Hey everyone,
Welcome to your weekly forecast for the week of August 26-September 1, 2024.
Virgo season is in full effect this week, and for me the energy shift between the fixed fire sign of Leo and the mutable earth sign of the Virgin is… truly palpable. How did everyone’s transitional week from Leo to Virgo go last week?
It’s feeling like a homecoming for me, as a Virgo sun (next week you’ll get to hear all about my birthday gate, Gate 64: The Gate of Confusion/Imagination!) Despite all my Leo placements and deep love for the adventures of summer, I always find my body relaxing and grounding as soon as Virgo time arrives.
I didn’t always love being 'a Virgo’, what with it’s stereotypical associations with nitpicking and tidiness, but as I’ve gotten older I feel more and more aligned with the sign’s deep qualities. It’s all about how you frame it! “Organized” feels better to me than ‘tidy”, for example. When I started thinking of myself as discerning, a skill needed in harvest season to sort ripe from rotten, instead of ‘nitpicky’, I was able to embrace that in myself a lot more.
There’s an astrologer that I love named Britten LaRue who has done a whole series called “Unshaming the Signs”, where she reframes the stereotypes of each Zodiac sign and welcomes people to think about the gifts of the archetypes in deeper ways than the words we’ve been conditioned with through pop astrology. Check her out, she’s great- like me, she came to the world of astrology later in her life after an academic career, so I really resonate with her spirit!
I think astrology can feel reductionistic at first glance, but to me that’s an opportunity to be creative with how we define words and think about qualities of life and being human! That’s actually a huge part of the appeal of these systems for me, is to not only think in my brain about the qualities of my seasons of birth, signs, gates or hexagrams, but to feel into them in my body over time, and have a framework for doing so.
The ability to discern, a Virgo quality, is important in the work of astrology and other divination/personality analysis systems, not to mention the world at large- especially in this day and age. Jeanna Kadlek of Astrology for Writers got it right in her latest post: “In an era of widespread disinformation, “fake news,” and plummeting media literacy, cultivating the skill of discernment is more important than ever. I like how the Cambridge Dictionary defines discernment: “the ability to judge people and things well.’… Discernment is built on a foundation of self-trust. On the ability to trust your own mind and experience as well as an awareness of your own perhaps-not-always-great tendencies. Self-trust means not unilaterally ceding authority over your life to a teacher or a practice. It means being able to say no.”
Speaking of stereotypes and qualities, the title of this episode, “Very Intimate, Very Liberated” is a riff on the insanely popular “Very Demure, Very Mindful” meme that has just absolutely taken over social media over the past week or two. It’s based on a TikTok video where an influencer named Jools Lebron talks about being ‘demure’ and ‘mindful’ when going to work. The short video has over 50 million views and the word demure is just EVERYWHERE, with even President Joe Biden picking up on the trend:
Being “demure and mindful” is in opposition to being “brat”- the lime-green meme of the summer that has influenced Kamala Harris’ campaign. “Brat” is the name of an album by the pop artist Charli XCX, which is all about embracing your imperfections and being your messy, perhaps volatile, and radically authentic self. The artist tweeted “Kamala IS brat” a couple of months ago, and the Harris campaign took that and ran with it, successfully appealing to Gen Z voters.
“Essentially, to be demure is to be reserved, or not brat. Neat and tidy handwriting? Demure. Cute outfit? Demure. Going out partying with your friends every weekend? Brat.” -Gen Z influencer Emily Zwicker.
When I first saw the words “demure” and “mindful” floating around last week, an image of Virgo immediately came to mind, a sign that’s known for being put-together, somewhat modest, a little shy, and also being into mindfulness practices. But there’s also something about those specific words that don’t quite sit well with me as they gain in popularity- they bring up the stereotypical tameness and prudishness associated with Virgo, that I think are short-sighted. I believe all the signs have qualities that are seen as ‘shameful’, or that people typically have issues with, but I’m particularly sensitive to the Virgo ones, and believe that the sign is much more complex and nuanced than the hyper-vigilant and prudish stereotypes claim her to be.
Today, based on the first 2 Human Design Gates of Virgo season that the sun is transiting through this week, I bring you a different version of the harvest maiden’s archetype: Very Intimate, Very Liberated.
Let’s get into the forecast.
This week’s highlights:
First Full Week of Virgo Season
Wed, Aug 28- Mercury, Virgo’s Ruler, Stations Direct in Leo
Human Design/I’Ching:
Monday- Wednesday: Gate 59, the Gate of Sexuality
Wednesday-Tuesday: Gate 40, the Gate of Aloneness
This week’s themes:
Let’s talk about sex, baby (and intimacy and breaking down barriers to closeness)
Sovereignty and being whole unto oneself
The Hermit’s inward reflections
Our Place in the Wheel of the Year
Medicine Wheel Direction:WEST (Water, Adulthood)
Wuxing Cycle Element: Earth
Pagan Season: Lammas
Zodiac Season: Virgo (July 22-Aug 21)
Moon Phase: Waning
I Ching Hexagram/Human Design: Gate 59 (Sat-Wed), Gate 40 (Wed-Tues)
59 = Wind over Water (Huan: “Dispersing”) or The Gate of SEXUALITY
40 = Thunder over Water (Jie: “Deliverance & Liberation”) or The Gate of ALONENESS
The Six Gates of Virgo Season: Intimacy, Liberation, and beyond…
The 6 Human Design Gates of Virgo Season give some insights into the more nuanced nature of the Virgin. They are as follows:
Gate 59
Human Design: The Gate of Sexuality
I’Ching: Wind over Water, or “Dispersion”
Gene Keys: Gift of Intimacy
Gate 40
Human Design: The Gate of Aloneness
I’Ching: Thunder over Water, or “Liberation”
Gene Keys: Gift of Resolve
Gate 64
Human Design: The Gate of Confusion
I’Ching: Fire over Water, or “Before Completion/Not Yet Across”
Gene Keys: Gift of Imagination
Gate 47
Human Design: The Gate of Realization
I’Ching: Lake over Water, or “Oppression/Confined”
Gene Keys: Gift of Transmutation
Gate 6
Human Design: The Gate of Friction
I’Ching: Heaven over Water, or “Conflict”
Gene Keys: Gift of Diplomacy
Gate 46 (Virgo/Libra cusp)
Human Design: The Gate of Determination
I’Ching: Earth over Wind, or “Rising Up”
Gene Keys: Gift of Delight
Click the image below to get visuals & descriptions of these gates on Instagram:
The Very Intimate Gate 59, “Sexuality” (Mon-Tues of this Week)
As I wrote about in last week’s Sun Enters Virgo article, Virgo is a mutable sign that transitions us from the personal half of the year to the transpersonal/collective half of the year, from signs focused on self (Aries-Leo) to signs focused on our interdependence with others and the world around us (Libra-Pisces). Virgo is still in the personal half of the Zodiac, but she is starting to be self-reflective, thinking about how her sovereign selfhood is a part of the greater collective picture.
“Very intimate” draws from the Gate of Sexuality, and is is about Virgo’s intimacy and deep focus on relationality with her environment and the people around her. After the season of the Lion’s self-expression, Virgo is the first sign in the wheel of the year to begin to truly consider the other.
Last Thursday, I spent the first day of Virgo season (which was also the first day of Gate 59) touching up the paint on my kitchen cabinets and organizing the junk drawer. I had not felt like doing anything of the sort all summer, but that day it just felt right, and it actually felt…. amazing. To pay attention to and care for the little things, the environmental things that subtly bother me everyday, that got overlooked in the heat of spring and summer.
I got to Virgo it up alongside my partner Jackson, who was building a cold plunge in our backyard and fixing the frame on the door, so it also felt quite intimate! He had mentioned wanting to do some house projects over the summer, and I kept finding better (i.e. more fun, more Leo) things to do (haha), but when the stars finally aligned to cut and paint some wood, it felt really nice to connect with him through showing love to the place we call home.
I already spoke about gate 59, the gate that encompasses the Leo-Virgo cusp, in last week’s episode- (skip to 55:40 to hear that part), so I won’t go into too much detail again here, but I did read a quote from Richard Rudd’s 64 Ways that struck me in relation to my lived experience of intimacy over the past week:
Look at your relationships right now. They are exactly what you need. Is there any residual, untransformed energy anywhere? This is where your work is. Intimacy is actually a very internal experience, ironically. We become intimate with our own heart, and then we can be honest with another heart. We need to be really careful here because honesty needs to be balanced with kindness. Intimacy is a blend of honesty and kindness.
We don’t need to pour all our suffering out onto someone we love. Sometimes that is too much. And we don’t need to share everything all the time. Sometimes our heart has to decide how much to share. So much of our transformation takes place in the silent chemistry field of the relationship itself. That is the tantra. We have to transform inwardly every piece of trauma that is triggered inside us. This doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it, of course we can, if that helps us to care for ourselves more. But also intimacy is about listening to the other, really listening deeply through our heart.
Intimacy is really the by-product of inner transformation. It isn’t something we do. Intimacy is something that is revealed from within. As we become more intimate inside our own heart, so we let go of needing another person to change. That is the magical moment. That is when unconditional love comes into the game. When the other person feels that disinterested love from you, they are finally free to feel their own trauma. Even if they continue to project it onto you, it doesn’t have to affect you. You will then no longer close your heart or be triggered by their projections. Only then can the true healing begin.
Excerpt from The 64 Ways
This passage struck me in a personal way, as I reach the 4 year mark of my partnership and feel the settling into that type of love, that so-called ‘disinterested love’ that allows each of us to be in our own process but know we’re still loved without the inherent projections of newer relationships. It’s really beautiful, vulnerable, and lovely!
I’ve been seeing a lot of posts online asking if ex-lovers are coming back into lives during Mercury retrograde. It’s funny because over the past week I hung out with 2 exes- my ex husband and my college ex-boyfriend. I was together with them for 10 and 5 years. 5 years have passed since my divorce, and 15 years since my college relationship ended, and this week I found that I’m able to look at these relationships as integral pieces of my past, but not feel triggered or nostalgic or in any way caught up in them. I was also able to really notice how much I’ve grown and changed in my own being since I was in those relationships in my 20s and early 30s, and how much more potential for deep intimacy I feel in my relationship now because, as Rudd puts it, “Intimacy is a byproduct of inner transformation”. Poignant timing, Gate 59 mixed with Mercury Rx!
How did this gate show up for you all last week and weekend? We’re in it today and tomorrow (Monday & Tuesday), and then move on to the Gate of Aloneness, Gate 40, for the rest of the week.
Very Liberated: Gate 40, “Aloneness” (Wed thru next Tues.)
The second gate of Virgo season, Aloneness, brings forth images of the Hermit Tarot Card for me. It’s one of my favorite cards, and a card that is traditionally associated with Virgo. The Hermit suggests that a phase of introspection where we are drawing your attention inwards and looking for answers within. Virgo, as the last personal sign of the Zodiac wheel, is on the liminal edge between relationship with self and others, so Virgo season contains energies of both relational energy (the gates of sexuality, intimacy, friction), AND retreating and self-reflection (the gates of aloneness, confusion/imagination, realization). Then, the final gate (on the cusp with Libra) is determination, aka rising up, associated with delight in what we’ve discovered in this inward/outward process!
It strikes me that as a mutable sign, these energies within Virgo season are also very mutable and changeable, going in, going out, reflecting on the self in relationship to the other before merging all in. Ecologically, I love to think about Aries through Virgo seasons as the seasons of living plants: the sprout, the flower, the pollen, the fruit, the honey, the harvest. The second half of the wheel, Libra through Pisces, represents the part of the cycle that is death, decay, compost; the processes that are happening underground as the living beings from the seasons of life merge back with the soil, the material made up of life from years and decades and centuries gone by. While the personal months are focused on the growth of individual plants from individual seeds, these fall and winter months, these composting death months, are all about merging, combining with the other, with the collective conscious, back into the soil.
So here’s the end of summer, Virgo, knowing she’s about ready to drop seed and leaf and flower into the melting pot of soil for the next 6 months. But she’s still intact, her flower, drying on the stem, is still popping with color, her rosehips and peaches and apples are reaching a point of ripened perfection. She’s on the cusp where vibrant life must inevitably merge with all-encompassing death, but she’s still pure, still sovereign, still one unto herself.
The translated meaning of “Virgin” in Ancient Greek is NOT the unsexual, chaste, prude maiden that the English word has come to define. Instead, Virgin means “One unto herself”, an un-married woman who is self-governed, free, empowered and whole in her own being. And it is here that we enter Gate 40, the Gate of Aloneness.
In the original I’ching, Hexagram 40 is known as Thunder over Water, or “Liberation, Deliverance and freedom from hardship”. The elemental weather transitions from the previous Gate of Sexuality, which was Wind skimming over Water, dispersing ripples in all directions. It now builds up a storm above the watery abyss, where thunder and rain clear the atmosphere, and a feeling of oppression is relieved.
The written Chinese character for Liberation is the symbol of loosening -- untying a knot or unraveling a complication. This hexagram denotes a condition in which the obstruction and difficulty of the preceding figure have been removed. Ecologically, I like to think of the corn in the field, which is associated with Virgo, its husks being loosened from the fruit as the golden kernels get ready for the big autumn harvest.
Gate 40, the Gate of Aloneness, navigates the intricate balance between solitude, self-reliance, and the responsibilities we hold within our communities. This gate underscores the vital importance of finding strength and renewal in moments of solitude, as well as establishing healthy boundaries to safeguard our personal space and needs.
Gate 40 embodies “breadwinner” or “provider” energy, representing the drive to work diligently to support and provide for a community that values and appreciates our efforts, paired with an essential need for rest and solitude to recuperate and maintain our well-being.
It explores the dynamic tension between our roles as contributors to a collective and our inherent need for individuality and personal freedom. This gate teaches us that embracing periods of aloneness not only allows us to recharge and reflect but also empowers us to return to our communal roles with greater focus and determination. This is a time when you will find it easy to forgive and forget, when worries can wash away like water and your heart can blossom open with less effort than it has recently.
So there we have it! A couple of deep and profound gates to carry you into the season of the sovereign harvest goddess, the demure and sexy and mindful and liberated one. While there are no “good” or “bad” gates or hexagrams, some of them are taken as a welcome omen in the divination of the I’Ching, and the gate of Aloneness- despite its lonely sounding name- is one of those highly welcomed hexagrams.
What’s more, we have a couple astrological happenings this week that may add to a sense of relief after the several VERY intense weeks we’ve had to round out August.
A Grand Earth Trine & Mercury Stations Direct
Tomorrow (Tuesday) there’s a Grand Trine between Venus in Virgo, Uranus in Taurus, and Pluto in Aquarius (as Pluto heads backwards to enter Capricorn from Sept 1 to mid-November).
Grand Trines bring a harmonious flow of energy between 3 or more planets, which means they’re all working together well. With trines in Astrology, all of the planets are in the same element- earth, air, fire, or water. True to the season, this trine is happening in Earth signs. With Pluto and Uranus in the mix, the themes of radical change, revolution, and death/rebirth are there, but Venus is there to offer support. The flowing energy of the trine this week could give a glimpse of positive and hopeful things that are being birthed into creation now, so use this week’s intimate alone-time to brainstorm, find flow states, and create space to receive new downloads and inspiration from the universe!
Then on Wednesday, Virgo’s planetary ruler, the trickster Mercury, is going to be stationing direct in Leo on and headed toward the Virgin’s amber waves of grain. This is happening on the same day the sun transits into the Gate of Aloneness, so you can expect your solo journeys in the later parts of this week and beyond to have far less technical difficulties (and run-ins with exes!) Hooray!
Now it’s time to get intimate with your deeply empowered and badass self, to harvest the gifts that the spring and summer bestowed upon you, and to discern which relationships and projects deserve your precious attention and devoted reverence. We But don’t get too perfectionistic and obsessed with plans- there’s still time to indulge in some of those decadent peaches and apples, and let the sweet juice run down your chin. Virgos may be demure, but we can also be brat….
(And just because I thought this was tooo on-point, I have to share this tweet that says it all about the world we’re living in…
And with that, have a gorgeous week ahead, lovelies. Thanks for subscribing, sharing, commenting, etc!
<3
Alison
Very Intimate, Very Liberated: A Virgo Season Overview