About the writer: I’m Victoria and a part-time intern for Chasin’ Unicorns and a full-time medical student. I’m a Capricorn Sun, Pisces Moon, Libra Rising. I stumbled into the world of crystals during my Saturn Return and quickly became immersed in the realms of mystical and spiritual tools for self-empowerment, including astrology, tarot, and Ayurveda.
When we hear the word Virgo, we see the word “virgin”, which is a word that is all wrapped up in so many other meanings in our society, beyond what is truly the essence of the word. To be a virgin, in the original sense of the word, is to be unto oneself, to be able to depend on oneself, to have all power, knowledge, and sense that comes from the self, and is not dependent on others. There is a sense of purity, but not in a sexual way; purity of thought, of presence, of the idea, of purpose, of what is pure because it comes only from you instead of having any influence from anyone else. What is alone in the sense of separating what belongs from what does not, the singularity of what is, unattached to anything that causes confusion or may detract or distract from the central core purpose. Virgo has been related to many ancient goddesses of harvest, purity, and spiritual dedication and service, including Demeter, Persephone, Ishtar, Dike, Astraea, and Hestia. In the Northern Hemisphere, Virgo season is a time when we’re starting the harvest that prepares us for the winter; we need to separate the wheat from the chaff so that our bodies will be taken care of as we get ready for the leaner times that are to come. The lean times aren’t here yet, but we can start to feel their crispness on the wind, the yellowed fields after all the intensity of the Leo season of summer. Virgo season also moves us into the school year, for those of us with kids in school or who are in college or graduate school. There is less of the joyful play of Leo season, although we still have some beautiful and hot summer days to luxuriate in, but a bit more of the seriousness and future-focused organization towards what will be in the fall as we get our brains and schedules all geared up for this next stage of our lives.
So what does this all mean for Virgo season and for the planets and areas of our charts that are ruled by Virgo? Like I mentioned earlier, a key aspect of this sign is dedication. I absolutely loved the way that Natalie Walstein of Soulshine Astrology stated this in her August forecast for her podcast, The Cosmic Calling. She said, “In Virgo season, we will be refining the things we create in Leo season, and we can look at them a little bit closer to make sure our process is practical and useful and streamlined." This is key, because an essential aspect of the energy of Virgo is the idea of being of service. Undertaking things in a sacred way that provides service through the unique vibrations of the planets you have in Virgo, or in the areas of your life that are the house(s) ruled by Virgo. One of the essential ways that we can be of service is by taking care of our physical bodies, these manifested actualizations of our souls here on earth. Virgo reminds us to think about how we take care of our bodies and fill up our cups, because only then can we help to take care of others. Sometimes Virgo can get so detail-oriented that it forgets to take care of the self because everything else comes first, or it starts to engage in unproductive nit-picking with the self; however, these are both lower vibrations of the Virgo energy. Food and health can be essential parts of Virgo, in terms of what it means when we put certain foods or nutrients into our bodies, the ways that we honor and pay reverence to these physical manifestations of the self.
The polar opposite sign of Virgo, as I alluded to in the first part of this post, is Pisces. Obviously, as a Pisces Moon (and as a more lunar chart since I was born at night!) I absolutely love Pisces. This translates into a great love for Virgo. Both Pisces and Virgo have a higher purpose that is related to being of spiritual service, though in very different ways. For Virgo, spiritual service comes from connected deeply with physical reality, while for Pisces, spiritual service comes from swimming beyond the veil. So when Virgo gets a bit too stuck in the earth, they can tap into that polar energy of Pisces to help them flow. Virgo sources that energy from within itself in a virgin way, while Pisces sources that energy from the cosmos, so Pisces can remind Virgo to open up to the impermanent. On a lower vibe, Virgo can get overwhelmed by details while Pisces can get overwhelmed by formlessness; or Virgo can be too rigidly perfectionist and obsessed with the details while Pisces can ignore and lose the details in the space of the wider Universe. When Virgo uses the highest vibrational manifestation of Pisces to raise itself up, then it can best unite the heavens and the earth, the physical and the metaphysical, to refine its goals and ways of providing for the world.