Getting Real Under the Virgo Sun

It’s Virgo season, and I’m doing a most Virgo thing—clearing clutter to prepare for the next stage in my life.

My Shy Engineer and I will begin house hunting in September.

One of my favorite astrological teachers, Cynthea Jones, points out that in the wheel of the year, Virgo comes at the time of preparing for the harvest. That when the little Virgos of our agricultural past drew their first breaths, the environment was full of cleaning and preparation. Of clearing away the last husks of the previous year’s harvest. Inspecting the storage jars for cracks and chips. Knowing that if these preparations are not done correctly, the harvest would be spoiled. That people could die if things were not done carefully and well. That is a heavy burden to bear—and Virgos bear it for the tribe.

I had no idea that so many of my friends were Virgos until LiveJournal and Facebook began reminding me of their birthdays. In true Virgo style, they’d been quietly having birthdays without calling much attention to themselves for years. They are teachers, ministers, probate attorneys, accountants, school administrators, nurses. Virgo is a sign of healing and ministry, of looking after life’s details in support of the big picture.

They are the friends who will always have a LaraBar for people who were too busy to eat lunch, and too forgetful to pack one of their own. Virgos have safety pins and band-aids in their purses, and road emergency kits in their cars. While their starry-eyed mates plan major, paradigm-shifting festivals, the Virgos will ask just how many port-a-potties that will require. And get a discount on the contract.

Virgo Season begins this year with another Grand Sextile. Or perhaps it does not. In a fashion I find so very appropriate for a Virgo event, some astrologers are saying this one doesn’t count, as the planets are not precisely 60 degrees apart. All that mushy “almost” alignment, counting things when they’re just 56 degrees or so, is not something a Virgo can tolerate.

(I am not a Virgo. Virgo occupies the 12th house in my chart, which is the Pisces place of dissolving boundaries. This may be why I so appreciate and love my Virgo friends, even when they drive me crazy with their nit-picking. I need their grounding. And yes, I think this Grand Sextile counts. Mercury is in play in this one—so it’s also good for relaying your desires to the Gods.)

Under the last Grand Sextile, I revised and re-energized a manifestation spell I’ve been working for a long time. One of the items involved becoming more concrete around relationships and the home I hope to share with the man I’ve been dating for just over a year.

And less than a month after I sent the spell’s renewed energy outward, the shift I’ve been waiting for happened. He said he was ready to stop talking about the kind of house we want someday, and start looking for it.

I thought it fitting that we chose a September start for the moving preparations. The New Moon in Virgo is September 5—and Mercury is in Virgo then, as well. Virgo is ruled by Mercury. We will need the aid of both a New Moon phase to energize this beginning, and of cerebral, analytical Mercury. This Virgo Mercury also is moving through its conjunction with the Sun, a very powerful time in its cycle. 

This astrological aid will be a wonderful help. There is so much sorting of things and clear communication of ideas needed when two households and two lives merge. Think of the negotiations that a marriage required in years past—the two families meeting to settle how much property would be provided from each to give the young couple a solid start in life. It was unromantic by any era’s standards, but it was solid and earthy and, well, Virgo.

In our case, it’s getting real about the details of the kind of life we want as a couple, and the kind of home that will support that. It’s communicating clearly about our needs. And it’s going through the collections we’ve accumulated over years of living alone as adults (well, him more than me) and deciding which items fit into a shared household, and which do not.

It’s not as exciting and witchy as a manifestation spell or ritual. There’s no candle colors to pick out, no incense to select, no energy to raise. Just the work of bringing those energies into manifest reality. The work we do in service to the magic, and to ourselves.

Virgo. The sign of love made visible–and real–through service.