#thevirgin

My first illustration Virgo.✨

Hello, everyone! For this week’s Starry Sunday post, we will be discussing the sign of Virgo. This is the sixth sign in the zodiac, which the Sun enters on August 23rd and leaves on September 22nd.

In bringing an end to the summer season, Virgo prepares the earth, and us humans, for the bountiful fall harvest. It is traditionally associated with food, medicine, and agriculture. The second earth sign after Taurus and the second mutable sign after Gemini, Virgo embodies both the groundedness of a typical earth sign and the chaotic expansiveness of a typical mutable sign. What results is a highly intellectual sign with a sharp eye for detail. Virgo sees the material, what is present and here, and finds new uses for it, recontextualizes it.

Mercury rules Gemini as well as Virgo. The similarities between these two signs may be evident from what I said in the previous paragraph: these are incredibly shrewd signs. Both are mutable and both are quite keen on immersing themselves in knowledge. Remember, Mercury is synchronous with the Greek god Hermes, who rules over the mind, commerce, travel, and speech. All very ubiquitous aspects of modern life. Where the two Mercury-ruled signs divert, however, is in their elements. Gemini is the air Mercury sign, while Virgo is the earth Mercury sign. Earth and mutability may sound like a strange combination of triplicity and quadruplicity, and I’m sure that most Virgo natives would agree!

Earth combines with mutability to create a sign that is incredibly invested in the use of knowledge, its application and purpose. Gemini is more invested in knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Remember, as the signs progress, they develop further and move on to bigger and bigger questions. So, Virgo does not just “think” like Gemini does. It “analyzes,” such as in its traditional catchphrase, “I analyze.” How does this piece of knowledge fit in with the others? What kinds of results will I get if I apply it somewhere else? In what new directions can we take this piece of knowledge?

This sign also rules the digestive system, which turns food of all kinds into nutrition for our bodies. Consider this metaphor: food is a resource. It takes a lot of brainpower and a lot of expertise to understand how to extract everything possible from a given resource, and yet more to apply all that to the right places for use. The digestive system achieves this perfectly. So too does the astrological sign of Virgo.

The symbolic archetype of Virgo is The Maiden, or The Virgin. Rather an alluring image for such a shrewd sign, you may think. However, where the Maiden best represents Virgo is in its reserve, its carefulness, and its hesitation to leap into things. Virgo waits until it is ready before it moves into any one idea. Indeed, Virgo is, in my opinion, one of the most introverted signs in the zodiac, even more introverted than a sign like Cancer. Cancer, at least, is confident that it has a shell in which, should trouble arise, it can hide its emotions, fears, desires. Virgo is grounded in the details, and sometimes, that discerning eye can become concrete proof that Virgo itself has nowhere to hide.

Virgo tends to have trouble with anxiety, and being a person with my Sun in the Virgo-ruled sixth house, I may perhaps have a bit of bias in this opinion. Analysis is just the positive meaning of judgment, after all. Underdeveloped Virgos who express the aspects of this sign unhealthily will direct this critical eye towards others and themselves, too. Some nitpick the things others say or do. They may see this as just being helpful, but to those on the receiving end, it is not always so. People with a lot of Virgo influence in their charts would do well to channel their powers of analysis into work, their routines, or even something creative. For a Virgo, organization of any kind is a meditative experience.

6. VIRGO, THE VIRGIN

Mutable Earth, Yin, Interpersonal

Adapting to Material Learning

Relates to Vesta, Ceres, and Mercury

Corresponds to the 6th House

Sign Keyphrase: My need to analyze, discriminate, and function efficiently

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Qualities of Virgo

Skillful Application

Practical, efficient, clear, analytical, dividing, differentiating, minute

Discriminating, discerning, precise, detailed, exacting, meticulous, dexterous, technical, fastidious, organized, economical

Disciplined, skillful, helpful, serving, dutiful, humble, conscientious, health-conscious, utilitarian, unselfish, sanitary

Unskillful Application

Petty, picky, trivial, skeptical, nitpicking

Can’t see the forest for the trees, critical, fault-finding, judgmental, perfectionistic, worrisome, lacking confidence