Dear Reader,

As summer is giving way to fall, I'm acutely aware of the bright greens of early and mid summer turning into darker, deeper shades of green and hues of yellow and orange. I'm aware of the leaves beginning to fall and rustle on the ground. I'm aware of the slightly cooler, crisper air in the mornings and the darkening of the evenings, while the days are still warm and bright.

What are you noticing in your body and surroundings?

How are you experiencing this time of year?

Falling into fall

The end of August features a seasonal transition in the cycle of our year, when the Sun enters the sign of Virgo in the tropical zodiac and heralds summer's transition into fall in the Northern Hemisphere. This year, the Sun’s ingress into Virgo fell on August 22.

At the end of summer, the days grow noticeably shorter as the Sun rises a little later and sets a little earlier each day. It still feels like summer but more muted, softer and quieter. While the lakes are still warm enough for swimming, the mornings and evenings are cooling down. The grass is tall and golden. Grasshoppers and crickets fill the air with their songs.

There's a bittersweet feeling to leaving summer behind, like reading the last pages of a precious book or saying goodbye to someone we love. It's a time of both/and, when we grieve the loss of summer while anticipating the slower pace and cozy feeling of the dark half of the year that's just around the corner.

Thank heaven there’s a zodiac sign that’s not afraid to listen!

The transition from summer into fall coincides with Virgo season, when the Sun is moving through the sign of the Virgin. Virgo is a mutable earth sign ruled by Mercury and signifies a season of tending to what's right in front of us — with care, devotion, and attention to the smallest of details. It gives us permission to focus on the “little things” that make up our lives and reminds us of the joy of guiding everything to its rightful place.

I'm reminded of the serenity prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Virgo helps us both discern what we can change and change what we can for the better. It's our willingness to listen and learn, our desire to help and heal, and our impulse to adjust, align, refine, remedy, and repair.

Virgo gives the gift of clarity and guards the purity of our choices by helping us to think something through so that we may get it right. It's our moment-to-moment awareness, constantly absorbing and processing what we're taking in, removing what no longer serves, and seeking to apply our understanding of what we've observed in practical ways, one small step at a time.

Are you a child of late summer, having been born during Virgo season?

If so, how does it inform you?

The constellation of Virgo as a winged maiden holding ears of wheat in her left hand — *Line engraving by Sidney Hall from "Urania's Mirror," London, 1825.*

Listening to the world

We can learn a lot about deep listening from poet Mary Oliver (1935–2019) who was born with the Sun, Venus, and Neptune conjunct in Virgo. Mary is remembered for her love of the natural world and the mysteries it holds, her artful attentiveness, and her daily devotion to her craft. Walking in the woods and writing poetry, she said, have saved her life.

Carrying a notebook with her wherever she went, Mary found the extraordinary in the everyday, and through her work with words offered her appreciation to the world, insisting on its beauty, wonder, and preciousness. In her care as a writer, something as small and terrestrial as a grasshopper becomes a portal to eternity in one of her best known poems, “The Summer Day.”

Her prayerful writing speaks to the parts of us that long to tend, feel, cherish, and bless. The parts of us that wish to connect, contribute something worthwhile, and leave the world a better place. The parts of us that find a sense of belonging in the natural world, forever curious to discover the nature of the self and the spirit in every little living thing.

“Who made the world? / Who made the swan, and the black bear? / Who made the grasshopper? / This grasshopper, I mean — / the one who has flung herself out of the grass, / the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, / who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down — / who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. / Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. / Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. / I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down / into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, / how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, / which is what I have been doing all day. / Tell me, what else should I have done? / Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? / Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
Reprinted by the permission of The Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency as agent for the author.
Copyright © 1990, 2006, 2008, 2017 by Mary Oliver with permission of Bill Reichblum

Building spiritual muscles with Saturn in Pisces

For the second year in a row, Virgo season features a Sun-Saturn opposition, which goes exact September 8 at 16 degrees of Virgo and Pisces but is in effect the entirety of Virgo season (August 22 – September 22). If you have any sensitive points or planets in your birth chart at or near 16 degrees of any of the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces), you might be feeling this opposition very personally.

Saturn is the planet of maturation and wisdom. He works though pressure and puts obstacles in our path to develop our character and propel us forward with renewed clarity and focus. Pisces relates to our dreams, ideals, and imagination, which might be tested or called into question during Saturn's three-year long stay in the sign of the Fishes (March 2023 – February 2026).

While the opposition between the Sun and Saturn might bring up a temporary lack of faith, self-doubt, sadness, or somberness, it does so precisely to call us into deeper levels of trust, appreciation, discipline, dedication, and devotion. Wherever we might be slowed down, reminded of our limitations, or afraid to miss the mark, Saturn in Pisces is motivating us to build the internal musculature for us to grow more centered, calmer, and wiser in the ways we shine and create in the world.

*Horoscope for the Sun's ingress into Virgo on August 22, 2024 at 4:56 p.m. CET*

Again, we can draw great inspiration and insight from Mary Oliver who was born with this very planetary signature, her stellium in Virgo opposing Saturn in Pisces, albeit widely. From a young age, she approached her creative work as a poet with a great sense of self-discipline, serious purpose, patience, and responsibility.

In interviews, she said, “I kept at it, kept at it, kept at it. I used to say, with my pencil I’ve traveled to the moon and back, probably a few times. I kept at it, every day. And finally, you learn things.” and, “I worked probably 25 years by myself. … Just writing and working, not trying to publish much. Not giving readings. A longer time than people really are willing to commit before they … want to go public or be published.” and, “It's my responsibility if I choose to do it, to write as well as I possibly can. I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.”

Are you ready to roll out of summer?

What were your favorite summer moments?

What is asking for your attention now?

What are you devoted to?

How are you preparing for fall and winter?

What, if you would give up on it now, would you later wish you had “kept at it”?

I invite you to take these questions on your walk or into your journal, your dreamtime, or any other kind of creative or contemplative practice, either solo or with others. I hope they tickle you and help you transition into fall with care.

Until next time...

I very much look forward to writing to you again around the time of Libra Equinox, which marks the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and heralds a time of reflection and turning within. It falls on September 22, 2:44 p.m. Central European Time this year (convert to your local time).

In the meantime, I'm wishing you a beautiful end of summer wherever you are.

Time to Listen During Virgo Season