CHAPTER 1

The Sign

What 'is' a Virgo? Well, if you read the papers or magazines, thedates for Virgo are generally 24th August to 22nd September. I say'generally' because it does depend on which publication youread and also where in the world and at what time you wereborn. This is because the orbit of the Earth around the Sun isn'texactly the same as our calendar.

In fact it takes 365.26 days for the Earth to go round the Sun.Our calendar is 365 days long, so every so often we have to havea leap year to straighten things out and sort out that .26 of a day!

In Astrology we don't have to worry about this because wework things out from the perspective of us looking up at the skyand seeing the Sun move round the Earth (which it doesn't do inreality).

If you were to imagine that we have divided the whole of thesky above us all around the Earth into 12 equal portions, one ofthose portions is called Virgo. We start the calculation from thespring solstice (in the sign of 0° Aries), a measurement relating tohow the Earth spins on its axis. As it spins it moves from side toside, and as it moves nearer and further away from the Sun thiscreates the seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Bythe time we get to August/September the Sun has reached thepart of the sky that's the 6th division ... and we call that Virgo. Soa Virgo Sun sign just means that the Sun, that shiny ball of fire inthe sky, is in the bit of the sky that we've called Virgo, and Virgois shorthand for 151º–180º away from the bit of the sky we'vecalled Aries.

Astrology uses astronomical data to make the calculationsnecessary to say what sign is happening at which month of theyear, but as the orbits have nothing to do with our clock time onEarth, the sign of Virgo changes at different times of day andnight.

To make sure (because we are working with the analytical andprecise sign of Virgo!) we have the right data, we are going to beusing a Swiss website. More about that in Chapter Two.

Each sign of the Zodiac has a planet that looks after it. We callit its 'ruler', and the ruler for Virgo (and Gemini) is Mercury.

Mercury the Speedy Extreme Planet

Mercury's orbit around the Sun is four times as fast as the Earth's,so its year is only 88 Earth days long. However, it spins so slowlyon its axis that one day on Mercury is equal to 59 days on Earth.It is also the smallest planet in our solar system and is not so easyto spot, the best times being early evening in the spring and earlymorning in the autumn in the northern hemisphere.

The American Space Agency NASA sent a probe calledMessenger to explore the planet in 2004 and it became the firstspacecraft to orbit the innermost planet on 18th March 2011. Itwas going to cease its investigations in March 2012 but hassecured funding for an additional year of research.

So far, they have discovered that the surface of Mercury iscovered in volcanic explosions, craters, and evidence of floodvolcanism. The surface temperature is of two extremes. On thesunny side it reaches 430° C and on the dark side of the planet itgoes into deep freeze with temperatures reaching a low -180° C.Hmm, don't fancy living there!

Mercury the Go-Between

If we look at Mercury in our solar system, we see that it standsbetween us and the Sun, and I agree with Christina Rose, whowrites in her Astrological Counselling:

Mercury, positioned closest to the Sun, stands rather as onewho introduces the solar energy to all the other planets, andvice-versa. Thus, his function is that of an introductory link,transmission, connection and we may liken Mercury to a go-between,an agent or courier between the Sun and the rest ofthe solar system. On an incoming wavelength, this function isexperienced within the individual as recognition, perceptionand awareness. On an out-going wavelength, it is that whichspurs us toward the communication of those perceptions andawareness.

Astrologers therefore think of Mercury in the birth chart assomething that acts as a mediator or negotiator and helps withcommunication.

Mercury the Messenger God

In myth, Mercury is named after the god that the Greeks calledHermes. And Hermes replaced the Babylonian god Nebo andthen later the Romans named him Mercurius. Already this poorgod has had a number of name changes.

In the Greek myths, soon after being born, Mercury set off insearch of the cattle belonging to his brother Apollo. He madetheir 'hooves go backward, the front ones last and the back onesfirst' and hid them in the cave of the sun god Apollo.

He is also known as the 'trickster god' because of all thenaughty things he got up to.

Hermes was also the only god capable of travel to the deadlyHades underworld and back again. This is similar to the realityof the planet's surface temperatures being so extreme. Hot/cold.Mercury is depicted as a god with winged feet, travelling greatdistances at lightning speeds, being the messenger of the gods. Itis these attributes that we mirror in Astrology. We're not sayingthat the attributes of Virgo are exactly the same as the planetMercury, just that they're similar, that they have alike qualities.Mercury has a dark and light side: Virgo can be analytical andseemingly unfeeling on one hand, and attuned to health andhealing on the other. It's these qualities and dichotomies we'llnow discuss.

Virgo the Virgin

As the glyph representing Virgo is the maiden/virgin, we mustnot confuse Virgo qualities as being totally 'pure'. This is notvirgin as in chastity but virgin as in not beholden to any man:'Virginity is to a woman what honour is to a man, the symbol ofthe fact that she is not a slave.'

So, Virgo is about thinking 'outside of the box', being free tothink ... and think they certainly do. If you want to tire yourselfout, get a Virgo to record everything they think in 30 minutes.This is different from Aquarius thinking, which just goes intoweird and wonderful places; the Virgo thought goes into greatdetail about the subject under consideration.

Here we have H.G. Wells, the science fiction author, who hadAquarius Ascendant (freedom loving) and Moon in Aquarius(also into emotional freedom), talking about his Virgo thinking inhis Experiment in Autobiography: Discoveries and Conclusions of aVery Ordinary Brain in 1934:

I need freedom of mind. I want peace for work. I am distressedby immediate circumstances. My thoughts and work areencumbered by claims and vexations and I cannot see anyhope of release from them; any hope of a period of serene andbeneficent activity, before I am overtaken altogether byinfirmity and death. I am in a phase of fatigue and of thatdiscouragement which is a concomitant of fatigue, the pettythings of to-morrow skirmish in my wakeful brain, and I findit difficult to assemble my forces to confront this problemwhich paralyses the proper use of myself.

I am putting even the pretence of other work aside in anattempt to deal with this situation. I am writing a report aboutit – to myself. I want to get these discontents clear because Ihave a feeling that as they become clear they will either ceasefrom troubling me or become manageable and controllable ... Iwrite down my story and state my present problem, I repeat,to clear and relieve my mind.

As he says, he's writing his autobiography for one reason alone:to clear his mind.

So what sort of minds do Virgos have and what goes on insidethem?

Mother Teresa, a wonderfully humble Catholic person andcharity worker, had a crisis of faith early in her religious career.She wrote about these failings in her journal which we canglimpse into:

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? TheChild of your Love – and now become as the most hated one– the one – You have thrown away as unwanted – unloved. Icall, I cling, I want – and there is no One to answer – no Oneon Whom I can cling – no, No One. – Alone ... Where is myFaith – even deep down right in there is nothing, butemptiness & darkness – My God – how painful is thisunknown pain – I have no Faith – I dare not utter the words& thoughts that crowd in my heart – & make me suffer untoldagony.

She thought that 'God' wasn't listening to her and that she wasalone in the world. This caused her, as you can tell from this briefextract from her diary, an extreme amount of mental angst. Shewasn't fighting demons; she was fighting her own thoughts,which were driving her to distraction.

As Eckhart Tolle quite rightly says, the only thing that is aproblem in life is our thinking.

It's only by thinking that we 'make it so'.

In fact Shakespeare put it beautifully in Hamlet:

Hamlet: What have you, my good friends, deserv'd at thehands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guildenstern: Prison, my lord?

Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.

Rosencrantz: Then is the world one.

Hamlet: A goodly one, in which there are many confines,wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.

Rosencrantz: We think not so, my lord.

Hamlet: Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing eithergood or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

Hamlet thinks Denmark is a prison, but Rosencrantz doesn't ... theonly difference between the two views is their thinking.

But before we get too tangled up in Virgo thoughts andthinking, which we'll discuss in Chapters Six and Seven, let's findout a bit about Astrology and how useful it is to help us understandeach other.

Characteristics of Virgo

So we have a ruling planet that speeds through the Zodiac andaround the Sun with one side boiling and the other freezing; wehave the god Mercury in myth, intent on getting his messageacross; and we have what astrologers call 'attributes' – things thathave been handed down over the years as life qualities for Virgothe sign. She is also a female sign, as she would be, being aVirgin ...

Let's see what Herbert Waite, writing in 1917, says are characteristicsof Virgo:

This sign is of the element Earth, and of mutable quality.Virgo individuals are shrewd, discriminative, diplomatic,quietly active and reserved. They are often thought harsh andtaciturn, but the fact is, they conceal behind a cold andmatter-of-fact exterior the peculiar nervousness of theirnegative, mercurial temperament. They are extremely kindand sympathetic, yet so nervous and retiring that, manytimes, when expected to say a word in consolation, theyrefrain for fear the mention of the subject should revivesorrowful remembrances in their friends; in some cases theirfear is that they may appear too sympathetic and not sufficientlyworldly and businesslike. They, more than those bornin any other sign, usually feel the need to bolster themselvesup and even repress some of their finer instincts in order tokeep their equilibrium. It may be said that they maintain theircool and dignified attitude and often impressive presence atthe expense of an ill-deserved reputation for coldness offeeling; and thus their true nature is rarely, if ever, seen. Whenin authority over others they are rather too exacting, thoughjust to a fault.

Hmm, sounds rather harsh to me.

What about other astrologers' views? Let's ask Rae Orion inher Astrology for Dummies:

Nothing gets past you. You have an eye for detail, an inbornsense of efficiency, and a supreme sensitivity to the implicationof language. You also have extraordinary analyticalabilities, a rare clarity of mind, an enviable capacity forconcentration, and on top of it all, an appealing modesty. Youknow you're not perfect – but you're doing everything youcan to get there some day. As an earth sign, you are patientand industrious. Yet you're also an idealist and a perfectionistof the first order. You know how things ought to be, andyou're certain that you can make them that way, one detail ata time. You're organised and disciplined – or you wish youwere. And you push yourself to the limit. When other peopletry to wriggle out of unpleasant tasks, you step in, make ameticulous list of everything that must be done, and check offevery item on the list. More work ends up on your desk thanon anyone else's because, guess what? You're more competentthan anyone else.

Yes, that sounds a little more like the Virgos I know.

Let's ask the wonderful Linda Goodman in her Love Signsabout her views on Virgo. They weren't (I'm afraid) top of her'likes' list and she explains why.

She starts by describing a prayer she made (as a joke) to StAnthony, asking for her book to be widely read so that peoplewould understand how to love one another through Astrology,both by recognising their own failings and by sympathising withthe different, but equally ingrained, bad habits of others. She thengoes on to ask for her book not to be banned by Virgos becauseVirgos make up more than one twelfth of the entire readingpublic, and as it was an Astrology book she also prayed that theCatholics wouldn't ban it, and the 'squeaky-clean' Mormons ...

She continues:

The thing is, Tony, that I have no idea what the printer's SunSign will be. Of course, I could get lucky, and he'll be a Virgo.But just imagine if he should be an Aries! Could you maybenudge him a little when he's setting the type if he seems to beabout to miss a comma, or a period, or get the page numbersreversed, stuff like that? You just wouldn't believe the stacksof mail I get from Virgos, criticising a couple of author'smistakes and printer's typos in my first book, Sun Signs, andit's given me a complex. So I respectfully beseech you to guideboth me and the printer of unknown Sun Sign origin inmaking these pages absolutely flawless.

I agree with Linda on this point, which I didn't discover until I'dhad my first book, How to Survive a Pisces, published, when aVirgo mom wrote this review on Amazon:

'... as a (Virgo) copy editor, I'm somewhat discouraged by the poorcopy editing/proofreading that was done with the Kindle edition. Ihope the print version is cleaner, because this one is difficult toread.'

Reading and critiquing something is a lot easier than actuallywriting it. But in fairness we need both aspects in publishing, theproviders and the editors.

How about asking another astrologer – a male one – aboutVirgos? Let's hear what Laurence Hillman has to say in hisPlanets in Play:

Serving, organised, healthy, industrious, critical, pedantic,sensual, humane, sceptical, picky ... Many Virgo traits canbriefly be described as detailed-orientated, efficient, havingdiscriminating taste, and being rational.

Bit of a theme coming through.

Here's Marcia Starck writing in her Healing with Astrology:

Virgos tend to be overly critical, seeking perfection inthemselves and others, and are often too attached to purificationand cleanliness. The positive qualities of Virgomanifest in service to others, a fine discriminating intellect,and a good grasp of earthy, practical needs.

I think we can safely say that keywords to describe Virgo wouldbe: orderly, analytical, perfectionist, health-aware ... and anxious.

So for the sake of balance I asked a few real Virgos for theiropinions.

Orderly

Victoria is an astrological author and writer. She lives in a quietsuburb of a large city with her husband and child. I asked herhow orderly she is:

'Mentally, I'm very orderly. I hold a lot of plans in my head,mentally divided into different subjects, goals, areas of focus etc.,and I spend a lot of time thinking methodically about how to do x,how to organise y and how to make sure z happens – and to be fairto myself, the things I organise mentally usually work out very wellindeed.'

Grant is in his late fifties and lives and works in a rural locationin South Somerset:

'I think I am fairly orderly as I have a place for most things.'

Janice is a mum and therapist and lives and works on a canalbarge in the West Country:

'Very orderly. I always know where everything is at home/work.'

At the other end of the scale we have Deirdre, a lady in her fortieswho works as a healer and who is very orderly:

'Everything is filed/stored logically. (I'm self-employed and theoffice is the loft of the house so it's all somewhat combined.) I knowwhere all my stuff is, but if I need something my husband also uses,I may have to search for it. It occasionally drives me nuts that after15 years my husband still can't unload the dishwasher and putthings back in the same place I've had them since we moved into thishouse 8 years ago; places, I might add, that are almost identical tothe previous house. (I don't say anything, just sigh to myself and replacewhatever it is.) And yes, tidy is a must. The house may not beclean but it is always picked up. Including the cat toys (a never-endingchore).'