New Moon in Virgo: Threading the Loom of the World

Sunday afternoon at 2:01 pm EDT, the New Moon in Virgo arrives. It seems like a perfect Virgo time––mid afternoon on Sunday as the weekend begins to wind down and we turn our thoughts to the week ahead.

Maybe we sort out tasks, or laundry. Maybe we update calendars and make sure our devices are charged. Virgo, the Earth sign who attends to details and likes to be organized, will be happy.

Yet at this New Moon, we’ll feel the presence of much deeper aspects of Virgo. To make the most of this Moon’s promise, we will want to dive into the mythic roots of this sign.

Virgo today gets dismissed as fussy, anxious, and a bit obsessed. The crazy cat lady of the zodiac who knows immediately when one of her garden gnomes has been moved even slightly out of place.

This diminution of Virgo reflects the cultural double whammy of patriarchy and corporate homogeneity. Anything domestic is boring and should be hired out as cheaply as possible. Unless of course it’s raised to a fine art, like making your own sushi from scratch. Then it’s a status thing.

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The deeper truth is that making food and clothing, making a home, and tending to basic human needs are core to who we are, and have been since we learned to use fire and the simplest of tools. Which means all these basics have been woven with magic since before we can remember.

In places as diverse as the Andes and Eastern Europe, the designs woven into shirts, sashes, wraps, blankets, and other pieces have been more than decorative. Traditional patterns include ancient blessings as well as prayers for protection.

Among the ancient Celts (and in many other peoples), tending the hearth fire is surrounded by rituals and invocations.

In many folks traditions, it is impossible to pinpoint the line between food and medicine, for each partakes of qualities of the other, and both are protected.

All of which point to a realization relevant to this New Moon: Virgo attends to the details of ordinary life because they are vitally important in all worlds, the seen and the unseen. This may look like the dramatic heroism of Leo or Aries. It may not be where we find the grand sacrifices of Pisces or Cancer. But there are heroes here nonetheless.

Virgo is the sign of Samwise Gamgee rather than Frodo or Aragorn or Gandalf. Sam is the one who carries the cook pots and remembers the salt. He puts one foot in front of the other, neither deterred nor distracted by the huge events and wild sorcery around him.

Virgo is the steadfast truthfulness of Lear’s youngest daughter Cordelia, without the grasping flattery or self aggrandizement of Goneril and Regan.

Virgo is the young girl Vasilisa, who quietly meets the demands of her cruel stepmother and then the fierce Baba Yaga. Virgo is the youngest daughter in the fairy tale who stops to share her bread with the hungry birds and animals.

At this New Moon, Virgo shows us this kind of humble but magical caretaking. She is the quiet hedgewitch making her simples. She is the magical weaver. She prepares to make cloth, a humble trade, knowing she is in truth weaving the world. Each action must be careful, skillful. Each thread is important.

Let’s back up and consider where we’ve been. We made it through a tumultuous summer that combined intense pressure to get things done with constant roadblocks to actually doing it, while stuff was blowing up all around.

The world has been on fire and not in good ways. Yes, we know some seeds can only germinate after they’ve been through intense heat. That doesn’t make it easy. Some of our lives have changed completely. Some have experienced great loss. For all of us, the world feels more fragile, more friable, more flammable.

Now we enter a time of Earth. This Virgo New Moon takes place while Mercury, ruler of Virgo, is also in this sign of mutable Earth.

Saturn has finally turned direct in his own Earth sign, Capricorn. Uranus the Awakener trines Saturn from Taurus, fixed Earth. These two anchor a Grand Trine in Earth each time one of the faster planets moves through Virgo.

This Grand Trine iwas triggered in late August when the Sun entered Virgo. On Friday, September 7 (today as I write this), Mercury travels from Uranus to Saturn, carrying the light between them. The same will occur September 8 when the Moon enters Virgo.

Saturn is picking up speed, slowly gathering steam. Mars is poised to leave Capricorn, where he is exalted, but this summer also very frustrated. Finally we feel the wheels begin to turn. New energy stirs us to action.

And yet … and yet … what action are we called to? After this dangerous summer, where are we? The world has changed and, perhaps more importantly, so have we. Now we begin the work of rebuilding, integrating what we’ve learned into a new pattern, a new life.

A trine is an easy aspect, but Saturn and Uranus are not easy partners. One, Saturn, wants structure, stability, authority. The other, Uranus, wants radical authenticity and soul-deep honesty. It’s difficult in today’s scandal-filled world to imagine these two finding common ground.

Somehow, we must find a way to create honest structures, stable authenticity, and radical authority. This begins, as it always does, in ourselves.

Each of us is invited to take stock. What have we lost, what have we gained, in the last months? What do we know about ourselves we didn’t know before? These changes and realizations become the warp of our loom.

The warp is the stationary threads. These are held in tension on the frame and become the underlying pattern.

Magic will be weaving as well. What work is needed to weave those changes and that knowing into the tapestry of our lives? What choices have we made, or do we need to make? These become the weft, the threads we draw through and around the warp to create a new cloth.

Checking your birth chart to see how it interacts with the New Moon chart can offer guidance. More important, you know what you need to work on. You choose what your focus will be going forward.

Neptune in Pisces opposes the New Moon. This is a reminder that the smallest task can have a big effect when done with awareness and intention.

It is also an enticement to step off the path. Aren’t those berries over there brighter? Riper? Better? Surely we should go get those.

Don’t step off the path.

Neptune in Pisces can also tempt us by paying too much attention to the details and getting lost in that way.

The polarity between Pisces and Virgo reminds us that As Above, So Below and warns us not to fall in. Remember, fractally speaking, any coastline is infinite. We can look at smaller and smaller particles until we suddenly flip into something vast.

Virgo reminds us we’re making lunch right now. Paying attention to things the size of bread and cheese and napkins will get everyone fed.

We’re asked to hold that paradox, to see both the sandwich and the cosmos, the shirt and the soul. The New Moon trines Pluto in Capricorn and sextiles Jupiter in Scorpio, reinforcing the message that the deeper enterprise here is our own transformation.

There is something else happening. Six hours before the New Moon, Venus enters Scorpio. This highlights her opposition to Uranus and square to Mars as he is poised to enter Aquarius.

Venus is heading toward a retrograde. She is already in its shadow. Venus is on the threshold of her descent journey, which she makes this time in the sign of the Shadow, a place she is not entirely comfortable.

There will be more to say about this Venus retrograde in the weeks ahead. I mention it now because knowing this can help us choose the best threads for our New Moon loom. What do we need to enter the dark forest safely? What magical protection can keep us on the path as we explore the underworld?

Virgo is very capable. She does not always get credit for this, but it is true. Quietly, behind the scenes, unsung, unappreciated, someone tends the hearth fire. Someone stirs the soup. Someone weaves the cloth. This keeps us going.

At this New Moon, let’s each of us choose the threads we need and weave them together with intention and caring and the calm strength that can carry us through.

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I use Unsplash for most photo illustrations. All astrological charts are my own. The images in this post include the title, adapted from the photo of ice crystals by Martin Longin, the photo of market yarn by Julian Mora, the green plant columns by Christian Bisbo Johnsen, the photo of the Highland coast by Joren, and the figure in smoke by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen.