The New Moon at 18°25” Virgo is exact at 8:26pm PDT. After the Leo summer, Virgo is the transition into the harvest and all the preparation that the season demands. This is Mercury’s influence as ruler of Virgo. But Chiron also rules this mutable earth sign, the mansion where we take something apart to see how it works, and put it back together again, only in better condition. Virgo understands this sort of process, integration, and organization, and we’ve been through so much self-investigation and shadow work this year. When the outside world is in this kind of violence and chaos, in some ways all of us are as well, as the reflection is perfect. But we have the free will to use this potential energy for the benefit of our unfolding consciousness, and this lunar cycle will be all about that.
All eclipse seasons are transformational and often bring fated turns of the screw. This was a South Node eclipse, so the emphasis was on clearing out the past in order to create space in which to create the future of our dreams. I don’t need to describe the last four weeks astrologically; we all lived it. But the Leo New Moon that kicked off the eclipse wormhole was personal. Leo is ruled by the Sun, so our very center was on the operating table. The Sun integrates everything that happens around it. It’s the Sun’s awareness that holds what the body, heart, and mind are doing; Mars, Venus, and Mercury. And all three personal planets are doing something extraordinary today.
I’ll start with Mars since it’s the simplest to describe. Mars in Cancer is not too happy in this sign. The cardinal energy suggests movement that Mars loves, but the essence of the sign is constraint. A New Moon in Virgo in exact Sextile with Mars allows us to use the lunar cycle ahead to get our walk in alignment with the commencement of this completely new cycle. The process and integration of the eclipse wormhole can be funneled into a renewed sense of purpose, inspiring the actions needed to get some things accomplished over the next few weeks.
It’s what Mercury and Venus are doing that is rare and exceptional. As we wake up into this day, Mercury and Venus are both at the final degree of signs they rule. Mercury has been in Virgo inspiring mental clarity, and Venus in Libra puts our emotional bodies in the way of wanting loving connections with others. But as the Dark Virgo Moon approaches the Sun at 18°25,” both Mercury and Venus change signs in the early morning PDT. The New Moon is exact under twelve hours later, at 8:26p pm PDT. This is one of those profoundly elegant moments in astrology for me. We emerge out of a bumpy and transformative eclipse season completely changed in our minds and hearts, and the planets are reflecting that perfectly.
Venus is in her retrograde cycle, in the first section where we are all getting a preview of what we might be working with next month when she turns around. Starting in Libra and stretching into the death and rebirth Scorpio mansion before swinging back again, is transformation in action. With this New Moon including Venus’s ingress to Scorpio so directly, the deep emotional processing is kicking into higher gear, and themes of these few days may also be part of the backward movement in October. This is a setup for more shadow confrontations as Venus in the Pluto-ruled sign of Scorpio is like Persephone being pulled into the Underworld. Don’t fear this. Even if the cycle is difficult, we will come out the other side as Queen of our personal Underworld.
Mercury in Libra allows us to more likely perceive the world as a loving place. In this cardinal air sign, Mercury is forming a Grand Air Trine with Pluto and Uranus. The work we’ve been doing on clearing up our neck up experience with Mercury in Virgo will now enter a manifestation vortex of higher thought (Uranus) that incorporates what used to be hidden as disowned power (Pluto). This puts the mind in a more balanced container, allowing this cycle to help us meet the rapidly changing world with some power and gravitas.
That said, we don’t get this for free. The Moon is also loosely Inconjuncting Saturn, so the Teacher is definitely clear about his marching orders: Let go of the stuff that keeps you from your highest expression by virtue of all you have learned about yourself this year, and this eclipse. Saturn is the one that holds the karmic contract, and this was one of the clauses in the fine print. This three year period from 2025 through next year is a death spiral and hopefully the rising phoenix that will inevitably follow. The Teacher is telling us to use this lunar cycle to get you on a new path. You don’t need me to tell you what that is; it’s individual for each of us, and if you’re reading this I suspect you know what games you have to stop playing.
The juicy nugget of this lunation – and so the entire cycle – is the exact Opposition between Venus in Scorpio and Chiron now retrograde in Taurus. Taurus/Scorpio is the transformation polarity as Taurus is the Earth herself, and Pluto is the death that gives us life everlasting. Chiron is in Venus’s sign for this New Moon, but he will carry the imprint of this confronting geometry back into Aries in just one week. Venus brings this activation of healing with her for her entire retrograde cycle. This Opposition is really like two ships passing in the night. There’s heartbreak in that image, but trust it’s a healing moment.
Let’s wrap all of this up with the Kite that Mercury is generating. By moving into the cardinal air sign of Libra, our minds are ready to get moving, and with a newly refreshed sense of harmonious perception. This easily locks into Pluto and Uranus, slow and fast change, in the manifestation mojo of the Grand Air Trine described above. Mercury will also Oppose Neptune, activating our connection to Love and Source. That puts Neptune at the head of the Kite, like putting the headlights where the fog machine is located. So we fly a little blind and trust the precision of Virgo will get us where we need to go.
Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are the far off planets that represent our institutional consciousness: governments and borders, cultures that mix or clash, corporations and the like. In these unprecedented few years of simultaneous ingresses and a Grand Sextile (remember Barbault?), the outside world is reflecting that change back to us, big enough for everyone to see. It’s a revolution, and it’s a violent one. But in your natal chart, those same bodies reflect your higher self. In Sextiles, you have to put in the effort. But when you do, even while you’re still putting out fires and cleaning up messes, action you take have been paying big dividends. Virgo invented the way the body is animated by the life force that becomes us: the nervous system itself. Institutions have their wiring, and you have yours. Let the current run freely, and have at it!
