The zodiac symbolizes the different tasks that humanity has to accomplish to grow our souls. Virgo's task is to integrate body, mind and spirit. With Saturn in Virgo for the past two years, hopefully we've developed the discipline to take care of our health - Body, Soul and Spirit. With the 3rd Uranus-Saturn opposition occurring so close to this new Moon, we get a chance to overcome inertia and make the changes that count.

::::::::

Virgo New Moon

September 18, 2009

Focus. Simplify. Consolidate. If you have ever stuffed a backpack or a suitcase, you know the Virgo process of discerning what is most useful and necessary. If you have ever spent time in the desert, you learned about Saturn and how to thrive in challenging circumstances. This New Moon reminds us that we are in a desert time, when we must fully utilize what we have and eliminate what is not essential.

Stephanie Austin, Mountain Astrologer, Aug/Sept 2009

When I read Stephanie's new Moon forecast, I was immediately caught by her reference to ‘living in the desert'. I have been living in the desert for about 3 years now and I feel the truth of her statement in my own life. So, I love the metaphor that we are all going through our desert time. As a 12^th house Taurus – building psychic structures for the collective unconscious to work through - perhaps I've been preparing the way for the rest of you to accommodate yourselves to the desert climate! J

This Virgo New Moon will manifest the energies of the 3^rd Uranus/Saturn opposition that occurs on Tuesday, September 15^th. A new Moon is a seed time, and this third opposition is the balance point of the five oppositions occurring between November 4, 2008 (US Election Day) and July 26, 2010. Uranus in Pisces, as I stated in my Pisces/Virgo Full Moon newsletter, opens us to a vision of Love and Connectivity, and therefore opens us to our Creative Imagination and inventiveness. These energies are opening us to the changes we need to make in our personal lives as well as in our collective life. And the forces of inertia are trying to stop that change. This is our challenge. To overcome inertia, get out of our own way, and evolve into the next stage of our growth as human beings.

With our Virgo planets – Pallas, Saturn, Moon, Sun and Mercury retrograde – energizing us to focus, simplify and consolidate, the new visionary seeds sprung from Uranus' potent archetypal purpose, added to Juno's energy of sacred partnership, can create change in our personal as well as our collective lives. It really is up to us how the next few years go. (See below for a short introduction to what's going on in 2012.)

With these 5 planets in Virgo within 6 degrees of each other, Virgo's ability to purify, organize, and synthesize energy will be highlighted. Pallas in Virgo gives us the ability to discriminate, to see with simplicity what needs to be done. The Sun and Moon in Virgo energize us to plant seeds that synthesize all our personal qualities into an integrated whole which expresses our true Self. Virgo is the sign of the Virgin, the one who belongs to Herself. Virgo is the energy that says, Know Thyself! Because once Libra arrives, we have to bring our talents to the world.

Mercury retrograde, the ruler of Virgo, has just left Libra and its third square to Pluto in Capricorn and gone back into Virgo. The Pluto/Mercury square forces the mind to confront its own darkness and hopefully choose to see the truth, which gives rise to creative resourcefulness. If the mind fails to dig deeply into its own shadow, the result is people who project their fears and hatreds onto the outer world. The Mind is what needs purification and transformation. It is the Mind which either refuses to confront the darkness within ourselves or which gives us the Light to see what that darkness contains. Mercury retrograde in Virgo is going through an alchemical process of purification and re-integration. An open Mind is a perceptive, creative and original Mind.

Saturn becomes the fulcrum (a point of support) for planting the new seeds of inspiration and relatedness in our lives. Saturn is about structure, order, discipline and responsibility, as well as fear, crystallization, and domination. So what have you been doing with your Saturn energy while it's been in Virgo for the past two years? Saturn in Virgo's purpose, to quote Jungian astrologer Liz Greene, is: “to provide an opportunity – often through frustration, disappointment and ill health – for a journey into the mysteries of the interconnection between mind and body, and the possibility of a conscious and deliberate synthesis of these two, the reward of which is good health and a new awareness of the meaning of the body and of the material environment.” (Greene, Saturn, p.43)

With Saturn leaving Virgo for Libra by the end of October and then returning to Virgo from early April 2010 to mid-July 2010, we don't have much time left to implement the Virgo lessons of integration of mind and body, as well as service to humanity. Have you worked on these areas of your life: health, work, the environment and service? Our sense of wholeness is the gift we can give in service to the world.

Uranus in Pisces is conjunct Juno, the asteroid goddess who symbolizes the energy of sacred partnership, which under the patriarchy was disregarded and abused. Juno in Pisces believes that sacred partnership is the highest ideal and is committed to making it happen, not just between two people but between all people. The way to do this is to respect the rights of each individual. When the innovative inspiration of Uranus in Pisces is coupled with the sure knowledge that each individual, as well as the Earth, is due respect and love, we will have a peaceful revolution.

You can see how this powerful new Moon is playing itself out in America over the issues of Health Care and work. Will people live in fear of a change that will ensure everyone their right to health care (I haven't had health insurance for 25 years and so have escaped the worst of our health care system), or will they be inspired to see that we are all in this together?

Once again, it is the Mind that takes center stage – can people think this change through rationally when their hearts are closed in fear? Free up your hearts and minds from media/corporate/religious manipulation and see how the freed mind wants to play with ideas. Perhaps one of you will come up with the answer we need to create a healthy health care system. The same goes for work. What work suits you is a more important question than what work will bring you the most money? Step out of the old worldview and into a new world vision that is truly free.

Venus is dancing with Jupiter (September 11), with Chiron (September 13) and with Neptune (September 15), opening her Leo heart-sensibilities to the Aquarian vision these three planets have been planting in our collective Mind. Watch for artistry, beauty, love and compassion to blossom in unexpected ways in the coming months.

Pluto went direct on Friday, September 11^th, shifting the transformative energy from inner work to outer work. Here in the desert, the ‘authorities' closed down our Faerie Festival one day before the event. Not much understanding there for all the time and money spent to produce it. Is it a power play by authority over the magical aspects of life? You decide.

It is also the one-year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the financial crisis, which occurred when Pluto originally went in Capricorn. Now Pluto is back to where it started and we can see how Wall Street has steadfastly refused to learn from its mistakes. We need a new financial system where banks and corporations ARE NOT too big to fail. We can see the stubborn refusal to change both on Wall Street and Main Street. When thousands march in Washington to stop health care reform that will benefit them, it's time for the spiritually aware to step into the world and show our strength. We need to be marching on Washington to bring the troops home, to change our health care system, to promote clean energy, to save the environment and to bring down the old model of corporate capitalism. You'll see more of this in the coming year!

The Sabian symbol for 26 Virgo is: A boy with a censer serves the priest near the altar.

Dane Rudhyar comments that this is the first stage of actual participation in the great ritual of planetary evolution. The ritual itself is archetypal, and it is a ritual that invokes the power of Spirit in our lives. As we open to the archetypal realms, we align ourselves with the natural laws of the universe. We each learn to practice in the presence of Divine Spirit.

______________________________________________
Autumn Equinox occurs on Tuesday, September 22, 2009. It is the day the Sun stands above the Equator before it starts its yearly southern travels, bringing the spring and summer to our friends down under, while preparing us Northerners for fall and winter. You'll notice that the Sun comes up much further south on the horizon now.

If you'd like to read the Autumn Equinox story, please go to:

http://www.starofthebards.com/fallequinox%3Atheharvest

2012

A reader sent me this question:

The Mayans have predicted the end of the world by 2011 (grim picture, sorry about this!) and astronomers have talked about an alignment of all planets in that same year, with the poles reversing on Planet Earth and the Earth tilting on its axis in a new direction. Is this astrologically true, and if yes, what is your analysis of it? I would appreciate your word here, and maybe some other people might have questions about this too. (This has got to be the darkest time we have ever seen in America. . .)

The simple answer is this:

There have been many times when many planets align – they do not affect the Earth's balance.

As for 2012. The Maya were incredible astronomers. And they passed this knowledge down for millennia. What they left us is a picture of the end of different cycles.

One of the cycles ending on December 21, 2012 is a 5,000 years cycle that started around 3113 BC. Other smaller cycles (260-day calendar) will also end on that day. But these cycles will begin again as soon as they finish. Because it is a cycle – one that repeats over a long period of time. Life to death to life again.

The other thing the Mayan calendar documents is that 2012 (although scholars feel we've been in it since around 1980) marks the end of the 26,000 year zodiacal cycle, meaning that we are starting a new Great Year. There are other systems that mark these years as ones of great change – evolution and growth – of humanity and the Earth.

We are aligning with the center of our galaxy, the womb of our universe. 2012 could bring us disasters, but ‘it ain't necessarily so'. Yes, we do have to deal with global warming (which might be part natural, part human induced); we have to deal with Pluto in Capricorn (as the American colonists did before the American revolution) calling on us to transform our culture and its institutions and until we do we'll deal with the hypocrisy, greed and violence of our cultural conditioning; we have to deal with the over-population of the Earth; we have to deal with depleting resources; we have to deal with the inequality of the sexes as well as the inequality of rich vs. poor.

Yes, we have lots of work to do to create a peaceful and prosperous world for everyone. But it's our CHOICE. Perhaps there will be an incident that could spark a world war, or a meteor might potentially come into our atmosphere and destroy us. OR NOT. It's how we meet our future that will determine if we have a future.

The prophecies of the Hopi, the Maya, the Bible, Nostrodamus, or Edgar Cayce can only come true if people sit back and watch things happen without exercising their FREE WILL.

So get ready for more change: next year will see an intense planetary formation that will force us to make the changes we need to make. These planetary energies are the same that occurred in the 60s, and now we have to implement that new vision into our cultural structures – government, business, science, relationships.

This is only a brief answer to a complex question. I just finished reading Gregg Braden's book Fractal Time in which he discusses 2012 and what we might expect. He documents measurements that he says show us that the poles WILL NOT flip during this time. He also mentions that the person who found coded messages in the first 5 books of the Bible found a message that the Earth could be annihilated in 2012. OR NOT. It depends on US. We humans have great power within us, as all of our spiritual masters have shown us. Our hearts carry the answer. Not only does Love conquer all, but our hearts literally give off magnetism which can effect the Earth's electromagnetic field. So open your hearts and keep those poles working!

I believe that we are being initiated into a higher state of collective consciousness during these times. It is our task. It is our life's purpose. So will we be the heroes/heroines of our own lives and those of the world? Or will we fail the initiation and allow the patriarchal view - that death is THE END - to win out.

I'm voting for the end that becomes a new beginning.

Authors Website: http://www.cathypagano.com

Authors Bio:

Cathy Pagano is a spiritual advisor and Jungian psychotherapist, storyteller, author and teacher.

She is the author of a book on the return of the Goddess, "Wisdom's Daughters: How Women Can Change the World".

Cathy trained at the C. G. Jung Institut-Zurich in dream interpretation, has an M.A. in Counseling Psychology in Feminine Spirituality, and is a certified Life Coach.

As an astrologer and storyteller, she weaves the Cosmic Stories written in the stars. From The Bard's Grove, she writes about emerging archetypal themes in movies and books.

Cathy works with the tools of the imagination - dreams, alchemy, myths, astrology, symbolic language, storytelling, ritual - to awaken the Soul's wisdom.



I believe that Americans are called to a higher consciousness at this point in our history. We are called on to live up to our ideals and create the country our forefathers imagined. Inner consciousness needs to be acted upon for social justice.



Cathy believes that our writers and artists must take up our responsibility to create art that inspires, teaches and heals our humanity.



Cathy writes about political, psychological/spiritual, and cultural issues.