Happy Virgo season Sun worshippers  This month’s special guest Hilary Spiteri joins Vanessa Montgomery to chat about all things Virgo, classic Virgos Baz Luhrmann, and Lee Lehman, PLUS the new and full Moon, Mercury retrograde, Mars in Gemini (for seven months!), and this month’s main cosmic movements so you can plan your month ahead in alignment with the unfolding energies.  — On the Astrology University Podcast. 

Our featured non-profit this month is the Internet Archive (Archive.org). A library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

Book Recs; Vocation, The Astrology of Career, Creativity and Calling by Brian Clark. A Handbook of Medical Astrology by Jane Ridder-Patrick. Medical Astrology a healers guide, Medical Astrology a guide to planetary pathology, both by Judith Hill. Orthomolecular medicine for everyone, megavitamin therapeutics for families and physicians by Abram Hoffer and Andrew W. Saul Ph.D’s. Traditional Medical Astrology by Lee Lehman

☆ Schedule your bespoke astro session with Montgomery to deep dive your chart and transits – coaching, counseling, and astrological revelation.

VIRGO — YIN • MUTABLE • INTERPERSONAL • EARTH — ruled by Mercury

Welcome to the solar month of the discriminating, exacting one-here for the specificity, decision-making, and sorting headlines from yesterday’s news. Use the solar month to edit, polish, fine-tune, get organized, declutter, critique, and take a fine-nibbed red pen to everything that needs further resolution or editing ie bag and bin. 🌞

In design school, we had to resolve an idea or concept into a design that still needed to be, look, and feel resolved. Apply that idea to the area of life represented by the house the Sun is traveling through in your birth chart.  Look for Virgo on the cusp.

Manifesting through words & the Mercury ruled one

Virgo is ruled by Mercury; it’s a yin sign, (yin-earth-Mercury) so let’s think about what’s being communicated by words and how we internalize their meaning. The inner critic is strong with Virgo due to this internalizing, yin factor. It turns in on itself, which is a yin receptive function. It’s not a feminine, female function. That function has been applied, socialized into, and legislated onto women. Decoupling this word association will set you free. Communication and intelligence of the body, and listening to the body come under Earth-ruled Mercury (mind/body isn’t just a connection they are part of the same system). Note when you get that yes or no from your body and bust through internalized systems of power built to control or suppress you. And of course when they energise and affirm you.

Uranus is in earth sign Taurus sending a trine (flow) through to planets as they pass through Virgo this season; use them to help you liberate yourself. Use the power of your mind-body, reflect on and become conscious of your internalized thought process, the lens of perception, and beliefs.

The Virile Virgin

Since the title Virgin didn’t originally mean one’s sexual experience/status (these days, more specifically applied to females), it’s essential to remember the core meaning of this sign. It’s about being sovereign, having an inner sanctum, and independence. A part of yourself that is for you and you only. (See Saffron Rossie’s book The Kore Goddess: a Mythology & Psychology). Of course, that changed under patriarchy as a system of controlling women was through owning them, thereby controlling their sexuality and reproductive rights. A male-centered lineage (patrilineal) acquired women’s property, financial inheritance, and rights through the male line and heirs. This is reflected in the historical rendering of the Deities from female to male and, of course, our astrological inheritance of a male power line up and decommissioned or vastly diluted status and power of female deities, not feminine, as many were not, but they were female.  Reflected in most planets which are less often gendered female, and even neutral (like Mercury or Uranus) still gendered male (in reality, they have no gender as they’re archetypal and apply to everyone). This system is the reason women lose their name (identity) when marrying, (and why the male partner isn’t subsumed by his wife’s identity by becoming invisible under the cloak of her name) it’s a long dark shadow of the patriarchal system/law of coverture. Something to think about over Virgo season.

Virgo is an Earth sign, so it’s interesting women’s value is often still associated with their sexual and life inexperience and seen in terms of pure or impure. Like the hyper hygiene applied to women’s physical sexuality (those toxic ‘feminine hygiene products, anyone?), an aberration of Virgoan themes.  These topics lead us into the next sign of Libra, which is assc with partnership and marriage, then Scorpio/Taurus axis where we find the nodes at the moment and the fight for bodily autonomy with reproductive rights. However, first, we are in Virgo territory, the meaning of which we need to carry with us whether partnered or not. Remember, Virgo follows Leo season, the sovereign monarch.

Is it feminine power, or is it female power? Or is it just POWER?

In a move to reclaim power, I’ve seen ‘feminine power’ used more and more across socials and media. However, being female doesn’t necessarily correlate to being feminine and the term combo suggests one’s power is in femininity. But power is broad-spectrum and inherently equal access. Virgo is a yin sign, don’t fall into the pit of calling it feminine. Non-binary? You’ve probably considered this a lot, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Watch the need to construct and maintain an identity based on the binary of feminine/masculine rather than your natural inherent, Goddess-given spectrum. Femininity isn’t a rent you pay to be a good human or exist in this world as a biological female, or if you identify as female from a trans origin. You are not female due to adherence to an identity constructed as feminine, meaning not masculine, or crossing into gendered social roles, themes, archetypes, behavior, energy, careers, etc. However, you may still be female. This works in the reverse as well. To assume signs, traits and archetypes are one gender, and that gender is inherently feminine or masculine assumes the other gender is by nature, not these traits or behaviors. Why is this problematic? It creates and perpetuates bias and very real legislation, privilege, and exclusion. More often Mercury is biased male in our culture and astrology, and very much in the culture and myths, astrologers lean into from ancient GrecoRome. It may take conscious representation to do this planet justice, but so worth the effort.

Check your own bias and note others. If by feminine you mean yin, receptive, internal, passive, or nocturnal (which is how the word is often used), then revisit your wording, concept, and construct, or you’re limiting yourself as well as others due to your perception and modeling if you’re a teacher or influencer. If you feel resistance or fear stepping beyond acting and expressing yourself in a ‘feminine’ way, it might be time to address that and expand your concept of self, identity, and how you wield your power. See my book Cosmic Power as a guide to expressing your Sun, aka your SELF.

“Never belong to a crowd; Never belong to a nation; Never belong to a religion; Never belong to a race.

Belong to the whole existence.

Why limit yourself to small things? When the whole is available.” Osho

Learn more about planetary transits, themes, archetypes, and myths with my new book:
ASTRO POWER: A Simple Guide to Prediction and Destiny for the Modern Mystic