Understanding the Zodiac: Virgo

 

by Barry Kerr

  

The Sun moves into Virgo on Aug 22/23

Last month, with Sun in Leo, we honored our ego, celebrating our soul’s intention to shine our light through our personality. This month, in Virgo, the energy is focused on feedback, discernment, improvement and service.

People often use the terms “big” ego and “strong” ego, sometimes confusing the two meanings. It’s important to understand the difference. A big ego implies that a person is filled with self-love, is able to express her thoughts and feelings in big ways that demand or invite other’s attention. This can be warm, entertaining and delightful or brash, self-serving and boorish. A strong ego, on the other hand, is about a person’s ability to withstand criticism or rejection. The capacity for one to maintain self-love, self-worth, and belief in oneself is the measure of an ego’s strength. The quiet librarian might not command people’s attention with a bright personality, but might radiate warmth and not emotionally collapse in the face of harsh feedback from friends, colleagues or failures. 

 

In any particular incarnation, we may choose a big ego or small, whichever serves our soul’s goal for that lifetime. The strength of our ego varies less and is a reflection of the ongoing work we’ve done over many lifetimes of soul evolvement.

 

All this talk of egos is important to understanding the role of your Mercury as it rules the sign of Virgo. It is through the Virgo qualities of your human experience that you take in, through your Mercurial rational mind, the observations and details of how your ego actually affects other people. This sometimes comes directly through feedback and criticism from others. More often, you begin to discern unspoken and repeating patterns of rejection or acceptance, failure or success, needs and desires met or not. If you are learning from this feedback and applying lessons to future choices of how you express your ego, then you build successful connections to others, relationships that satisfy your needs and validate your self-worth. If not, relationships tend to be difficult and you feel alone.

 

The key here is learning to embrace the feedback from people and the world, to value the information as clues to self-fulfillment. As you focus your attention on what others have to say about how they experience you, you can begin to relax your ego’s drive for self-assertion, incorporate other people’s feelings, thoughts and desires into your own values and thereby make choices that serve those to whom you wish to relate and love.

 

Mercury’s role in ruling Gemini was to sharpen mental awareness for connection to environment. Now in Virgo, Mercury uses those same attributes of logic and communication to create a practical approach toward connection to other beings. Success in this endeavor improves the ability of our Venus (the relationship planet), in the next sign of Libra, to create fulfilling one-to-one relationships with friends, lovers and even business partners.

 

After expressing ourselves through Leo, we are ready for some feedback. In the grand scheme of things, what we are doing here, as spirit in human form, is learning how to be conscious co-creators in this time/space dimension we call the physical world. This requires that we pay attention to how this world works, practically, on every level. Meet Virgo: perfect imperfection!

 

It is the Virgo in us all that focuses attention on the details in our experience. Virgo’s spiritual intention is to get it right, to create life to the highest orders of potential. Thus, when we are in our unconscious Virgo self, we might be fussy, particular, and critical, as we are sensitive to everything that falls short of wholeness and perfection.  The world is giving us feedback so we can improve our selves, our lives and to serve others by improving theirs.

 

In this process, our Mercury minds take in and analyze a cascade of information about how everything around us and inside of us works or doesn’t work. In affect, Virgo is our inner scientist, applying logic and coolheaded reasoning to our experiences and our relationships. When we do this well, we arrange our daily habits and lifestyles in earthy ways that maintain our health and wholeness, that ground us to the practical boundaries of life, and find useful service.  When we do this poorly, we cut off feelings, suffer illnesses, create work and relationship problems, and/or lose spiritual perspective and connection.  

 

 

 

Self-Awareness Tips for Virgo

To evolve your Virgo self, pay attention to how you participate with others. Do you act on your feelings of compassion? Serve others effectively? Or just judge and criticize? How much does your mind analyze and categorize, notice details, trying to make order out of disorder? This is what our minds are designed to do, but it needs balance with our heart and intuition. Is your mind helping you create healthy routines, or causing obsessive and harmful habits? Or do you rebel against routines and order because you are disappointed with the world? Are you living primarily in your head, a mental cloud of disconnect from feelings, or are you grounding into your body and to the earth, feeling your feelings, and taking care of yourself?

 

What needs healing and growth?

The wounded Virgo in each of us feels incomplete, scattered, fragmented, disconnected and/or impure. Something is wrong physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually and we need to “fix” or “get rid” of it.  This can be experienced as physical illness, hyper-anxiety, over-analysis, obsessive worry, obsession with details, faultfinding, perfectionism, “being right” and inflexibility. There is a nagging sense of dissatisfaction that longs for wholeness and order.

 

To heal our Virgo selves, we need to learn to appreciate that though this world appears to our logical minds to be chaotic, fragmented and disconnected from order and spirit, it is actually always in perfect spiritual balance and harmony; and so are we. With this polar perspective (Pisces/Neptune), we can accept, love and serve ourselves, others and the world as they are, appreciating we are each on a unique journey back to conscious wholeness as co-creators. Our job is to pay attention and learn to co-create with more wisdom, faith, mastery and love.

 

Good Virgo things to do in September

Question your routines and begin to change those outdated, particularly health related. Take time for inner reflection, inviting insights for improving your life, but being kind to yourself. Look for ways to act on your feelings of compassion. Serve. Take up a study or teach.  Watch for how you criticize others and yourself and learn timing, tone and effectiveness.

 

 

 

 

The sun is in Virgo August 23 – September 20, what does that mean for your sign?

 

Virgo is an earth sign, ruled by Mercury. If last month, in fiery Leo, we were encouraged to bravely let our solar egos shine our unique soul light into the world, in Virgo we are asked to pause and consider the consequences of our inspired expressions. As the second earth sign in the zodiac, Virgo urges a grounded practicality to our life and an awareness to how we serve others. In Gemini, ruling Mercury aroused our intellectual curiosity about the world around us. Now, in Virgo, Mercury challenges our ability for mental focus and analysis, particularly as it relates to how effective we are as creators in this physical dimension. It’s by paying attention to the details, seeing the cause and effect, and understanding the logic of time and space that we grow into mastery as creators within it. Criticism and consequences are the feedback that helps us learn to express our unique soul genius more artfully, skillfully and completely.  A mature Virgo ego, ready for relationship, will welcome such feedback from others, discern what truth there is in it, and apply it wisely to improve one’s own life, relationships and to assist others.  A less evolved Virgo ego, still defensive, will hold judgment toward self and others, or become obsessed with details and analysis, missing the larger dimension of love that connects us all and gives context beyond logic and reason. One way or another, our Virgo self will lead us to what needs attention and we shall learn and evolve.

 

Look below for your birth sign (sun sign) to see what particular challenges/opportunities are being brought to your awareness this month. (These can also hold true if you have your Moon, Rising sign or a number of planets in the sign.)

 

Aries (Mar 21 – Apr 19):

Routine and order is not your comfort zone, Aries, but during this Virgo time of year, see if there aren’t some parts of your life that could use a little more practical direction. Enthusiasm and inspiration alone are typically not enough. Invite some feedback from others about your goals and methods. You can’t see everything from your own angle, so get some objective perspective. In the end, you get to decide what works for you.

 

 

 

 

Taurus (Apr 20 – May 20):

As another earth sign, Taurus, this Virgo energy increases your need for stability and practicality. Use this Virgo energy to scrutinize your values, the things you have accrued and the ways you got them. How has this served others as well as yourself? Are there ways your things and finances can be more ordered? Pay attention to the details of that which creates stability and security in life.  Hint: they aren’t all material.

 

 

Gemini (May 21 – June 20):

All right Gemini; time to focus that curiosity of yours. It may feel boring to limit your attention to less than three things at a time, but use this Virgo influence to look carefully at your priorities and make choices. Perhaps creating a schedule, a list or calendar would be helpful. Try to be precise and economical in your communications, and watch a tendency to correct other people’s speech. Listen with discernment.

 

 

Cancer (June 21 – July 22):

The critical nature of Virgo can feel harsh for you, Cancer. Try not to take feedback from others too personally. And watch out that your emotional frustrations don’t turn into critical attacks on those you love. Are there ways that tidying your home or creating more order can bring comfort? Or perhaps you can offer your caring nature in service to someone who needs such help. It’s an excellent time to notice how emotions work. Be curious.

 

 

Leo (July 23 - Aug 22):

Leo, are you aware that when the novelty of daily work wears off, your enthusiasm wanes? That’s you resisting your own Virgo need for some routine and order to life. Use this time to notice how when you get your affairs in order and pay attention to feedback, there is more time and energy to play and create. Also, try applying yourself to some methodical games and pastimes. And problem solving can feel like a fun game right now. So use it for play and/or get things done.

 

 

 

Virgo (Aug 23 – Sep 22):

This is your time, Virgo, so go at it! Study, analyze, change a health habit. Make lists, figure things out, improve, and invent. Bring order to the world, at least your world and if inspired, to others. Remember to embrace compassion and heart connections. Without that, your world can be harsh and cold. Others at this time are interested in feedback, so practice your skills of offering positive, loving and useful criticism. And be careful you go easy on yourself, too. 

 

 

 

Libra (Sep 23 – Oct 22):

During this Virgo energy, Libra, your need for perfection or routine in your relationships may be heightened. So, watch a tendency to be cold or critical if people fall short of your expectations. Don’t confuse your way of doing things as the “right” way. Feel free to offer feedback and ask for what you want, but to maintain harmony and balance, let others do the same.

 

 

 

Scorpio (Oct 23 – Nov 21):

The watery, emotional world of Scorpio is not comfortable with Virgo practicality. Get over it. Get vulnerable, Scorpio, and give your attention to the workings of your relationships. Now is the time to create clarity about shared resources and intimate matters, knowing the exact details of any agreements, spoken or non-spoken. Perhaps there are health and hygiene habits involved that need addressing? Get it out in the open. Just be careful to not attack or accuse. Make it about your own needs and desires.

 

 

Sagittarius (Nov 22 – Dec 21): 

Sagittarius, you are another one who dislikes routine and order.  Granted, you need plenty of space and time for adventure, but during this Virgo influence, allow some attention to the details of how you bring order to your thoughts and life. Invite some objective feedback. You may find that there are tools and systems that enhance the ease of your journey without limiting the choices and timing. In fact, some structure can boost the experience.  Also, this is a good time to invite critical thinking into your worldview. In your enthusiasm for meaning, have you compromised logic and reason?

 

 

 

Capricorn (Dec 22 – Jan 19):

Being the third earth sign in the zodiac, Capricorn, you may welcome the practical energy of Virgo, but beware: your already natural tendencies toward the well-organized, hard work of manifesting goals can go over the top and turn you into a bossy monster. It’s all right to apply your critical and exacting standards to life and work, just keep your heart connections alive so others (and you) know there is some tolerance and mercy. By doing so, you are more likely to succeed and get the recognition you deserve and desire.

 

 

Aquarius (Jan 20 – Feb 18): 

Aquarius, friends and community are essential elements of your happiness. Use this Virgo time to pay attention to the details of how well your social circle fits your needs, and you, theirs. If there are dissonances, address them by making choices. Mere criticism is unlikely to change the dynamics. Your fulfillment depends your own wise discernment of people. With those who do seem a good fit, invite some feedback on how you can better care for and serve the relationships. This is where your natural objectivity can accelerate your effectiveness in the world.

 

 

Pisces (Feb 19 – Mar 20): 

Being opposite Virgo in the zodiac, Pisces, during this time you will feel the polarity between your inner, sensitive and mystical world of feelings and your compulsion toward outward practical perfection. This can feel like fear of letting yourself go in case your imperfections are revealed. It would be best to just accept your Piscean tendencies for otherworldly sensitivity, yet invite the feedback from life and people that may challenge you to become more grounded. Unconditional love and compassion are great, but if you cannot find ways to deliver it in real deeds, to real people, in real time, you are missing the point of being human.

 

 

 

 

 

Note about zodiac dates: The dates associated with the signs of the zodiac are based on averages, since in any given year the exact ingresses can range from the 19th to the 22nd. They also vary depending on the time zone in which you were born. If you're unsure of your sign, you can obtain your chart at astrology.com.

 

Barry Kerr, a certified soul-based astrologer, has 33 years of experience with an international clientele, including many medical professionals and alternative healers. He and Kristine Gay, a licensed psychotherapist, are owners/practitioners at Inner Essence Center in Madison. Both have extensive training in soul-guided healing of mind, body, heart and spiritual systems. They offer healing, coaching, therapy and astrology services. Visit www.ChooseConsciousLiving.com  for more information.