Virgo New Moon– 2023

By Tracy Cook

Where should my focus be during this next 29-day cycle? 

When we draft a chart for the new moon, we get a sense of the energy that will be up for processing for the next 29 days.  

Okay what is this cycle about?   Keep your head down and do the work.  You will be surprised by what you accomplish at the end of the cycle.  

Virgo New Moon 

September 14, 2023

6:39pm PDT

21 Virgo 59  

Welcome to the 2023 Virgo New Moon. 

The bigness, the drama and the boldness of Leo is in our rearview mirror.    Now we are at Virgo.  Instead of big, Virgo looks at details.  Virgo discerns.   Virgo looks around the joint and says how can we do more with less?   Virgo focuses on every minute, every hour and every day and gives it a critical eye.  Are we being efficient?   Can we do better?   Is this really working?  Virgo oversees the daily routines of life.   

Virgo is the Virgin.  In our modern world we use the word virgin to speak of one who has not had sexual intercourse or a wider interpretation, it is a person who has not done or experienced something.  But in the ancient world, Virgin was much more elevated than a chaste human.  For example, Vestal Virgins spoke of a whole class of people who were devoted to a task.   These women never married or had a family and instead oversaw the sacred fires of Rome.   Vestal Virgins kept the fires burning.   They sacrificed a lot for the community, and they were elevated in society and held in awe.  Ancient Rome understood that Virgo is connected to service that knits together the very fabric of society.    

The 29-day Virgo lunar cycle is an excellent cycle, perhaps the best to start a new diet or new exercise routine.  Virgo is medicine.  This is an excellent time to set medical appointments.  Even if the date falls out of the Virgo cycle, just making the appointment speaks to the power of Virgo.   Paying bills, setting appointments with the accountant will scratch Virgo’s itch for duty and diligence.   Being of service to others and self are important.   In the northern hemisphere Virgo connects to harvest season.  This is when we separate the wheat from the chaff.  Seed and chaff separation is critical because to process and eat the grain kernel the inedible hull needs to be removed.   We have the eye during this 29-days to remove that which no longer serves us.  

While Virgo spends most of its time being practical it can get off track. Virgo, who is forever polishing and improving has in its core a baked in anxiety and insecurity.  This is why it is always futzing.  The problem is when the insecurity overrides all other impulses causing the brain to get stuck.   Virgo on the fritz has low productivity and gets stuck in a logic loop.    If any of us, during this 29-day cycle, feel we are in a tizzy and looking to fix something that is perhaps not broken, then we should take breaks, focus on breathing, perhaps get out and move the body or maybe quiet the body.   Even taking off our shoes and feeling the ground with our feet can help us get out of our heads.   Thankfully, Virgo understands timing and we may learn the power of scheduled breaks.    

Zeroing in on the new moon chart, the Sun and the Moon are in a tight trine with Uranus and a wider trine with Pluto and Jupiter.  Uranus is king of the weird and any stuff that comes from out of the blue.   As we focus on fixing stuff like our health, our accounting, our homes, something totally random may come in that is helpful.   It may seem odd but if there is a ping inside you that this could be an opportunity then consider taking it.     Since the planet Jupiter brings abundance and Pluto is transformative, they may be there to help Uranus land its odd opportunity.   Keep your radar up for weird and random.   

Also, in the chart we have Sun/Moon opposite Neptune.  This is a challenging aspect because Neptune in Pisces is far from fact finding.   Neptune uses intuition and Pisces uses feelings to get through the day.   The work for us will be to stay on task, find facts and organize details of our daily life but when Neptune brings his mysterious veil and we can’t do/get/find what we want and anxiety creeps up then the question is, what do we do?  Do we collapse? Do we get into that Virgo tizzy?  Do we freeze?  As indicated above, there is power in taking breaks.   But also, the challenge of Neptune in Pisces opposite Sun/Moon in Virgo reminds me of the expression, “There are no atheists in a fox hole.”   Perhaps the lesson is to come up with a new routine that gets us through high anxiety that is informed by spirituality, meditation, faith or even prayer.   Arguably Virgo is not what one calls a believer.  If you can’t see, hear, touch it, then Virgo questions it.   But this 29-day cycle with such a pronounced Neptune suggests we may need to figure a process that helps us understand that which can’t be understood.   Not from a philosophical place but put in a real-world practice.   Perhaps some will think that it is time to finally sign up for that yoga class or meditation youtube lesson.   

Mercury is the ruling planet of Virgo and at any Virgo New Moon we are informed by looking at the quality of Mercury in the chart.  In this case, Mercury is not in aspect to any planet, but it is retrograde along with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.  That’s a lot of retrograde.   This suggests that we won’t have all the answers, or all the results and things may be slow to unfold.  But even if they are, we still benefit by going long with Virgo’s desire to serve, be disciplined, cut the chaff, seek facts, dot I’s cross T’s.   Keep our head down, do the work and yes, we’ll be learning a lot about trust, and we certainly will be test driving patience.  Luckily Jupiter, Pluto and Uranus are there to help us, even if they are retrograde.  

Mercury 

Sep 15:      Mercury station direct 8 Virgo 00

Sep 29:      Mercury shadow ends 

Mercury does not turn direct until the day after the Virgo new moon.   Once it turns direct, we would be well served to reflect what the last three weeks did to our detailed-oriented brain.  Did we rise to the occasion, or did sloppiness get in our way?   Is there stuff that now needs cleaning up?  Did any perceived kerfuffle turn out to help us?  What details need following up?  Can we use this Virgo new moon to do follow up work?  

Looking back on our calendar and schedule (Virgo’s domain) how did we spend our time?  Was it well served?  Or on reflection did it seem like we wasted time and would have been better served choosing another response or action?   Perhaps we learned something about our goals that got lost in the summer but now on the other side of the Mercury retrograde we are reconnected with a new discipline.  

Mercury in Virgo is always fine tuning us.     Let’s use it.  

Venus 

June 5 :              Venus enter Leo 

June 5 :              Venus oppose Pluto 00 degrees 05 

June 8 :              Venus square nodes  3 degrees 05

June 11 :            Venus square Jupiter 5 degrees 38 

June 19 :            Venus enter shadow 

July 2:                Venus square Uranus 21 degrees 46

July 22              Venus retrograde 28 Leo 36

Aug 9:                 Venus square Uranus 22 degrees 55

Aug 13:              Sun Venus conjunction 20 degrees 28 

Aug 22:              Venus square Jupiter 15 degrees 18 

Sept 3                 PDT  Venus direct  12 degrees 12 

Sept 16:             Venus square Jupiter 15 degrees 19

Sept 29:             Venus square Uranus 22 degrees 40

Oct 7                   Venus exits shadow 

We spent most of the summer in a Venus retrograde.   Venus is now in direct motion but won’t leave the shadow until October 7.  Between now and then we’ll have the third Venus square Jupiter and Venus square Uranus.   

As always with Venus and Jupiter squares, watch the spending, eating, socializing, and partying.   Both Venus and Jupiter can tap bacchanalia.  When they are pushing on each other there can be an environment of too much – too much.   It may be good to ask what has come up since June 11^th when we had the first square?    What happened around August 22 for the second round?   On September 16 we get the final Venus Jupiter square.    If a theme is repeated can a response be different, more nuanced, or fine-tuned?  What does our heart tell us?    

As for Venus square Uranus look to July 2 and August 9 for anything that was unexpected (Uranus) and how did it impact your creativity, love, money, and things you value?  That final aspect will fall on September 29^th.     Once Venus leaves the shadow, we will be done with this Venus lesson until the next one in about two years.   That was a lot of Leo.   Phew! 

Pluto

2023 

Jan 8, 2023: Pluto enters shadow (27 Cap 53) 

March 23, 2023, Pluto enters Aquarius 

May 1, 2023, Pluto retrogrades (0 Aquarius 22) 

June 11, 2023, Pluto returns to Capricorn

October 10, 2023, Pluto stations direct (27 Capricorn 53) 

January 20, 2024, Pluto returns to Aquarius 

Feb 1 Pluto leaves Shadow (0 Aquarius 22) 

2024

Jan 9, 2024, Pluto enters shadow (29 Cap 38) 

May 2, 2024, Pluto stations retrograde (2 Aquarius 06) 

Sept 3, 2024, Pluto re-enters Capricorn 

Oct 11, 2024, Pluto stations direct (29 Cap 38) 

Nov. 19, 2024 Pluto re-enters Aquarius 

Feb 2, 2025, Pluto leaves shadow (2 Aquarius 06) 

Pluto is retrograde for five months every year.  It is the slowest planet in our solar system.  It is what we call a generational planet in that it impacts a whole generation of people. The Depression, The Bomb, Baby Boom, Environmental and Liberation movements, The Great Recession, Covid, etc., these all have Pluto in their stories.    On a personal level if natal or transiting Pluto impacts a personal planet you will feel it.   I mean you will REALLY feel it.   It is transformational.     As for mundane interpretation, meaning world events, we should always expect something big with Pluto.  It is not subtle.   Right now, we are in a crossover era.  In 2023 and 2024 Pluto is straddling between Capricorn and Aquarius. 

In Capricorn, Pluto is tying up the loose ends of big business, big government, and its leaders.  Where there is a disconnect, it will get called out.  Where obligations are not being met, it will be noted.   Those who are shirking responsibility will be seen and called out.    Why?   Because Pluto knows that once it finally leaves Capricorn on November 19, 2024, it won’t return for over two hundred years.   As for Aquarius, the last time Pluto was in Aquarius was 1778 – 1798.   That time included the end of the American Revolution, the founding of the USA and The French Revolution.  We are seeing racial themes that harken back to that time where the authors of the Constitution protected slavery.   As for the French Revolution; there was weird weather, crop failures, cattle disease, and funding wars which created dissent among the neglected French citizens.  By the time of the French Revolution, Pluto was halfway in Aquarius.   Remember Pluto is in Aquarius for twenty years.   During this two-year window of Pluto bouncing between Capricorn and Aquarius, leaders may fall, and others may rise, depending on how they connect to the wants and needs of those they serve.  As we know, Pluto can use crisis to get attention.   It will be curious to see what events in these two years will later be noted as harbingers for the next twenty years.   

People with planets at 27- 29 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn and people with planets at 0-2 degrees Aquarius, Taurus, Leo and Scorpio are well aware of change and transformation in their lives.   It could be a feeling that something needs to be done or maybe a feeling something is coming.   It could be just a general sense of feeling cooked on one issue.   Whatever worked before is either not working or now has a clock on it.   Pluto is not like Uranus.  This change is not instigated by something out of the blue.  It is a change from within.   It is a powerful evolution.  Think of a volcano, the molten lava comes up the cone and out the sides changing the landscape.  That is Pluto.   

In conclusion, we have a real gift with this Virgo lunar cycle.  Between the Leo cycle that just completed and the Venus retrograde heading towards an end when it exits the shadow, we seek the calm routines of a new season.  Keeping our head down and working on our routines and serving others is the respite we need from so much tumult.   During this 29-day cycle, our to-do lists will be long, but we can accomplish a lot and our psyches will welcome it.   

See you at the Libra Eclipse New Moon.   

The 8 phases

Virgo New Moon 

21 Virgo 59

September 14, 2023 

6:39pm PDT 

New moon: Plant seeds, make calls, activate, start projects.   Activate something that will ideally lead you to more.  This is the phase where INTENT is critical.  Even if the results are not immediate, the intent is there.  You may not have all the answers or road map, but you should put out your Intent.

This focus:   What’s going on with your daily life?  How do you spend each hour?  Is your schedule efficient?  What is your exercise and health program?   Where do you need to bring a critical eye when you look at your daily life?  What I’s need dots, what T’s need crossing?   How are you tying up or improving loose ends?  How are you harvesting things that are ripe?  

Special note:

9/15:  Mercury station direct 8 Virgo 00 (see above)

9/16: Venus square Jupiter (see above)

Crescent Moon Phase

September 18, 2023

7:00pm PDT  

Crescent:  We will receive information, we will research a bit more, perhaps get feedback on stuff that we planted on new.  Perhaps get some information that will help down the road on a seed we planted a while ago.  We can collect some data now.  Even if you think you are not getting information, stop, and re-look at everything.  Who called you?  Even the silliest things when they come up during Crescent are note worthy.  A parking ticket.  An argument with a spouse?  A refund check from the phone company?  All of it needs to be considered a message from the universe.  How can this information help you?

Focus on: What are you learning about power? What are you learning about shared resources?  What are you learning about taxes, debt, sex?  How are you learning about what needs to die in order for new to grow?  

Special Focus

9/19: Sun opposite Neptune:  Tap faith, intuition to anything that seems ‘off’.  Avoid collapsing into a tizzy.  But take a break. 

9/20: Sun trine Pluto.  Transformation that is both practical and visionary.  Unloading stuff in order to have a lighter path and future. 

First Quarter Moon 

September 22, 2023

12:31pm PDT 

First quarter: We do more actions based on the information that we just received. Or we feel our instincts guide us on something.  We pursue again.  We make another call, or we see someone. We mail something.  We stir the pot again.  This can be a time when we realize that the goals, we planted on new need more action from us, perhaps actions that involve breaking away.   Are there people who say they have our best interest in heart but fear us growing away from them?  Maybe we need to get help from others not the usual suspects.  Some independence may need to be exerted. 

Focus on:  How are you taking action that broadens your world?  What are you doing to get a higher perspective?  What are you doing to connect with others that have a wild different approach?  What actions are you taking that help you learn something new?  

Special Note

9/22: Equinox 11 :50pm PDT.  Happy Birthday Libra. 

9/23: Venus trine Chiron.  Practicality and joy around self agency & independence in some manner.  

9/24 : Mars oppose Chiron.  Actions for self-versus partner.  Where is the balance?  

9/25 : Mercury trine Jupiter.  New thoughts around beliefs can be fruitful and practical.   

Gibbous Moon

September 25, 2023  

9:44pm PDT  

Gibbous:

We refine our information.  We pick and choose, we discriminate, and we organize to be ‘Virgo’ like.  We sort through details.  Have we missed something?  How are we sifting through the information?  Go back and make sure something hasn’t been neglected.  Refine our actions.  

Focus on:  How are you refining your approach to friends?  How are you refining your circles?  How are you refining your experience of community?  

Special focus

September 29, 2023

2:57am PDT

6 Aries 00 

Full Moon:  We make the needed adjustments on the things we planted. Usually, emotions are up and running and for those people who perhaps did not utilize the new moon and the rest of the waxing moon, this is when emotions can get the better of us.  There can often be a big emotional break, for no other reason than to get back on track.   Some partnership will offer up some balance.  The moon is bright and full and there is no room for shadows, what is reflecting on you?  

Focus on:     Who are you?  Where do you find independence?  Where are you using self-agency?  Where are you finding a fire in the belly?  How are you tapping   

Special focus 

9/29: Venus square Uranus.  Love, money values get a shakeup.  Is it needed? 

9/30: Mercury trine Uranus.  Creative, innovative ideas and thoughts bring practical solutions.  

10/2: Mercury oppose Neptune.  Fuzzy thinking.  Facts not all there.   Take a beat before jumping.  

10/2: Venus trine North Node.   Love of self has a role.  

Disseminating

October 2, 2023

11:59am PDT       

Disseminating: Share information; find a teacher or someone who has more knowledge. Perhaps there was a big ol’ blow out on the full and one feels in need of support and help, this is the phase to reach out to one who knows more. This is when we find a rabbi or a minister or therapist who gives us more insight.   And of course, you too may be ready to teach and share your own information.  

Focus on:   What are you sharing that is grounding?  How are you finding or sharing the practical approach? How is knowledge that builds something from the ground up important?   

Special focus:

10/3: Mercury trine Pluto.  Creative thinking brings a metamorphosis.  

10/4: Mars oppose North Node.   Actions around self versus taking care of relationships.  Finding the balance is a challenge.   

10/4: Mercury enter Libra 

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Last Quarter Moon Phase

October 6, 2023 

6:47am PDT    

Last Quarter moon:  Now we do the final adjustments to the seeds we planted on new. The final call, the final letters to send, we follow all the trails that came up that still make sense.  And we let the other parts lay fallow. It is a time of action but wise action.  It is a time for living “The serenity prayer” 

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change Courage to change the
things I can, and the
Wisdom to know the difference.

Focus on:

How are you gathering your emotions to do a big action?  How does this action speak to what you launched in new moon?  How is  your family important to finding details?   How is family important to being of service?  

Special focus 

10/8: Mars square Pluto.  Misguided wars or warriors can be troublesome in global and personal worlds.  

10/8: Venus enter Virgo

10/9: Venus oppose Saturn.  Love, money values feel strained and cold.    Black hearts abound.  

Balsamic Moon Phase

October 10, 2023 

9:16am PDT 

Balsamic:   We let go.  By releasing we can prepare for the new.  

Focus on:  How are you releasing nervousness?  How are you releasing anxiety?  How are you releasing narrow vision?   

Special focus:

10/10: Pluto station direct 27 Capricorn 54 (see above) 

10/11: Mars enter Scorpio 

10/13: Mars trine Saturn sober solid actions that speak to humanity.   

October 14, 10:55am PDT  (21 Libra 08)  Annular Solar Eclipse