New Moon in Virgo
Today’s New Moon in Virgo invites a return, revolutionary in its humility and paradox, to divine justice within each of our individual bodies, so that the many parts of ourselves may find a seat at the table, within our own skin.
Forming a trine to Uranus in Taurus, this New Moon facilitates disruption and re-imagining of what the value and the purpose of the table is … in a way that is immediate, intimate and personal, living in the details and mundane aspects of each one of our lives. Earthly and embodied.
This process is humbling because it’s just not that linear. It’s beyond any single one of us, and also it needs each one of us.
It’s beyond our human limitations, and also we each are a divine container for it.
On and around this New Moon, the curtains part to reveal a behind-the-scenes conversation that has been choreographing the precise conditions for us to question what has thus far remained un-questioned, to see what’s been hidden, to meet our unmet parts, to let go, pivot, grieve, deepen … remember.
The conversation is a series of five squares between Pluto and Eris, on January 26th, June 14, and December 10 of 2020, and August 27 and October 9, 2021.
We know Pluto. Pluto is the Lord of the Underworld that helps bring unconscious material to the surface of our awareness. It’s not a process we typically enter willingly. We’ve created entire structures, systems, worlds to protect us from feeling that degree of radical vulnerability. Deconstructing this is necessarily slow and innately paced so as to not overwhelm our human sensitivities (think about Capricorn’s polarity of Cancer, the archetype of the Crab and its shell).
Over time, Pluto guides us with its undertow pulling, more and more into its process, until it becomes less of a struggle and more of a surrender to receive the riches within, as we come to know the fruits of darkness, as we come to know our true power. As we heal, transform and regenerate in light of that truth. And re-member why we’re here.
But, until that tipping point, Pluto’s presence is hypnotic. We move in and out of entrancement by the systems and structures of diminishment.
Enter Eris.
Eris, the Feminine Goddess of War, sister to Mars, is also known as “Discordia” by the Romans. In myth, Eris was the goddess who was denied entry to a wedding attended by all the rest of the Olympians. In reaction, with her superpowers of inciting battle, she sensed and capitalized upon the open tension system of the party, tossing an apple inscribed with “For the Fairest”. The apple landed at the feet of Hera (Juno), Athena (Pallas Athene) and Aphrodite (Venus), provoking an all-out rivalry that resulted in the Trojan War.
Now, Eris is s-lllll-ooooo-www-ll-yyy making her way through Aries, the sign that’s self-oriented, driven to assert one’s freedom, fight for autonomy, and the independence to choose one’s life path. (It’s more than that, but let’s start there).
And since January 2020, Eris has been in a square to Pluto in Capricorn, a sign that is about responsibility for the collective, emotional maturity, commitment, true Adulthood and Elderhood, as well as control, guilt, obligation, intergenerational burdens, oppression, power-over structures.
In those descriptions, we might hear a resonance between this archetypal square off between Discordia and Lord of the Underworld — and the division we see related to Covid, Covid restrictions, masks, and vaccines, which has broken the typical party lines, the typical structures and systems of agreements and disagreements, the ways we’ve arranged ourselves at (and away from) the table, notions of what we’ve designated the table to be for … and what we even understand the true table to even be.
In many ways, it’s been a nightmare that only Pluto and Eris could weave.
But astrology insists upon a multi-faceted understanding of archetypes, reflecting both peril and possibility.
Resisting Pluto brings us into the territory of toxicity, harm, abuse, power-over/power-under dynamics. But we aren’t doomed to that. A positive orientation to Pluto involves mycelial capacity, soul depth, remembrance, transformation, embodiment, a phoenix rising from the ashes. While Pluto signifies shame, but its process returns us to the deepest compassion for ourselves, and others.
Resisting Eris process gives way to bloodshed, war and wastelands. But we are not doomed to that. A positive orientation to Eris is … What? She is such an outer planet, so deep in our psyche, SO out of sight, how can we work with her?
Right now, Venus opposes Eris, personalizing this deeply hidden player and inviting us to wake up within her Dream and lucidly re-dream the meaning and trajectory of how her discord is showing up in our life. And to take aligned action.
What possibilities does Eris present? What are her other faces?
Often the multivalency of archetypes is revealed through relationship.
Enter Venus.
Venus is the aspect of our psyche capable of holding our many parts in harmony. In Libra, she — like Eris — is poignantly attuned to imbalance, to where conflict might break out, to what the open tension system is. Venus intuitively understands the interconnected web of forces and senses juuuust the right place to smooth things over …
and also, precisely where the right leverage point is to disrupt the peace for the sake of justice to return.
In opposition to Eris and square Pluto, my guess is that the latter expression of Venus will be drawn out under this lunation cycle.
Demetra George reminds us:
“In the original zodiacal belt outlined by the Assyrian and Babylonian cultures, Scorpio was symbolized by a serpent and directly followed the sign Virgo. What is today called Libra was contained within the constellation Scorpio and was designated as “the Chelae",” the claws of the scorpion …
Only with the ascent of the patriarchal culture was Libra, sign of marriage, placed between Virgo and Scorpio by Greek astronomers whose society created an artificial duality in a woman’s sexual identity. From then on, a woman was either virgin-chaste before marriage (Virgo) or a sexual consort after marriage Scorpio. The recent discovery of Vesta has given us a means of healing this unhealthy split by reuniting the Virgo-Scorpio themes of this archetype.”
I think this reminder is relevant and even essential to this moment of division and chaos, especially because Venus just left a conjunction to Vesta before entering this T-square with Pluto and Eris, reiterating the theme that virginity is not about being chaste, but about first and foremost belonging to ourselves. I invite us to go as far and deep with that concept as you can.
The duality between being “pure”, detached, separate, chaste (above, untouched, unblemished, free from sin) and being “impure", devotional, merged, sexual (less than, debased, sinful) is an artificial, mental construct that created the open tension system — or the worn threads of a false story that Eris saw could tear with the slightest, well-placed touch.
Venus in Libra is now between these two signs of Virgo and Scorpio, offering a key to healing. And, again, her key comes through relationship — so let’s look at the relationship between Capricorn, Aries, and Libra.
From an Evolutionary Astrology perspective, the soul intention of Capricorn is the attainment of Integrity and Self-belonging. It is the Master, Elder, Hermit acting with no need for external accolades, validation, proof or evidence.
The soul intention of Aries is the attainment of Courage. It’s the Warrior discerning and engaging in a battle worthy of their life.
The soul intention of Libra is the attainment of Calm.
These are soul “intentions” because they aren’t goals. The True Self comes complete with these qualities. The task is then to access and stabilize in the Self. Which brings us to the T-square relational dynamic.
We cannot discern this battle, without knowing Self (Capricorn) — We can’t know Self without knowing others (Libra).
We can’t truly know others without knowing Self (Aries).
So, let’s stay with this “self-oriented” sign of Aries. Following the trail, we see ruler of Aries is Mars, and Mars in Virgo, at the time of this New Moon, is forming an exact quincunx to Eris in Aries.
A quincunx reveals a crisis of the limitations of the small self or temporal personality. Its the aspect that resonates with Virgo, thus amplified under this New Moon.
The quincunx represents utter unworkability … for as long as we operate from a story of separation. From the single story of a privileged, or of an exiled part. Or, from, “a-part-ness”.
And aso, the possibility of a quincunx is a massive release of creative energy.
This happens when we give up our impossible hopes (Saturn-Jupiter Great Conjunction in Aquarius) of making change upon the external world from a position of our a-part-ness from it. From the belief that — that which is “out there” is not also in here.
The resolution of the quincunx and Virgo process, happens when we call in our projections of inner multiplicity or our inner “collective” (Pluto in Capricorn) and surrender to our Leadership position, where we are not a “part” (apart) … we are an opening. We are no thing.
Becoming nothing is what allows our unique ray of the eternally radiant, life-giving Divine Sun to come in and warm, vivify, hold in coherence and return divine justice and balance to the collective of parts of us that live within our own skin and individuality (the Aries-Virgo quincunx crisis).
Venus in Libra can heal the split between Virgo and Scorpio.
When we remember who we are, we can choose to shamelessly return to our Virgoan process of detachment and subtraction — subtracting the lenses and stories from our Core Self, allowing our inner flame to be nourished by our own attention. And, we can choose to shamelessly inhabit our Scorpio process of devotion — of consensual union, merging, transmutation and creation with a part of ourselves.
So, what if a positive orientation to Eris, then, is uplifted from a battle driven by me getting mine … to accepting responsibility for and surrendering presence to the collective that is within my own individuality, within the bounds of my own skin, within this body of mine … within this here-and-now?
What if this square between Aries and Capricorn becomes about the deep courage and fire that it takes to bring awareness into matter, and awaken matter itself (Cardinal Air)?
What if what we are waiting for is conscious presence and somatic embodiment (Virgo, Chiron, 6th house, quincunx) in the exact moments when an experience of “a-part-ness” arises?
When a part of us rises up with a flood of emotions and thoughts? What if that part of us doesn’t WANT the wheel, doesn’t actually want for us to react and create without consent from its emotions and thoughts — but really wants from us what we all want — to be seen, heard, held, guided? For its concern to be considered, its story to be heard, its gifts to be seen and find contribution to something meaningful?
What if that part of us really wants consistent boundaries and a firm “No” to feel safe?
Also, what if that part of us would delight in a Yes and consensual creation?
For Eris to not leave us in a wasteland of meaningless battle, we may need to find this positive orientation to and lucid dreaming of Eris process — of moving through deep discord and chaos and loss of our usual points of authority, to re-establish right relationship with our parts and remember our true source of knowing, wisdom, guidance, coherence, innate authority.
Lastly — I want to point out that Venus is not only forming a T-square to Pluto and Eris, but a flowing trine to Jupiter. And the New Moon is trine to Uranus in Taurus. So I do see the possibility is real, and present, now.
Virgo is built for it. To guide spirit into matter, more than ever before.
To experience our innate value, more than ever before.
It just … does involve Eris and Pluto.
If this resonates and you want to work with your birth chart as a guide, support and container for this work, book a session here.
Here for me, you and us, in love and gratitude,
Nicole
RELEVANT TRANSITS
Ceres in Gemini, Saturn in Aquarius, and Mercury in Libra form a GRAND TRINE in Air Signs.
Venus in Libra, Eris in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn form a T-Square in Cardinal Signs.
Eris (Feminine Warrior) in Aries and Mars (Masculine Warrior in Virgo form a quincunx.
Venus in Libra forms a trine with Jupiter in Aquarius
Moon in Virgo opposes Neptune in Pisces
