If you take a look at the chart for this Full Moon, turning it if necessary so the Moon is near the top, you might imagine the Moon resting at the tip of a mast.
This is a sailboat, the lines running down from the mast to the hull forming the Grand Trine in Earth that frames this Full Moon: The Moon in late Virgo trines Pluto in Capricorn and also its own North Node in Taurus. Heady anchors for a humble Moon like this one.
Under the hull of our Moon boat, we feel the turbulent waters of Pisces mixed in with some Aquarius and also a bit of Aries. There’s a lot of power here. These are not simple currents to navigate.
The Virgo Full Moon always opposes a Sun in Pisces. But this year, we have Neptune and Jupiter with the Sun and therefore part of the Full Moon. These two, the ancient and modern rulers of Pisces, are at home in the ocean. Stronger here. More creative. More magical. More confusing.
The waters are deeper, the tides stronger.
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Does the Moon in Virgo feel anxious, as Virgo sometimes can? Maybe. These last weeks, it’s been difficult at times to remember what day it is, or what I’m supposed to be doing, or even, at times, which reality I happen to be in. Hello, Pisces.
Somehow, though, and perhaps oddly, I see this Moon in Virgo as balanced. Calm. Ready to do what needs to be done.
Picture this Moon in Virgo as a pilot.
Now, the pilot’s traditional role was to guide a ship in or out of a tricky harbor, through difficult straits, or around treacherous rocks.
Often, pilots were locals, not sailors permanently on board the ship. They were hired because they knew the area well, like the back of their hand.
The pilot came aboard and directed the helmsman, watching the waters along the bow, looking for changes in color or the movement of currents and waves, to know when to adjust the course this way or that.
This kind of on-the-ground knowing is exactly what Virgo excels in. Virgo is the Earth sign ruled by Mercury. This is the sign of detailed knowing, hands-on knowing. Here we find skilled artisans. Knowledgeable guides. Excellent makers and doers. The sign of craft.
Virgo has these skills because Virgo pays attention to the details. Sometimes, Virgo can seem fussy, too particular, not seeing the forest for the trees. Yet, as they say, the devil is in the details, and Virgo knows this well.
It seems in the modern world, we’ve lost a sense of what detailed, on-the-ground knowing is like. The food we eat comes prepackaged and fully labeled. We don’t need to know how to tell one type of wheat from another, or when the best times to harvest might be. It’s all done for us, somewhere else.
This modernization has made life more efficient (a Virgo goal) but at the cost of some of Virgo’s core skills. Do you know where your drinking water comes from? Could you find your way out if you were lost in the woods? Would you be ok overnight in a wilderness if you had to be?
These questions might seem silly, old fashioned, almost a luxury. Today Virgo focuses on spreadsheets, accounting, and actuarial tables. And yet, we have lost a part of ourselves when we’re no longer connected to the land we live on, or the ecosystems that sustain us.
We’ve been floating in a Piscean ocean for weeks now. Tonight’s Virgo Moon is calling us home. Home to our bodies. Home to the land we came from. Home to the land we live on. Home to what we know in our bones and can feel in our hands.
The world today is filled with signs of change. Not little adjustments, but big changes. Epochal changes. These are also reflected in the Full Moon chart.
The Moon trines Pluto and the North Node. There is flow here, connection. This Moon stands ready to facilitate deep changes that will carry forward into the future. What’s more, this Moon knows in her bones that these deep changes can only come about through action. Not words or ideas, but action, things people do in real time, on the ground, with stuff.
This readiness is not something the Moon can easily put into words. We’re not in talkative Gemini right now, but instead in quiet Virgo. Here what we know is in our hands. Hands that can feel the pulse of change moving through the ground. Feel that life going forward will be different.
Not everyone is totally on board with change. Venus at 11 Aquarius has finally emerged from her long, long retrograde. But I don’t think she has fully processed everything that happened. At the Full Moon, Venus squares Uranus in Taurus, resisting both the need to change, and the need to get down on the ground to do it.
Venus is also sextile Chiron the wounded healer in Aries. We are in touch with at least some of our wounding. We can move forward with some kinds of healing. But that square to Uranus might point to lingering resistance, to the idea that it’s going to be too hard and not worth it.
And yet, that Moon. I’m finishing up this essay quite late. The Moon is already high in the sky, not quite full, but almost. This Moon knows things. We might need to be still and quiet to learn from this Moon. I think the effort could be well worth it.
There’s an old story about skill and its value.
A vast ocean liner was in trouble. Somewhere in the warren of engines, turbines, screws, and navigational devices, something was very wrong. None of the usual mechanics could sort it out. Hours and hours had already been spent trying. And time was money.
Someone remembered a retired, expert mechanic who lived nearby. He was a magician with the inner workings of great ships. Surely he could help.
The expert arrived. He listened to the sounds of the ailing engines. He walked slowly to a particular spot. He took out a hammer. He tapped a pipe, just once.
Suddenly, all was well. Everything ran just as it was meant to. The captain and other top brass were jubilant. They thanked the expert and asked what he needed.
“That’ll be a thousand dollars,” he said.
They were aghast. “It took you five minutes and only one tap!”
“Well,” said the expert, “that’ll be $5.00 for the tap, and $995.00 for knowing where to tap.”
I’m suggesting that if we can follow the Full Moon in Virgo to find that place of inner balance, of inner knowing, we too will know where to tap.
Title adapted from Marcelo Cidrack
https://unsplash.com/photos/7jZNgIuJrCM
Craft image adapted from Dominik Scythe
https://unsplash.com/photos/3cIvvzjE6Lk
Forest image adapted from Casey Horner
https://unsplash.com/photos/D4TooCIEyF4