At 6:39pm PDT, the Virgo Moon will catch up with the Sun, and we move into our next lunar cycle kicked off by a really beautiful New Moon. What a powerful, positive, expansive, healing, and integrative moment! This is arguably the loveliest setup to a lunar cycle we’ve had all year. Virgo is the mansion where we focus on healing and integration, and in some ways, we all experience a bit of healing when we move through this mansion that is co-ruled by Chiron the Great Healer, and Mercury. Both Mercury and Venus have been retrograde, in fact Mercury still is, he is turning around and completing his backward motion tomorrow. Both of them have been making direct contact with Chiron, the Great Healer in their cycles. Chiron is inching toward the North Node of the Moon, our north star, and the way-pointer of how we move forward into the future, so there are ways that our individual healing dials directly into our collective healing at this time. In other words, as we personally heal, we help heal the world at large.

The glorious geometry in the heart of this New Moon is that the Sun and the Moon are holding one corner of a Grand Earth Trine. Grand Trines are like a spinning vortex of manifestation mojo, and in earth signs we are talking about tangible results in the world of form. The Trine from the New Moon in Virgo to Pluto in Capricorn gives us easy access to power, authority, gravitas, and the beautiful participation of the Underworld in a way that taps us into our passions and deep desires. Over in Taurus, the sign where form is quite literally invented, is Jupiter, the planet of manifestation itself. Just a few degrees away is the necessary ingredient for sudden changes and the capacity to create something entirely new; Uranus. Put them all together, and this Grand Earth Trine has the best of what the solar system has to offer in terms of creating movement, and the possibility of brand-new forms of expression.

But there have been delays. While I don’t talk about this very often in my teaching (because it is not nearly the big deal the memes would have you believe) there have been seven retrograding planets in the last weeks, and that has generated some slowdowns in the form of delays and changes in plans. This New Moon signals a forward thrust in several ways. Firstly, Venus is already moving forward, though she has another two weeks wrapping up emotional and relationship dynamics that have been playing out for months. Mercury in Virgo, connected to this New Moon by rulership, will turn around and go direct tomorrow. This New Moon is also taking place at 21-degrees of Virgo, the exact point where Mercury started his backward trek three weeks ago. This kind of powerful synchronicity marks the end of the drag on the system and the promise that things will begin feeling like they are moving forward more easily in the next couple of weeks.

The other ruler of this New Moon is Chiron, the Great Healer. Venus hit Chiron in a Trine as part of her cycle, and Mercury with the Great Eliminator angle. Our hearts were held wide open in a manner that reminds me of a surgeon forcing the ribs apart to effectively perform open heart surgery. Then Mercury hit Chiron in the Great Eliminator angle, and that was the surgeon’s knife, cutting out old perceptions of lack, undeserving, and unworthiness that comes from our wounded spaces. Put them together, and we have been through a tremendous operation, allowing in more love in all forms. Both of these transits will hit for a third and final time between the 23rd and 27th of September, so that process is not quite complete, but we get to set powerful intentions that come from a place of deep healing and a newly cultivated ability to attract more love, because we feel more deserving of it.

Chiron and the North Node of the Moon are inching pretty closer to each other all year, signaling a period where the healing efforts we have been putting in guide us powerfully forward into a new future. The geometry between this New Moon and that Chiron North Node Conjunction is my favorite, the 150-degree Inconjunct (or Quincunx) that I call the Great Eliminator angle. We don’t talk about releasing things so much on a New Moon, but this dynamic indicates that indeed, we are facing this New Moon with a much more open psyche because of not only our minds and hearts going through a deep process, but the elegant way Chiron has been holding the door to our healing open. This New Moon ruled by Chiron, is automatically pointing us in a new direction, based on a heart that is more vulnerable and therefore, more courageous. Some of you may have to change directions to get what you desire, so honor any fork in the road this next lunar cycle presents you with.

Virgo is the sign where we understand being of service at the personal level. It may be in Aquarius where we take our gifts and share them in service to the community, but it is in Virgo that we are compelled to serve others at the personal level. Back at the Full Moon in Aquarius, I shared my favorite quote ever. Indian Saint and poet Rabindranath Tagore claimed: “I slept and dreamed that life was joy, I woke and found that life was service, I served and found that service is joy.” Keep this in mind as you set intentions right now. Service is the most powerful posture through which to approach life. You may have anything your heart desires, tempered of course by talent and a sense of deserving what you desire. But when you align your personal desires with the drive to be of service to others, now you’re cooking with gas. Keep this in mind as you set your intentions in this New Moon, and then let the principle of service as a life of Joy do the rest. Have at it!