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Eric with Suki or Katia. Photo by Danielle Voirin. |
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Dear Friend and Reader:
THIS IS an edgy, adventurous time, and it seems impossible to predict or even forecast. The main portent is change; change is the necessary ingredient for progress.
The kind of change that is likely to be occurring in the lives of most Virgos is on two levels, the obvious and the subtle. The obvious will include the crossroads that for all Virgos is associated with the eclipse of Sep. 11 and the ingress of Saturn into your birth sign. This is playing an interesting tune for everyone, but in the lives of those born under this sign, it is obviously a profound moment.
Let's consider the influence of Saturn first. Using conventional natal astrology, the exact impact of a transit is usually timed to within a few degrees of the planet contacting the Sun. However, in the kind of astrology we do here, the sign cusp is the marker, and the planet arriving at the midpoint of the sign is another critical moment (for Saturn in Virgo, that occurs in late September 2008).
Saturn's influence is generally thought of as slow. But Saturn also says, "It's time!" and that is what Saturn is saying for you. It's also saying that the full length of the beginning will take time; but that you have in fact come out of your shell and committed to honestly coming to terms with yourself; and that the truth of who you are will come out, first to you, then to the world.
Saturn in Virgo is saying take care of the big things, the real subject matter, the meta-level; leave the details for another time, or take care of them as necessary, when they arise. Remember, Saturn is BIG, and therefore the theme is the larger structure and scheme of your life.
Now, just a reminder: we are all under this influence. It shifts from sign to sign, dependably -- but the theme is the same. Consolidate your interests; focus your ideas; work with a plan, work the plan, allow reality to shape the form of progress that is more or less inevitable. Virgo is all about awareness and the ideas we tap into or produce by being aware. Saturn is drawing them all together like a magnet.
Now, astrology always presents interesting unique circumstances to go along with the ones you can look up in a book. The first special circumstance involves a nearly simultaneous eclipse with the Saturn ingress. The eclipse is helping us establish the mental pattern of Saturn in Virgo. Basically it is saying jump right into the game. Get the rhythm, acknowledge the changes, pay attention and respond to the moment; the moment is speaking, though the outcome is in some ways uncertain.
Now here is a second factor: a confidence factor. Virgos do indeed tend to cripple themselves with self-doubt. They are too sensitive to put the burden onto others, to even ask for help most of the time. Part of that doubt was learned as children, and part is learned through the many disappointments and partial successes of adulthood.
This confidence factor is what has shifted for you, perhaps too recently to see the effects of. You saw them earlier in the year when Venus was in your sign. Then it retrograded into the very utmost strangest house, the 12th -- for you, this is Leo, where Venus has been for many weeks.
Leo is the sign that establishes the patterns beneath the obvious ones. Leo is not circumstance; it is the energy that makes circumstance happen. When the transistor was patented with Saturn in Leo, nobody was thinking about iPods. But a transistor is a transistor: the idea is the same, and the basic function is the same.
Venus retrograding back into your 12th solar house this summer has been an exploration of a hidden side of your personality, as if you're reaching for something that is supposed to be available but is difficult to reach. Venus does not rule your sign, but it's a meaningful player for all the Earth signs and is the supreme Goddess of the astrological philosophy as we practice it in the West. In my view, she is tantamount to the Sun or the Moon. She is who and what we love, she is our self-esteem, she is our values and our resources, she is our sense of abundance and most of all, our confidence.
Venus in Leo has been a trial by fire, and it has been none the easier as Saturn made its agonizing exit from Leo under a challenging lunar eclipse in your opposite sign. Venus stationing in Leo, and for that matter, the exit of Saturn from Leo and the accompanying eclipse, have been first-order tests of confidence to the point where we actually had to find it.
The confidence that is with you now is subtle, but real. It may be the confidence of knowing that you are loved, that you can take care of yourself, that you are authentic, that you have access to your creativity, or that you are not alone and will not be alone. It is the confidence that comes with being able to trust the changes that are coursing through your life. It is the confidence to trust yourself.
Virgo is the sign of the Goddess. She will soon return to your sign, lending strength and energy and a series of solid developments when she returns to your sign in a few weeks, which will give you a sense of what is possible, a sense of what you want, and most of all, fill you with the feeling of existing on your new level of reality -- so you can remember what it's like, aim for it when you need to, and get a taste of your own beauty.
Happy birthday, Virgo, and the loving and loyal Virgos in my intimate network.
Yours and truly,
CREDITS: Associate Editor: Priya Kale. Webmaster: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Proofreader and Fact Checker: Sara Churchville. Horoscope Editor: Jessica Keet. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli.
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