Welcome to Virgo season. Virgos have a well-deserved reputation for being meticulous, fussy, frustrating perfectionists. They are! But they can’t be easily typified as the sweater vest-wearing valedictorians of the zodiac, not wholly — they’re way more intense than that.
Virgos are immediately recognizable by their huge “I’ll do the whole group project myself” energy. Virgos always think they know better than everyone else, and usually, they do. If they don’t, they’ll absorb contradicting information and pivot appropriately. This is a very important Virgo skill, as it is absolutely intolerable to a Virgo to be wrong. They’re stubborn, sure, but Virgos don’t double down on misjudgment. When a Virgo realizes that they’ve made a mistake, they fix that shit immediately and then voilà! They’re right again; the error was merely a step on the path toward eternal correctness.
So they’re know-it-alls, yes, but that doesn’t mean Virgos are timid or traditional. Nobody — and I mean nobody, not even Sagittarius or Aquarius — is more anarchic against existing regimes than a Virgo. Mercury-ruled and mutable, Virgos can’t abide incompetent systems; they switch into full-on destruction mode when expected to obey inept orders. By preference, they’ll burn something down to rebuild it from scratch rather than simply repairing it. Virgos can become a touch autocratic in their personal relationships, but given a balanced situation with mutual respect, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better domestic partner. And sexually? They are freaks in the best way.
These qualities inform the experience of Virgo season for the entire zodiac. It’s sort of a work-hard, play-hard vibe, if the play is also a version of work and that work is perversely, compulsively satisfying. Virgo’s only weakness is bound up with the strength of their own momentum: sometimes they move so fast, so decisively, that they’ll ignore their own humanity only to find themselves surprised by the effect of their emotions long after the fact. That’s the prime directive for all signs during Virgo season: stay attuned to what’s happening inside, while charging relentlessly into the external.
Read on for your Virgo season horoscope, broken down by sign.
Click here to jump to a sign: Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo.
Your sign ruler Mercury rides with you into the first few days of this week, flinging you into your own season at high velocity before moving on to Libra. Both the Sun and New Moon square with Mars during the last weekend of August, so you may want to avoid conflict at that time.
Barring that hitch, the Sun has good things in store for you this month, forming positive aspects with the representatives of your shadow self, your lifelong destiny, the spirit of innovation, and the onset of revolution over the course of the month. The Moon precedes these patterns in auspicious trines with Uranus and Pluto as it emerges from the darkness of its new phase to wax bright again.
You face two major oppositions with Neptune this season when the waxing Moon in your constellation faces off with the blue planet near the end of August. Later, in mid-September, the Sun will pick up the same argument. Neptune is the ruler of intuition and spirituality — all the woo woo stuff, basically — and you may not be surprised to learn that it’s at its detriment when it passes through your sign: the practical energy of Virgo skeptically mutes the power of mysticism. You’ll likely feel inclined to shrug off any feelings of doubt and forge ahead heedlessly through the upcoming Neptune-related friction, but that’s where danger lies.
You’re observant when it comes to everything happening around you, but you have a tendency to ignore yourself to maximize productivity. For you, the two Neptune oppositions this month don’t necessarily mean that you’ll suffer from lack of clear intuition. More likely, you’ll be tempted to ignore explicit messages from your gut at these times. As you focus on whatever you’re prioritizing, remember to check in with yourself: suppressing your own needs to get shit done is occasionally necessary, but it’s not permanently sustainable.
Late in the first week of September, Venus arrives in your sign to spark a late-season romance arc. The bright planet holds steady in your space for a week before taking action, then launches into a flurry of choreography. First, Venus squares off with Mars, the ruler of aggression. Then, following the earlier path of the Sun, it twirls through felicitous formations with the representatives of destiny, the shadow, and innovation.
This scenario will probably look something like this: you fall for someone you think you shouldn’t want because you’re embarrassed about your true desires. Fortunately, you feel uncharacteristically disinclined to fight it, and the stars say it will be folded into the fabric of your destiny anyway even if you do attempt to resist. You’ll figure out a creative way to make it work, and it’ll all happen while your ruling planet Mercury is retrograde. Damn! A whole romance novel of a Virgo season.
You catch Mercury a few days into the season. Unfortunately, it’s not planning to play nice.
Mercury is a swift messenger deity. Astrologically, it rules communication and drives daily action. It will land in your house in late August, make itself comfortable for a little over a week, then get in a fight with Jupiter, the representative of luck. You’ll contend with the fallout from that over the next week… and then Mercury will turn retrograde on September 9. That’ll make most of the zodiac unhappy along with you just in time for backward-ass Mercury to oppose Jupiter again, hitting you with another wave of miscommunication-incited misfortune. The whole sequence sucks; I wish you the easiest possible experience of it.
The Moon also spends the final days of August in your company. In conjunction with Mercury, it opposes Jupiter and squares uncooperatively with transformational Pluto. During this same period, the Moon aligns positively with Mars, Saturn, and Venus, representatives of conflict, tradition, and desire, respectively. You’re understandably likely to crave a sense of stability here, and are even willing to fight to attain or defend it. Unfortunately, Mercury’s movements this month seem dispassionately determined to wreck your peace. Keep your head down, dodge as many blows as you can, and keep it moving: your season approaches next, and you’ll be prepped for an upswing in fortune!
Ah, the onset of Virgo season! This is the time when Scorpios begin to emerge from their summer stasis, sensing the incipient approach of autumn. Scorpio is a heavy-kart character in the cartoon driving simulation that is life: high top speed, but slow to accelerate. During the Mercurial energy of Virgo season, you’ll be Wario blasting across a speed boost in Mario Kart, tossing banana peels and chuckling deviously.
You touch the Moon at the turn of the month. While with you, the Moon spars with romantic Venus and authoritative Saturn, and flat-out disagrees with creative Uranus. At the same time, the Moon allies with both the life-driving Sun and your revolutionary sign ruler Pluto, aligning favorably with instinctual Neptune. In the emotional battle you’ll wage internally during this time, you’ve got your own back.
To address the effect of Mercury’s September retrograde, I’ll return to the Mario Kart metaphor: because you’re a slow accelerator, taking a hit during this time could really affect your placement in the overall race. Avoid hubris — a blue shell will put you at the back of the pack! But given the sheer heft of your kart, once you’re in motion, opponents can’t knock you off course via collision. If you steer carefully around obstacles, you’ll drive through Virgo season respectably, maybe even triumphantly!
Mercury doesn’t have the same hold on Sagittarius as it does most of the signs. Sagittarians aren’t really a forward/backward kind of people, they’re here/there/whoa over there!/gonna run in a circle for a bit/zig-zag kind of personalities. And miscommunication? Sag has never heard of her. To the average Sagittarius, all interactions count as regular unqualified communication, just another thread of the flow in a constantly chattering stream. Therefore, Mercury retrograde isn’t typically as catastrophic for you as it is for signs who care about being accurately understood.
In the first week of September, prior to Mercury’s heel turn, you hang out with the first-quarter Moon. The Moon forms a complicated series of aspects while in your company, interacting with six of the planets and the Sun. The formations suggest that you’ll enjoy abundance in the romantic aspect of life. It depends on the individual Sag in question whether that entails increasing contentment in a pre-existing commitment or whether it refers to the amount of opportunity you’ll have with multiple sexual partners. Watch out for the Moon’s patterns of conflict avoidance, avoidance in general, and inhibition of intuition during this time. If you’re not careful, you could hurt people you care about without even realizing it.
As we’ve discussed previously and will continue to repeat for months to come, you’re still hanging out with Pluto, which is still retrograde, the two of you locked in an amiable sense of fatalism. It just feels like part of your personality at this point. Enjoy it while it lasts!
Your sign ruler is Saturn. You like it when objects, systems, and people function properly and reliably. You are not a fan of the mayhem of Mercury retrograde, when people say stuff they don’t mean, mean stuff they don’t say, and everybody gets mutually mad about it all at once. You usually enjoy Virgo season — of the entire zodiac, your fellow earth sign is most like you in temperament and habits — but you’re liable to spend the last couple weeks of this season feeling irritated as your buddy’s sign ruler Mercury embarks on a destructive spree.
When the Moon passes through your sign a few days prior to Mercury retrograde, it squares off with main-character-of-the-moment Mercury and fortunate Jupiter, but aspects positively with other influences, including the Sun and your pal Pluto. In conjunction with the Moon, Pluto will help you survive Mercury’s reverse rampage with the sense of vaguely cheerful nihilism you’ve developed over the course of your lengthy association with the demoted dwarf planet of death.
You’re still coping with Saturn, still retrograde, as will remain the sitch for some time. It’s kind of like your unpleasant-but-not-overtly-offensive former boss started dating your mom. It sucks, but at least you only have to see him on major family holidays. In fact, the two of you might even have a bonding moment right before Mercury retrograde!
This season, the Moon in your sign, which influences your emotional state, will square off at odds with your sign ruler Uranus but aspect encouragingly with the representatives of luck, momentum, and conflict. Then, it moves fully into conjunction with Saturn! In the metaphor I’ve chosen, maybe that looks like a temporary but appreciated alliance with the boss-turned-parent: when asshole Uncle Albert says something homophobic at the dinner table, Saturn jumps in to shut him down before anyone even has a chance to glance to you. You’ll be back at odds with one another shortly enough, but in the space of that moment you actually don’t mind having Saturn around.
Try to keep your cool once Mercury turns retrograde. Of all the signs, you’re uniquely untroubled by the occurrence of genuine, non-malevolent foolishness in your presence, but you hate being willfully misunderstood when you’ve gone to the trouble to explain your position.
Along with Sagittarius, Mercury doesn’t have much of a grip on you. You’re a mutable water element, so all of Mercury’s hot air wafts by right over your head. This bestows you with a measure of immunity to Mercury retrograde’s worst effects, but you’ll still get your feelings hurt if others in its throes start stomping on your boundaries. Your sensitivity to your ruler Neptune’s retrograde presence in your sign could potentially enhance this threat.
You host the emotion-ruling Moon just as the troublesome first planet halts and reverses. That Friday looks to be a beast, as the Moon moves into opposition with romantic Venus and squares against belligerent Mars. The following day, the Full Moon in your sign moves on to snub the Sun itself in opposition, but forms friendly connections with imaginative Uranus, regenerative Pluto, and especially your idealistic ruler Neptune. Translated, that says you’re likely to face hindrance or even rejection in pursuit of something you desire, but you’ll find yourself content in your own interiority afterward, visualizing a new path to move forward.
You’re still hanging out with Jupiter, retrograde but still lucky, which is fortunate entering Mercury’s retrograde moment. You do not appreciate miscommunication, particularly when it’s caused by obfuscation. You’re also still hosting Chiron, astrological ruler of trauma and healing, and you’d prefer not to add any fresh wounds to your to-heal list.
You catch the Moon just days after Mercury moves retrograde; the Earth’s satellite moving into opposition with Mercury almost immediately upon entering your space. Alliances with lucky Jupiter and your sign ruler, Mars, should help bolster you through ill interaction with Mercury, the Planet of the Month. Afterward, the Moon moves into a cooperative sextile with rule-enforcing Saturn and a resistant square with Pluto, representative of destruction and subsequent beginning. Taken together with Chiron’s presence, it looks like you’re not ready to move forward into your next phase quite yet: you’ll have to spend more time dealing with emotional regulatory codes before you’ll be granted a permit to demolish and rebuild your whole ish.
At the start of the season, Uranus, which has been infusing your life with a bizarre energy for some months, moves retrograde to spend even more time in your sign. As a slow-orbiting outer solar system body, Uranus retrograde simply mutes the planet’s influence more than it wreaks havoc (for that effect, see: Mercury). Don’t worry, your life will still be strange, but perhaps in a more gentle fashion than it has been for the past several months.
You’re also still spending time with the North Node, the calculated point at which the Moon crosses to “ascend” through the orbital path of the Sun. The Node represents your individual journey through life, your ultimate destiny; it’s the lodestone guiding you toward the self you’re always becoming. As it’s currently moving retrograde, it’s looming on your mind but not pulling at you as compulsively as it otherwise might. Take advantage of this moment to thoroughly assess what you want and where you wish to be.
Shortly before Mercury turns retrograde, the North Node lines in sextile aspect with Lilith, the “dark moon” calculated point representing the Moon’s furthest orbit from Earth, which represents the parts of yourself you prefer to keep furthest from your own self-conception. It’s a little intimidating to have these two link up, but ultimately advantageous. You can’t determine your fate without accounting for all aspects of yourself.
When the Moon moves across your constellation in mid-September, it embraces four planets and the Sun, shunning only traditional Saturn. Conjunction between the Moon and Uranus will show you a weird but workable way to approach your current concerns, with enthusiastic assistance from the Sun, Venus, Neptune, and Pluto.
You’ve got Mars this month, which could increase aggression but seems to be mostly content to ride alongside you and make sure you’re okay. At the start of September, the red planet aspects propitiously with benevolent Jupiter, blessing any beefs you may be entertaining at the time. Later in the month, Mars moves into sextile with Chiron, which should channel anger into healing.
When the waning gibbous Moon moves through your territory in mid-September, it brings along interference with romance and intuition, possibly imposed externally through no initiation of your own. The Moon’s conjunction with Mars will probably make you want to fight about it, and fortunately you’re slated for a good probability to win! Auspicious aspects with lucky Jupiter and motivational Mercury stand in your corner, and the Moon’s trine formation with by-the-book Saturn indicates that you’ll probably have the high ground in any conflict.
Mercury retrograde, Mercury shmetrograde! You’ve got problems of your own to deal with before that even becomes an issue. You’ve been moving in tandem with Lilith for some time now. The calculated point in space at which the Moon reaches its farthest orbit from Earth, Lilith represents your shadow self, the unflattering personality pieces you need for survival but don’t necessarily want to haul out in front of company. Ruled by the Moon as you are, you’re more familiar with Lilith than the other signs: you ride out there and back regularly, and you know what the pale blue dot looks like from that distance.
That doesn’t mean Lilith is easy to grapple with, however, and at the dawn of September, it’s lining up for a grudge match with Chiron, centaur of wounding and healing. This could manifest as a sudden urge toward self-destruction, or refusal of a call to remediation. Basically, one of those instances where all of your meanest parts with the sharpest claws scream “NO! Fuck you, we will not heal; we will clutch our treasured injuries to our chest and cling to them forever!!!” (Yes, in this moment your shadow will speak in self-referential plural in the manner of Gollum, as the stars have decreed.)
Earnestly, this is one of those experiences that — as you are well aware — is unpleasant to live through but is often necessary for growth. Your Lilith qualities often rebel against relaxation and redress because their priority is to protect you from harm. To your inner assassin, it just seems silly to let your guard down. Why would you risk being stabbed again, even if the initial threat has long passed? Stay mindful and maintain sympathy for your meanest, most defensive version of yourself, even as you work to lay down your arms and render yourself vulnerable once more.
Venus and the Moon team up to run roughshod over your life for the first week of Virgo season. Frankly, it’s a little frightening. To sum up, the planet of love teams up with the representative of healing but goes nuclear on the rulers of order, progress, and your entire overarching life plot as the Moon stands by and cheers. Regardless of how it ends up affecting your individual circumstances, there’s no doubt you’re in for some big feels at the end of August.
Once you’ve survived that week, entered Mercury retrograde, and traversed the river of emotion washed in by the Full Moon in Pisces, you’re up for a second round of Moon action in your sign at the tail end of Virgo season. Agreeable with fortune-bestowing Jupiter, fast-moving Mercury, and battle-ready Mars, the waning crescent Moon in your sign pulls away from progressive Uranus and authoritative Saturn. While this finds you at odds with Uranus and Saturn once again, the accompanying placements show that you’ll become increasingly prepared to move on and put whatever’s happening behind you as September draws on.
Watch your tone throughout Mercury retrograde, whenever you can remember! You have a tendency to speak in pronouncements. That’s usually endearing, but when misunderstanding is on the wind, you don’t want to come to blows with a Gemini or an Aries who misinterprets the intention behind your words.
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