The Solar Eclipse in Virgo – Removing the Plagues from Your Life

I received a call a few weeks ago, and I heard a breathless voice on the other side of the phone ask me, “Is there an eclipse coming?”

I quickly told her that there was and that I felt the eclipse was extremely important because it conjoins the Midheaven of a Presidential candidate – Hillary Clinton.

She then breathlessly asked me another question, “What sign is it in?”

I told her that it occurs in Virgo.

“Oh, how boring!” she exclaimed with a rather derisive tone.

I went on to tell her a little about the eclipse, but her dismissiveness of the sign of Virgo kept gnawing at me.  Why did she just dismiss it to the land of irrelevancy and even when I explained to her what the eclipse meant, you could hear the boredom in her responses?   She became distant and uninterested.

I can’t express the importance of this eclipse enough – it activates the very powerful Saturn-Neptune square, and it occurs while the ruler of Virgo – Mercury – is retrograde.

Heed the warning, you should pay close attention to this eclipse and the events that happen in your life throughout the month of September.

So, let’s just get into it!

The Myth of Aristaeus

As most of you know, I love mythology, and there are several characters that are relevant to the sign of Virgo, but I think the most fitting for this eclipse is Aristaeus – the son of the Sun god, Apollo.

Aristaeus is an interesting mythic figure.  He does not fight any dragons and doesn’t draw his sword in battle.  He is not a traditional hero, and his values towards life are focused more on the earth and her resources.  He was given over to the Earth Mother at a very young age and through her and her allies care he learned the arts of making cheese, tending to flocks, building beehives, and mastering the art of hunting.   He reflects the side of us that needs to learn basic elements of survival to live productive lives.

In one of his most interesting stories, Aristaeus consulted the oracle at Delphi, which ironically was owned by his father.   The oracle told him that he would receive acclaim and respect on the Island of Keos.   So, like any good intentioned individual that consults with oracles (psychics), he embarked on his journey only to find that a plague had fallen upon the islanders.  Aristaeus, gifted in the arts of healing and prophecy, divined that the plague happened because ‘secret murderers’ had taken refuge on the island.  Quickly, Aristaeus put the murderers to death, and the plague dissipated.

Aristaeus’ myth is a powerful story.  His story is allegorical and can be used instructively in our day to day lives, which is the case with pretty much any myth.

Let’s get into the meat of how it applies to our lives and the current eclipse.

Throughout our lives, we learn many things to cope and survive in a world that is often less than helpful.  We become accustomed to many traditions and habits so that our lives will be effective.   For example, everyone ten years old knows that one day he or she is going to grow up and get a job and go to work like mommy and daddy, and that is the purpose of getting up and going to school every morning.  He or she learns that they have to brush their teeth, eat properly, exercise, and get good grades.

We then grow older and then learn new things like balancing our checkbooks, learning how to pay our bills, becoming creditworthy, making effective purchases, and how to save.  Additionally, we learn about the importance of yearly physicals, protecting ourselves against diseases, and even mundane tasks such as cooking and cleaning.

Yes, it can be boring, but all of the things we learn in childhood and early adulthood are to allow us to be effective in the world and provide us with the ability to cope with any crisis that might occur.  The sign of Virgo governs all of this, and in many ways, this is the process Aristaeus goes through at the beginning of his myth.

Like Aristaeus, we all then begin our journey and in the course of our journey calamity can happen.  In other words, plagues are allegorical for the ‘difficult’ events that occur in our lives.  We have relationship plagues, financial plagues, career plagues, health plagues, in-law plagues, and at times, we have the ‘life sucks’ plague.

However, the myth is instructive of what we need to do because Aristaeus has to search for the cause and he discovers the origin of the plagues – in this case, the murderers on the island.  He then goes off and gets rid of them.  The myth is telling us very clearly that often the root of our problems is how we are living our lives.   Of course, this is sometimes hard to swallow and with Saturn being square to Neptune (and in direct aspect to the eclipse), it is very easy for us to fall into victim mode and attempt to blame everyone and everything around us for our maladies, but in most cases, our problems are self-inflicted.  We have made choices in our lives that have become little murderers hiding out on the island.   These can be the over spending murderers, the bad fitness murderers, the lazy murderers; the ‘YOLO’ murderers, and the list goes on and on.  The myth goes on to explain that we need to get rid of these ‘murderers’ so that the plagues go away.

Who Are Your Murderers?

The good news about this Eclipse is that it happens while Mercury is retrograde.  Mercury gives us the ability to reflect and deeply analyze our lives and root out any of our personal plagues.  So, the eclipse instructs us to get to work and find the areas of our lives where we might be experiencing self-sabotage.

Action Step:

Get out your pen and paper and write down the areas of your life where you are experiencing problems.  Try to get to the root of your problems.  If your current plague is financial difficulties, it is best to figure out where these financial problems began to occur and the emotional roots that could have caused them.

Now that you have got your list, it’s time to use the power of VIRGO to fix them.  Create your budgets; your exercise plans, your grocery choices, your debt management solutions, and every other day to day habit.  Then you can get to work on creating effective strategies to get rid of the murderers.

Self-reflection is not easy.   It can often bring up very painful feelings and experiences we would rather regret, yet if something is preventing you from living a healthy, productive, and fulfilling life, then it’s time to fix it.   After all, you deserve to live the best life you can create.

Big Picture Stuff (for those that are interested)

I will admit that I decided to wait to write this part of the article as close to the eclipse as I could get, without sacrificing time to edit.  (Btw, for all those writers out there, I recently purchased Grammarly, and I love it – I know, how Virgoan)  This eclipse triggers the current Saturn-Neptune square in the heavens, and it is easy to see the themes that are currently activated.

I am going to try to avoid any personal secretions of my political flavoring, which on its own is pretty difficult.  However, the major theme that seems to be emerging is government corruption – and this whether you lean to the left or the right.  I have found that Saturn wants structure and foundation and for things to be fair and right (he is moving through optimistic Sagittarius) and Neptune wants overarching solutions to problems that lean towards group needs rather than individual ones.  Group solutions can be very problematic because they tend to limit individual expression, yet in many cases, are often necessary.  The difficulty is that many of the visions that are permeating out of the collective are rather utopian in nature, and when Neptune is driving the bus, and we land somewhere we would rather not be, we often feel cheated, lied to, and disenchanted with the establishment.  The great irony is that it is often our establishment discord that got us a ticket on the Neptune Express!

There is nothing wrong with a dream of a better tomorrow.  It’s part of living and part of the reason that we continue trying to improve things.  However, it is also necessary that we take responsibility for our personal part in creating the current system.  In many ways, it has been our lack of participation or simple disinterest, yet the reality is that each of us has added to the stew of its creation.  It’s also necessary that we accept the cold, harsh reality that however good intentioned that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump (or any other elected world leader) may be or may not be, they are not going to be able to fix our problems.   Hopefully, they can make choices that will allow our personal problem fixing to be a bit easier, but they cannot fix them for us and the more we are seeking a ‘savior’ to resolve individual issues, the more  we are going to end up feeling disappointed.

The key here is to stick to the personal.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung explained it best, and I will attempt to paraphrase him.   He said that if there is something wrong in the world, then there is something wrong with society, and if there is something wrong with society, then there is something wrong with families, and if there is something wrong with families, then there is something with me.  Translation – the more that we work on our inner issues and our inner development and remove our plagues and destroy what is murdering our lives, the more the outer world will change on its own.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”   — George Bernard Shaw

 

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