of skill and improvement balanced with the judgement required to know what is perfection, what is human and what is unattainable. Your current plans may still need shaping, but also take time to recognise what is realistic for you and what may cause too much discomfort.

The Present Moment: The astrology of the New Moon

The day of the New Moon is one that Mercury himself, the ruler of liminal places like travelling stations, railways, docks and airports, would approve of; it is a day when many planets are either on the move, or stationary!

Mercury, himself, the ruler of the New Moon has just entered Libra by the time the New Moon is exact. This means a loss of Mercury’s exalted and domiciled status, and also that Mercury is averse to the New Moon, unable to offer assistance when needed and to full maximise its significations.

Mercury in Venus-ruled Libra carries its diplomatic visa to travel, but is weighed down by viewing all perspectives, comparing all positions and seeking to please all before making a decision. Mercury already thrives on duality, so it can be flexible here, but is uncomfortable with the cardinality, which is asking for action sooner than later.

Mercury had a sliding-doors moment with its host Venus, as she packed her bags to leave her home Libra for Scorpio. She is in exile here, unable to assist Mercury, and focused on her own survival in a foreign landscape.

This may show up for us as being able to explore or discuss available possibilities clearly, but finding and establishing what we want, or want to do, is more challenging. It might also be more difficult to identify what other people around us are prioritising, or ti conclude an acceptable agreement, be prepared for this to take more time than normal.

The Lord of Boundaries and Time, Saturn, is the exaltation ruler of Libra and can see Mercury by a polarising whole-sign opposition. Saturn is retrograde and in Aries is in the sign of its fall, so both of Libra’s rulers are currently challenged.

You may find that questions about limits, commitments, authority or responsibility are under review in your discussions or thoughts. The negotiations and conversations you find yourself involved in may involve changing circumstances so it may help to stay open-minded and flexible.

Mercury is preparing for some weighty conversations in its early days in Libra with the slower outer-planet configuration. At 3° Libra, it will trine Pluto in Aquarius before opposing Neptune in Aries just over half an hour later on 12 September, before continuing towards its trine with Uranus at 5° Gemini, in its home sign on 14 September.

Uranus stations retrograde in Mercury’s sign on the day of the New Moon. We have something beginning in Virgo and something paused in Gemini, with Mercury overseeing both. The stations of outer planets can often bring their significations to our awareness most intensely, Uranus is often thought of as the Great Awakener, bringing new insights, disruption, the unexpected and can flip the script.

You may find that Information may bring something previously unspoken or difficult to see into the conversation. Neptune can blur the distinction between what we know, what we hope and what we have assumed or imagined. Uranus adds another possibility, connection or piece of information that may alter our interpretation again with new understandings or insights, or perhaps unexpected sudden developments.

This sequence in the days following the New Moon matches with Virgo’s willingness to refine and revise an understanding as new information becomes available. Sorting the available data, checking facts, listening carefully and allowing the picture to develop may reveal distinctions to you that could have been difficult to understand at the beginning.

The outer planets describe much longer processes as they move so slowly and are so far from Earth. If you have planets or angles around 3° of the cardinal signs they will be receiving Neptune’s conjunction, square or opposition; placements around 3° of the fixed signs will be receiving those contacts from Pluto; and placements around 5° of the mutable signs will be receiving Uranus by conjunction, square or opposition. So, everyone with early degree placements will be affected in some way.

Mercury will move quickly through this pattern, briefly giving language, understanding, information or decisions a place within developments that may have been unfolding for much longer. This is likely to be connecting multiple houses in your chart as the outer planet still hold a close formation with each other.

This may mean that we experience these changes through the people around us as well. Someone close to us may reconsider a commitment, a group may change direction, or information affecting another person may alter a shared plan. The wider astrology does not always need to contact our own chart closely.

The New Moon applies to a sextile with Mars in Cancer. This will give the lunation an opportunity or route towards action. However, Mars is in fall in Cancer, where we may find assertion and focus can become mixed with sensitivity, protectiveness or defensiveness.

We might understand what needs attention while feeling less certain about how to approach it as we connect with the emotions around the issue. A careful distinction between the problem itself and our emotional response to it can help us direct effort where it is most useful.

Follow the Hidden Threads

In Hidden Threads, my Moon Families workshop this November, we will explore how these linked phases can bring the developing stories of our lives into awareness. We will trace past experiences, identify the cycles already active in our charts and look ahead to Moon Families we would like to follow, with a workbook to support the process. You can find out more here.

Travel well, friends,

Sonia

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