Insights into the New Moon in Virgo

I offer here a few thoughts on today’s new moon, in Virgo, with Sun and Moon conjunct at 25 degrees of Virgo, which makes a perfect trine aspect to Saturn at 25 degrees of Capricorn. The new moon is also square the nodal axis, at the so-called bendings of the nodes, where the moon is at its maximum latitutude from the ecliptic.

Also a reminder that we are just under a month away from the start of my online Foundation Course in Astrological Studies, and there is still time to enrol:

A new moon is a time to set a seed of intention for the next lunar cycle, and here we are during the reaping, harvesting month of Virgo, where much of what we are experiencing both personally and collectively was seasonally seeded almost six months ago at the new moon in Aries. And how much has happened to all of us since then! It is worth taking stock, as we set our new moon intentions.

Sowing a Seed of Intent
One thing this year has shown us, in the face of the unimaginable changes we have seen to our collective way of life, is that we are incredibly adaptable as human beings. As we find ourselves here at this moment, in the mutable sign of Virgo, the sign of discernment and adjustment, it seems an essential time to pause, and consider just what has changed, how we have changed, and how we are integrating new ways of living day-to-day, and adjusting to what is now a very different rhythm of life.

Beware of Premature Integration
This Saturn trine aspect to the Sun-Moon conjunction seems quite helpful on the face of it, as it is a signature of integration, where new practices can become established as ways of life. But then what exactly are we integrating? Virgo demands rigour in any analysis and it is necessary to be precise about these things before we just accept them as normal, and remember that each apparently small change can have much larger ramifications.

My Own Struggle
For example, you are more than likely spending a lot more time with your online engagements now, and having less physical meetings than before covid came along. How is that for you, really? Has it been a smooth transition? How easily have you integrated it? When I look at my own life, on one level it seems to have been very smooth, and apparently very successful, moving almost all my teaching online, for example. But then I am a teacher of embodied astrology, and my whole career has been focussed around working with people in physical spaces learning astrology through the body, which is what I love to do the most. In those terms, it’s not been so much an adjustment as a monumental overhaul. When I really connect with this, in my own body, I realise it has taken a huge toll on me in all kinds of ways, the consequences of which I have to pause to consider. And I consider myself extremely lucky to be in a profession where I can make that shift without too much upheaval. But I still need to mark the difference! Keeping calm and carrying on is all well and good, and necessary to a degree, but we also need to properly register the impact of the changes on our embodied life.

The Shadow of Disembodiment
Likewise, with social distancing and mask-wearing. Whatever you believe about the efficacy or not of such measures; whether you believe covid is really as big a threat to our health as its being portrayed in the media or whether you think its being over-hyped or worse, we all have to register the impact that it is having on our day-to-day life. And not just the impact on our work, and on our social life, but on the wider field of our embodied perception and intelligence. The reality of our increased disembodiment is a major shadow consequence that we have had to face this year. When we dis-engage from the body, or separate ourselves from natural, social interaction, we easily lose our capacity to discern what is authentic and true from what is not. We are way more susceptible to confusion, deception and musunderstanding. We are more likely to lose our capacity to make distinctions between different types of relating, even to the point where we start to believe that an online interaction is actually not much different from a physical in-person interaction.

Discernment
A meeting that starts with an elbow bump and a two-metre stand off (while certainly more embodied than an online meeting) is still a very different animal to an encounter that starts and ends with a hug, and involves spontenuous physical, and by extension emotional connection. The hug, or the warm handshake is what builds trust and helps us to know each other. We probably learn more about each other in that moment than we do throughout the rest of our meeting. When that is taken away we become reliant on words and language, rely more on opinions and judgments, and oh how we love to manipulate one another through what we say! Just looking at the extraaordinary level of disagreement, dispute and antagonistic behaviour on socia media now is surely evidence for this.

At the Bendings
This new moon occurs at the bending of the moon’s nodes, and marks a crisis moment that occurs midway between two eclipse seasons. So let us acknowledge the crisis that we are facing in terms of our body’s capacity to discern what is right and to make proper choices. Within such a crisis also lies an opportunity to reconnect to our body’s natural intelligence; to disciminate between different forms of engagement, to make proper distinctions and to cultivate the art of discernment.

The Virgo Mantra
I’ll offer this mantra for Virgo, which features in my book, Your Zodiac Soul.

“I disern what is essential to my well-being, and it becomes my practice.”

Many blessings to you all, this new moon day.

My new online astrology training, which starts on Tues 14th October is a complete course in astrological interpretation, comprising 27 live two-hour classes, running on Tuesday evenings over three terms with ongoing support throughout the course, worksheets and a final assessment leading to certification. All sessions are video recorded so you can watch again, and catch up on any sessions that you can’t attend live. Click here for dates, pricing and to book a place.