Full Moon at 8 Virgo

27 February 2021

3:17am EST

Well darlings, happy full moon in Virgo to you! We are well into Pisces season, with the Sun, Venus and Neptune occupying that space in the sky. As always there are many threads to explore in any astrological moment, so I will present a few key themes that feel important to me.

We are leaving behind the intensity of a massive meet up of numerous planets in Aquarius—if you’ve felt a little “over-caffeinated” or buzzed up in the mental sphere this month, that is perfectly understandable, given the astrology and our approaching movement from Water to Wood elementally.

Mercury has gone direct again and, I don’t know about you but, I felt a shift from slowing waaaaaaaay down…to feeling like I was being shot out of a rocket with my pants on fire. And yet, it is still winter. How do will hold the tension between what is ready to burst forth soon but not yet? How do we pause when our impulse is to move forward? And why would we? More musings on that to come…

Full Moon in Virgo

Every full moon happens along one of the six astrological axes, and this one falls on the Pisces-Virgo axis (Sun in Pisces, Moon in Virgo). This axis is sometimes called the “magical axis” and is one of two Spiritual axes in astrology (the other being Sag-Gemini).

Pisces represents the mystical, the celestial, the infinite, the All, the intangible worlds. Pisces can be quite dreamy and head-in-the-clouds. Virgo is an earth sign, helping us to integrate the energies of spirit into matter, into this physical body and this physical world. Virgo gets characterized as the practical, grounded, analytical one. Pisces dreams and Virgo gets sh*t done.

More archetypally, Virgo is associated with the Priestess or Priest. These are the ones with a foot in both worlds, as the bridge or the conduit from the world of matter to the non-physical world. They know how to ally with the physical world and its rhythms in order to connect beyond. Virgo seeks to understand and ally with natural law.

This moon may highlight or allow us an invitation to reflect on this dance between our humanness and our divinity. Are you embodying or living from the mind? Are you resourcing in both nature AND the non-physical? Do you honor the cycles, seasons and rhythms of this earthly reality and your own psyche? How do you relate to the idea that your body is the vehicle for your soul? How are you treating it? Are you seeing incarnation as a drag or an honor right now?

Acting from Will or Wisdom?

So, we have this fullness of the Virgo archetype who bridges worlds, who honors natural law and the cycles, seasons, and rhythms of Gaia, and is grounded and practical. The Chandra symbol for this moon speaks to the imbalanced extreme of this energy: strict and rigid interpretations, evaluations, and opinions; busyness; too much planning; and concept-conjuring that is void of heart-force.

We see another layer of this in the Full Moon chart, with Pallas Athene square Mars. So, let’s explore.

Pallas Athene (Athena) represents feminine creative wisdom. Greatly revered in Greek mythology, she is the sister of Ares (Mars). They were both associated with battle, but Athena represented disciplined, principled, strategic, wisdom whereas Ares (Mars) represented more of the primal, raw, willful bloodlusty forces of war.

Athene, more esteemed by the Greeks than Ares, believed only in fighting for a just cause and as a means to resolve conflict. She was careful, principled, and wise in her actions, even in war. Her actions were aligned with natural law and came from an intention to ultimately serve the greater good.

A square produces dynamic tension between these two energies inside us, which can come to a crisis point where both are forced to grow. So we have this tension between our will and our wisdom. Between how we strategize and plan for the future and how we apply our sheer will to move forward.

Let’s consider how we affect our world through sheer force and pushing (Mars) versus manifesting in harmony with natural law (Athene).

We could relate this to the blast of a fire hydrant versus the rush of a waterfall. One requires a building of pressure released through sheer force and the other requires allowance and yielding to a natural process that wants to unfold and happens in harmony with the rest of the environment. (I’m no physics expert, but you get my drift.)

Your Inner Athene:

How are you relating to the parts of you that plan, strategize, consider, ponder, and position? Out of balance, this force can paralyze us in the mind, focus us in the future, and prevent our ability to take creative action. We might overplan, live for some anticipated scenario, or feel like we have to get it perfect before we can act. In health, our inner Athene helps us to take only those actions that are in our highest good and support the good of all. She is active, but from a wise place.

Your Inner Mars:

How are you relating to the parts of you that want to act without all that thinking and pondering? That are driven and motivated to move forward by sheer willpower and force? The parts of you that “want what they want when they want it,” regardless of impact? That sometimes act brashly and selfishly or shortsightedly?

How does life go for you when you forge ahead with action based purely in personal will and agenda? How does it go when your actions align with natural law and harmonize with the other energies and factors present in a situation?

Where are you taking careful, considerate action, not just for your benefit but for the best outcome for all involved? Where are you forging ahead from personal agenda? What are you noticing?

Shedding False Feminine Programs

A second theme I’d like to explore here is Venus’s journey in the underworld. For those who don’t know Venus’s cycle, they might only see that she is near-conjunct the Sun, so you might here astrologers placing an emphasis on relationships and values right now. But there is more going on here and this account misses a contextual understanding of the Venus cycle.

Venus (the feminine in us and all creation) is in the underworld right now, in an intense annihilation process. She is in the darkness, not visible from Earth, navigating the shadowlands to face her deepest fears and let die everything inside her that no longer serves. This is her death-rebirth period. And parts of her are DYING.

This is a period of shedding false feminine programs, parts of corrupted code in your inner Sacred Feminine Design that are ready to be released. This is the death of old ways of expressing in our feminine (in men, women, animals, trees, all of us) that no longer serve. This is a time to consider what parts of your feminine expression are ready to die. So that you can become more whole.

When Venus meets exact with the Sun on March 25, it’s as if she’s gone to the deepest and darkest of places within her….and found her greatest light. This is when she illuminates and activates the solar feminine forces and rises again.

How do you relate to this? What ways of feminine being are being asked to die?

I’ve been in conversation with a dear one this week about the phenomenon of feminine “fawning” for example (in short, trying to secure safety by getting the lion to like you and therefore not eat you – a fourth option after fight, flight and freeze). And we are discovering: that shit doesn’t work. Perhaps fawning is a wounded feminine program that is ready to die.

What are your thoughts?

If you want to jam about all things astrology as they are dancing through your world right now, grab a spot on my calendar and let’s have a Soul Map Session, or even better, book an Activation Series so we can really dig into the good stuff.

Full Moon in Virgo | February 2021