Virgo Season 2024 Is For Reflection, Refinement and Getting Ready for 2025
After a busy--even crazy--summer in the skies, we get a slowdown and a chance to look at the Big Picture as we prepare for 2025 and beyond
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Intro and The Virgo Archetype
“Aw man, I coulda done that better! Come on, do better, Bryan!”
Do you ever find yourself saying this?
Unless your name is Bryan, I hope not.
In all seriousness, most of us have an Inner Critic. And since you’re a person who is reading an astrology blog, and one of astrology’s main purposes is to help individuals become better versions of themselves by aligning their lives with Right Timing, I’m reasonably sure that you want to improve. Personal growth is important to you, right?
Well, then, befriending the Virgo archetype should be not only easy for you, it should be a priority. Every time the Sun moves through a sign, we have a four-week, golden opportunity to contemplate that sign’s archetype. Thus, when the Sun enters Virgo here in mid-August, it’s self-improvement time.
After we’ve courageously expressed our authentic selves on the stage of Leo, Virgo Season is that moment well after the theater lights are off when we’re still buzzing and lying awake in bed, reflecting on our performance without the effervescent feedback of the crowd. Could I have said that line better? When I took that fall, did it look realistic? In short, did I perform my best?
In other words, because we’re moving from the expressive Fire of Leo into the grounded Earth of Virgo, it’s time to slow down and get real with ourselves.
Perhaps because I have several planets in Capricorn, an Earth sign like Virgo, I’m (mostly) fond of the Virgo archetype as I’m often thinking about how to be a better version of myself.
The downside of this, though, is sometimes that post-show-in-bed-in-the-dark review that starts as a well-intentioned pep talk turns into an over-the-top dressing-down. “Come on, Bryan, you can do better!” turns into “You fucking idiot, Bryan, why don’t you ever succeed?”
The phrase “Don’t let perfect become the enemy of the good” is a good one for the perfectionist side of the Virgo archetype to ponder.
Having said that, if we work with this desire to become better versions of ourselves with compassion and love, i.e., if we go to Pisces, Virgo’s opposite sign on the Zodiac, we can turn the sometimes challenging process of personal growth into an expanding experience of self-mastery.
In Virgo Season 2024, after a few months of potent, expressive astrological energies, the planets are cooperating with less directly observable activations, setting a slower, more reflective tone that asks us to start thinking seriously about our future.
This slowdown is a welcome breather because the energies pick up toward the end of the month when we enter the second of our two 2024 eclipse seasons. In addition, some of the outer planets, especially Pluto and Uranus, suggest this fall might bring back some of the chaotic, reality-shaking energies of 2008.
Let’s get into a week-by-week breakdown of what to expect and how we can work with things.
Notes on Virgo Season Astro Data
Note 1: All dates are in Japan Standard Time (JST). To get all the charts and find the exact times in your area, go to August and September.
Note 2: The items with charts are this month’s most notable moments, which I’ll address in the article.
Note 3: When a planet enters a new sign, I’ve listed it in italics to help it stand out.
August 22-August 29: A Chance To Go a Bit Deeper
Aug. 22: Sun enters Virgo (23:55, chart)
Aug. 23: Venus in Virgo square Mars in Gemini (12:20), Retrograde Mercury in Leo trine Chiron in Aries (21:20)
Aug. 24: Retrograde Mercury in Leo sextile Mars in Gemini (13:30)
Aug. 25: Mars in Gemini sextile Chiron in Aries (3:33)
Aug. 27: Venus in Virgo trine Uranus in Taurus (16:23)
Aug. 29: Venus in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces (5:24), End Mercury Retrograde in Leo (6:14), Venus enters Libra (22:23, chart), Venus in Libra trines Pluto in Capricorn (23:31)
After an extremely powerful period of astrology to finish Leo Season, the Sun mellows out when it enters earthy, detail-oriented Virgo on what is basically August 23rd for the whole planet. With our modern calendar system placing the start of Virgo season in the middle of the eighth month of the year and at the end of summer for most of humanity, Virgo Season is often the first time of the year when we truly start looking back on where we’ve been.
From the perspective of a traditional agricultural civilization, this is the time of the harvest, and thus, Virgo has a connection to the Saturnian concept of “you reap what you sow.” So, dear readers and grim reapers, what have ye sown in 2024?
Hopefully, if you’re in the northern hemisphere, you’ve had a good summer and, when you look back, you’ve made some lasting memories. Or perhaps this was a year when you’ve been more focused on your career or your studies, and you can look back and see how far you’ve come. Or if you’re one of our southern hemisphere friends, you’ve used the darker time of the year to do some inner work and to give your body a rest so now you feel rejuvenated as you prepare for spring.
Regardless, Virgo Season is always an invitation to see where we’ve been and, importantly, to prepare for what’s to come. After all, if we don’t pay careful attention to what we’re harvesting now, we may be in for a challenging fall and a long winter.
Coming on the heels of self-expressive, playful Leo, this is one reason why Virgo can get a bad rap as an archetype. It’s like that moment on a summer eve in late August when mom calls you into play and says, “You’ve got school tomorrow!”
Sure, the more studious or the more social you are, you may not have dreaded those words, but admit it: there’s always a sense of loss when summer begins to call it a wrap, and we have to get back to our more normal, daily lives.
In addition, the tone of this Virgo Season is set by the Jupiter-Saturn square that occurred just a few days before the Sun entered Virgo. With Jupiter in Gemini since late May, there’s been an expansive quality to our desire to communicate and see things from various perspectives. Still, as it makes its first square with Saturn in Pisces, there’s a call to slow down and connect with our more spiritual sides.
This has the potential to feel like a party pooper. However, it could also be like being poolside at a vibrant summertime party with loud music, food, and people frolicking in the pool and you meet someone who has some depth to them that you decide to go and have a chat with in a quiet room inside the house.
No, the party isn’t over; you’re just in the mood for a break in the action. If you honor that feeling, you might discover something you never expected when you got the invitation to this shindig.
With Venus in Virgo making a supportive trine to Uranus in Taurus before she enters her home sign of Libra at the end of this week (see chart below), some surprising sensual pleasure could be in store, as well.
This could be a nice parting gift for Venus after making her uncomfortable, sometimes overly critical trip through Virgo, the sign where Venus is in her fall. In fact, it might show up as a light bulb moment about that redecoration project you’ve been considering or some other area of your life that you want to bring some beauty and grace to. And then, as August ends, we can breathe a small sigh of relief when Venus enters her Libran temple.
Right away, she’ll be making a trine to Pluto in Aquarius. Could this be a period when we might have some deeper thoughts about how to bring about that more beautiful world our hearts know is possible?
August 30-September 6: A Fiery Shape of Things to Come, a Creative Breakthrough, or Both?
Sept. 2: Begin Uranus retrograde in Taurus (0:18), Pluto leaves Aquarius for Capricorn (8:58, chart), Mercury in Leo trine Chiron in Aries (22:46)
Sept. 3: New Moon in Virgo (10:55), Mars in Gemini square Neptune in Pisces (13:09)
Sept. 5: Mars enters Cancer (4:46, chart), Venus in Libra opposite North Node in Aries (6:19)
Unlike Leo and Cancer Seasons, Virgo Season 2024 is reasonably calm in terms of major aspects between planets. Having said that, as I wrote in “The Astrology of The 2nd Half of 2024,” the start of September kicks off the main event of the fall, which is Pluto’s final 10 1/2-week landing on the top of Mt. Capricorn after testing the airs of Aquarius since January.
This is Pluto’s last chance in our lifetime to renovate Capricorn things because the Lord of the Underworld won’t return to Capricorn until well into the 2200s. Because it will be in the final ‘anaretic’ degree of Capricorn until it enters Aquarius at the end of Scorpio Season in mid-November, Pluto will be extremely focused on finishing its work in Capricorn, which means all of our societal top-down structures get one last fumigation. Hopefully, all of the termites—-both literal and metaphorical—have been exterminated over the past decade and a half and the structures remaining stand with integrity and truly serve their social purpose going forward, but don’t be surprised if a few more banks or governments take a fall this fall.
In addition, because Mars rules the final degrees of Capricorn, I can’t help but be a little nervous about issues relating to war coming to the forefront until mid-November. Adding to that tension are the events of September 5th (in the chart below) when Mars ingresses into Cancer and immediately squares the Moon in Libra. This is cardinal energy, so something might be seeded early in September and then come into fuller expression around September 17th when Mars squares the North Node in Aries, which it rules. Issues in the ongoing genocide in Israel have been somewhat off the front pages lately, but this could be a period where they grab our attention again.
Combine that with our entry into the final eclipse season, which accentuates Aries and Libra in October, and Mars being, well, a bit crabby and defensive when it’s in Cancer, and we should expect talk of security and things like “protecting the homeland” to amp up throughout the fall, possibly to the point where not only nations but individuals act aggressively in the name of defense.
With Neptune still in the final degrees of Pisces, these are murky times we are in, and the fog of war is thick, so one person’s reality worth fighting for is another’s fantasy and this can lead to serious misunderstandings. Suppose someone has an extremely strong opinion about something that doesn’t make sense to you. In that case, the advice here is to engage Jupiter in Gemini and bring a broad-minded, big-hearted, curious perspective to the interaction, rather than denying what this person is sharing with you.
Speaking of Neptune, in these first few days of September, Mars in Gemini will form a square with it and this can signify issues relating to maritime aggressions or accidents. After all, Mars was forming the same square from Gemini to Neptune in the fall of 2022 when the Nordstream pipeline was sabotaged. Could we get some resolution around this time about what really happened?
On the positive side, Mars-Neptune aspects can be wonderful opportunities for pushing hard at both spiritual growth and creative projects. Thus, even if the world is experiencing geopolitical challenges, this can be a good time to begin work on that new spiritual practice or creative breakthrough you’ve been pondering.
September 7-14: Slow Down, Steady Does It, And Decide
Sept. 7: Mercury in Leo square Uranus in Taurus (13:20)
Sept. 8: Sun in Virgo opposite Saturn in Pisces (13:34, chart)
Sept. 9: Mercury enters Virgo (15:50)
Sept. 12: Mercury in Virgo sextile Mars in Cancer (12:41), Sun in Virgo square Jupiter in Gemini (19:52, chart)
Whatever the Sun’s journey through Virgo is about in 2024 for you as an individual, just as it moves past halfway on September 8, it will make an opposition to Saturn in Pisces, adding a sense of spiritual gravitas to matters. As I wrote earlier in this report, this Virgo season is signaling a slowdown and one of the key reasons for that is this aspect.
The best way to work with this energy, however, is to keep steady, and keep doing the little things that contribute to your overall sense of well-being. There could be a tendency with this aspect to fall into a bit of a funk—-always a concern with Saturn oppositions—but Saturn likes nothing more than the person who stoically puts their head down and keeps making forward progress, even if it isn’t as fast as you might like.
Mercury will re-enter its home sign of Virgo a day later and this should increase our ability to think through things methodically before this week is capped off with Jupiter checking in with the Sun from Gemini in a square aspect. This provides some optimism to our outlook while also warning us not to become too overwhelmed with all of the various things Jupiter wants us to check out as it makes its year-long trek through Gemini.
Having said that, because this is a square aspect, this suggests needing to make some sort of a decision about what you’re going to focus your mental energies on. With Mercury in Virgo making a supportive trine to the Moon in earthy Capricorn, this period around September 12th is a good time to use our body’s myriad senses to give us some guidance for these Big Picture questions.
September 15-22: A Mystical Invitation To the Future
Sept. 15: Venus in Libra trine Jupiter in Gemini (14:34)
Sept. 17: Venus in Libra opposite Chiron in Aries (6:28), Mars in Cancer square North Node in Aries (6:54)
Sept. 18: Full Moon in Pisces, Partial Lunar Eclipse (11:34), Mercury in Virgo opposite Saturn in Pisces (17:50)
Sept. 19: Sun in Virgo trine Uranus in Taurus (23:04)
Sept. 21: Sun in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces (9:16, chart), Mercury in Virgo square Jupiter in Gemini (17:49)
Sept. 22: Sun in Virgo trine Pluto in Capricorn (15:11), Sun enters Libra, Equinox (21:44)
And then, just like the past few months, the final week of Virgo Season throws a variety of astrological energies our way to work with. First and foremost, the Full Moon in Pisces on September 18th is a Partial Lunar Eclipse. This is the first eclipse in the Pisces-Virgo axis which lasts into 2026.
In a month that is mostly about looking back, this is the period that gives us the clearest glance of the future. However, because this is the first in the eclipse series and it is on a feminine axis (earthy Virgo to watery Pisces), unless we take time to slow down and tune in, this might be hard to discern compared to the events of the eclipse seasons of the past 18 months when they were in the expressive, masculine signs of Aries and Libra.
Still, this is a big deal in terms of the eclipse cycle as we’re moving from the North Node of the Moon being in individual-oriented signs for the past several years into the collective-oriented ones. With Neptune and Saturn in Pisces throughout the North Node’s transit through that final, mystical, All-is-One sign of the Zodiac, it’s very possible a sense of re-focusing on one’s place within the collective may begin to show up here as Virgo Season winds down.
In addition, desire to find and even form spiritual communities as well as a focus on processing our collective grief are invitations that this first eclipse offers us.
As Virgo Season winds down, the Sun’s opposition to Neptune reinforces all of these themes. One can begin praying now that this will lead to some cessation of the war drums as we remember that, for better or worse, we’re all in this together.
Conclusion
And there we have it: we’ve reached our goal after this hearty, slowed-down run through Virgo Season. Hopefully, your trip has allowed you the opportunity to refine your journey and improve yourself as you’ ve dealt with some of the morphing and triggering energies that are subtly pointing toward our future. And throughout, as we head into the second half of the astrological year, while it’s good to self-reflect and self-correct, remember not to get so bogged down in criticism that you forget that it’s all just a ride, man. If not, well, there’s always Libra Season! Until then!
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