Photo by Krystle Merrow
I always forget that Virgo season starts in the summer. When I think of Virgo I think of the order and calm I associate with the fall, not the fomo fun panic of the end of August, losing the months long battle against fruit flies and fantasizing about a back to school wardrobe.
Virgo, the unsung hero of the zodiac, is the helper we all need. She shows up at the end of the summer when we need the order she can provide. She knows we don’t have it yet, she’s here to clean up Leo’s mess, and prepare our homes and psyches for the colder months to follow. Virgo will help guide you out of the summer, if you let her, will care for you in your mess and get you together. Virgo has an internet reputation for being ornery and judgmental, but some of the least judgmental people I have ever known have had Virgo in their charts.
Virgo season often arrives as a cool breeze, psychically and temperately. This year where I live the first week of Virgo season was drastically cooler than the days that followed it, dry and breezy after days of torrential rain and uncomfortable humidity. This kind of marker of a transition of seasons makes me think of Virgo as a mutable sign, a sign about change. All the mutable signs are parts of the year when we transition from one season to another. This reminds me that astrology is fundamentally about weather.
Astrology, like weather, makes us notice the ways that the world around us affect our inner world. Feeling malaise on a rainy day, manic on hot sunny ones, and depressed in the dark months is how the earth’s inner atmosphere does this. Feeling exhausted during eclipses, feral at a full moon, or energized in a Mars transit is how our solar system does it.
Eclipses are one of the first things that got us as humans noticing and working with astronomy (which was then the same thing as astrology). It’s quite difficult to ignore a few seconds of darkness during a day or a suddenly hidden moon, so it’s no surprise we started to seek meaning from them. And to this day as an astrologer I find there are fewer regularly occurring astrological events that people hype up as much as eclipses: even though we cannot see the large majority of them, if you exist within a stone’s throw of people who are into astrology, you are gonna hear about eclipses.
Previously I’ve been kind of skeptical about eclipses and how much they affect us, given how common they are. My training is to look at the transits of the slow moving outer planets, because they’re the ones that shape our big pictures. Lunations and eclipses and mercury retrogrades, these are the everyday inconveniences against the backdrop of a tough season.
But now I’m here, in a week of inconveniences and against the backdrop of a tough summer, and fuck if I’m not feeling these inconveniences with the same depth as I have the actual challenges that have shaped this season. Small emotional setbacks after a few months of feeling like the guy in the ten of swords are quite literally the last couple swords in the back.
So in a year (few years) of astrology as intense as ours has been, in a world well reflecting that astrology, what’s the difference if that last sword is a profound loss or a missed deadline? You’re already down.
But the good news is: eclipses are short. I relate to them much the same way that I do to my luteal phase. I forget it’s happening, then spend a few days in a torpor of depression, and then realize what’s going on and feel totally normal (so you see, readers, being luteal during the eclipse is really doing a number on me).
This eclipse is happening in the Virgo-Pisces axis, along which sits our reality and our dreams. In Virgo we deal with the mundane to such exactitude it becomes profound: in Pisces we dream so often it’s daily. This lunar eclipse, with the sun in Virgo and the moon in Pisces, is the last of a two-year cycle of eclipses in these signs and the closing of themes in your life that started in September of 2024. Personally I finished grad school around that time, and the very detailed thematics of that process are precisely where these eclipses have happened in my chart, so this shit really works.
With that in mind, I am going to try my best to write about details as ornery and particular as possible for your horoscopes, letting you know what areas of your life you should look to for the two year cycle in question. Virgo season is a wonderful time pick things up and put them back together: my bestie recently said to me, “I feel like u need routine and a sweater,” and dear readers, I wish this for all of us.
As always, read for your rising sign if you know it, but don’t disavow whatever resonates.
With hopes I’ll regain my consistency,
Amelia
Find your horoscopes after the jump!
Horoscopes are written using whole house calculations and are meant as inspiration and affirmation. Specific calculations are made for the rising signs, but if you don’t know your rising sign, you can read for your sun. You can access your birth chart at astro.com, café astrology, or many other apps and websites using your birth date, time, and location. You can also find out lots of personal information by booking a reading with me here.
Aries
In your chart, Virgo and Pisces take up houses very directly related to the meaning of those signs: the sixth house of routine, and the twelfth house of mystery. Two years ago something in these areas of your life started to build that demanded your work but perhaps evaded visibility. The sixth house rules your day to day life and labour, but also your health, which always makes me think of how everyday and mundane it is to deal with one’s health. The twelfth house rules solitude and your dreams, as well as anything hidden from you.
The cycle that started in September 2024 wrapped up last week with the Lunar Eclipse on the 28th, closing this chapter in your life about the everyday and the fantastical. Have you been filling your schedule in order to avoid some inner work? Did illness or an injury bring about a time of solitude and reflection? The relationship between these polarities is key to helping you understand the timeline of these last two years, and to what it is that most needs releasing with this new season.
Taurus
I hope, Taurus, that I do not find you in the midst of a friend breakup or other kind of social transformation, but the astrology would certainly suggest such a thing. With Pisces ruling your 11th house of community and Virgo your 5th house of 🎉having fun🎉, there’s been a lot of opportunity for drama around your social life since September 2024. The 5th house deals with creativity, falling in love, partying, and dancing, so it is a house holding a lot of very fun responsibility. The 11th house on other other hand rules any groups of people you belong to, organized or disorganized. Unions, clubs, and memberships as well as your social circles all fit in this part of your chart.
This astrology is like going to a goodbye party with all your coworkers form a job you’ve worked the last two years. This astrology is like finally realizing you have to stop fucking that one friend of yours. Or a ceremony to mark the true end of a social group that wasn’t working out for you. Whatever it is, Taurus, ease into transition and transformation.
Gemini
The axis of Virgo-Pisces occupies your 4th and 10th houses of home and career respectively. Virgo is in charge of the home and family, taking care of your house and lending Gemini risings a surprisingly orderly relationship to home, and Pisces on your tenth describes the importance of creativity and meaningful service in your career path. Two years ago, starting in September 2024, a new story began in this area of your life between your work and your home, your reputation and your family. Having Pisces on the tenth house lends you big dreams when it comes to your career, and a lot of inner criticism when it comes to your home and family, and harmonizing the two can be very challenging.
This is the kind of astrology under which I’d not be surprised to hear about someone needing to leave a job to focus on family, or changing the narrative around a life’s dream in order to stay closer to home. Look to these two areas of your life, Gemini, to see how these two years of eclipses have affected you, and what you can leave aside with this final transformative run through the portal.
Cancer
The Virgo-Pisces eclipses have been taking place in your 3rd house of communication and 9th of expansion, natural areas for these signs to be. Virgo and Cancer are the two biggest helpers in the zodiac, and their natures complement each other: where Virgo helps by doing the dishes, Cancer listens and lets someone know they’re not alone. Pisces, Virgo’s opposite sign and the site of this lunar eclipse, shares with Cancer a capacity for deep empathy and vulnerability.
You may have had some big dreams related to higher learning, travel, or spiritual growth over the last two years that you need to let go of somehow, Cancer. Virgo on your third house lends you a lot of care and perhaps a few neuroses when to comes to your communication style, and likely a very critical inner voice. It’s important not to let the critical voice become the loud one here. Whatever dream you need to transform (not abandon) right now is not necessarily lost, and you cannot let the Virgoan critic tell you it’s a shortcoming of your own.
Remember how profoundly the world has changed in the last two years, Cancer, and that dreams too can adapt.
Leo
This eclipse takes place across parts of your chart both very mundane and very profound. Pisces rules your 8th house, which is one of the more complex areas of the natal chart. Sitting across from the 8th house is the 2nd, which on opposition is one of the more straightforward. The 2nd house rules money, finances, possessions, and values, while the 8th rules entanglement, transformation, sex, death, debt, and inheritance. The 2nd house is about what you have and the 8th is about how it gets all fucked up when we relate to other people. An eclipse here is both financial and emotional in nature.
This eclipse closes off a cycle that started in September of 2024, and asks you to leave behind a story you told yourself about what you owe people, financially, energetically, spiritually. On the other hand, it likely also wraps up a story about things that you actually do owe other people, and in this economy so very many of us are dealing with that story.
Something started two years ago that perhaps you had to go through, and that probably was very difficult, but you get to put that version of yourself behind you now. Lately I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about shame, and the wisened philosopher Katya Zamolodchikova once said “Shame is a landfill emotion: someone else put it there”. Who put this story in your mind, Leo? And how have you been holding on to the narrative? It doesn’t have to be your whole story anymore.
Virgo
Two years ago, in September of 2024, a story began in your life that had to do with who you are and how you relate to people. The eclipses throughout this time have taken place in your sign and your opposing sign of Pisces, and on a Virgo rising chart, have taken place in your 1st house of identity (Virgo) and your 7th house of relationships (Pisces). In a very literal interpretation, I would wonder if a romantic relationship began two years ago that changed your sense of identity, and that now the relationship has run its course and you can let it go. But you may know I shy away from specific and literal interpretations except to suggest them as an archetype, a myth that you can find your own meaning from (aha, that’s all of astrology).
Our one-on-one relationships are a mirror. A brilliant friend once said to me “When people are speaking to you, they’re really speaking to themselves”. Something in you needs to give up on what you hope other people think about you, and start seeing you for yourself, in all the cool reality that Virgo can summon.
Libra
Virgo and Pisces are a continuum about our reality and our dreams. While Libra is certainly one of the more romantic and creative signs in the zodiac, in a Libra rising chart Virgo rules the 12th house, the part of your chart about solitude, dreams, and hidden things. Virgo here lends you a perhaps surprisingly practical view on these areas (for example, maybe you have really boring reams). On the other hand Pisces sits in your 6th house of day to day life, of schedules, of labour, and of health. A Libra rising needs a day to day life that feels romantic, creative, and meaningful. Perhaps it’s that your daily life is so rich with dreams that your solitude and actual dreams are fine to stay more practical.
Two years ago this current series of eclipses started here, and with this Lunar eclipse in Pisces, they close off a cycle. What has been happening between your days and your nights since then, Libra? What started as a dream that has since manifested in your everyday? When something comes true it stops being a dream, and becomes a reality, which means it loses its romanticism. You can let go of the romance of the dream while appreciating its presence in your reality.
Scorpio
Two years ago, Scorpio, something changed in your life around how you fit in and how you stand out. Virgo and Pisces rule your 11th and 5th houses, respectively of community and fun. The 11th house governs any social groups you’re part of, including coworkers, memberships, clubs, or informal friend groups. Your 5th house on the other hand rules the kind of stuff you get up to in social groups, like having fun, partying, creativity, and dating. But Scorpio can have a hard time having fun, and tend more towards intensity or brooding.
Two years ago a story started in your social and your creative live that can now come to a conclusion. I’m not saying you have to give up the community—far from it. But with Virgo on the 11th you might have some anxiety related to social groups, and two years ago a transformation happened in your social life that may have activated some virgo anxiety.
This lunar eclipse in your 5th house offers you a chance to consider what actual real fun might be. Try to let go of feeling serious and responsible all the time, Scorpio. Fun is supposed to be fun.
Sagittarius
The eclipses have been taking place within your fellow mutable signs of Virgo and Pisces over the last two years, and in your chart have been active in the 10th house of career and 4th house of home and family, respectively. When this eclipse cycle started two years ago, it opened up a two-year story about this polarity in your life, starting with a new beginning in your career that has now turned into a cycle that you can wrap up at home.
We often speak as though home and career are diametrically opposed, but please remember, Sagittarius, that opposites need each other in order to relate. Our careers finance our homes, and your ability to show up in career is bolstered by the safety of your home. What dynamics in your family are reflective of how you are in career? What in your house has been neglected while you’ve been focused on your work?
This eclipse opens the possibility for change and release. Sweep and mop all your floors, and throw the dust from the pan out your front door.
Capricorn
These Virgo-Pisces eclipses over the last two years have been taking place in your 3rd house of communication (ruled in your chart by Pisces) and 9th house of growth (ruled by Virgo). The 3rd house rules the way we think, speak, and write, and the 9th house higher learning, travel, the law, and religion. I often think of it as the 3rd house being about speaking, and the 9th listening. In September 2024 something started for you around your growth: a plan to travel, hopes of schooling, learning a new language.
Around last week’s lunar eclipse in Pisces, something about what you have to say about this growth has changed. A very literal interpretation would be, say, starting a masters in September 2024 and finally now being ready to start talking and writing about something new. What about the way you communicate, Capricorn, is not working for you anymore? Have you listened enough that your words have changed? Have you grown enough that your vocabulary needs expanding now too?
Think about the relationship between your growth and your speech for the next little while, Capricorn, because it’s been a topic of deep transformation over the last two years.
Aquarius
For the past two years, our schedule of eclipses has all taken place between your 2nd house of resources (ruled in your chart by Pisces) and your 8th house of transformation (ruled by Virgo). The 2nd and 8th houses speak to one of the more complex polarities in our life, that between our material needs and our intimacy. The 2nd house governs money you earn, the 8th money you owe or are given (think lottery winnings, grants, inheritances). In September 2024 a situation arose in your life, perhaps through a sexual relationship or through the death of a loved one, that had material repercussions. Then throughout these two years, that situation has brought tremendous transformation, and perhaps some grief.
The eclipse on the 24th marked an astrological ending to this story, bringing the eclipses out of this area of your life and with that hopefully some relief. You may be mourning at this time somehow, Aquarius, while also dealing with irritating financial circumstances. The good news is that the upcoming Venus retrograde this fall is a wonderful time to work through this, and going through expenses, budgets, costs, as well as your diaries will be a great way to move forward by looking backwards.
Pisces
Two years ago, Pisces, a story began in your life about your relationships and your identity, and about how these topics are intertwined. Virgo – your opposite sign and the other site of recent eclipses – rules your 7th house of one-on-one relationships, whereas Pisces your 1st house of identity. In difficult astrology around these parts of the chart I very often see clients dealing with romantic relationships that change their identity, or changes in their identity that affect their romantic relationships.
The lunar eclipse in Pisces on the 28th wraps up this story that began with a solar eclipse in Virgo in September 2024, and signals to you that it is time to move away from this current narrative. Sometimes that can mean letting go of a relationship or a person, but it can also be about changing the story you tell yourself about it.
It’s important not to let your sense of self wither, Pisces. You do not need to shrink yourself to fit relationships, and you do not need to fix the people you love. This is usually the kind of astrology under which it’s excellent to burn something – a picture, a poem, an idea, that you can let turn into ash.
OMG Stars is our astrology column written by queer astrologer Amelia Ehrhardt (@amelia.np.e).
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