On September 2nd, at 6:55 pm PST/ 9:55 EST we have a New Moon in Virgo. I will get to that in a minute, but let’s talk about the set and setting of the stars right now. August ended with Mercury finally going direct in Leo after a retrograde period. So we are gaining momentum with our minds, our mouths, and our ability to get projects done. Things are speeding up, but Mercury is still covering lost ground, and won’t be back to its shadowed beginnings until September 12th. Mercury is the ruler of this upcoming new Moon, so remember that brain downloads, thinking, speaking, and communicating will all be part of the themes we work with here.
Also at the end of August we had a 29th degree opposition between Virgo Venus and Pisces Neptune, causing some urgent friction, likely in a relationship. This may have felt confusing, demanding, like an issue between order and chaos, inebriation and sobriety, or dreams and reality. Right after that, Venus entered Libra– its home sign– where balance and beauty want to be restored in relationships, finances, values and connections. Libra cares about justice and fairness, so Venus will do her darndest here to level the playing field.
September 1st had Uranus, planet of non-linear change– actor of divine insight– going retrograde. This isn’t a huge deal, and is mostly felt the day it stations retrograde. Unless you have planets in fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius) at 27 degrees, and/or have an Aquarius rising, the effects of this will be subtle. Add to that that Pluto re-entered Capricorn on the same day. Pluto has been in Capricorn for most of the time since 2008, marking a generation. Since this year, it’s stayed mostly in Aquarius, and will only be Capricorn for a few months, and that will be the last time it will be in Capricorn for our lifetime. Pluto takes 248 years to orbit the Sun, so unless any of you are being cryogenically frozen and reconstituted, this is your last chance at the Capricorn Pluto era.
We associate the Pluto in Capricorn generation to late-stage capitalism and patriarchal rule, hierarchy and oligarchy, control, institutions, fossil fuels, earth based resources, and other lovely things that Astro-Anarchist is happy to see shift. But let’s not get Pollyanna about Aquarius in Pluto, I’ll get into that in another post at some point. What’s important about this generational planet doing this last dance in Capricorn is that there will be a big urgency about finishing up its mission. It will be at 29 degrees, the “crisis” point, and that means we can expect some grabs at power by the falling regimes, institutions, oligarchs. We can expect some bad behaviour by, say, oil companies, billionaires, police forces, political candidates who cheat their way to the top. These next two months will be interesting for politics, so please keep your minds and souls clean and focused on what really matters to you, and what you have control to change. Giving yourself anxiety about what’s happening in a country that you have no control to change anything in, doesn’t help your local community, doesn’t help your local environment, or your local marginalised, or even your loved ones– and that’s where the real power is. gets off soapbox
OK so now onto the New Moon in Virgo on September 2nd. New Moons mark endings of something that started a year ago, and peaked 6 months ago, and in this case that would have been around the full Moon in February. We’ve seen an ending, something Virgoan, really, and now are ready for a new beginning. This is a beautifully liminal time to set intentions, and that’s why we do them right after the new Moon– it’s a space of timelessness, where the Moon is but a foetal idea. We are in the dark (technically, although depending on where you are in the world, it may be daytime at the exact moment.) For a refresher on the Virgo vibe, read my article here, to think about the themes of this lunation. If you know your chart, you might want to look at which house is ruled by Virgo on the cusp. And if you don’t know your chart, you may want to look it up on a site like astro.com or contact me to get your chart read!
This New Moon features an opposition to Saturn in Pisces, so we know there are potential relationship frictions involved, and there will be similar themes on the polarity of Virgo and Pisces: what is real and what is fantasy; what is order and what is chaos; what the soul wants versus what real life delivers and the work that must be done; sobriety versus altered states; being in service versus living in fantasy. Also there are other themes surrounding it, a sextile between Pluto in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces, adding a transpersonal flavour of divine motion, and Pluto squaring Uranus in Taurus. We’ve had Pluto/Uranus squares throughout Pluto’s tour of Capricorn on key dates in 2012-2015. You can dig pretty deep through this if you are obsessed with time (I don’t know anyone like that) but the point is that something is coming to a close in the next few months that has surfaced over this period, and transformed you, and us collectively. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are transpersonal planets that are most concerned about humanity, and not about us as individuals, and their influence is huge on this new Moon, suggesting that we are all levelling up in some way. Virgo is a humble and personal sign, and the Sun and Moon are our body and soul. So the message of this New Moon is about how you can be the change you want to see in the world.
The interesting thing about this, is Virgo is the sign of the minutiae, the details, the organisation and compartmentalization things, so note that we are coming on Venus conjunction the South Node in a few days. When I say “be the change” this doesn’t mean that you are supposed to go out and join an activist organisation necessarily, because that would actually be easier. More than that it means:
How do you treat your loved ones? Are you in integrity with yourself and them?
Are anxieties and fears preventing you from doing the things that matter most? Are you ready to address this?
In what ways are you perpetuating cycles of abuse, or bad behaviour, by normalising them because you are too scared to put down boundaries?
Do you have good intentions but find yourself in situations where you are hurting others (or yourself) by your inaction, your anxiety, or your fear?
Are you trying to avoid something so big you don’t know how to face it, and by doing so, hurting yourself or someone you love?
Do you need help in addressing something that is cycling in your brain and you don’t know how to get out of? Are you scared to ask for help? Can you name it?
It’s so hard to be a human. This is a safe space. We all cause harm through unconscious drivers, fear, inability to cope, abuse cycles we don’t know how to break– no one is immune to this, except maybe babies. This New Moon is asking us to stop something, and begin anew. It wants us to level up and face reality, and we do this personally to help the collective. I am here to help, if you’d like to work with me– of course. But no matter how you do it, remember that you are worth it. The way you serve your family, your friends, and yourself is a gift to us all. New Moon blessings.
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