New Moon 4º Virgo Saturday August 27 2:17 am MT

This new moon sits with sun at 4º of Virgo. Virgo, mutable earth, marks the time of harvest, the point of the year where summer bends toward fall, and we gather and sort the wheat from the chaff. Virgo carries these energies of discernment and discrimination, determining what is worth saving and what needs to be discarded.

In the spring of Aries, the beginning of the zodiacal year, we plant the seeds of intention—our new projects, ideas, visions, iterations of our dreams and ourselves. In the depths of spring, Taurus season, the fecund earth warms and opens, shoots sprout from the soil, we embody, we indulge. By Gemini season, as spring turns to summer, a variety of flowers bloom, distracting us in a million directions, buzzing like bees. Cancer season comes as summer takes hold, and we nurture and nourish the creations we’ve chosen to commit to. In the deep heat of Leo’s summer, we celebrate, play and relax in our abundance.

And when Virgo arrives, it brings with it the first cool currents of fall, the evening temperatures shift, the first whispers of what will come. It is the time where we begin to ready ourselves, again, for the coming of winter. We gather the harvest, sort and decide—we must choose wisely what will sustain us through the time of scarcity.

Virgo season is a great time for planning, preparing and discerning what can stay and what must go. It’s productive for cleaning, clearing, sorting and organizing. And most years, the new moon in Virgo is a lovely time for setting intentions and following through with routines and practices.

This year, this moon is in a more sticky position (like so much of the astrology this year, I’m sorry…) and rather than setting intentions, I’ll be focusing on the clearing and cleansing energy of Virgo. But more on that after we break this lunation down.

The sun and moon sit together at 4º Virgo, in an exact square with the planet Mars (4º Gemini). Mars is aggression, action, cutting, separating—and right now it’s in tense conversation with our identity and ego (the sun) as well as our emotions and unconscious (the moon). This creates, as you might imagine a lot of tension, irritation and discomfort. If you’re feeling this way, or noticing it around you, try to bring patience and cooling where you can.

This moon is likely to create a feeling of needing to act… immediately. But impulsivity and knee-jerk reactions won’t serve us right now. Nearly all of the outer planets are in retrograde motion, and Mercury is in its shadow before it stations retrograde September 9. This, plus the Virgo energy, asks us to review, rethink, use discernment, wait…

It’s very easy, and tempting, to feel like everything is an emergency that must be done yesterday. But that energy can come back to bite us if we’re not careful. Tread carefully, take your time, edit, re-edit, and know you will probably edit again when Mercury tracks back over this territory of the sky during its retrograde.

Try not to make the big decisions in this moment, if you can avoid it, but focus rather on getting organized, cleaning and clearing, and gentle self-care. Organize your desk, clear out your closet, scrub your floors, salt baths, salt baths, salt baths!

This is a time for focusing on the small things, the little details—and hopefully not in a perfectionistic way (which Virgo energies can incline toward), but in a way in which we can take comfort in them, perhaps find some calm.

Virgo is the sign of the Virgin, the one whole unto herself and devoted to honoring the goddess. Use this time to find small moments and rituals of devotion—to yourself, to the work you want to do in the world, to the earth, and to your understanding of god/dess, spirit, source itself.

There is a lot of tension, change and upheaval (remember the Uranus/North Node conjunction and the Uranus-Saturn square I wrote about last time?). We’re going through big, personal and collective shifts—battles between the old and new, the status quo and revolution. It’s big work, y’all. And it won’t happen all at once. Go easy. Each small step matters.

I, for one, have encountered a lot of upheaval and change this year—some of it I’ve been working toward, and some of it caught me blindsided. But in all cases, I keep finding myself wanting to fast forward to the “end,” to know how it all turns out.

I want to skip over the pain and tumult of change, the process of healing, rebuilding, of trying again. I want to know the instability will pass and I’ll find solid ground. But in this urge to jump to the future, to predict the ending—how much do I miss?

Life is happening now, here. In these small moments of the mundane, the little glimmers of sunlight through the window crack. This present I want to run away from is everything there is.

And there’s some magic, some powerful medicine in the places of insecurity, of not knowing—life feels richer, maybe, more alive, when you’re not sure what’s coming next. When your foot is on the cliff’s edge and you have no other choice, but to dig deep as you can into the edges of your faith, stretch and push them a little further, claw into some belief you didn’t know you had.

And maybe it won’t all turn out alright. Or not how you wanted it to. Maybe there will be suffering, grief, loss, more instability, more change. And maybe, perhaps, your strength will grow deeper, your power will pull to the surface. Maybe you will gain or discover something in yourself, or in the world, you’d never even been able to imagine before.

I don’t know… I’m just here, at the precipice, waiting to see.

New Moon in Virgo Creative Ritual

1. Clean your space. If this feels overwhelming, choose one area or thing to clean. Particularly something that will feel connected to your creativity. Clear and organize your desk. Organize your art supplies. Or clean your studio or bedroom. Sweep (or vacuum) the floors.

2. Smudge the space with dried herbs of your choosing. I’ve been into rosemary and pine. Diffusing essential oils can also work.

3. Sprinkle a small pile of salt in each corner of the room or space you’ve cleared, for purification, protection and cleansing.

4. Light a white or blue candle.

5. Meditate or focus on your breath for a few moments.

6. Now focus on your heart space. Imagine it as a physical place, a cozy room, a cave, an grove a trees. Whatever comes to you that feels safe, warm and protected.

7. In your mind, cleanse this space, with herb smoke, with sound, with salt, with golden light.

8. Stay in this space as long as you’d like.

9. Still feeling your heart, consider, what are three things I would like to see change in myself, in my creative work, in my relationships, in my life, or in the larger world. Go with your heart, these can be big or small, personal or collective. If your heart feels it, it matters.

9. When you’re ready, open your eyes and write down the three things.

10. Then write three, small and doable action steps you could do in the next two weeks that would be a step toward making these things closer to reality. Do these three steps. No matter how small. They matter.