Virgo - Last Days of Summer

Imagine a soft cool color palette - cool blue, sage green, lavender, dusty pink, soft yellow, ash brown…
Imagine a cool misty morning in the garden - there's something magical about it. The scene looks fuzzy and unrefined like it was painted in the impressionist style. 
Imagine a perfect sunny day in September. The sun is warm and soothing, it lacks its intensity.   
Virgo season comes at the time when slow summer days are giving way to a busy hectic fall energy of schedules, spreadsheets, deadlines and responsibilities - the melancholy of the last days of summer, the excitement of the 1st school day, this is the Virgo season. The vitality of the sun is declining. Virgo marks the division between the seasons – summer and fall but it also signifies the onset of the dark part of the year when days are getting shorter and we´re slowly drawing into the comfort of our homes, turning our attention inwards.

Change of seasons. The uncertainty of what’s to come. The ending of something old and the beginning of something new. But what does it look like when you’re going from one phase to the next? You know this is ending, things are coming apart, you can’t truly go back to what was, yet you can’t fully arrive at a new space and inhabit it comfortably. There is a constant motion, you can’t grasp it. You have to constantly fiddle around trying to figure out where you are, what to do and what is asked of you right at this very moment. Things are constantly shifting.

There is an aching for what was, what you just left, like you lost something that was perfect - pure, without a blemish, something you will be always drawn to. But Virgo cannot stay in that space, she has to get her feet wet at some point. Virgo represents the courage to go through a rite of passage from a young carefree girl to an adult woman who can take responsibility for her decisions. She’s seen, a lot, but despite of that, she can still maintain a perspective of a youthful maiden. 

A moment of severing is part of her journey. She has to sacrifice her virginity, to sever herself from the idyllic days of summer, to go through a transformation process so that she can enter a new phase of life. She arrives at the threshold. She has been changed by this experience. She can never go back to her old self, she is now in a new role. Through this challenge, she has gained a deeper understanding, she has grown and matured. There are new responsibilities that come with this new stage of life. But even though she is fully settled in the adulthood stage, she keeps returning to the life she’s left behind. Despite the innocence she´s lost, she stays the eternal, youthful maiden, „one unto herself“. No matter how often she puts on her angelic wings, her place is here on Earth. She feels the gravitational pull drawing her back to earth at all times.

She is „driven“ by necessity. She is here to make difficult choices, to do the work. She is firmly set in time, she knows how precious it is. Sunlight is decreasing, darkness is rising, cold days are coming. Virgo is known as a harvest maiden carrying a shaft of wheat. She must harvest and preserve what's grown and matured to sustain life during the cold period of scarcity that is coming. She needs to take her sickle often and cut off what’s dead and barren to preserve life. Sacrifice is a necessary part of her undertaking. She is skilled at making the hard choices.

She knows this is the end of the cycle, everything is returning back to the earth to be decomposed. She is constantly preparing for the future, considering what is necessary and possible to do in a limited time.

She has to make the best of what she has. She exercises a never-ending effort. Her work is never finished. Things will fall apart before the order is achieved. It´s like a futile effort to keep the home clean. You clean the entrance way and five minutes later there are muddy footprints. Endless house chores that often go unnoticed and unappreciated by others yet they are necessary to keep the chaos in check.  

Virgo carries both light and darkness within her. Virgo is a symbol of eternal freshness and youth but at the same time the weight that comes with responsibility (for the harvest) and the necessity of a mature, sober approach to life.

Dark undercurrents are inhabiting Virgo´s psyche, she wears a melancholic veil as Father time is her close companion. Patience and perseverance will accomplish all things.
 
Keep hope alive, keep dreaming.
Petra