Virgo lunar cycle recap

With only channel 35-36 defined in my system, it’s rare that I ever realize what’s going on in the story of my life while it’s actually happening. So a great deal of the work I do in my spiritual practice is taking notes and, later, reviewing the notes in an effort to understand the path I’m on.

This post will collate the progress I’ve made over the lunar cycle that began with the Dark Moon in Virgo, which wrapped up the two-cycle-long Eclipse Season. The Virgo lunar cycle was therefore the first step forward from whatever massive lifestyle shake up went down during the eclipse season.

As far as conscious awareness goes, I believe the most significant lifestyle change I made during Eclipse Season was harnessing the Lunar Eclipse to end my fifteen-year habit of all-day-every-day cannabis use. I had planned to taper slowly, but didn’t enjoy it and simply chose to cold turkey. The Dark Moon in Virgo happened two weeks later when I was still in the middle of the chaos of that transition.

10 September: Dark Moon in Virgo

Took my first walk around the neighborhood during the Fairy Hours with intentions of turning it into a daily habit. Booked a beach vacation and signed up for my first credit card, an American coming of age ritual.

12 September: Mercury opposite Neptune, grand air trine Uranus and Pluto

My baking steel arrived and I made my first proper pizza, changing my lifestyle irrevocably.

14 September: Moon conjunct Venus

Pleasure Principles arrived, and so did my set of Monk Manuals. Purchased riboflavin, CoQ10, and feverfew to start taking on a daily basis to manage my chronic migraines.

17 September: First Quarter Moon in Sagittarius

Placed my Flamingo Estate copper Luxor symbol under my sleeping spot in an effort to fend off all the dreams about fighting monsters.

18 September: Mercury opposite Saturn

Opened the door to the screened-in porch for the cool season.

21 September: Equinox vigil 1 of 3, Moon conjunct Pluto

Finally ghosted my latest Oracle seeker and felt hugely relieved.

24 September: Moon trine Venus, Mars inconjunct N. Node

Realized I have to stop restricting my coffee intake to stop having migraines. Started drinking coffee normally again for the first time since the Lunar Eclipse on 27 August.

25 September: Full Moon in Aries

Cancelled my beach vacation because of the intensity of my migraine flares and felt immensely relieved. I don’t actually like traveling.

26 September: Sun grand trine Uranus and Pluto; Moon conjunct Neptune

Finally switched back to espresso after a month of drinking cold brew. Also started drinking gongfucha with intentions of turning it into a daily habit to fulfill the goal on my Capricorn profection year bingo board. Signed the contract I wrote up for my two partnered beneficiaries.

29 September: Sun trine Uranus, Moon square N. Node

Started doing blessings over the road again for the cool season. Also started drinking Liquid IV every day to balance out my electrolytes, in the hope of resolving my chronic fatigue and bad body feelings.

30 September: Moon conjunct Uranus, Mercury enters Scorpio

Mercury told me to cancel my upcoming plumber visit because I’m not well enough to disrupt my sleep schedule for it, and I complied. Purchased a new stainless steel pot (smaller this time), a porcelain pie pan, and two stainless steel gratin pans. Changed my “theme” in the Monk Manuals to prioritizing my well-being over goal orientation.

01 October: Mercury T-square Mars and Pluto

My Venus retrograde reel started getting me a massive influx of followers; I was not happy about this, but I tried to tell myself that I was. Walked over two miles, covering every street in my corner of the housing development – the furthest I’ve walked in years!

02 October: Solar-Lunar Arc; Mars opposite Pluto with Mercury T-square

In my dream, a fairy bartender clocked that I’m part demon on my mother’s side, confirming my long-held suspicions.

06 October: Mercury conjunct Venus Rx

Started culling people from my personal Instagram account, foreshadowing.

09 October: Moon opposite Neptune and Saturn

Removed over 400 followers from the Malefic Manach Instagram account and announced my more or less departure from social media in the caption of my Mars square Venus Rx post and my stories.

Analysis:

In my Instagram text post for the Virgo Dark Moon I described how this lunar cycle would focus on the theme of self-nourishment. I theorized that Virgo relates to us through the things we consume through the mouth to benefit and balance our health.

Over the following lunar cycle I did not really think about this on a conscious level, but it’s clear that my body was responding to Virgo on this level, because an overarching theme emerged: the way I manage my extremely disabling chronic migraine through the substances I consume.

This lunar cycle I reverted to my standard habit of drinking an iced cortado once every 2-3 hours. I also added three supplements to my daily meds, and I started drinking a packet of Liquid IV every day when I wake up. Halfway through the month I also started reintegrating daily tea to support my caffeine intake and my hydration.

At the beginning of the lunar cycle I was fielding a migraine every single day, and now I have them about once a week. So I feel pretty confident concluding that the changes I’ve made to my literal, nutritional self-nourishment have been effective.

Another, more diagonal, self-nourishment theme has emerged through my fraught relationship with Instagram. I often describe the social media “feed” as another form of food. Whatever energy is fed to us there circulates in the auric field, even if we choose not to digest it.

Over the Virgo lunar cycle I’ve become increasingly disgusted with Instagram and its community, and this has culminated in the decision I articulated in my previous post: my divestment from using the app as my primary workspace. This feels like a fitting conclusion to the lunar cycle, especially given the context of Venus’ retrograde. During the end of the pre-retrograde shadow it was already becoming clear to me that my energetic investment into social media was a divergence from my personal ethics. I’m pleased to return to a more faithful monastic habit of media fasting as the Libran lunar cycle begins.

10 October: Dark Moon in Libra

Dark Moon is the pause between lunar cycles, and it is marked by a rare moment of rest and quiet in the emotional body. When Moon conjuncts Sun she cannot be seen lighting up the night sky, so for a few nights she stops acting as our nocturnal Luminary and gets to take time off from the job of activating our emotions. This is the optimal moment for emotional cleansing, setting down burdens, and preparing for the next phase of activation.

Some people call the Dark Moon the New Moon, and this is really a subjective matter. In my practice we distinguish between the two. Dark Moon is the moment of conjunction, and New Moon comes a few nights later, when the first sliver of Moon can be seen above the tree line after darkness falls. For those of us who note this distinction, the New Moon marks the beginning of the next lunar cycle, when Moon begins to act as a luminary again. New Moon is the right time to begin lunar cycle manifestation, ideally after performing the ritual cleanse we associate with the Dark Moon’s emotional quiet.

The lunar cycle is colored by the sign the Dark Moon falls in, and this month the Moon’s focus is on the sign of Libra. Libra is the sign of the Balance Scales, and also the sign of Justice. Some people mistakenly believe that Libra rules objective justice, as in fairness. But it’s more true to say that Libra’s justice is about doing justice to oneself by treating oneself fairly.

Since Libra rules the seventh house of the Other, a lot of people think Libra is all about enforcing justice in the Collective, and they get caught up in obsession over other people. These people inevitably fall victim to codependency, getting entangled in a dysfunctional vortex of giving mutual aid they can’t really afford and then despairing over living in poverty, crying over not being able to martyr themselves for tragic causes that actually have no bearing on their personal lives, and trying in an ill-fated well-meaning way to exert control over other people so they don’t suffer from negative emotions ever again. Libra does not like to hear that these behaviors are not actually altruistic, but are instead deeply self-serving and problematic.

It’s actually not like Libra to be emotionally verklempt, because Libra is an air sign. A healthy Libra is characterized by emotional lightness, logic, and sound reason. A healthy Libra does not become emotionally dysregulated easily and does not fall victim to unwarranted grief over other people’s problems, because they are well able to detach themselves from watery and fiery feelings and zoom out to see the big picture of reality and the actual role they play in it. It is necessary for Libra’s growth to mature into the capacity for objectivity and intellectualization. Libra needs this detachment to see their true sense of purpose, and to understand that they need to understand the role of the Self in order to productively provide service to the tangible Other (distinct from the imaginary, projected Other).

As I always say, regardless of whether or not we have planets in Libra, we all have Libra on the natal chart. So that means nobody gets to escape the duty of maturing this part of our personalities. In order to mature the Libra parts of ourselves, it is necessary to understand that we cannot provide service to the Libran Other without developing a strong foundation in our Arian sense of Self.

100% of the Libra Suns I know loathe and despise the idea that they need to develop a mature, realized sense of Self to provide healthy service to Others. They would much rather live as slaves to the Collective. But of course it’s natural for immature people to desire to remain immature, because staying immature is easy and requires no investment of effort.

To this all I can say is that we all have to do things that challenge us if we want to grow up. These days a lot of people get away with remaining immature until death, and that is also a choice Libra is free to make if it really is too harrowing to think of the Self. Freedom of choice does give us the freedom to succumb to having a weak personality.

This Dark Moon falls within opposition distance of Saturn in Aries, and that is actually extraordinarily supportive to our process of developing a strong sense of self. Structural foundation is Saturn’s domain, and while traveling through Aries it is our sense of self that he is building.

Opposition can be a challenging transit, because it brings us into awareness of the polarized aspects of our personality. In this case the polarization that is highlighted is the contrast and interplay between the Self and the Other. We are forced to acknowledge that without one side or the other, we fall out of balance. Opposition brings our weaknesses into the light.

All that said, not everyone has dysregulation in the Libra part of the chart. Some people are overly Arian and deprioritize the Libran Other. For those people, this lunar cycle will bring the opposite challenge, calling for the opposite kind of maturation in the sign of Libra, the act of giving more weight and importance to others instead of overidentifying with the Self. For these people Saturn’s presence in Aries serves the purpose of creating healthy limitation.

Immature Arian people resent the idea of limitation, feeling rather strongly that they ought to have ultimate freedom to pursue their every desire to fulfillment. But the reality is that life cannot exist without limitation. Every decision we make sets limits. Even the decision to put off making decisions in an effort to limit our limitation sets a limit – living that way severely limits our movement towards maturity and personal growth.

So how can we all make the most of this lunar cycle that begins with the Dark Moon in Libra? Using the image of the balance scales, we need to place the Self on one side and the Other on the opposite side… and then invest our effort in developing the side that has less weight, in an effort to balance the scales.

A lot of people these days don’t understand what balance scales are for because most of us use electronic scales nowadays. The whole purpose of balance scales is to add weight to the lighter side until the scales reach a point of equilibrium. Scales that are out of balance are useless.