Uranian New Moon in Virgo: Astrology of 9/1 – 9/7

A New Moon in Virgo follows significant planetary tensions between Mars in Virgo and Neptune in Pisces forming an opposition, and Venus in Libra squaring Pluto in Capricorn. Within these transits there can be a common thread of <avoidance> and the potential to liberate energy and vitality by leaning into what it is we are avoiding. This can be as mundane as avoiding a household chore to as existential as avoiding an aspect of yourself you’d rather not look at.

For Mars opposite Neptune, there is a thread about overwhelm, feeling like the challenge is too numinous. For Venus square Pluto, there is the avoidance around claiming our shadow content and projecting it outward. And Virgo, the sign where our New Moon is, is about tending to the details: things we may find cumbersome, but are actually portals into simply being here in this life more deeply.

This week may offer breakthroughs by looking at our resistance right in the face. At a more alchemical level, the philosophy and practice of Existential Kink (by Carolyn Elliot) comes to mind – literally going so far as to get off on the little patterns we enact that we hate, which is to radically claim the shadow content we normally try to run away from at the conscious level, but ‘like’ on some level unconsciously.

From an introduction to her work in Existential Kink, Carolyn Elliot:

“Everything you don’t like in your life is only there because a shadowy, unconscious part of you finds it deeply entertaining.

Not just entertaining – but compelling, fascinating, hot.

Yes, I mean everything.

The money hang ups. The romantic hang ups. The disappointments with friends. 

The career frustrations, the creative blocks.

All the personal “don’t like” situations. 

All of them arise out of unconscious enjoyments that we’ve driven into our shadow because they’re not socially acceptable – unconscious enjoyments of very taboo things like scarcity, rejection, humiliation.

And the news from the Holy Graal of the Ecstatic Mother is this: 

you can easily get everything you want in life, if only you’re willing to truly, deliberately get off on the situations you don’t like. 

“Wait, what? You’re saying if I’m experiencing scarcity, rejection, humiliation – it’s because some part of me likes it? That’s f*ckd up.”

Yes, that’s what I’m saying. 

And no, it’s not really f*cked up.  

It’s just human nature. We’re wired to attach pleasure to frustration so that our psyches can endure the frustration.

There’s nothing special or unique about secretly savoring feeling wronged by the world. We all do it. 

It’s just that those of us who are willing to own up to it have the power to do something about it.

Specifically, we have the power to actually evolve our consciousness.” – Carolyn Elliot

Welcome back! Or in case this is your first time here, I’m Sabrina Monarch and I’m a soul-centered astrologer. I love providing perspectives on the opportunities of transits and putting into words what the zeitgeist feels like at this moment in time, to support you on your path & open a dialogue between us and the cosmos. If you would like to receive these weekly forecasts to your inbox and be notified of upcoming educational opportunities, sign up for my mailing list here.

Watch this week’s forecast on YouTube, or keep reading below:

Here’s our week after a few announcements!

The upcoming Evolutionary Astrology Intensive is now open for enrollment! It will be the ninth run of this program 🖤 It is a comprehensive entry (or deepening) into the world of soul-based Plutonic astrology. As I get to see students respond to this material, I’m reminded every time about how Evolutionary Astrology is truly a wisdom tradition. I’ve had the pleasure of developing as a human alongside this material since I was 21, and it’s one of my biggest joys in life to share it and invite others into it. The course consists of pre-recorded content (that you can continue returning to indefinitely) and live sessions weekly to discuss as a group, and five culminating workshop classes.
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My debut novel, The Garden of Sleeping Hammers is out and available for purchase!

Katerina is twenty-one when meets a spy twice her age who offers to teach her anything she wants to know about spycraft and magic. This apprenticeship plunges her into an unconventional romance and a heightened state of psychic awareness.  Her new identity inspires complete strangers, who are sure Katerina is destined for fame, but scares those who know the old Katerina. Katerina’s family believes she’s mentally ill and forces antipsychotic, antidepressant and mood-stabilizing medications upon her at the advice of a psychiatrist. The novel follows her struggle to maintain the heightened state of awareness and aliveness that she suddenly feels after years of depression, in the face of her family and friends urging her to come back down. What happens when a massive opportunity for personal growth is seen by others as a dangerous mistake? In the hope that she might be able to return to an extraordinary life, but with no guarantee, Katerina has no other choice than to use her recent spy training to play the game, and to get an up-close, inside look at the state of mental health in mainstream America.

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Here’s our week:

September 2, 2021

Mars in 22 Virgo opposite Neptune retrograde in 22 Pisces: 10:43 AM PDT

(Image: Hollis Frampton – A Visitation of Insomnia)

• Consider these two opposing directions that a Mars-Neptune transit can file into: either the will/vitality is weakened or the will/vitality is boosted by aligning with greater universal forces. In the signs of Virgo and Pisces, we could look at some these possibilities:
• Energy diminishes or the will is weakened as we experience overwhelm about basic tasks/chores of life or within a particular arena of life, or tasks that we are specifically avoiding (Virgo). The more we are in avoidance, the more we have a tendency to retreat inward (Pisces) and get into a dream/trance/escapist state where we feel inept, overwhelmed, victimized, etc and continue to neglect that which we are avoiding. We may particularly retrieve energy or vitality through facing what we are avoiding.
• With Mars in Virgo, the personal will may be being tasked at this moment to become more discerning, clear, or skillful, in relationship to a situation we perceive as colossal, overwhelming, or nebulous (Neptune in Pisces).
• If we are experiencing Mars in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces in a more harmonized, integrated way, it can look like spiritual discernment, having spiritual experiences that are simultaneous to our mundane activities, tending to our life from a place of reverence/care/devotion, as well as discernment around service: how to give from a place of alignment and empowerment as opposed to escapism through service or martyrdom.
• A common way that Mars-Neptune aspects show up is through more vivid dreams. Neptune relates to dreams, and Mars can spike dream activity or swell up dream images to a place of them being more striking/hitting/impactful (i.e. vivid!).
• This may be an especially beneficial time to resource forms of magic like surrounding yourself with light in a visualization state or tuning into universal energies of compassion and love. And consider how this fits into the overall energetics of your life. Does it help you fall asleep at rest well, does it translate to you bringing more love and compassion to your relationships or how you tend to basic details of your life? 
• In states of active trauma or disregulation, cacooning into a safe place may be a way to resource ourselves back to a neutral place. This kind of retreat can be misused, however, if it becomes a way to wall ourselves off to life or situations that we could grow through or be courageous (Mars). In a more integrated way, cacooning or surrounding ourselves with light is an integral part of how we participate in the world – present with a greater spiritual resource, as opposed to being mired in our untended anxiety and fear. 

September 4, 2021

Mercury in 7 Libra trine Saturn retrograde in 7 Aquarius: 6:30 PM PDT

• There may be a seriousness in the field that is also very idealistic, value-driven, innovative – like envisioning who we want to be or what kind of world we want to live in and considering how we would actually align with that vision, and experimenting with those new forms of expression.
• There could also be a pulse around translating these higher visions or ideals into something more livable and human, or including the humanness in the ideals themselves.

September 5, 2021

Venus in 24 Libra square Pluto retrograde in 24 Capricorn: 8:07 PM PDT

• One thing I see (and I’m not alone in this!) happening on the planet right now is the rise of the feminine. The feminine principle has been suppressed, abused, and persecuted within patriarchy. Here, with Venus in her home sign of Libra (and conjunct priestess asteroid goddess Vesta) I am reflecting on how the feminine has *always* been here and *always* been powerful regardless, and regardless of how that has been put into shadow within a greater patriarchal system and then expressed in distorted ways as a result of being put in shadow. Even the creative intelligence that feminine beings possess to say, make themselves smaller or hide, is a kind of magic, albeit one inspired by unfavorable conditions. What does it look like for the feminine to become bigger, or the feminine to exist more freely? In what ways can this be taking responsibility for honoring and tending to the magic?
• This square between Venus and Pluto is a last quarter square. The last quarter square represents a ‘crisis in consciousness’ as well as the capacity to breakthrough the conditioning of the past and be creative in a truly novel or liberating way. So where we feel the call to uplift and honor the feminine, it may occur in ways that are outside of the old system, as opposed to just turning the same system upside down, or turning victim to persecutor.
• For example, even the concept of “smashing the patriarchy” is energetically, born of patriarchal consciousness (and yes, this is my *judgement* here) – it is still carrying the energetic of domination and control.
• At an inner or personal level, this transit could bring up inner tensions around where we are powerful within (and always have been) and how this power has been distorted through cultural conditioning (Pluto in Capricorn), that we have previously colluded with, in ignorance or by choice. What would it mean to hold the tension of this reclaimed power or inner truth without the need for demonization? What could it look like to tend to this reclaimed inner-treasure and give it life in a way that is freer than we previously imagined?

September 6, 2021

Mars in 24 Virgo trine Pluto retrograde in 24 Capricorn: 5:19 AM PDT

• Against the backdrop of Mars also opposing Neptune, and the potential for overwhelm in the face of a nebulous colossus that we spoke of earlier, the Mars-Pluto trine here speaks to a potential ease around experiencing personal growth by taking responsibility in a place we were previously enacting neglect.

Venus in 25 Libra trine Jupiter retrograde in 25 Aquarius: 6:05 AM PDT

• While the Venus-Pluto dynamic highlights shadow work or shadow integration, or relates to a more primal dimension of the feminine, this Venus-Jupiter trine in air signs highlights more the upper realm of spirit, vision, ecstasy, and peak experience. Of course, both worlds can and do inform one another.
• As example, if we follow our highest excitement and live in relationship with our pleasure, our concept of what is exciting becomes all the more authentic and true to us where we have unravelled from social conditioning (Pluto in Capricorn shadow work). Conversely, sometimes through following our conformity drives to their ends (pursuing a goal we think we wanted and thought was for us, only to realize it wasn’t satisfying) can be a gateway to identifying a more free/liberating path for ourselves.
• This Venus-Jupiter aspect also suggests growth in the realm of the heart as well as our capacity to value ourselves, receive love, or receive blessings/resources. See where you are feeling called or have the opportunities to stretch here. It can also relate to our generosity and capacity for giving and expressing affection.

New Moon in 14 Virgo: 5:52 PM PDT & Sun in 14 Virgo trine Uranus retrograde in 14 Taurus: 6:29 PM PDT

• There is a phenomenon that we can resist or avoid what is actually good for us: we’re avoiding a chore, only to realize how much flow or energy engaging it opens up, we’re avoiding a new level of intimacy with ourselves only to feel the incredible opening and depth of that space when we touch it, we’re avoiding a big opportunity out of fear only to feel alive when we lean into life.
• Conceptually, we may deprive these portal moments (of leaning into avoidance) of value, because we have an idea about them that results in us overlooking them. This is going to be a leap, but follow my logic: much of our cosmological/religious/philosophical history contains threads of splitting the mind and spirit with the body. This split has often privileged the mind or spirit, and at extremes demonized the body: connecting the body to lower drives, impurity, sin, etc. What if this is just a profound form of resistance? Even if you take the view (like I do) that the soul reincarnates and inhabits different bodies, joining more deeply with the body in life is like making the choice to incarnate even deeper and thus, actually really be here.
• Keep following: when we resist tasks or chores or things that require our attention in this life, this is another fractal form of avoiding actually being here. So as we take the leap and give ourselves to the process, the craft, the task — it can actually open up a deeper experience that feels spiritual, even though the act itself was not necessarily ‘spiritual’ in nature.
• This is akin to setting up an altar or creating a ritual space: the physical creation of the space or the concrete activities that signal the ritual opening, create an invitation for spirit to enter.
• This lunation trines Uranus in Taurus, further emphasizing this portal concept – that through simple or basic acts, new worlds can be contacted. Within embodiment, just interacting more deeply and with more present with what already is (the body) we enter into deeper layers of self-gnosis. Cultivating our environment or tending to the details of our lives, we experience new layers of radical belonging.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you would like further guidance, I have been increasingly focused on longer-term experiences in the form of the Evolutionary Astrology Intensive, higher level courses for alumni, and 1:1 mentorship – helping people form a depth relationship to their natal chart and personal transits over time, to develop themselves, to be in their power, and to reach their goals, all through the soul-making lens of evolutionary astrology. I would love to support you in building your relationship with astrology. The intensive is now open for enrollment, and I am to take on new coaching clients again in the future.

Find me on Instagram @sabrinamonarch, get on my mailing list to stay apprised of all upcoming offerings and events, and I’ll see you next week!

With love,

Sabrina Monarch

(Top image: unknown)