It’s Virgo season, and the New Moon in Virgo is on Saturday, conjunct my North Node/Mars in the 6th house, so I’m looking forward to it. There’s a lot of work to be done on me, a lot of work to be done in general, and Virgo season is around the time I start to come alive again. I have put my astrology career on hold for the last six months, and we’ll see how things go, but so far, I’ve accomplished a lot of personal work that I don’t think I could have done juggling two careers.

One of the things I think about now is what I want and need. I’m so used to helping other people with what they want so much, both in my professional and personal life, and when you’re raised to take care of someone else who can never be satisfied, it’s hard to get over that early conditioning. I understand what my doctor says, too: even if I want to take this time for myself, my biological clock is ticking, but I can’t help but wonder if it would just be more of the same old shit if I worried more about being punctual than being healthy.

A Virgo dilemma, no?

The Forgotten Mutable Seasons

Virgo season is the last month of summer, but you wouldn’t know that if you went shopping. Everything summer has made way for everything autumn, and I get it: Virgo is the season of preparing for fall, the season of the harvest so we can survive winter’s barren days. But it’s not autumn yet. Here in the prairie, there’s phlox blooming, aster, and black-eyed susans. There are sunflowers and squash blossoms, but there are no squash, and the apples and pears aren’t ripe yet. It is still very much summer.

But when you think about it, Gemini is still very much spring, but many schools are out for the summer, and people are focused on the hot weather, the sunshine, and the promise of relaxing by the beach or the pool. Pisces is still very much winter but people are focusing on spring arriving – and depending on where you’re living – Easter, planting, and finally getting out of those protective warm layers. Sagittarius is still very much autumn and always contains American Thanksgiving, the national harvest holiday, but commercially, it’s Christmas season. Of course, depending on where you live in the Northern Hemisphere, the weather may betray you. In the Northern part of the United States where I live, Pisces season isn’t often the slow retreat of winter you expect it to be, Sagittarius season already has snow (and growing up in Central New York in the 80s, Scorpio season already had snow), Gemini season can be very sunny and warm like summer, and right now in Virgo, it’s 80 degrees in the afternoon with summer rain.

But even still – the mutable seasons are when we pine away for the next season, even though these should be the seasons in which re-acquaint ourselves with the wonders of nature.

The nature-loving signs include three of the mutable signs – Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces, with the latter two preferring unmanicured and wild nature to controlled and purposeful nature. It’s not that Virgo isn’t for the forest, but rather, the forest for the trees: this forest preserve for the people, this prairie of flowers for the bees, this meadow for the deer, this river for the irrigation, this field for the crops, this orchard for the fruit, this row of bushes and trees for the privacy. But what is interesting about Virgoean purpose as opposed to the other Earth signs, Taurus and Capricorn especially, is that Virgoean purpose is mutable:

As it is, there is a purpose: it is not the spoon that bends, but you that is bending.

For example, Taurus would look at a backyard and plant flowers and vegetables, tilling the land, fertilizing the soil and even replacing the top soil if needed, and tending those flowers and vegetables for a good harvest, and Capricorn would look at the yard and try to figure out the best use of the land, whatever it is, and build a patio to suit the Air BNB in the tiny house in the backyard and whatever will last, whether it be perennials, trees, or a rock garden, and still look good. On the other hand, Virgo would look at the yard and say “okay, what do I got?” and work with that. Clay soil? Tomatoes are a no-go in this ground, but what about some brussels sprouts and squash then? Why take down all the sugar maples along the property line just to get more sunshine for a few watermelon when you now have a free source of maple syrup year after year? And why mow down all the wildflowers when I can simply get a beehive? Sure, I’ll mow and keep it all in good working order, but that’s the key: this yard is now a well-oiled machine.

And it’s hard to love nature if you don’t respect it. One of the things I’ve learned is that the people I knew who were the most controlling didn’t like nature. They didn’t like being outside. I’m not saying they had to go live in a tent with me and bathe in streams and hunt their own food, but they couldn’t stand a day at the beach, or a hike in a forest, or just sitting in a backyard in the sun and enjoying it. They also didn’t like it for nature to simply be: wild animals pissed them off, country drives were insanely boring, and food that didn’t come from a can or a box was poison to them. Snow and rain were infuriating personal offenses, and the changing colors of the autumn leaves depressing.

But what I found that they prefer is power over everything – nature, people, processes – and because you really can’t have power over nature, they hated it. Everything needed to be predictable. You can’t control the weather. You can’t control the network of roots under the ground because they will find a way. One blueberry in this pint might be sweet, another sour, another squishy, another snappy, but that’s part of the fun of eating fruit.

So as I get older and realize what I like, what’s important, and what’s good, I don’t think I’ll ever again consider a man who doesn’t like nature.

But oddly enough, as much as Virgo likes order, it doesn’t necessarily like control. It will not force something to bend to its will because the real power is using what you have. Pisces doesn’t want control either – it wants to be carried upon the waves of all the forces in the universe. Gemini doesn’t want control because that’s a singular focus and what’s really important is all the components and variables leading the way and shaping the path. Sagittarius doesn’t want control because the sword of Damocles is easy to see from the bird’s eye view of things.

A Virgo Solution: Student Loan Forgiveness

I’m excited for this. Yes, I already paid back my undergraduate loans, and frankly, $10,000 isn’t much off my law school loans, but I’m glad that young people will be able to get out of from under school debt. And no, I don’t feel cheated because I paid my undergraduate loans. That was the naughts, and my loans weren’t that high and my husband I had good jobs at young ages so we could pay the loans off comfortably – and I paid mine off a scant fifteen years ago, so the fact that the landscape has changed this much is just too fucking alarming. Of course, it doesn’t forgive private loans, but it’s a start.

It is easier to forgive student loans that it is to collect them. It costs less to forgive student loans than it costs to collect them. It is better for the economy to forgive student loans than it is to enforce them.

The Virgo solution? Forgive them. Or at least some of them. And put off payments for a while longer while people get used to the idea of having to figure out how to budget for that again, especially people who are still recovering from the economic pitfalls of the pandemic.

And I know what you’re about to say:

iF yOu TaKe A lOaN yOu HaVe To PaY iT bAcK, and to that, I say fuck off, Karen: you have already benefited from the student loan crisis and you continue to do so, so now it’s the students’ turns to benefit.

How did you benefit? That very service and gig economy that forced young people to go to college to attempt to climb out of poverty because minimum wage is still $7.25 on a national level, that created menial workers out of both college dropouts and college graduates, is the reason you can sit your fat ass in your car, blocking traffic to get your diarrhea water from Starbucks. It’s the reason you can actually afford to pay someone to clean your house every Monday, to have someone come build your Ikea furniture, to rake your leaves. It’s the reason you can go to Walmart and buy a bunch of cheap plastic autumn decorations when it’s still fucking summer. It’s the reason that you can open countless apps to order food delivered to your home. It’s the reason you can go to customer service at Target and return pretty much anything even when you know deep down it’s not returnable. You get the convenience of service because of the low wages and the gatekeeping of good jobs. You benefit from the student loan crisis without ever having to crack a book or take an exam.

You know – the very people you relied on to allow you to keep safe during the pandemic? The essential workers who worked at the grocery store, the gas station, the pizza place? Those people have student loans, too.

And yes: education is priceless. And that degree, or those college credits. And no, no one should have their degree “revoked” if they don’t pay their loans, because that’s not how student loans work or college degrees work, dumbass. But in the end, if you pay for a degree in something you’re good at in order to get a job doing something you’re good at in order to contribute to society and bolster this American Supremacy dream we still have, but you can’t because of the pay and the gatekeeping, then everyone suffers.

And it’s not enough to tell kids to go become welders and electricians instead: the dream of American Supremacy is rooted in Best and Brightest, not in Those Who Could Afford It. It is rooted in transcending class, not solidifying them. I should not be a welder or an electrician. I should have a white collar job. That’s what I’m good at, that’s what I’m suited for. Someone will get hurt if I’m an electrician or a welder. I don’t like the idea of risking a work-related injury and going on disability for the rest of my life. And growing up poor, I was often told to manage my expectations for myself and for my life, that having a steady job, a running car, clothes that fit, and an apartment should be good enough for me seeing where I came from. But I floundered in every service and blue collar job that I had because I’m just not good at that stuff, leading to a lot of pissed-off Karens and managers who couldn’t figure out why “because I’m the manager” wasn’t motivating, because the way you become the manager of a Perkins is simply in not moving on to something else.

But Virgo is service. Virgo is the hidden people. Virgo is the judge’s clerk. Virgo is the accountant making it possible for the executive producer to finance the film. Virgo is the dietician and the personal trainer behind the supermodel. [Virgo is the plastic surgeon behind the supermodel, too.] Virgo is the photoshop, the facetune, the fitness app, the calculator.

Virgo is the accountant. Virgo is counting the beans. Virgo is saying look, between the mortgage, the kids, the medical bills, the commute, and the student loans, something has to give, and I’m doing the best I can to make the numbers work, but to perfect this balance, something needs to go.

Student loans need to go. At one time, they were a good idea, but not long ago 1) tuition wasn’t outrageous, 2) people without degrees could earn a living wage so they didn’t feel compelled to go to college, 3) starting salaries also provided a living wage for college graduates, and 4) starting jobs didn’t demand more expertise and more experience that they were a) willing to pay for and b) could reasonably expect from an entry-level job.

There’s also a mistaken belief that debt is set in stone, and you must pay, one way or the other. Now, that’s ironic, seeing as how most of conservative America is Judeo-Christian, and those guys believe that humanity has an unpaid debt to Skydaddy that can never be paid, and many of those people think that Skydaddy became an avatar of himself specifically to pay that debt…so isn’t it Christ-like to “forgive your debtors as I have forgiven you,” just as the Lord’s Prayer says?

But as we know, the true God of America is Mammon dressed as Jesus for Halloween to spook the kids who come to the door with their hands out. Sure, on other days, he dresses as a house cat and calls himself a libertarian, and other days, he puts on his $100 leggings and calls himself “spiritual,” and on other days, he wears a red cap and calls himself a truthseeker, but his usual get up is the beard and robe.

But hey – I get $10k knocked off my student loans, they won’t keep growing despite me paying them down, and I get another four months to pay down other debts so as to make my payments more affordable so I don’t have to make career decisions that aren’t in my best interests.

Late Summer New Moon in Virgo

I’m excited! No, really. It’s going to be a nice new beginning for me karmically and energy-wise, will-wise. The will to do, that is (the will to be is the sun, and the will to become is the Sun-Mars combo). I’m still going to work on me, but I think this is a good time diet, exercise, hygiene, and health, but also a good time to start simplifying things.

Actually, all new moons in Virgo are a good time to close out Leo things and begin Virgo things. Less focus on the ego, the need to be seen, the growing of that warming fire, and more focus on how you how you maintain the hearth’s fire, how you keep the fire from leaping out of the hearth and setting the entire house ablaze, for a fire is good for warmth, for food, for forging, for sanitizing and many other things, but what good is a fire to a person if the fire consumes them and everything they have?

At the time, Venus in Leo will be making an opposition to Saturn in Aquarius and a square to Uranus, making for a grand trine in the fixed signs, and Mercury in Libra will make an opposition to Jupiter in Aries, which is far less tense than the prior aspect. Of course, there’s trines and sextiles, but I’m focusing on the big stuff.

That T-square is already happening, and it’s interesting to have Uranus at the apex because it’s a wild card. All Venus-Saturn aspects seek predictability and clearly-defined roles in relationships, whether it be love, business, or existential. Here, the tension is between the desire for harmony and peace with who one thinks they are and wants to be and how they put themselves out in the world with how the world appears to be now and in the future. It could certainly have to do with personal relationships, especially if this is landing in your relationship houses, but moreover, there’s a desire to know where you stand now and in the future and how do you do better in order to find favor with the gods. Will you disappear into obscurity? Will the climate crisis make you one of the unlucky ones who loses your home or starves to death? And does any of the bullshit distractions matter: what’s the point of curating that perfect selfie, wearing those perfect ass-lifting pants, and creating the perfect dating profile, if we’re destroying the planet and civilization crumbles? Or do we take our pleasures while we still have them because the only thing we have is the present, and if it’s not so bad, why not enjoy it?

And then take that opposition and have Uranus the referee between the two of them. First, Uranus is a shitty referee. At the apex of a T-square, the only way it creates any balance is to 1) destroy either option, and 2) ignore either option and do what it wants. In Taurus, Uranus at the apex of this T-square is going to look at Saturn and Venus and then say “fuck it” and do what feels good despite everyone else. It’s a good time to get off social media. It’s a good time to ignore advertising. It’s a good time to ignore other people. And why not stay home? Figure out how much you pay in rent every day and rediscover how nice it is to be comfortable, because it may take less than you previously thought, or it may be something you didn’t think you’d appreciate as much as you do now…

…like quiet time in nature, which now seems like a radical position. I am one of many people who is wondering how I can move out to somewhere more rural but also not red state, and I know that Colorado and Vermont are going to fill up quickly faster than you can spray paint “gentrification” on the side of an abandoned factory.

Virgo is about perfection – not about being perfect in the eyes of of the world, but of getting rid of the extraneous things that distract us from what is valuable, of cleaning and mending what you already have, in order to perfect something. Perfection is an ongoing process, a routine, a habit – you can clean your home once or twice a year, but eventually, the lack of regular upkeep shows in stains and decay. You can start a diet, but can you maintain healthy eating because you desire it? You can get a gym membership, but can you get exercise because you want to do so?

And it’s not just about health and routines, but this New Moon is a good time to take all this energy and make healthy, quiet decisions that are good for you because they help you get back in touch with nature and with your priorities, regardless of what’s being thrown at you by your various screens all day. It’s also a nice time for “quiet quitting,” the somehow radical act of doing only the job you were hired to do and are being paid for, and with circumventing the powers that be in order to do what’s actually fair and right

And that’s what witches do, and Virgo, I think, is the official start of witch season.

Get to brewing something in those cauldrons.