The Direction of Your Devotion: A study of the Virgo New Moon
We made it through eclipse season!
And now, with the Sun and Moon meeting at 18° Virgo, we emerge into a lunation that naturally asks us to survey the harvest: What are we keeping? What is actually useful? What can finally be let go?
I always look forward to the Virgo New Moon as an opportunity to find a new rhythm, pace, or structure. But this year, I don’t think it’s enough to simply reorganize our lives and pleasantly carry on.
With Mercury newly in Libra and Venus newly in Scorpio, refinement requires truth. We are being asked to look beneath the beautiful, functional systems we’ve created and acknowledge the labor, waste, wounds, and uncomfortable realities that keep them running.
This may lead to a painful resolution: some systems are no longer sustainable.
Virgo knows that we cannot preserve everything from the harvest. Something must be selected. Something must be discarded. With Mars in Cancer supporting this New Moon, we are given an opportunity to act upon what we discover: to protect what matters, nurture what we actually want to grow, and take a practical first step without becoming trapped in analysis. We may not see the growth yet, but some of the most important work happens beneath the soil.
That’s the invitation of this Virgo New Moon: to confront the truth about what you’re actually trying to grow, and then get realistic about the lifestyle capable of sustaining it.
Astrology Takeaways for the New Moon in Virgo
New Moon at 18° Virgo: Refine what remains. Look to the Virgo area of your chart for the beginning of a new chapter around improvement, discernment, service, habits, or systems. Virgo selects the best of the harvest to carry forward; not everything needs to come with you.
Mercury in Libra rules the New Moon: Fairness over people-pleasing. Our minds may become preoccupied with what everyone else thinks, feels, or needs. But Libra is primarily concerned with justice. Ask what is true and fair, even when the answer cannot make everyone happy.
Venus in Scorpio opposite Chiron: Look beneath the beauty. Following Mercury’s rulership leads us to Venus, newly in Scorpio and opposing Chiron. Something uncomfortable may need to be uncovered, acknowledged, or healed. Beauty has an underbelly: labor, waste, grief, sacrifice, cleanup. What have you carefully swept aside because you didn’t want to deal with it?
New Moon sextile Mars in Cancer: Protect what you’re growing. Mars offers movement where Virgo can become stuck in analysis. Act instinctively to protect your security, nourishment, home, body, or emotional well-being. Earth and water together create growth: water the seed, even when you can’t yet see what is happening underground.
Uranus stations retrograde in Gemini: The awakening turns inward. Uranus stationing retrograde amplifies its disruptive, liberating energy and turns it inward. It reveals our relationship with our minds: our thoughts, narratives, and attention patterns we’ve unconsciously let shape reality. A sudden realization might be uncomfortable or shocking, but Uranus ultimately reveals what we couldn’t see before so we can choose differently.
Mercury approaching opposition to Neptune: Question a “perfect” solution. Be wary of people, plans, goals, or ideas that appear to solve everything. Neptune can blur the facts and encourage projection. Dream, but retain Virgo’s groundedness. Nobody has it all figured out, and nothing needs a pedestal.
Mercury in tension with Jupiter: Loud doesn’t necessarily mean important. One person, need, goal, event, or desire for validation may become disproportionately large. Notice what is monopolizing your attention and ask whether it actually deserves that much of your energy.
Want to watch my entire New Moon Forecast?
There is much more happening beneath this New Moon than I could reasonably explore here.
In my full Virgo New Moon Forecast, I walk through the chart in greater depth, including all of these positions of the planets and how their aspects are weaving together over the weeks ahead.
For now, however, I want to turn away from the collective chart and toward the mirror.
When I asked myself what I was trying to preserve from this particular harvest, and what needed to be cleared away to protect it, the answer became considerably more personal.
How I’m Relating to this Lunation
For this Virgo New Moon, I’ve been reflecting on the words “practice” and “maintenance.” Maintenance, to me, is a kind of balance: preserving a structure or practice over the long term instead of reaching for extremes. That has always been difficult for me.
Perhaps it’s because my Jupiter is in Virgo that I tend to hyperfixate, push to extremes, and then burn out completely when it comes to a practice or discipline. It often shows up as obsession, followed by total repulsion.
My health has always been one of my chief concerns, and, as I mentioned in my last article, I do have a 6th house Leo stellium in my chart, combined with my Jupiter in Virgo. I can be deeply perfectionistic about my body, struggle to recognize my effort for what it is, and turn self-punishing.
With a lot of maturity, reflection, and experimentation, I’ve come to understand this about myself over the years and have done my best to mitigate it. However, I still find myself swinging into extremes.
The Origin of MYTHBODY
To keep myself from doing that, I’ve been envisioning a project that lets my competitive and obsessive nature keep me motivated, while also opening the door to something outside myself: something bigger that inspires me, keeps me in check, and asks me to maintain rather than overreach. That way, I don’t burn out and lose sight of the purpose of what I’m doing.
It is fair to say that religion and spirituality are powerful because when we pursue something aligned with a force outside ourselves, we can do far more than when we chase only selfish gain.
This isn't true of all individuals, of course. I'm pretty sure David Goggins has an infinite well of energy that he figured out how to tap into and use for himself. I don't know if that's because of any sort of trust in God or a force bigger than himself.
For many of us, myself included, putting our faith in a larger force can help us through the most challenging moments.
I’ve long wanted to create an exercise program, primarily for myself, but maybe something I could share if it succeeds. I wanted it to revolve around embodying a Goddess in that effort, and for me, that goddess has always been Athena.
I have Pallas Athena, the asteroid, on my Midheaven in my chart. I’ve always felt that when I tap into her strategist-and-warrior mindset through different archetypes, I’m aligned with my highest self. Athena was at the core of what I wanted to do, but I had never really worked with her before.
She’s always been on the fringes of my mind, observing from the edges, with me sensing her presence but unsure of how or when to engage with her deliberately.
That changed during this last eclipse season.
I finally made my introduction.
I formally went to her and propositioned her in meditation, and we met and came up with a plan that will extend far beyond my initial challenge. It is structured around the discipline of my body and mind, as well as sharing worship practices for Athena, her history, and her myths.
My intention has always been to work with a variety of goddesses for different exercises, and I’m now beginning this journey with Athena. She will likely remain at the core throughout the process. I’m excited because this taps into the competitive drive I’ve always had.
My first challenge, as some of you who've been following me across socials may know, is my very first 5K Race.
A 5K race is nothing extraordinary compared to a marathon or an ultra marathon, and some people I find incredibly inspiring can do multiple marathons in a week. That’s unbelievable, and I totally look up to those people.
As someone who often made excuses to avoid cardio activities, faking injuries or asthma in middle school track and field, and later used running as self-punishment for eating poorly or not exercising enough, my Jupiter and Virgo tendencies are evident.
I wanted to run a 5K to care for my body, train correctly, and develop a love for running. I knew this process would grow me on many levels: it would require discipline, and it would require me to take care of my body so I wasn’t training from punishment or extreme
fatigue. I can’t overdo the training without risking my schedule.
I have to pace myself.
I knew this would require me to get over my self-punishing tendencies and my shame and guilt around not being “enough” in whatever capacity. Ultimately, it would require me to strategize a long-term process to accomplish my goal: to do the 5K in under 30 minutes.
I even have a chance to win a prize because this specific 5K is organized by the symphony and is called the "Beat Beethoven 5K." You’re supposed to complete the 5K in about 30 minutes, roughly the duration of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. If you do, you get a free ticket to a symphony concert the following year, which I think is a fantastic blend of my interests and a great first step toward a feasible competitive goal.
I knew that I could run a 10-minute mile, but could I run three consecutive 10-minute miles? I’m working very hard to meet that goal.
I love that this first “episode” has given me a concrete goal, a competitive milestone, and a reason to maintain a training schedule in service to a deity. It has also helped me deepen my understanding of Athena, her worship practices, share the process with others, and embody her energy.
Let me tell you, it has worked beautifully. It’s been such a joy to recognize, in really tough moments when I’m pushing myself up a hill and feel my heart rate at its limit, that I can tell myself, “Do it for Athena” or “Push a little harder. Give it to Athena. What would Athena do?” Seeing myself rise to the challenge feels powerful, and so does recognizing that my body needs rest and that I must make space for it so I can train the next day as I’ve promised. I’m carving out the time, prioritizing real rest, and letting myself be present in my body without guilt.
This season of my life has been so liberating.
I’ve been documenting this whole process, and I plan to release it as a documentary-style video once I’ve completed the race on Saturday, September 26, during the Aries full moon. I have two weeks!
But the energy goes both ways.
Meanwhile, last week I did another meditation because I felt called to visit another primary deity I work with: a warrior goddess. She confronted me with the reality that, while this has been beneficial, I am still putting my energy into something that is creating a completely self-manufactured problem.
Furthermore, I’m avoiding taking responsibility for creating that energy, which is very negative, dark, and heavy. I’ve been deliberately avoiding the grief attached to it because it is very painful to face.
This felt like such a stark contrast to the motivation and joy I’ve been pursuing in this MythBody 5K challenge.
What’s really resonated with me is how powerful my thoughts are. When I put them toward the accomplishment or sustaining of a genuine challenge in alignment with a higher power, I am capable of so much more than I ever thought possible.
In the same vein, when I focus my thoughts on something draining, depressing, and painful, I am literally creating the energetic mass, or egregore, of that being, person, or force in my life that is causing real damage to myself, my children, and my home.
Only when I realized the strength of my own mind could I clearly see I was the one creating the situation, not the person I had assumed was sending "bad energy" my way.
It has really just been me all along.
We have a Venus retrograde coming up in Scorpio and Libra in the next few weeks. I’ve determined that, while this 5K challenge has been incredible, it’s really opening a deeper doorway into my own healing that I’ve been afraid to face for a long time.
This retrograde is happening partly in my 8th house, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. That’s what the 8th house does: it scares us.
It’s all the dark places in our closet that we don’t want to look at. I’m more afraid to face some of that grief and pain than I am to do this 5K, which is precisely why I think I need to start considering doing it intentionally.
If my mind can create a literal egregore of negativity in my own life, it can also find the way out. It can also generate the transformation of that energy into something positive, strong, and potentially healing, not only for me but possibly for others as well.
How this relates to Virgo
This experience of polarity had me reflecting on the Virgo archetype because it is ruled by Mercury, of the mind. It is acutely aware of all the details, and it's trying to find the most useful ones, the most practical approach, the most efficient system. As a result, Virgo can dismiss a lot. They can carve out such a pristine, pure expression of data. They can master so much and be that expert craftsperson, but many of the Virgos I meet are still highly anxious because their mind is still considering what could go wrong.
When I consider the amount of energy that Virgo folks are putting into the “wrong,” the risk, the challenge, the pain, the mess, the grief, or all the parts that cannot be efficiently maintained or controlled (and how that sometimes can overtake their lives, living in that anxiety or shame around not being able to manage those things), I think it's unfair to say, "What a waste," because that's part of what makes them so brilliant. I wish that they could awaken to their own power, that they could step outside of themselves for a moment and question: "Am I putting my energy and my thoughts into this in a way that is useful and productive, or am I just sitting in the fear? Am I just emphasizing the anxiety, and is that creating more of the issues that surround my life?"
I can't help but wonder, and I wonder because I genuinely wonder if that's what I've been doing all along. I've created this force that is supposedly my enemy when, in fact, it's me fighting against myself.
The realization that I might be punishing myself is no lie, a very painful one. It feels very Uranian, and I've been awakened to it, and now I can't unsee it. I feel myself internally gasp; I suffer the aftershock, but as I always say, Uranus is here to liberate us. While it is painful, I finally feel free of the overwhelming dread I've manufactured, like a limb that was diseased and festering, which has finally been cut away.
Things will never be the same.. and they shouldn’t be.
Continue the Journey with BLUEHOUR.
Once we become aware of where our energy goes, we have an opportunity to be more deliberate about where we send it next.
This month’s BlueHour meditation invites you to do exactly that.
Together, we’ll gather our energy back to ourselves: the mental energy scattered across endless thoughts, the emotional energy entangled in circumstances we cannot control, and the physical energy spent maintaining things that may no longer deserve so much of us.
Our attention is powerful.
When we recognize how much of ourselves we have been unconsciously feeding into something, we can ask whether that investment is actually helping us create the life we want to inhabit.
From there, we’ll consciously redirect it toward something worthy of our devotion: a practice, relationship, dream, healing process, creative work, or perhaps simply ourselves.
Virgo is the great refiner: she invites us to become discerning about which thoughts are useful.
This meditation will offer a space to pull your energy back, examine where it has been going, and choose where you would rather it grow.
Along with the meditation, BLUEHOUR subscribers also receive this month’s collective tarot reflection and other seasonal offerings designed to accompany you through the lunar cycle.
My Wish for You
May this Virgo New Moon grant you the discernment to recognize what deserves your precious attention.
May Mercury sharpen your mind without turning its blade against you.
May you see clearly the difference between preparation and anxiety, devotion and punishment, a challenge that strengthens you and a burden you keep carrying because you’ve forgotten you can put it down.
May you honor the grief that must be grieved, the wounds that must be tended, and the truths that can no longer remain hidden, without building your home within them.
May you reclaim the pieces of yourself lost in old fears, imagined futures, unreachable standards, and battles that were never yours to fight.
And when that energy returns to you, may you remember just how powerful you are when you choose where to place it.
I wish you a New Moon of clarity, liberation, and purposeful devotion.
May your mind become an instrument of your freedom rather than a weapon against yourself.
From my altar to yours,
🌙Cawnawyn Mor
