In a hopefully valiant effort to confront more of what is “negative” or “excessive” in my own natal chart, I have decided to analyze all that is overly Virgo or Virgonic in me, and then, perhaps, to expand from there to other signs in the future. This effort, is, of course, timely, because we in the western hemisphere have now entered into the time of Virgo -- that pristine patch of sharp light, titillating early evening coolness, and strange aloneness that heralds in the arrival of the fall season and the month of September, a fairly definitive end of summer methinks. I think Don Henley’s lyrics from “The Boys of Summer” make the statement best about the change in seasons: “Empty street, empty lake; the sun goes down alone.” I would make the argument that there is a collective aloneness of spirit that strikes all of us as the supple richness of summer begins to slowly wane as the nights turn longer and colder. The sunlight is no longer as brilliant and forceful as it was, in say, mid-July. The cooler air is intoxicating now yet it comes with the inherent sadness that new growth has died and even old growth will even soon be trampled underfoot with the coming of the falling leaves. And what was the summer that just passed about anyway? Many of us can’t remember it that clearly. The Virgoan heart both yearns for the fecundity of summer and for the bounty arriving at the end of the summer’s abundance – it is an impossible emotional resting place to be even for a mutable sign. As crickets cry out in the night there rises a feeling of panicky sadness and delight – such is the complicated change of seasons in the Virgoan heart. The time before Libra and October arrives is unique –in any shape or form it seems quite virginal and pure.
Perhaps a few of us have already even dreamed about the approaching snow. I know that I did just the other night – and it wasn’t pretty! I found myself shivering on and off for the entire day upon awakening.
This summer, having recently acquired my exact birth time from the City of New York through the correct forms and pleas (Thanks Laurie!), it appears that in my natal chart I have 3 planets in Virgo. That’s a lot of Virgo! In fact, in taking a look at my entire natal chart it would appear that I am mostly “Libra and Virgo” – doomed to balance and analyze I am! I would venture to say that this is not an easy chart to come to terms with. It is here that I have some self-loathing suddenly coming out because I realize that there is a prissiness and fastidiousness to me that is unyielding and un-repentant. Yeah, I have plenty of Virgo in me, but how does this manifest itself?
Well, the apartment has to be vacuumed a certain way and the bathroom needs to always be clean (usually, I take care of it, so the wife doesn’t have to go crazy). I am always taking vitamins and obsessing about what I am eating. I hate the thought of aging and I often have an upset stomach from all of the vitamins that I consume. Though I wish it were not so, it would seem that this is very much a part of who I am as a human being. It would seem that I desire things to be a certain “correct” way at all times and if they are not I am distressed. Here, then, is the Virgo in me coming out daily as regularly as you please. I want things orderly and neat. OK, I admit it! Dishes in the sink seem almost lethal.
This month’s posting comes with a scalding confession from me: I have always been a bit annoyed by sun in Virgo people as a result of their nitpicking and their difficult personas of “exactaholicism” and constant criticism. My wife is Virgo rising and her laser-like fault finding freaks me out to no end. How strange, then, to discover that as I am in the world either when teaching English class, or playing guitar, bass , tennis, or cleaning the apartment that I, too, am displaying this same exacting quality. I suppose now is the time to really come clean (HaHa!), then, and to send out an apology to all Virgos everywhere that you are all part of me and I am sorry if I felt somehow better than you. The truth is that I suck! I nitpick and get lost in systemologies just as much as you do and I point the finger at those who are less than exacting. Hello Pot – This is Kettle.
Another confession I must make to all my readers (if there actually are any of you out there) is that my Virgoan nature has been under scrutiny by various psychologists for over a decade now. In my therapists’ offices always I am told to FEEL instead of to analyze, yet in my early home life I was taught to be exclusively rational as a child and not to feel and this has created some problems for me that have followed me around all the way into the present day. During all of those years of therapy I simply could have turned to my healer of the moment and said: “Dude, I have three planets in Virgo. It is very hard for me to stop analyzing and to start feeling. Please show me some clear techniques for transcending this block. If I combine that all with the Libra in my moon and sun… most all emotion escapes me! Can’t we all just get along?!”
Well, trained analysts don’t like to deal with astrology during their appointments ... at least not usually (secretly I am glad of this fact), so often I am met with some bewilderment about my strange New Age views.
But I do know myself today better than ever before. Not only does Virgo analyze, but there is also a kind of cold and mutable sense to the analysis: “If I had the power … I could make this better by doing this ______ “(fill in the blank). “Indeed, this should always be done like this ________.”
“On the other hand, let’s change it to this _____________.”
Strangely, since Virgo has a mutable quality to it there is no fear in changing direction and analyzing the next minutiae that comes into view out of the rear view mirror. Indeed, the Virgonic view of the world and universe tends to intersect with the reductivist idea of Occam’s razor: All should be reduced to the simplest level in order to guarantee truth and goodness. In this way I feel that Virgoan wisdom is indeed profound. There is a Zen-like focus to the entire approach: Boom! This is happening right now and here are the basic parts to the phenomena; let’s analyze it all down right now and get it right!
Since I have put up Charlie “Yard Bird” Parker’s picture up for this month’s blog, I feel that I should say a few words about Mr. Parker. He was the hippest of the hip in Jazz -- yet he was analyzing things all the time -- how could he have been such a laidback cool cat, then, and a Jazz icon at the same time? I mean analyzing things endlessly is really square, right? Well, this is a difficult piece in the Virgo principle to deal with indeed. My hypothesis is that Bird knew the mechanics of the vibrational universe and that he was simply tickled by it – there was no need to ANALYZE further; Bird maybe analyzed where Max Roach or Bud Powell were going on any given night in order to get the groove right, but that was the extent of it. End of story. Bird was probably at the zenith of Virgonic wisdom and suddenly all had been reduced to its smallest parts and coefficients and the cosmos played perfect music that came out of Bird’s alto on command – even the plastic one!
Another Virgoan by the name of Goethe wrote brilliantly and pointedly in any number of disciplines and it seems quite easy to see where the gifts of analyzing with prowess could produce a transcendent work like Faust taking on the task of explaining the very phenomenology of good and evil in a narrative. This is no small feat.
Finally, though, the female Virgo is somehow supposed to be chaste, they are also often knockouts and the true movie beauties! Lauren Bacall, Sophia Loren, Salma Hayek, Amy Winehouse – all born in the time of the corn maiden. Beauty like that must indeed be perfectionistic because these women of movies and song certainly seem as if designed by Aphrodite herself. All of them, though, have the bug of a loner in them that must be appeased from time to time. Needle-like perfectionism on occasion needs to be able to take some time off. Yet after the vacation, the precise Virgoan is ready to serve others once again whether it be through the stinging licks of guitarist Joe Perry of the rock band Aerosmith or through the twang of Shania Twain’s voice. Virgo gets it done right and dots the I’s and the T’s in the process.
