A Practical and Grounding New Moon in Virgo, September 9, 2018

Welcome to another Moon cycle. It's time to take a moment to celebrate fresh energy and set intentions with the New Moon in Virgo. Virgo energy is earthy, practical, organized, and body focused. This is a wonderful time to set intentions around promoting your own physical wellbeing. What healthy habits would you like to incorporate into your daily routine? Maybe pick just one today to commit to for the coming 4 weeks. Even if you have 10 routines you'd love to make a part of your life, wouldn't it be absolutely wonderful if you did even one of those habits every day? You can start small, adding another routine each Moon cycle instead of trying to do it all at once. Trying to do it all at once is a recipe for overwhelm and burn out. Let's do a tarot spread to help us focus in on a particular habit or routine that would best suit us in the month ahead. Here are some handy questions you can ask your deck:

The development of what healthy habit or routine is best supported by this New Moon? What advice will help me focus on and commit to this new practice? How can I be gentle and patient with myself as I learn and grow?

Be aware that Virgo can bring perfectionist energy. This is where the need for compassion comes into your month. Developing a new healthy routine is not always a snap, in fact, it usually is quite hard. You will have slip ups, reverse your progress, take two steps forward and one step back. The key is to not be overly hard on yourself. Work on developing practical and reasonable expectations that don't include perfectionism at all. If you believe that the only way to be successful is to be perfect, you need to take a step back and ask where this belief is coming from. Trust me, it is not valid. You can be wildly successful and abundantly joyful and make mistakes ALL THE DAMN TIME. You will need to constantly remind yourself of this in the month ahead as you work towards your healthiest life, develop new routines that support that healthy life. Accept slow progress, even agonizingly slow progress!

Here is a tarot reading I did for us collectively using the above spread:

The development of what healthy habit or routine is best supported by this New Moon?- Knight of Cups reversed Emotional health is inextricably linked to physical health. When your emotions are out of control, chaotic, overwhelming, etc, that emotional pain easily manifests as physical ailments in the body. This month ahead, it is a lovely idea to make a daily habit of reflecting upon your emotional state. Check in with yourself to see if you are suppressing, avoiding, or hiding your emotions. When emotions get bottled up they reek havoc on our health. You could make a daily habit of sitting with an uncomfortable or unwanted emotion and letting it pass through you.

A way to practice allowing emotions to pass through you is to first sit quietly with 5 or so minutes to yourself. Now bring to mind a situation that is causing you pain, notice the emotion it causes you, be it anger, sadness, disappointment, etc. Then hold that emotion, feel it in your physical body. Now, for the tricky part- let the story behind the emotion go, let it fade away so that it is just you and the emotion without any story attached. Within a minute, 2 minutes at the most, you will feel the negative emotion slowly lose force and fade away. Now the emotion has passed through you and your physical health can feel the positive effects of releasing that emotion.

I'm going to try doing this practice daily for the next month, spending a little time each day letting emotions pass through me. When you practice something it becomes more natural and easy over time. I like the idea of a practice of experiencing my emotions and then letting them pass out of my experience instead of hanging around and hurting me. This type of emotional work is supported by a lovely placement of Neptune in Pisces at this time. We can allow Virgo energy to provide you with the structure and organizational energy to bring a new practice into your life.

What advice will help me focus on and commit to this new practice?- III of Pentacles reversed The idea of building something permanent, of working to construct a beautiful perfect structure, needs to get tossed out the window. Remember, there is no perfection in life. There also is no end goal to all this doing. If you focus on doing and making things as the point of your life, you will always have to make more, more, more. Is that how you want to live- never satisfied with what you've built, always putting on "finishing" touches until you've created something far beyond a Rococo monstrosity? The idea that life is linear and we are always on the up and up, is not helpful. It's time for a new point of view.

We actually move and live in cycles. Energy ebbs and flows, in and out, up and down, this way and that. This knowledge is why I work with the Moon cycles to connect with the cyclical nature of life. You can't get too attached to structures or even versions of yourself, everything is always changing. It's all about doing what is right for you right now. Tear down the ego, take apart your identity, deconstruct your beliefs and then notice how you are still you. You have an essential self that isn't subject to all these cycles of your life, it is your unchanging soul. Isn't that nice? You can't stop being you, but you can stop identifying with old versions of your personality and move on. Perhaps this month, as we all practice allowing emotion to move through us, we can confront the emotions that we think of as "us" and instead focus on releasing a past version of the ego. 

How can I be gentle and patient with myself as I learn and grow?- The Chariot reversed Ya'll, this isn't easy work I'm talking about doing. Deconstructing the self and releasing painful emotions- that sounds fucking tough. Let's remember that we don't have to be perfect about it, we don't have to do it the "right way", and we don't even need to finish it. Is there any "finishing" before we die? The Chariot reversed reminds us to take it easy, to cruise along, to take side roads that look interesting, to sit back and enjoy the ride. Yes, we are making progress and we are doing things to try and live our best lives, but there is no rush. Rushing this can lead to frustration and impatience. Look for ways that you are making progress, take notice of the small steps, and be grateful for all that you do. You are doing so much!

You are so awesome for even trying, for caring, for being conscious, for making any effort at all. Does it feel like more people are making that effort, more people are waking up? It can be frustratingly slow progress but you have deep reserves of ambition and drive and determination. You're not going to give up even when the road is bending out of view and it's hard to say where you're heading. You're not going to give up when the ideas of "success" or "finishing" or "reaching your goal" are taken away. You're inching towards a new paradigm, a new understanding of what your soul purpose is here on Earth at this time. The Virgo New Moon offers you energy to heal yourself by taking small daily action towards your health: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed this New Moon tarot reading for the Virgo Moon cycle. I'm wishing you love, health, healing, and strength in the month ahead!