The New Moon in Virgo exacts overnight, August 27th at 4:17am EST, five days after the Sun’s entrance into the ‘mutable earth’ sign.  This joining of Sol and Luna is square to Mars, creating a provocative tension between the lights and the warrior across Mercury’s two homes.

Mars entered the mutable air sign Gemini on Saturday, August 20th, a place of playful piddling, mental muscle, dextrous diction and strategic cypher.  With the red planet’s upcoming retrograde in the sign of the Twins, spanning October 30th, 2022 to January 12, 2023, its movement through this heretical heaven lasts until March of next year.  Plenty of time to examine the Gemini-ruled house of one’s chart for insight about which arenas of life this Mars transit might show up in for you.

In Gemini, Mars occupies a twelfth of the ecliptic associated with the approach of and arrival at peak light in the Northern Hemisphere — it is spritely and restless, the synthesizing end of spring’s inhalation, filled up with the suchness of new life and the manifold potentialities contained therein.

From sprouted seedlings and new growth arises swirling thoughtforms… like stirring grasses, eddied streams and flower petals puppeted by invisible strings.  Gemini holds life-as-ideas a many — not only the splendor of taurean touch, but the spread of different selves within.

And the New Moon in Virgo beckons.

Our central luminary in Virgo sees the Harvest Maiden carry us through the end of summer’s held breath, the year ever nearing commencement of autumn’s exhalation, the entrance to the Underworld.

As with any new moon, Luna is temporarily united with our Star, reflecting little light as they are brought together in the same archetypal confluence.  The sensuous, yet restless and mentally acute nature of Virgo still holds rosy cheeks at August’s end, as the season of peak light prepares for harvest, descent, and the Balance.

All cycles share a likeness; with the rise and fall of a breath, the weight and liberation of decades can be felt perhaps.  In the great breath of a northern hemispheric year, Aries’ fiery prompt to Spring’s inhalation sees an association with ‘the head’, and this descends to the feet with Pisces, final sign of the zodiacal year.

Virgo sits halfway between, separating the wheat from the chaff, ruling over the stomach and digestive system, mental health’s bondage to the gut biome.  What is kept and discarded, what is believed or held at the gates of consideration… the line between healthy skepticism and self-protection, giving itself only perhaps to “the suitor whose aim is true.” (Cosmos and Psyche, R. Tarnas)

From sexuality to personal epistemology, Virgo sits at the threshold of devotion and denial.  The ‘virgin-whore’ dichotomy extends from what people and energetic climates we invite into and nurture within our lives, to ideas themselves… flickers of truth seeded into the nature of our organic beings as flesh temples, and what intimations of the Divine we live in service to.

Mercury, ruling planet of both Gemini and Virgo, witnessed Mars’ ingress into Gemini on the 20th -from- Virgo, the swift planet’s yin home and exaltation alike.  A place of critico-rational and strategic strength.  But the Star of Hermes moved into Libra yesterday, ruling over this New Moon in Virgo from a place of relational consideration, of that weighing in both light and dark.

Coming off the balsamic Moon in Leo conjunct Venus, also just yesterday, one might be seeing willful, solar assertions meet the close of the lunation like the descent of the year snuffs out the Sun.  There is chatter that will distract, maybe even hints of past relationship narratives or habits flickering in one’s periphery, interrupting the refinement of personal ritual.

One might see heartful affirmations with good intention, or dramatic exchanges riddled with critique and mitigated by a peacemaker or third party.  You might find that expansive goals have been redirected to more prudent budgeting of personal energy toward said reaches, a step-by-step strength in service of the big picture.  One might also see the desire for attention or affirmation, or the desire to bestow these on another, turn to conflict or difficulty in achieving equilibrium.

As the previous cycle winds down, something is desiring to be known, to step into the light, see a unification — or even deviously elbow in the door across the mercurial spread, as the lunar cycle closes and begins anew.  In the Liber Hermetis, the image for the first face of Virgo is ‘a serpent put together awry, whose head is the likeness of the Moon.’ (36 Faces, A. Coppock)

The first decan of Virgo, which spans the last several days of August and the first one or two of September, still bears sun rays in the visage, but as the Star of our solar system travels further along the arc of tropical Virgo from Earth’s orbiting vantage, we get more and more immersed in the kind of ‘sardonic bedtime story’ that Virgo can bring.

There is sometimes a wryful recognition of the orchestrator behind the curtain, or that which engineers our subservience in one arena of life or another.  Earth sign energy often lends an ironic awareness surrounding the power dynamics of (someone) having to do something versus (another) not doing it.

Just some of the dynamics to watch for:

*reorganization of inner thought patterns and outer environs as a reflection of them

*dealing with overstimulation, and re / de-programming

*the art of life as ‘what is whittled away’ rather than manically all-included

*sanctity of the nervous system, and the gut biome / mental health marriage

*taking stock of intellectual and physical energy expenditures

*the economy of personal energy

*aid and mediation, or conversely meddling and conflict

*coming off the balsamic Moon in Leo conjunct Venus, one might see dramatic exchanges taper into more efficient budgeting of personal energy

*one might also see the desire for attention or affirmation, or the desire to bestow these on another, turn to conflict or difficulty in achieving equilibrium

*assessing priorities in communication and relationships

*multiple potentially conflicting desires — intellectual, communicative, relational, sexual — finding necessary filters or refinement

*prying vs. minding one’s business

*perversion vs. prudence

With Mercury, newly into Libra, as ruler of this new moon, we may see a striving for balance, clarity, ‘perfection’ or peace.  These values can help to purify and refine excess chatter that might be distracting us from the fulfillment of more ‘singular’ purposes.

This Mercury transit through Libra, of course, also rules over the enduring transit of Mars in Gemini we’re promised!  Thoughtful, vocal, lyrical, gleaming, switchy… cunning and cutting, quick-witted and fastidious, this placement of the red planet is prone to both charm and anxiety — with tendencies for both mediation and meddling, playfulness and perversion alike.

Able to pick apart fields both inner and outer, this placement endows the native and perhaps the psyches of those experiencing a transit thereof with an eye for multiplicity both inner and outer.  Many different selves within, many potential paths without.  It’s a place of demonstrative wit, impish gleam and possible deviousness.  Prone to keeping a proverbial ‘multiple irons in the fire’, this quality of Mars in Gemini can have implications both strong and distracting, as well as more insidious undertones if misdirected.

‘Utility’ is often a key word with the sequential translation of earth signs to air signs, and how we direct our heart-minds, hands, arms and aims will be key in navigating the coming months.  There is duality here — Mars in Mercury’s yang home, the God of War guesting in a place of charm as much as weapon-of-choice.

‘Cleaning house’ or revising strategies in one’s life requires focus on many moving parts, and yet it is this ‘many’ that can sometimes derail singularity of action.  The dichotomy between dabbling and self-mastery, or mental health labels and the momentum to accomplish anything beyond compartmentalized identity.

More on Virgo and Mars in Gemini to come.  Steady your breath, the same that surges through the Great Year.  Clarify your intentions, and be honest with your(selves).  Drink more water ~

—A.B.

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