How to Honor the New Moon in Virgo

As we begin to wrap up the month of August, a new lunar month begins with a new moon in Virgo. Both the sun and the moon will be in this sign, which represents diligent work, scrupulous attention to detail, and the delicious harvest that comes from a commitment to a job well done. This new moon in Virgo also gives us a few dark nights under which to become aware of and adjust the patterns to which we currently adhere.

How Will the New Moon in Virgo Affect Me?

The sun and moon both offer us life-giving light (the sun directly and the moon indirectly), and the sign of Virgo teaches us that staying busy is the way to keep a clear mind and a clear path.

Can’t get past writer’s block? Try cleaning your room. Data analytics not making sense? Try organizing your spreadsheets another way. “The devil might well be in the details, but he better be ready to box once I’ve rolled my sleeves up, because I’m not taking prisoners.” The sheer volume of minutiae in your everyday tasks can be daunting, but more often than not, there’s nothing to it but to do it.

This new moon in Virgo brings busy energy with it, with Mars in Gemini providing even more intensity. Anxiety runs high when your to-do list is as long as a CVS receipt, and sometimes even the thrill of checking things off of it gets overwhelmed by a deluge of new incoming entries. Mars is inclined to push us to energetic extremes and, under skies like these, can incite a swell of excitement that borders on burnout. During this year’s new moon in Virgo, the fear of being overtaken by tasks not-yet-complete is both terrifyingly real and also somehow larger than life. Proper navigation of the boundary between these isn’t likely to be immediately apparent.

How Can I Best Honor the New Moon in Virgo?

If you're feeling in a state of overwhelm, it is a good idea to talk it out with a friend. Sometimes there’s medicine in just hearing your problems and concerns stated out loud. Maybe someone else has a worthwhile idea for you. Maybe they don’t, but their bad ideas help to show you what you really want out of things. An argument can be just as valuable as an agreement when trying to get to the bottom of matters. As ever, we would do well to remember that effective communication is as much listening as speaking.

When it comes down to it, during this new moon in Virgo, there is something profoundly comforting in just trying something; action cures fear, and if you end up making the wrong decision, then at least you know that now and can try something else later. Decide to try and potentially fail, rather than not trying and still not knowing what to do. When anxiety comes in and tries to paralyze you, choose a direction and try to help yourself.

However, it may not yet be time to pick that direction as the one ultimate answer. Both Mercury and Mars are headed for retrograde, indicating that whatever solutions that come through at this time are likely to be more bandage than cure, and the wound may need to be dressed again later. Bandages are far from useless, but when the problems are tangly and wicked, a single solution is unlikely to stick in the long term. Rather than counting on a final solution now, how can you stay with the trouble and recognize that cleaning up sometimes gets you dirty?

A stop-gap for this moment is real medicine during the Virgo new moon, and yet any stop-gap measures will almost certainly require attentive adjustment. The paralysis of analysis gets us no closer to our goals, and the danger of accidentally moving in the wrong direction never goes away.

There’s nothing left for us to do but try something and see how it goes. The wise engage their response-ability and keep an agile framework for navigating unexpected obstacles as they surely arise. How can we find out what works if we don’t run some experiments?

Interested in a different astrological angle? Learn how to read your Vedic astrology chart.