The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 369, titled:
Virgo in Astrology: Meaning and Traits
With Chris Brennan, Tony Howard, and Rosalie
Episode originally released on September 20, 2022
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Mary Sharon
Transcription released September 25, 2022
Copyright © 2022 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey, my name is Chris Brennan and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, we’re gonna be doing a deep dive into the meaning of the zodiac sign Virgo, and some of its characteristics and traits in the context of astrology. Joining me today are astrologers Tony Howard and Rosalie. Welcome, both of you.
ROSALIE: Thank you.
TONY HOWARD: Hey, Chris. Thanks for having us.
CB: Yeah. I’m really excited to do this discussion. We’re most of the way through Virgo season, but we actually caught it. And this is perfect. I want to take the opportunity to do this episode with you two in person here in the studio in Denver, so thanks for coming in today. We’re going to talk a lot about the characteristics and keywords associated with Virgo, we’re going to talk about some celebrity charts occasionally that are relevant in terms of that sign, and basically just do a very detailed take or overview of the meaning of that sign in astrology. So first, you-
TH: Detailed? Is that really appropriate for Virgo?
R: I think you’ve got the wrong two people. [laughter]
CB: Yeah. I kind of pulled that one out but we’ll see if it’s appropriate here. Sometimes I start by talking about credentials. I know you, Tony, have some pretty good credentials. In the last episode, the Leo episode, they started– and I had Nick Dagan Best and Joe on– and they had a little bit of a stellium-measuring contest about who had the bigger Leo stellium. But you, I think in terms of stellium so far might kind of take the cake a little bit.
TH: Well, I was born just a couple of weeks later than Nick so I have all of his Virgo planets, but I have a few more. [laughs]
CB: Okay, so you’ve taken the Leo planets and you’ve-
TH: I’ve converted them into the superior sign of Virgo.
CB: I like that. Beautiful, beautiful.
TH: That’s for you, Nick. [laughs]
CB: Okay. And Rosalie, you’re also a Virgo?
R: Yes, I have my Virgo Sun and Mercury. I also have my North Node there, but I’m nowhere near your stature of Virgo placements.
CB: All right, brilliant. So we’re going to talk about Virgo. Let me show the stats chart really quick just to give some grounding about some of the basic things associated with Virgo. This is the symbol for Virgo for those watching the video version. Virgo is a nocturnal or a feminine sign depending on how you look at that. It’s an Earthy sign. It’s mutable. The primary planet associated with Virgo is the planet Mercury. It’s also said to be the sign of the exaltation of Mercury, the fall of Venus, and the sign of the detriment or exile of Jupiter. So those are some of the basic stats. Here’s the wheel of the signs of the zodiac, and Virgo is the sixth sign in order starting from the first sign at the vernal equinox, which is Aries. So this is essentially marking almost the halfway point through my series on the signs of the zodiac. And Virgo is the sign that follows after the last sign we did last month, which is Leo, and the sign after this will be Libra. All right, where should we start? So this is the second Mercury-ruled sign, and that might be a good starting point for talking about this, is the previous Mercury-ruled sign was Gemini which is an Aries sign and a diurnal sign that tends to be more extroverted. But when we get to Virgo, we have a different side of Mercury; which is one, it’s an Earthy sign. So the primary qualities is Earth and dryness. And then it’s also a nocturnal sign, so it’s less extroverted and you might say more introverted, there’s different ways of phrasing that. But just talking about in the context of how it compares to Gemini might be a little bit of a good starting point. How do each of you conceptualize Virgo or Virgo energy?
TH: I think that’s a pretty cool place to start. I just was thinking about Gemini to Virgo in the introvert-extrovert thing. There’s definitely a thing about Virgos not necessarily– I was just reading about this– not needing the accolades, but appreciating appreciation. So for a job well done, like if you’ve worked hard at something, we like to be noticed for the work we’ve contributed, but we don’t necessarily want to be put on stage and given a big award for it. You know? I’ve always said I’d be very happy as a ghostwriter for a really great book, I don’t need to have my name on the cover. And I think that speaks to that quality a little bit of that difference maybe between Gemini and Virgo.
CB: Yeah, I like that. So there’s a Mercurial research-oriented quality to it of being okay doing the one that does the tangible work sometimes behind the scenes and sometimes in like a support role almost, and wanting to have some recognition for that but not needing to be the frontman. And in that way actually, that’s another thing that we’ve talked about throughout this series, how each sign seems to have almost a corrective quality or corrective function that follows after and balances out some of the qualities of the sign that came before. And the one sign right before Virgo, of course, is Leo where you do have much more of that quality of wanting to be at the front, wanting to be at the forefront of things, sometimes wanting to shine and have your qualities on display in a very public manner, and wanting to receive recognition for that. Whereas Virgo counterbalances that and I think you get a bit more humble of a quality of energy at this point.
TH: Yeah, just more interested in doing it well or doing it right or fixing it. I mean, we can go in all those directions, I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.
R: Yeah, having that patience to just sit there and work at the hard stuff, the not-so-pretty stuff. [laughter] But getting to the point in that hard work deserves that appreciation to an extent. I also see Virgo as both the exaltation and domicile of Mercury. It’s not just the domicile, it’s also exalted there. So I always joke to every Gemini stellium I meet that I’m still superior as a Mercurial-ruled individual.
TH: [laughs] How does that go for you?
R: They usually get kind of rowdy about it but… They can’t argue because they know that I’m right. [Tony laughs]
CB: I mean, luckily Geminis tend to have short attention spans. [laughter] So the initial argument-
TH: They’ve already forgotten.
CH: Yeah, they’ve already moved on. [Tony laughs] That that works in your favour. Yeah. So, what are some of the other qualities or when it comes to that notion of either there being a corrective quality of Virgo following after Leo, or of that quality of Virgo being the second Mercury-ruled sign? Where do you go with that, or what are some of the other contracts that come up for you?
R: I always like to look at the first little 10 degrees of Virgo, because that is a decan very solidly placed in patience waiting for a fruit tree and knowing that it’s a long difficult process, it takes a lot of time. And you go from a fiery active Leo, you know, it’s a double Mars-ruled decan preceding the first one of Virgo. So you go from this active state of energy almost a need to defend your individuality, the need to argue about who’s stellium is bigger, you know? And then you go into this calm, patient, it-takes-time kind of part of Virgo. And that’s just kind of the shift that I see that corrective behavior doing almost a 360 completely.
CB: That’s really good point. There is a patient quality and it’s similar in some ways to Taurus, which is the first Earth sign we saw where there was initially in Aries this really fast quality and this impatience wanting to do things as quick as possible and having the need for speed. But then as soon as we got to Taurus, things slowed down with the first fixed Earth sign. And this notion of not wanting to be rushed was really very prominent in that discussion and in that archetype. So that’s a good point about Virgo, though, because Virgo also has some of that. Even though it’s a mutable sign so that it has some adaptability or some flexibility, it also, as an earth sign, I feel like is okay with things moving at a slower pace. And reminds me of Taurus also in that with Taurus we encountered some love of plants and growing things and what it takes to nurture and grow a plant, and part of that taking time and patience. And I think Virgo also has some of that quality as well, right?
R: Yeah, it’s like they understand the long process to get the beautiful result.
TH: I think that Virgo can develop patience. [laughter] I’m not sure if it’s inborn, but yeah, I think it’s definitely a trait that can be cultivated. What happens to me a lot– like you, Chris, I work with a lot of technology in my work and I’ve been in situations and public situations where we’re doing a live streaming of live event where it’s partially online and partially in person, and the Internet goes out or something goes wrong. And afterwards everyone comments on how patient I appeared. And I’m like I definitely did not feel like that on the inside. [laughs]
CB: Internally screaming.
TH: Yeah. You know. [laughs]
R: I feel like it’s just the Mercurial mind. The Geminis express it outwardly and the Virgos just hold it all in. Like, it’s still happening. It’s just we don’t express it, we’re able to have that stoic face.
TH: Yeah, that could speak to what we started out talking about as well with the polarities.
CB: Sure. So in terms of whether it’s more of an internal and reflective thing that happens on the inside in some ways in like a lunar or nocturnal sense, versus something that’s expressed outwardly as more of a solar thing.
TH: Yeah, and I think Virgo offers… I think you already said it earlier about the humility, you know? That’s something that’s introduced to kind of counter some of the Leo tendencies. Although I will say that I think we sometimes overdo that, you know, the extroverted version of Leo. Because there’s definitely an introverted version of Leo that I’ve seen as well, and other things in the chart can kind of coalesce to create that environment for that to be expressed in a more introverted way. But a phrase I’ve heard before that I really love for that is ‘quiet dignity’ for Leo. But with Virgo, we have the willingness to look in… Well, we were talking about going inward just now but to look inward and to see, you know, “What could I have done wrong here and what could I have done better? This is what I could be, this is what I am, and how do I get here?” And then taking the next steps to get there is where… That’s how to keep Virgo on track if you stay focused on this is what’s wrong, I think that’s where a lot of the problems kind of emerge.
CB: Okay, that’s a really good point because I think that gets to one of the core functions of Virgo, which is the ability to be critical and the ability to be self-critical. Or to criticize others, to have the ability to see the flaws in something. Because one of the things that Virgo does really well and I think one of its core archetypal functions is the ability to see things that are very small and that other people might miss or that other people might overlook, almost like a microscope. But in doing so, that means when you’re able to see all of the details and you can see all those little things that other people miss even just minor differences, that can bring the flaws in things into greater focus as well. Sort of like if somebody’s just looking at a diamond from far away, it looks like a diamond. But if somebody takes a microscope up to it, they can see that there’s cracks and imperfections in it or something like that. Virgo has often that superhuman ability or that special strength to be able to see the flaws or the cracks or the minut details in things. And sometimes that can give them a reputation when it’s projected outwards of being overly critical, but one of the things that’s important is that same function is often also projected inwards and it can be a self-criticalness as well.
R: Oh, definitely. [laughs] I think it’s also when they try to perfect things, that’s just what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to see the flaws in order to make it better, but then they end up ruining the perfection of whatever they’re trying to do by trying to perfect it. Because it just crumbles beneath them. They file the nail too short, they whittle the wood too much and it snaps, kind of thing.
TH: Absolutely, you can take it too far. And so not aiming for perfection but just aiming to improve it can usually set that part of your psyche in a little bit better balance, I think.
CB: Is that something though that may be hard, especially a lesson that people with heavy Virgo placements that takes a while or is a lifetime thing to learn? Once they grow older until adults or become more mature, that perfection might not always be possible. Because there’s still the desire to achieve perfection in the sense of minimizing or getting rid of all flaws or imperfections in something, but then maybe at some point realizing that that’s not always possible.
R: I feel like that depends on the placement that we’re talking about and what transits they’ve gone through and what kind of energy they’ve gone through. Because I’ve met plenty of Virgos that are older individuals in their 50s that still act like they’re an 18-year-old underdeveloped Virgo who whines and cries when things don’t go their way. But I’ve met plenty of younger Virgos that seem like they’re ready to go up on that mountain peak and spend the rest of their life living in solitude because they just understand everything.
TH: Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean it, it just depends on your experience and how you’ve integrated the messages. I think life naturally teaches you what direction to go in for your own growth and evolution. And for Virgos, I think this is one of them. A really great set of books that’s really useful for Virgo that I always recommend for clients is pretty much anything by Brené Brown. She’s a Scorpio with Pluto in Virgo, and I think you were talking about internalizing that self-criticism a little bit and we could talk about that more too in that whole process, but I think that Pluto and Virgo generation can kind of take that to the next level. It’s kind of an art form, elevated art form for us. [laughs]
CB: Right, Pluto has that tendency to take things to extremes.
TH: Yeah. Yeah, and so the extreme version of self-deprecation and self-criticism and, you know, “I’m just a useless worm” kind of self-talk, you know? And her books, the first one– I always get it wrong– it’s either called the Gifts of Imperfection or the wisdom of imperfection. I think it’s the Gifts of Imperfection. But you know, the title alone kind of tells you everything you need to know. there’s great stuff in the book too, and it’s so helpful to get those parts back on track. And I think the opposite sign here, Pisces, gives us a really great keyword for unlocking that. And it’s allowing, I think it’s a great word for Virgo. So in this context, allowing what is, and then I think all-healing kind of comes out of that place of allowing and acceptance of what is.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. So that brings up one of our other important contrasts, which is just between Virgo and its opposing sign, which is Pisces. A lot of the meaning of Virgo can be understood by contrasting it with some of the meanings of Jupiter as the traditional ruler of Pisces. One of the main things that comes up is that Virgo as an Earth sign ruled by Mercury tends to focus on the details in the smaller things, whereas Pisces ruled by Jupiter tends to focus more on the big-picture-type type things. Are there any other contrast that come up to either of you in terms of that contrast between like Virgo and Pisces?
R: I feel like Virgo is words and Pisces is not words.
CB: Like feelings or emotions?
R: Like instrumental music, almost. How it just has no lyrics to it. But then Virgo is the 17-page long poem.
TH: We were just talking about Mercury in Pisces in one of my classes earlier today and I like to bring up the image of you explain things through interpretive dance. [laughter]
R: That’s a good one. That’s a good one.
TH: Yeah. But yeah, I think that it’s such an interesting contrast and it’s really… I mean, the essential dignities, the first level of them, it’s so interesting the way it’s laid out and it’s so symmetrical and well organized. It’s interesting just to contemplate the exaltations of Jupiter versus the exaltations of Mercury and just the connection between them. And what are those connections between Mercury and Jupiter? We need both, you know? Beauty is in the details, that’s a phrase that we use, but the big picture is important too. Of course, Virgo can get lost in the details, obviously. And you can also get lost in the big picture, though. Pisces can get lost in the big picture.
R: I feel like that whole polarity is very healing in that sense where one gets the big picture, one gets a small picture. They kind of even each other out in a good healing dynamic. But both signs individually represent healing in some sort of way; helping, serving, kind of.
TH: Yeah, they did that as a commonality, isn’t it? Service-oriented.
R: Little bit of self-sacrificial tendencies too between the both of them.
CB: Right. There’s more of a tangible practical quality of how can I help you materially with Virgo? Like, “How can I fix your car,” or something like that. Versus with Pisces, it’s like, “How can I save your soul,” or something like that?
TH: Yeah. It’s a little bit controversial figure for some people but Mother Teresa, a great example of Virgo who was just practically helping people get their basic needs met to some extent. Versus some kind of spiritual teaching that’s inspiring or uplifting or meaningful. Or just compassion as a healing tool coming out of Pisces.
CB: That makes sense.
R: And then… Sorry, go ahead.
CB: No, go ahead.
R: I was just gonna say Virgo is kind of like that opposite, you know, the material side of that but it’s not so much. Well, I guess it could be how can I help your car, but it’s, “I will do anything for you. I will be there in a heartbeat. I will serve you however you need to be served physically.” And that’s just kind of a lot at sometimes, I know a lot of Virgo individuals who can be a little bit too much for people when they try to help, when they try to serve. I don’t recommend customer service to them because they wear themselves through the wall with that.
TH: I was hoping we were gonna go there a bit because that unsolicited advice, we should talk about that too. [laughter] Virgos are so full of that. I always tell Virgos, you know, “Ask first if a person would like to hear your thoughts.” [laughs] But, what were you saying just a second ago? You were talking about the…
CB: Customer service?
R: Oh, how Virgos would just wear themselves down by being in a customer service job. Because they would try way too hard, they would work themselves to the bone.
CB: That’s a good point. Cuz some of the most helpful people I know are Virgos or have heavy Virgo energy.
TH: Yeah, and I think there’s something I was hoping to be able to say, which was that I think that works really well when people are asking for help in the right way.
R: Yeah. But that does not happen. [laughter] Yeah, I know exactly.
TH: But when there’s an expectation or a feeling of entitlement, or if also in customer support, if it’s coming from a place of entitlement and rudeness, and then you know, Virgo can definitely– I’m speaking for myself only– not be as helpful.
R: No, you speak for… I mean, Mercury is still a trickster planet. [laughter] If you want to talk back, we’ll see. “Okay, we’ll make this… We’ll charge you double for this accidentally. Your coupon’s expired. Sorry, I’m not taking that anymore.”
R: The message here is be nice to your customer support person.
R: No, of course. Always.
CB: So that’s a really good point, though, that sometimes in an effort to be helpful, and that desire that comes from this deep internal desire to be helpful in some way, sometimes that can be abused by other people or other people can take advantage of that. And I feel like Virgo is one of the signs that sometimes can be pushed more or that people could take advantage of more than others because of that internal desire to be helpful or play some sort of support role.
TH: Yeah, I think that’s right.
R: Yeah, I hundred percent understand I agree. Virgo is the Yes Man of the zodiac.
CB: Okay. Yeah. That’s a good point in terms of that in terms of not just the helpfulness and the support role, but also sometimes the way it relates to some of the other signs like Leo or some of those other signs. But sometimes a tendency where then in playing that support role, that the actual desires or aspirations of the Virgo can be sublimated to those that they’re helping in that support role. Which can sometimes be okay if that’s their choice, but other times it can go maybe too far if they don’t put their own personal needs first.
TH: Yeah. And healing, a really important message is you can’t help others unless your cup is full. And so you need to fill your own cup. Virgo is one of those signs that can definitely not fill their cup first, or needs to learn how to do that, or needs to just become aware that that’s really important and then claim that space. And it kind of goes against the natural impulse which is to sacrifice a bit. We can go into that a little bit with Pisces, too.
CB: Yeah. First, I want to give a shoutout to Leisa Schaim and Camille Michelle Gray that helped me with some of the research and notes in putting together this episode. I also did a poll on Twitter for keywords for Virgo as well as celebrities that we’ll mention at different points in this episode. But Camille wrote some really good contrasts I wanted to read out really quickly between Virgo and Pisces that might be a good jumping off point for discussion. So she said Virgo’s keyword is help, whereas Pisces keyword is heal. Virgo, service in the material realm versus service in the realm of consciousness solar spirit. Virgo operates on preparedness, Pisces operates on faith. Virgos, I have a plan. Pisces is I have a dream. Virgos, logistical mind versus mystical mind. Academic intelligence versus emotional slash spiritual intelligence. Practical versus fanciful. Physical versus metaphysical. Common sense versus sixth sense. Self-discipline versus self-deluding. Seeks information versus seeks inspiration– that’s a really good one. Need to know versus go with the flow. Critical thinker versus big thinker. Zooming in versus spacing out.
TH: I loved all of those but the first one. I have to pick one that I don’t. [laughter] [crosstalk] What was the first one?
CB: Help versus heal.
TH: So this is where I get to say this phrase I love to, Virgos are tweaky. So sometimes it’s just about tweaking it a little bit to get it just right, but help versus heal… I think we could use both of those with both signs almost just because, you know, we associate… Actually, some astrologers will associate herbalism and that kind of healing intention. It’s really kind of like an Earth application of healing. But it is healing. And a lot of Virgos will get drawn to bodywork or kind of healing work with people where there’s a physical component or a real helping component that brings the healing into a tangible space. So I think we could, yeah.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. That there is a major medical component and you know, the ancient symbol– even the symbol still now– of medicine is Hermes Caduceus for the medical profession and for healers, and I think that’s definitely more of a Virgo thing than a Gemini thing. That focus on medicine and healing and doing things to practically help people’s physical constitution.
TH: Yeah.
R: And I mean, we can also see that it’s the sixth sign in the zodiac and I know that I don’t think either of you subscribe to the A to C or 1 to 12 zodiac, but being in the sixth house, Virgo ruling over this six just kind of also adds to that kind of healing quality but also physical health. It gets your physical body, it’s not your mental health like Pisces would be. It’s your physical body.
CB: Yeah, that’s a good point. And that’s one of those areas where if somebody was trying to make an argument where I feel like it’s more compelling, if you’re trying to make a 12-letter alphabet argument where there is overlap between that healing component of Virgo and the sixth house focus on illness and things like that.
TH: Yeah, it definitely seems to be a focus on fixing something, repairing something, or making it better. So it’s healing in that context. Maybe, this is just a guess, maybe there’s an impulse in Pisces to bring something whole, make something whole again to come back into that big picture view, so to speak. Just an idea. But with the Virgo– I mean, I did bodywork for nine years and I was really focused on very specific detailed work. This is what people would write in my reviews. [laughs] I was like, “Really? You don’t know my chart and you’re saying that?”
CB: So you did bodywork for people to help heal people?
TH: Yeah. And I focused on healing people with specific conditions, ailments, problems. Anyway, you know, just things like… They were coming to me to fix something. Basically, I was just like the body mechanic. I should have used that as my website advert. [laughs]
R: It would have been so good, so clever.
TH: That came in because we were talking about car repair before we…
R: Yeah, I have a car oil over my pretty Mercury journal so, just a side effect of needing to change your own oil and not wanting to have to pay somebody a ridiculous amount of money to do it.
TH: That’s very Virgo. Yeah, totally. Do it yourself.
CB: Do it yourself and also being kind of a jack of all trades. Like, Virgo I think more than any other sign can sometimes encompass that quality of being a jack of all trades.
R: But master of none. Never. It’s how I feel about my life constantly. I’ve been told multiple times in my life that I’m really good at a lot of useless things, but I can’t do the really big important things.
TH: That’s just time, you’ll get there.
R: Yeah, I guess.
TH: It’s a good Virgo aim, though. Mastery. Mastery of something. Especially if you don’t call it mastery.
R: Yeah. I don’t think that anybody can be a master of anything truly, but you can get to a level of very high regard.
TH: But working to improve. Yeah, absolutely.
R: Yeah, always working to improve. But in doing that you know that you’ll always need to improve regardless of how much you’ve known or what you’ve done.
CB: Yeah. That actually brings up a Virgo that you mentioned, Tony, before we started recording about a director with David Fincher. And that’s a really good example of a Virgo or somebody with prominent Virgo placements. We don’t know his birth time so we don’t know his rising sign, but we do know he has some placements there. And his directing style, famously, is that he’ll shoot 50 takes or 100 takes or sometimes even more takes of the same scene until his actors are just exhausted from shooting the same scene over and over again. And then from that, he’ll be able to look through all the takes and just piece together exactly what he wants because he knows exactly what he wants to see, and he’d rather shoot a bunch of those and then have a tonne to choose from in editing rather than not or rather than having to go with the imperfection of a scene that doesn’t meet up to his standard of what he had in mind.
TH: Absolutely. That’s something I learned shooting video of– I mean, I’ve never made films, but just shooting videos of astrology events and things. When you’re in the editing room and you’ve got a bad shot and you have nothing else to choose from, that’s the worst. So that makes sense to me that he would go in that direction. And then he’s a great example to a person who really embodies the Virgo crafts person archetype. You know, where he’s really masterful in his craft and from lots of different perspectives. And he’s fine-tuned that over time as well. Although he came out pretty good at the beginning too, even doing music videos. His music videos are pretty cool.
R: This is all editing stuff, Virgos? Because if they’re not, bless their souls.
TH: [laughs] Yes, editing is a great. That’s a classic Virgo.
R: My Virgo rising best friend is an editor. Yeah, film editor.
TH: When I went to film… I studied film in college a bit and that’s what I was intending to do, it was film editing and I did a little bit of it. I love the work, but it is laborious. A lot of Virgos are drawn to that kind of work but it can be mind-numbing.
R: I don’t know, give me a jar of pennies to count and I will sit out there for a couple hours.
TH: [laughs] Yeah, totally.
CB: That’s a really good point, though, that general archetype for Virgo is editing and the superhuman ability of an editor to see the flaws and imperfections of something. Leisa Schaim has a Virgo Moon and I thanked her in the introduction to my book because very late in the process, she read it right before I was gonna go to publication like a week or two before and just found hundreds of typos that I did not see with this superhuman ability to read through something and see when something is out of place. That is something that I really admire and I think is like a special skill or like a superpower in some instances, but it’s something that it seems like people with Virgo placements tend to share in common.
TH: Yeah, and maybe a little bit easier to live with if you’re a Pisces. [laughs] I don’t know, I’m speaking for the people that live with me. Or just, you know, a different orientation where that kind of focus doesn’t get tedious to them.
CB: Right to help balance things out because the Virgo can bring that element into the Pisces life to help them sort of get things together a little bit more or be more regimented, whereas maybe the Pisces’s role is maybe to help the Virgo relax a little bit sometimes and zoom out and view the big picture.
TH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So editing, and David Fincher’s placements just really quickly, even though his birth time, is he has a Sun-Pluto-Uranus conjunction in Virgo, and then he also has Mercury in late Virgo at the same time. I think that goes back a little bit to what you were mentioning earlier, having a Sun-Pluto conjunction in Virgo and that tendency for Pluto to take things to extremes. So in that instance, like taking it to the extreme of shooting 100 shots of a scene just in order to get the exact thing that he wants to see.
TH: Absolutely. Yeah. If I remember right, that’s part of a kite pattern as well where there’s a– I’m not sure how tight those water planets are, if they’re actually in a Trine or not. I think maybe two of them are, I think two of them are maybe too wide. But it still visually has that kind of feel where the Sun and Pluto are kind of opposite Jupiter. I can’t see the degrees here.
CB: Yeah, it’s just early Virgo.
TH: Is it just Pluto opposite Jupiter?
CB: Here. Let me get the actual birthday then I’ll cast it in Solar Fire. So it’s August 28th, 1962.
TH: But I mean, I’ve definitely looked at his chart before and it works really well with his films, which are not light romantic comedies. [laughs]
R: Keanu Reeves has that Pluto Uranus conjunction as well? And he’s pretty well-known for The Matrix, which is not a lovey-dovey film.
TH: In Virgo, you mean? Yeah.
R: Yeah.
TH: Yeah, and he’s Sun in Virgo, too. So it would maybe be could be conjunct. I don’t know his chart by heart.
CB: So this is David Fincher’s chart with just a noon chart with Uranus-Sun-Pluto at the beginning of Virgo, and then- [crosstalk]
R: And has midheaven shoved in there.
CB: Well, we don’t know the times. We don’t know about the Midheaven or Ascendant.
TH: With that Jupiter opposite Pluto Sun its pretty tight. And then Mars jumps in there. I remember one of the planets isn’t close. Yeah, Neptune is a little bit far out from making a grand Trine. Although you could stretch it a little bit energetically, and also if you’re just doing aspects by sign of course, has kind of a grand Trine vibe in there. And then the Sun and Pluto come in there as the focal planets in the kite pattern. Which is a really… There can be a lot of gifts in that pattern and he’s a great example of it, where there’s a kind of technical mastery in his work that came out even really early. We’re sure he’s worked at it and gotten better, but he started out from a pretty highly functioning place.
CB: Yeah. Well, that’s also a good point and brings up another facet, which is his use of technology and of like he’s been pushing the limits in terms of digital imaging, and just about every movie that he’s done since the 90s they’ve used CGI in order to construct more of the sets. And there’s just constantly green screens and constantly using CGI in order to perfect the vision of what he wants each set to look like. And that even if you can’t get it done in camera, that you do it in post-production. But I think that goes back a little bit to sometimes just versatility with technology and willingness to use technology in order to meet what one’s expectations or ends are. Um, so that was a good one. You mentioned Keanu Reeves.
R: Yeah, I think that his Pluto and Uranus are also in Virgo for his Sun. I think his Pluto definitely is, yeah.
TH: Yeah, I don’t think it’s 1968 though. I feel like he’s maybe 69, I don’t know. Don’t quote me on that.
R: Because I saw a lot of celebrities while I was looking with Pluto and Virgo, obviously, but I couldn’t find a lot of like…
TH: Oh, way off. 1964.
CB: I don’t know if this is… I can’t remember if this is a time chart, but here’s Keanu Reeves where he has-
R: 14 degree Ascendant in Virgo? Yeah, that’s what Astro databank has.
CB: Right. Okay, so it’s 5:41 am. I just don’t know what the source of that is but
TH: If it’s like what the rating is.
CB: Yeah. But regardless, it’s Sun, Mercury, Uranus, Pluto, and a pretty close tight conjunction in Virgo.
TH: He’s got a Cazimi-Sun-Mercury.
CB: One of the things I always think about with him is just like, he’s an incredibly humble guy. Most stories about him from people are just about him being really humble, and sometimes accidentally being at the same hotel as a wedding but then he’ll take pictures with the couple as part of their photos, or just doing other things like that. I know he’s had some really hard experiences that have humbled him in different ways because he’s suffered some major losses in his life so that may play a factor as well, but also just as a celebrity, he’s somebody that oftentimes is spoke off as being very humble.
TH: Yeah. Even in interviews, his body language is very accommodating to the other people. And the humility, I think comes through physically in a physical way. And if that chart’s right, that energy is there in his Ascendant.
CB: Yeah, with Virgo rising. Yeah. Okay. So those are good keywords, I think we’ve done we’ve pulled out some really good, important stuff with the contrast with the axis of Pisces and Virgo. Let’s see, why don’t we get into some other contrasts? I mean, one… We’ll definitely get into more in the next episode on Libra, but are there any contrasts or what is the corrective quality that Libra has over what happens with Virgo?
TH: None because Virgo’s already perfect.
CB: Right. [laughter] [crosstalk] So it’s like once you get to a certain point, it’s just all downhill.
R: It starts with Virgo, yeah. We are the pinnacle, we’re the culmination point of all of astrology.
CB: Okay, that’s why Mercury is both exalted and has his domicile in Virgo because it’s all downhill for the next six signs.
TH: Yeah. I mean, what other planet does that? I’m just saying. [laughs]
R: Realistically though, I think Libra has a good ability to take all of that knowledge they observe from the world around them and do something about it. Because again we’re going from a feminine to a masculine sign, or passive to active.
CB: True.
TH: You know who’s really good at this particular transition and describing it is Mark Jones. I wish he was here right now. I love how he describes the– you were talking about it earlier– the corrective between, you know, from one side to the next. Or you could also just think of it as a response, you know, each sign is a response to the one before it. And it tends to work a little bit more in that direction, although I think you could probably do it the other way. But I think… I’m a Virgo Sun person, my partner’s Libra Sun, and I think one of the correctives that happens in our relationship is just a kind of… I want to say a soothing or calming down of that… Are we allowed to call it Virgo neurosis? By that, what I mean is that if we were talking about the attention to detail, for instance, where that can get really pointed.
R: I mean, it can cause overthinking, just over stimulation. Which is anxiety, though. That’s when you think about it. It’s just mental racing.
TH: And I don’t know that Libras definitely improve on their anxiety because they [crosstalk]. But definitely there’s a corrective that comes through in terms of a calming influence or at least a seeking of a peaceful ground, even if Libra doesn’t ever achieve that, which I’m not sure they do. But definitely can be an intention.
R: I think Libra can also separate themselves from the decision, whereas Virgos are pretty much, “No, I want it this way so it’s going to happen this way.”
TH: That’s a good point. Like the air response to Earth, right? Yeah, lightening things up a bit. I think you can talk about that transition from Capricorn to Aquarius to how Aquarius kind of literally lightens things up just by when something moves from Capricorn to Aquarius, you can feel that density start to lift a bit.
CB: Yeah, because I think some of that goes back to the quality, the temperamental quality of dryness being associated with Earth. That can be really good for doing the numbers or the accounting of something and seeing the cold hard facts of how something adds up in terms of the numbers, but there can be a very dispassionate kind of colder quality to that in some sense, or it can come off as cold in some ways just looking at the numbers. Versus once you get to Libra, there’s a focus a little bit more on sometimes like, you know, how can you make something beautiful or how can you make it artistically appealing. And that’s not always something that’s done purely based on the numbers but there can be other elements to that.
TH: That’s a great point because Virgo is more about how can I make this useful or how can I make it better or what’s the practical application for it? Whereas Libra might ask, “How can we make it prettier?” Maybe.
R: Virgo’s view of pretty is, “Was the process long and hard to get through? Did you work really hard to get to whatever you’ve got? Cool, now that’s beautiful.” [Tony laughs]
CB: Yeah. “Is this perfection in terms of that all of the errors have been ironed out completely and sort of eradicated? Then it’s beautiful.” But Libra is more, “Is this aesthetically appealing almost in a different intellectual sense?” Although intellectual isn’t the right word. I’m trying to think of the right term for an air sign, because air signs are very intellectual.
TH: Conceptual. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Maybe in terms of form, like perfectness of form or something like that?
TH: Sure.
CB: Yeah. All right, I’m trying to think of any other contrast between Libra versus Virgo that might be good to mention at this point as a Mercury sign versus a Venus sign.
R: Both inner planets?
CB: Yeah.
R: Well, I can think of both kind of have that close relationship to the Earth and the Sun.
TH: And one of the responses from that turning inward that we were talking about earlier and the self-examination of Virgo to the turning outward in Libra with more relational-oriented sign and, you know, getting input from others. Like, it’s now time. You’ve done the inner work and the focus, and you’ve tried to perfect your craft or perfect you, and now it’s time to reach out to others for the next stage of that and interact with others.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I was looking at my notes, and Camille wrote in her write-up for this that Libra corrects Virgo by bringing in the perspective of another person and by introducing harmony and balance to the frenetic Virgo energy. Libra also knows the creative process’s subjective, paradoxical grey areas, correcting the Virgo tendency to aim for perfection or put life into tidy little boxes.
TH: That’s right. I think there’s something to, I don’t know if it’s just my experience or if it’s universal, but the tendency to want things to be a bit black and white. I’ve gotten past that just through age, you know, just through with time. But definitely when I was younger, that was more of a problem for sure. The black and white kind of thinking, or the wanting things to be really clear. Like almost just wanting there to be an instruction manual for life that just told you how to do it and what was…
R: I have screamed many a night wishing for that manual. [laughter] I had to make my own and it was hard. But I don’t know, shattering that black and white mentality from a really young age for me personally, I just got really excited because I was like, “Wow, now the whole world is open and I can just look for everything everywhere. And just get into it and deep dive into those nitty-gritty neat things, I guess.”
TH: Yeah. But Libra definitely takes that a step further by bringing in other perspectives that conflict and challenge and you know, the devil’s advocate thing is alive and well in Libra. But that’s a nice corrective to that kind of thinking, I think.
CB: Another way to phrase that instead of black and white could be Virgo tends to think in terms of ones and zeros.
R: Binary, yeah.
CB: Yeah, binary. Or like code, basically. And code and looking at things in terms of ones and zeros or binary is different than maybe Libra looking at things in terms of paint colors or things like that.
TH: Now that’s pretty cool.
R: I like the way that that is phrased, that makes so much sense in my head. Especially because Venus just loves like 20 different shades of pink to choose from.
CB: Right. And that’s that’s like a spectrum of the different shades of pink. It’s not as clear of a division as a one and a zero, but instead it’s more of a progression or more of a… I can’t think of the term for that of shades, but it’s something that’s more-
R: Scale? Gradient.
CB: Yeah, gradient. That’s it. It’s more flowing and it’s harder to distinguish, like at what point have you really switched from one shade or one color to another? You don’t really know. It’s something that almost becomes a little subjective and there’s– not ambivalence, but an ambiguity in the gradient of when things have actually changed that makes things less clear.
R: I will say that Virgos created hex codes. We made sure that we could tell exactly where every color is and what it is, and that it’s distinct from the other ones.
CB: So maybe that’s Venus in Virgo.
R: Maybe. Possibly.
TH: I’ve got that one, Venus in Virgo. But this is a fun anecdote here, both with the hex codes and the color shades in Libra, but I was working on a website for an astrologer who I won’t name who was a Libra early in the 2000s. I literally did 21 versions of this website for this particular person, and they said at one point, “I would like the purple to be more jubilant.” [laughs] And I literally-
R: You’re like, “What kind of hue saturation? Where do you want to go with this?”
TH: I got the hex codes, I got 14 or 20 of them or however many, a lot of them, and I put them all together on a page and I said, “You tell me which one of these is the jubilant one.” [laughter] Anyway, that relationship disintegrated a bit from there so, [laughs]
CB: Oh no, that is the fundamental tension between Virgo and Libra.
TH: I think it captures some of what we were talking about. Absolutely.
R: That’s a perfect antidote, honestly.
CB: I love that. Speaking of code and of binary code, actually, specifically one of the examples that came in from Twitter and that Leisa Schaim put on the list was Katherine Johnson, who has the Sun and Mercury in Virgo although we don’t know her birth time. But she was one of the first black women to work as a NASA mathematician and she was featured in that movie just a few years ago called Hidden Figures about her time at NASA. But her calculations of orbital mechanics at NASA as an employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent US-crewed space flights. And she just wrote books and books of code in order to make a lot of that stuff happen, where it has to be perfect and where that matter of perfection actually becomes critical in terms of life and death situations of, you know, sending people into outer space or sending people to the Moon.
TH: And you have that perfect example of the behind-the-scenes work we were talking about, and also the not receiving the accolades, really not not having that work seen. We don’t know. But maybe she was comfortable in that, maybe she wasn’t. I’m not sure. But yeah, I think for myself, it’s more about that the appreciation from the people who you’re actually working with comes in.
CB: Yeah. Well, that takes me back to the idea of an editor and that’s exactly what an editor is, because I’ve seen over the past few years, both in my book but also helping other people with their books, or seeing other people write their books in the past few years, like Dimitra writing hers or other people, just the immense amount of work that goes into the editing process of something. And it’s impossible to ever fully sometimes pay somebody as much as that time they put into it might deserve, or even to give them as much credit or accolades for that as it might deserve, because just the very nature of the process of what you’re doing almost requires more energy expenditure than you could ever possibly have remuneration for when starting to do that.
TH: Yeah, and I think Virgos might be drawn to that kind of work where that becomes challenging. Like, the amount of hours you spend doing film editing, for instance, or any of what? Lots of the kinds of work we’ve been talking about.
R: I mean, piles and stacks of writing binary code ones and zeros. I took a computer science class in college and I dropped out halfway through because it was too difficult. That needs to be perfect or else it won’t run at all. Right down to every last little detail.
TH: Absolutely. So that’s a lot to hold.
CB: Yeah, I’m even thinking of some of the people that work on the Astrology Podcast and editors that edit the audio or the video and how much time they put into it. Or my old editor, Steven Coppock who was Austin’s brother that I kind of lucked out working with him for many years in getting the podcast going, because he just had this ability. Both a great technical skill and ability to do what he does, as well as wearing many different hats and having many different skill sets. But also, you know, the willingness and the ability to sit for long periods of time trying to perfect something but also having enough wherewithal to know when to stop and when it was good enough.
TH: Yeah. The editor can make or break the story in a film or in podcasts. I’m sure. Especially if it’s the kind of podcast where you’re editing the content to tell to frame in a certain way.
CB: Yeah, because you’re a publisher at this point and you know the process of like when an author or let’s just say a creator or creative create something, sometimes they want to do this huge version of something and they have this huge idea in their head that once they put it into paper or something like that, like with a movie for example, it could be 10 hours long. And then somebody has to sit them down and say, “No, nobody’s gonna watch this. You need to cut it down and we need to remove this part, this part, and this part in order to make this consumable or easily digestible and palpable to an audience.”
TH: But going back to your earlier points with that particular type of work and with how important we just kind of described that it really is, it’s unseen work still. And it’s also unappreciated. I mean, how many people get bored and go to the kitchen when they do the Editor Awards in the Academy Awards? In fact, didn’t they cut them out at the last one? I think that’s one of the ones they cut out. [laughs] Because it’s not as exciting because people are like, “Who are these people?” You know. But also interesting that quality in Virgo of not always valuing the self enough and not valuing that work enough, maybe that is why Virgo gets drawn to that kind of work that’s a little bit behind the scenes. But how does Virgo learn to value their own work enough, I think is a good question.
R: By looking to their non-Virgo placements, cuz that’s how I’ve done it.
CB: Right. Or through encouragement from their friends or something like that that might help them to recognize that. That reminds me, you mentioned editors and how that’s often unsung work and not recognized. That’s been one of the things over the past decade, for example with Star Wars and George Lucas is a lot of people pointing to Marcia Lucas, George Lucas’s ex-wife, who edited the first Star Wars. And a lot of people try to argue, like saved the film in post-production where the first cuts of it weren’t very good or it wouldn’t have been as successful, but she was able to cobble together this movie and make it work. And then it went on to be hugely successful. But then it’s like, that’s another example where it’s the front person… The director kind of gets all the accolades.
R: Yeah, editing is a tough job and it does not get the recognition that it deserves. That is for sure. Having an editor, film school friend, it’s kind of interesting to see how much effort and work it takes to go into it. But it really is just not recognized.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. But it can be very important. So that’s a good overarching archetype and thing of having a special skill, and it’s a skill that you might not be fully recognized for but it’s one that’s important because it’s the thing that kind of keeps the world working. And you’re sort of like the hidden superheroes in some instances that are able to keep things running on time or keep cities running, even if that’s not something that everybody sees visually.
TH: Yeah, absolutely.
CB: Yeah. All right. Let’s see, where should we go from here? We’ve talked about the contrast with the preceding sign, the sign that came afterwards. One of the other contrasts I like to go into sometimes is the elemental triplicities. We’ve talked a little bit about Taurus versus Virgo at this point. I’m trying to think if there’s any other things, one of them that’s actually important that we touched on really briefly, but I think those are the two signs that are the most connected with plants and with the growing of plants and cultivation. Taurus, I think, being the sign ruled by Venus and having the Moon exalted there, it almost becomes more about the process of nurturing something and growing something from birth, and raising it up and supporting it and giving it subsistence or water and food. But for Virgo, there’s this other cultivation aspect and there can be also this aspect of sort of reusing things and using them for medicinal purposes or other things like that. I know that’s something that you’re super interested in, right?
R: I actually took a poll when I was in college with the Purdue science department of Botany, specifically, and I asked every single kid in the botany program what their big three was. And if they didn’t know, I was like, “Find the time of birth, get back to me. We are stuck with me all semester, we’re gonna figure this out.” And I took a poll to see how many of them had Virgo, Taurus and Capricorn placements. I could not find a single one that did not have one of them as their luminary, yet alone their rising signs. So that was always really interesting. Virgo and Taurus are definitely more apparent. There was only a hundred or so kids, but still. Yeah.
TH: That’s a good amount. A lot of the studies I’ve done have few less than that, because I do these kinds of niche little studies of a particular focus. I think that’s pretty strong testimony.
R: I wish I still had all that data. I have it in a notebook somewhere, but I didn’t write down all of their birth dates all the time. Because sometimes there would be my friends in the program who would be like, “Oh, let me add you to my astro.com account.” Which has far succeeded, it’s 100 charts. [laughter] So they have been long gone.
CB: Yeah. That is a struggle, that early stage of astrology is that 100 chart limit. [laughter] Then you got to start deleting some and it’s like…
R: I just bought the whole thing.
CB: See, I was broke for a long time so you have to delete charts and it’s like which of your children are you gonna murder at that point?
R: Oh, at first I did it just celebrities. I’d get rid of all the celebrities.
TH: You said it the Scorpio way, Chris. [laughter]
CB: I’m just saying it’s hard knowing who’s getting voted off the island of the hundred chart examples.
R: Where’s my mind is like, “I’ll just add them back later. Look at him from a different source.”
CB: Right. No, you’re right. That was more as a Scorpio, as like somebody has to die. [Tony laughs] But you’re bringing it back to plants, your degree is in botany?
R: Yes. And I’m specifically a Botany and Plant Pathology graduate, so I am a plant doctor. I don’t fix people with medicine, I fix plants with herbicides and pesticides and whatever disease control they need.
CB: Okay. Like, if they get a fungus or something like that and figuring out how to manage that?
R: Yep. And being able to identify what’s the difference between one rust versus, like Northern corn leaf blight or this is gonna be corn from the Midwest, you know? Corn and soybeans kind of stuff. There’s difference between fungal moulds and water moulds… It’s obscene. But it’s a lot of agriculture. You know, a lot of plants need all of that information to be able to survive. There’s like a huge disease that’s actually wiping out a lot of corn in the Midwest right now called Tar Spot, there we go. It took me a second, it’s been a while. But it’s just these little black dots that come out and we can, in a lab, solidify it and grow it not in a controlled off of the corn itself, we can control that environment and grow it in a Petri dish. So there’s no way of understanding how it is devastating so much. That just intrigued me, and then I just switched my major from human pathology to plant pathology and I’ve been in love ever since.
CB: Okay. That’s like with bananas, where there was in the 20th century something that wiped out the entire type of banana that used to exist, right?
R: Anybody that says that they don’t like GMOs they better never eat a banana then. Because bananas are genetically not what they were 50 years ago, because we genetically modified them to be clones of themselves so much that they’re unique. And they wouldn’t be able to grow without propagation.
CB: And it’s because there was some kind of blight or something like that that wiped out the initial main type of bananas that used to exist in the mid 20th century.
R: Mhm. And the same can be said about the American elm tree too, because there was– I forget the disease’s name now, but there’s a huge blight and now we only have Chinese elm trees here.
CB: So why don’t we dwell and expand on that a little bit of why Virgo might be associated more with plants or different things like that? Where does that come from? Is it because it’s an Earthy sign that’s ruled by Mercury?
R: It could possibly be because it’s Earthy, I guess. Mercury likes to do things with its hands, it looks to be active, and an Earth sign kind of brings it to that tangible reality. Whereas more Gemini qualities could be more, “I’m doing things with my hands, but I’m doing interpretive dance and that’s what you need to see,” you know? Kind of thing.
CB: When I think of Virgo and plants, I think of the apothecary and going into apothecary and they just have tonnes of jars of different herbs and different plants and stuff all over the wall. And they’re very knowledgeable about what each one does and what the effect each one has on the body and how it can be used in order to try to either alleviate and heal things or to try to balance things out.
TH: I like that image too because when you think of it, you think of things in little jars that are organised and labeled and, you know, hopefully…
R: I have six boxes full of them in my house. [laughter]
TH: Absolutely, yeah.
R: All labeled intricately. Otherwise I forget. It’s kind of hard to see what’s a crushed-up leaf versus a different crushed up leaf if they’re not labeled.
TH: That makes sense. Yeah.
R: Sometimes you can tell if they’re whole, because there’s a whole taxonomy that you can go through and figure out what plant it’s from. But if it’s just crumbled up, labelling is important so as to say.
CB: Labeling is definitely a Virgo thing.
TH: And I think maybe you could argue, although this doesn’t work for half of the world, but it’s a problem that we just have in astrology because we’ve used these images for so long. But if we’re looking at the northern hemisphere and the seasons and the Virgos coming around the time of the harvest, that just makes you think of plants kind of naturally.
R: Yeah.
CB: That’s really good point. Yeah. So Virgo is the last sign. And I do use that, I have talked a bit about the seasons especially this year as we’ve been doing one sign each month. And as I focused on the quality of each sign and what the experiences outside during different parts of the year in the northern hemisphere where the signs of the zodiac originated and where some of those qualities were first developed, I think there’s something that’s still relevant about that and useful to sort of meditate on. So Virgo is the last sign in the summer season in the northern hemisphere. So it’s right before you get to the Fall Equinox at Libra and you move completely into a new season, so you do start to get to the harvesting part of the year.
TH: Yeah, and with that image, you get the busy work and reaping the fruits of the whatever you’ve grown and separating the wheat from the chaff. [laughs]
R: And in comparison is Taurus’s planting season, you know? It’s that early-ish spring, it’s when you want to put your corn in the ground. And then harvested by about [unintelligible].
CB: Right, that makes sense, the idea of harvesting. And that’s part of the imagery of Virgo is like the maiden or sometimes shown actually harvesting wheat or some things like that. Yeah.
TH: And then Capricorn, and it’s winter, and we’re all gonna die. [laughter]
R: No, Capricorns are just the offseason when you’re planning everything that you need to do for next tourist season but then the anxiety of planning again happens at the beginning of spring season. Like, “Oh, now I gotta go grab this hoe and this tractor attachment, all of these things. I know what I want to plant and where I want to plant it, did that back in winter, but now I need all the physical things.”
TH: Totally.
CB: Well, and also Capricorn is like, you know, you’re at the beginning of the winter season and the nights are the longest and the days are the shortest, and the weather is the most cold. And Saturn is that first sign ruled by Saturn and that’s also a dry Earth sign. So that’s the point at which all of the things you did earlier in the year in order to, you know, if you did a good job growing and cultivating your plants and if you did a good job harvesting and storing things away, then it’s like you’re in good shape during the Capricorn season, just sort of getting through the winter. But if you did a bad job, then the ramifications of that become the most dire at that point in the year.
TH: Yeah, the accountability function is strong in that sign, I think. And I think it starts with Virgo, you know, with maybe one of the first looks at like, what’s not working here? But then Capricorn has that fuller experience of taking stock and being accountable or, you know, holding yourself accountable or just accountability as the act of measurement. So just taking stock of, you know, what did I do? What did I produce? And what do I have, you know?
R: I feel like each of the Earth signs have a lesson that they need to learn in a way of going about that lesson, but each of them handle it with a different level of maturity. Like, Taurus is a little immature– not trying to stereotype or anything at all– but Taurus can be a little immature in the ways that they deal with failures and learning the lessons from those failures, which is usually “I’m just going to ignore this and not deal with it. So it’s easier.” Virgos are, “Let me dissect it and try to understand all of my flaws,” but then they’re lacking the wisdom that can be found in Capricorn from the failures. At least in my opinion. And that’s just from Venus, Mercury and Saturn’s point of view. I don’t think necessarily just because that’s the order of them.
TH: Yeah, I do think that the Saturn rulership of Capricorn can take the judgement to the next level for sure in the accountability process. You can have that stern judge or inner critic or voice of negation, you know, Saturn’s definitely a no planet.
CB: Yeah, I think that’s something that Virgo and Capricorn share in common is a sort of criticalness. And I, for example, people all the time ask me what my Virgo placements are, because they see that as a quality in me or they see my focus on the details and things like that. But I don’t actually have any planets in Virgo. I just have a Mercury-Saturn conjunction which I think people sometimes perceive as Virgo energy because of that ability of Mercury-Saturn combinations or even of Capricorn placements to be able to see the flaws in something or to, as you said, reject or negate something. Yeah, so it’s a similarity between I think those two signs are those two energies. But I’m I’m an honorary Virgo, I think, because of my Mercury-Saturn conjunction. That’s what I like to say. Somebody did point out that the 12th part of my Ascendant, if you divide the signs into 12 two-and-a-half degree segments, that my 12th part of my Ascendant’s in Virgo. So that could be my Virgo energy but I tend to associate it with the Mercury-Saturn conjunction.
TH: I think that’s right on. And then I also think another gateway with your chart is the Scorpio because I think that the Virgo and Scorpio energy, just for another comparison while we’re doing those, is those signs are sextile but I think they’re in the chart, if we have Aries on the ascendant, they’re both signs that are in aversion or in quincunx aspect to the Ascendant. And there’s an, in both of them, an unsettled energy. And this is a word that kind of comes through analysis of that aspect in modern astrology, but it also syncs up quite nicely with just the word aversion from traditional astrology. But that unsettled energy is kind of like a baseline of Virgo and Scorpio, too. And for Virgo, it’s a baseline of you know, “What’s wrong with the situation? What needs to be fixed or repaired or made better?” And in Scorpio, it’s an unsettled energy that just keeps wanting to go deeper, I think. And people may be sensing that as well.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point, wanting to go deeper. Because that’s a really good keyword for Scorpio is like getting to the bottom of something and going all the way.
TH: You’re known for being a little thorough.
CB: A little bit. [Tony laughs] Yeah. Steven Forrest, when I did the episode with him on Astrology and Reincarnation, I mentioned in passing that I used to be a barista at Starbucks and he cracked a joke. He was like, “You must have made… You must have been a very serious… You made a very serious cup of coffee or something like that.” [Tony laughs] He sort of cracked a joke about that. Yeah. Yeah. So, Scorpio and getting to the bottom things. And then Virgo, there can be a similar energy of wanting to cover all of your bases and do a really thorough job of something.
R: I feel like Scorpio needs information to survive, and Virgo just needs information to thrive. But they still need that deep-seated detail-oriented information.
CB: Yeah, Virgo is doing the numbers and seeing if the numbers add up and analyzing the data, and Scorpio is like the spy that goes in to get the information or to obtain the secrets of something and then bring them back and use that for their own purposes. Yeah, so maybe that’s also a similarity there also between those two signs that are in sextile. Yeah. All right. So that’s good. We’ve talked about all the Earth signs. Another section we might move on to is talking about the four mutable signs, since Virgo is the second mutable sign at this point after Gemini. The other two mutable signs are Sagittarius and Pisces, and I guess we’ve talked about Pisces quite a bit at this point. We’ve talked about Gemini a little bit, so the one left that we haven’t touched on at all and it would be good to talk about their commonalities is Virgo and Sagittarius. Those are two signs that are square so there’s a little bit of a tension between those two signs because they don’t see eye to eye when it comes to element since Virgo is an Earth sign and Sagittarius is a fire sign. They don’t see eye to eye when it comes to gender or when it comes to diurnal nocturnal wherein Virgo is a nocturnal sign and Sagittarius is a diurnal sign. But they do share quadruplicity or a modality in common, which is that they’re both mutable signs so there’s a certain amount of adaptability to both of them.
R: This is my Moon sign, so I am a first-quarter Moon baby. And it’s not a fun tension sometimes, because that Sagittarius is almost like a need to super fan and get super excited about things. Then the Virgo is overly critical. So it’s like, mmh, you’re not as good at what you think you love the most as you think you are. At least that’s how I have expressed it in my own personal life.
TH: That’s a really interesting way of saying it. Yeah.
R: But that square of that zealous Sagittarius energy and that really radical, deterministic almost Virgo energy is just very conflicting. I mean, they do work well together and can work really well if done correctly, I just personally haven’t figured that out yet.
CB: Sure. So I mean, maybe a part of what’s there is there could be… Well, I don’t normally think of Virgo as a super pessimistic sign. Maybe there can be a little bit of tension between a sort of the criticalness leaning into more of a pessimism versus more of an exuberant optimism of Sagittarius.
TH: Yeah, I think we’re back to the Mercury versus Jupiter rulership and, you know, you get there that way. But like you said, Mercury is not necessarily pessimistic but because it’s mental and in its rulership of Gemini and Virgo, there definitely can be… You know, when Gemini is going poorly, apathy and complacency can be problems. Or even just like, I already know what that’s about and not kind of wanting to delve any deeper. And Virgo can definitely go into the cup-half-empty territory pretty easily and quickly. Complaining is a well-beloved trait of Virgos everywhere. [laughs]
R: Well, complaining is a form of criticism to an extent, you’re just not being direct about your criticism.
TH: And then yeah, Sagittarius, that square is interesting. It’s interesting in people and in relationships between people. I think the people with the Sagittarius planets can feel like their balloon has been punctured a little bit by the people with the Virgo placements. Even if you’re thinking about the air… Sorry, the Earth to fire, what Virgo is pointing out is probably real but the Sagittarius might not want to go there or accept it, or doesn’t even think it’s important. And so that can be hard for both sides in that respect on either side of the relationship.
CB: Yeah. So the Sagittarius friend might be like, “Let’s jump on a plane or let’s go take this trip to a foreign country tomorrow,” and Virgo can be like, “We need to get our vaccinations, we need to…”
R: [laughs] What’s their language like?
CB: Yeah, we need to learn the language and we need to plan out the trip. And Sagittarius is like, “No, we just need to go right now tomorrow and that’ll be fun.”
TH: Right. And Virgos says, “Fun? What is that? What is this fun?” [laughs]
CB: Right. It’s not. I’m doing the numbers on this and it’s not adding up.
TH: “What’s the purpose of it? [laughs] Is it going to contribute to my growth and…”
R: “Can I learn from it? No, I don’t want to go.”
CB: Right.
TH: Anyway, just all joking aside, I think it’s a challenging square of the mutable squares, I think it’s one of the more challenging. That might just be all my experience. I feel like with the shared rulership between the other ones, you know, with Virgo and Gemini and with Saj and Pisces, that creates a bridge that isn’t as easy to find with the Virgo Sagittarius piece.
R: I always just find it interesting, too, about how the mutable signs are the two planets that oppose each other almost in their meanings and rationales. It’s Jupiter and Mercury, the big thinker and the small detail-oriented mastermind. Well, both can be masterminds, I guess, but-
TH: Mainly the Virgo.
R: Yeah, mainly the Virgo. [laughs] But that is the whole mutable square with Cardinal signs and/or fixed signs. You don’t really get that same kind of polarity between two planets, it’s just two key players we’ve got going on here. And you can really see the nuanced differences between each of those mutable signs just by this discussion about Jupiter versus Mercury almost.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And it’s tricky because on the one hand, some of the contrasts are almost more stark in some of the other oppositions and squares and things like that. Like, you know, the opposition between the two luminaries and Capricorn or the two Saturn-ruled signs, or Venus and Mars and those signs like Aries and Libra and so on and so forth, you would think of combinations that Mercury and Jupiter would have more in common or be able to get along more and in some ways they do. But in these signs, we really do see where some of those contrasts come out.
TH: And they can work together. I think that with these opposite signs, it’s a little bit easier to see how one sign can offer an antidote to what’s out of balance with the opposite sign. And it’s harder to find that in the squares, but you can find it if you kind of dig a bit. And for the Virgo-Sagittarius square, you know, the meaning making that Sagittarius can provide through planets in that sign can really help out the Virgo placements for sure. Even if there’s some resistance to that process.
R: I feel like it’s just the dual body nature of all these signs, you know, the ability to adapt and to take on smaller roles that almost reflect parts of them that oppose them.
TH: Sure. Yeah. I do think– I don’t know what you think about this, Chris– but I think of all the mutable signs. You know, one of the things we say about Sagittarius doesn’t fit with mutability as well, and that’s dogmatism. It’s about having a fixed point of view is one way that a non-astrologer might even describe dogmatism, right? And so how does that work in practice? And it’s just a thought, but of the signs it seems to be potentially the most or the least flexible. And yet I think that if you’re doing your Sagittarius parts well, but let’s just imagine Jupiter in Sagittarius because it makes it more simple to describe, but your worldview when it’s healthy, should be evolving based on your lived experience at all times rather than kind of fixed. And that’s like living the mutability in a healthy way, I think. Whether every Jupiter in Sagittarius person does that or not, I think is a question. [laughs] But what do you think about that?
CB: Yeah, adaptability is a really good one. I mean, when we’re talking about that sometimes of Sagittarius, I think about the late Kelly Lee Phipps who had some Sagittarius placements. And one of his last projects towards the end of his life, he was just like, “I’m going to make a documentary on astrology.” And he’s like, “I don’t know anything about filmmaking or anything else but I’m going to buy a bunch of equipment and I’m just going to travel the country shooting interviews with people, and I’m gonna learn as I go.” And that’s a very Sagittarius way to do things. But it’s like, it happened. And he got it done. And it eventually came out. And there are some issues because you could see in the interviews as he was learning as he went, and sometimes he’d record his audio in a really echoey room and it would be really bad, or he’d record another interview outside and you’d hear the wind blowing. He would learn as he went, and I think that kind of approach could be really hard for a Virgo to deal with where they would want to plan things out better and know the technical specs of things and have some mastery of that ahead of time. But on the other hand, that approach also can have an enlivening effect on Virgo to help push it to create more rather than hold back and wait for things to be perfect before doing anything.
TH: Totally.
CB: So there can be something good about the energy and the tension between those two that can be productive in some ways?
TH: Absolutely. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right, so that’s Sagittarius in the mutable signs and adaptability as an underlying archetypal Virgo trait. I think to some extent as a core thing, I don’t know if there’s anything worth dwelling on there anymore in terms of the immutable quality of Virgo. Is there anything else that either of you can think of?
TH: I like the Virgos are tweaky bumper sticker from earlier. But being adaptable, you know, I think that with the function of criticism, which is a useful and important function in the world, it can obviously be done in negative ways. But at its heart, it’s like, here’s something that needs to be changed. And Virgo, I think, is willing to both point out what needs to be changed and to take action to change it. That’s the Earth part of the sign, is that where Gemini can kind of stay in their heads about something, Virgo’s like, “What can I do with this information? How can I put it to use? What can I? How can I embody it in the real world in a tangible way? What can I do with it?” There’s a willingness to adapt to situations to make changes internal-external that I think is real evident.
CB: Yeah. And also the ability to do multiple things at once, I think is an important quality also that I would associate with a Virgo almost more than any other sign. Maybe Gemini to a certain extent, but… And some of that is I think about some of the early Hellenistic astrologers like Dorotheus when they’re talking about electional astrology. And he talks about, if you put a mutable sign on the rising sign or if you make a mutable sign like Virgo prominent in your electional chart, you’ll start something. But before the first action is taken, there’ll be a second action that will have to be taken. And the second action will be brought to completion first before the first one and then you’ll have to go back and do the second. You know, it makes me think of that and makes me think of things like Mercury retrogrades where you sometimes have that experience of doing something thinking it’s finished and it should be a thing that just takes one effort and then it’s done, but then you end up actually finding out that the first thing failed and you have to go back and redo it. But usually the second time you do something, it often comes off better than it would have the first time.
TH: Right. I think that’s a great description of a really useful Virgo energetic. And allowing yourself to go with that process rather than kind of fighting against it, I think is really key in terms of inner psychology.
R: Yeah. I always think of Virgo as that, I mean, and it is mutable but it’s still Earth. It’s that clay that… And you can get stuck in clay. It can be a little obnoxious to wiggle your way around in. But yeah, a hundred percent.
CB: Maybe that’s kind of a more astronomical rationale for the criticalness of Virgo is that, you know, Mercury retrograde is going back and having to redo something or going back and having to revisit something, and sometimes revise something if there’s a problem with it. But that idea of doing something over again being somehow core in that archetype, like getting better as a result of repetition.
TH: And just being willing to do that because you want to get it right, whereas some other signs might not want to put in the effort to do that. Like, “Oh, that’s a waste of time. I’ve already been over that before.” Or, the Sagittarius perspective of learning as you go through direct experience. It’s just a different… It’s a totally different energetic way of acting, but I think you described it really well.
CB: Yeah. Well, it also makes me think of that. I don’t know if this idea has been debunked, but that idea of doing your 10,000 hours, that it takes 10,000 hours to master something or master any one technique or approach to something. That it just happens through doing it over and over again with repetition. I watch a lot of comedy podcasts lately, and seeing comedians talk about their craft– because they always talk about how as a comedian, you’re just terrible for the first five years or whatever but you go up and you bomb, but then you learn from it. And through that process of refining your jokes and refining your approach over a span of many years, that you get better and you build up and build up and eventually can become successful or become good at your craft. But it takes a huge amount of hours and a huge amount of being willing to fail at something over and over again in order to get better.
TH: Yeah, I do think Virgo needs some positive feedback along the way absolutely to keep inspired to keep going. I don’t know if that’s been your experience. But on another side note, you mentioned comedians. There are some pretty amazing Virgo comedians and I think maybe we can look at Mercury here as the ruler and gifts coming through that way. But Jimmy Fallon and Melissa McCarthy, Amy Poehler, Jack Black, Lily Tomlin, classic. And there’s some others. There’s a few that I didn’t mention. There’s some controversial comedians with Virgo sign as well. [laughs] Absolutely. I mean, a lot of comedians are kind of under fire these days for their material anyway but, yeah.
CB: Who the controversial ones? Do you want to say or do you want to go there?
TH: Well, the first one that came to mind was Dave Chappelle is a Virgo. I was really surprised to see that one. And I don’t have anything to say about Dave Chappelle because I have never seen, believe it or not, I know I live in the modern world but I’ve never seen him do one joke so I’ve never seen a show of his so I know nothing about him. But I just know about the controversies. Yeah.
R: Robin Williams is Venus in Virgo, too. So, another comedian.
TH: His aspects are pretty amazing. He’s got some great… I think he’s got a great Mercury rawness aspect and so much stuff that just makes really great sense in Robin Williams’ chart.
CB: Let me pull up his chart if you…
TH: But I think Jimmy Fallon- I love Jimmy Fallon and Melissa McCarthy as examples of embodying that Virgo archetype. Because one of the things we like about both of them is their ability to make fun of themselves. They can be self-deprecating in a way that doesn’t make other people uncomfortable or that doesn’t make other people kind of bad or wrong.
R: I feel like those two individually have also watched a lot of great TV show host comedians and stuff do their thing and learned from their mistakes, what’s worked and what hasn’t worked. And I feel like that’s a trait that a lot of Virgos really embody. But especially with Jimmy Fallon. He took over The Tonight Show and he was like, I’ve seen how this has been transitioned before, I’ve seen how it’s gone. And he absolutely killed it with ratings when he first took it over regardless of how people want to view him. But he’s good at getting the numbers in, that’s for sure.
TH: Yeah. And he has that kind of, I don’t know if you want to call it humility, but he has that quality that makes other people… It’s really good for an interviewer where he’s not sort of sitting above them, he’s like-
R: Getting down to their level. And really grounding himself in interviewing other people.
TH: Absolutely. And then to your other point, Melissa McCarthy, she only came into the public eye later so we have to imagine that she went through that process you were describing, Chris, of fine-tuning her work and her comedy until she got either to a place where she was ready or till she got developed enough skills that she started to be recognized for. But her work and famously great at expressing that energetic of humility in lots of ways that are great for comedic effect. Yeah.
CB: You mentioned self-deprecating humor and it made me think immediately of Conan O’Brien who has Virgo rising and that Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1960s right on his Ascendant. But sometimes his humor can be self-deprecating and that’s really interesting, I hadn’t thought about that before. But if you think of the different styles of humor, I think self-deprecation could be a Virgo thing.
R: Now that’s like Jack Black too, like Nacho Libre. He’s just making fun of himself the whole movie.
TH: But not in a way that- You know, there’s a way in which some comedians do that make you feel uncomfortable. And I like to think, maybe this is just me, but I like to think they do it in a way that doesn’t. It’s almost as if you can tell they’re comfortable in their own bodies and they’re just…
R: Living their life doing what they want.
TH: And they’re having fun with the whole experience. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. It’s like that elevated ability to lean into that and almost acknowledge the flaws in something, but to own it and transcend it in some ways and to use that to laugh with people rather than just being the subject of being laughed at or something like that.
TH: Right.
R: They play the strategic game, you know? They’re able to flip the scenario around. They don’t get bullied, they bully themselves. Because that’s easier, because they already… A Virgo is a Virgo’s worst enemy. That’s for sure.
TH: I think that’s well said, yeah. And they’re witty too. They’re witty and that’s, you know, Mercury skill.
CB: Or ‘clever’ is another word.
TH: Clever is a better word, I think. Witty is maybe better for Gemini. I think clever is probably good. Because clever is the kind of humor that sometimes you don’t laugh out loud. [laughs]
CB: Right.
R: You’re like, “Oh, wow. That was a really good line.”
CB: Right. Yeah, you’re that smart. I see that joke and that was a well-constructed joke. And you almost intellectually laugh at it, even if it didn’t make you burst out laughing or something like that.
TH: Yeah. Cameron Diaz is also a Virgo. She has Sun Mars in Virgo and she does comedy quite well. But with a lot of these folks, too, there’s that Earth quality of it being embodied or just, you know, literally it’s kind of like a little bit more of a physical comedy too without being slapstick in what I imagine might be more of a Sagittarius way, but it’s still like a body kind of comedy. There’s something about the physicality, whether it’s their gestures or movements or just, yeah.
CB: Yeah. That makes me think of, you mentioned Robin Williams earlier, who has Venus in Virgo but also Saturn in Virgo. And let’s see here, so here’s a chart.
TH: He has so many great characters and you can see them through all the different planets in his chart. You can see him in like five minutes, go through every planet in his chart embodying those different characters. He’s pretty amazing.
R: Yeah, I think there’s only a couple of people that are able to do that very well, like play multiple roles for one movie. And I think Robin Williams is definitely one of them. It’s that Mercurial aspect, the man of many hats.
CB: Yeah, he had said Scorpio rising and that Mars conjunct Uranus in Cancer, and that unexpected sometimes zany or wacky quality.
TH: Yeah. What I was remembering was Mars conjunct Uranus, not Mercury. And it’s because Mars is the chart ruler.
CB: Right. Venus conjunct the South Node at 10 degrees of Virgo in the 11th house, and Saturn up there at 27 Virgo also in that.
TH: Yeah. Yeah. And for those folks interested or into evolutionary astrology, that would be a pretty big deal; Venus conjunct the South Node in Virgo. And how he… I’m just picturing some of those characters. Like I said, you can see any planet in this chart coming through some of these characters, but you can see some of those characters in his work too.
R: I feel like he truly understands the really gross disgusting process of like mutilating his own facial features, his own disguise, dressing up as Mrs. Doubtfire, in order to get the laugh, in order to get what he wants out of it.
CB: Yeah. Are there any other comedians or anything like that? Another one we could go into at some point is musicians as well.
R: Yeah, you mentioned cleverness. And I will plug my absolute favorite rapper in all of existence, Mac Miller, who has a Jupiter or his Jupiter in Virgo. He is very well known. He has a Capricorn stellium but he’s very well known for being very clever in his raps. He was Easy Mac with the Cheesy Raps. [Tony laughs] Even from a young age, he was able to rap about you know, drinking with his friends and taking improper substances, things like that.
TH: What are improper substances?
R: Weed. [Tony laughs] Well, uuh… That’s up for debate.
CB: I mean, there’s more.
R: Yeah, Mac has done a lot. But he’s very clever in that sense. Then also Kurt Cobain and Billy Cogan for being self-deprecating. Those are Virgo risings. They’re also Pisces stelliums if you want to talk more about that axis, but-
TH: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, and Kurt has Uranus in Pluto and Virgo on the Ascendant really tight.
R: I think they both do, because aren’t they both only a week or so apart from each other?
CB: They were born within a week of each other. And what’s interesting is they’re born, I believe, on the other side of a Mercury station. This is the chart of Kurt Cobain. He was born February 20th, 1967. He has 19 Virgo rising with Pluto exactly conjunct the Ascendant at 19 Virgo and Uranus conjunct the Ascendant at 23 Virgo. And its opposite to this pretty substantial Pisces stellium that consists of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn. So you can see Mercury is right there at 18 Pisces and the Sun is at one Pisces. And down in the bottom right corner it shows stations, and Mercury is two days away from stationing retrograde. So there’s that. And then Mars is down there in the third house in Scorpio, and Mars is 15 days away from stationing. So, multiple things about that chart but just to contrast, here’s Billy Cogan’s chart who’s also Virgo rising, has the same Uranus-Pluto conjunction near the Ascendant, also has Sun in Pisces. But look, he’s on the other end where Mercury is stationing direct at this point but still in Pisces, but it ends up giving them the same Mercury in Pisces placement. And because Mars went retrograde, Mars is also roughly around the same degree but it’s retrograde and Billy Cogan’s chart. I was watching some old videos of both of theirs recently with that Mars in the third house in a place of communication and both of them being known for just screaming and wearing out sometimes their vocal cords in the process of that as sort of a notable feature of their music.
TH: Yeah, I think though with Billy Cogan, I think that Moon in Gemini is a real resource for him. I mean, we know how things kind of turned out for Kurt Cobain and his Moon being in Cancer just adding to that water, and him also having a bit more Pisces going on there.
CB: Yeah. Well, the other thing is that Saturn changed signs, which I think is really interesting in terms of that co-presence. So Satrurn moved out of-
TH: Right. Saturn’s in Pisces in Kurt’s chart, right?
CB: Yeah, so it’s much more coloring that entire Pisces stellium in Kurt’s chart and also creating more tensions with the Ascendant and Virgo. And that self-critical tendency, and there’s another key word there that I’m forgetting but…
TH: Martyr, with Pisces maybe? I don’t know if that’s where you were going but…
CB: A little bit. But he just, in his suicide note, famously referred to himself as a sad Pisces or something to that effect, and you really pick up on that Virgo-Pisces axis, but also just the heavy role that Saturn was playing there and some of the issues with depression and ultimately not being happy once he achieved fame and stardom. And that actually being something that overwhelmed him and that made him feel not good, being constantly in the spotlight and things like that.
TH: Yeah.
R: Yeah, and I feel like Billy was able to more fuel that through his lyrics and put Bullet with Butterfly Wings, to say like, “I’m a rat in a cage,” and to sing about that. But then Kurt kind of had Dave Grohl’s chart and Courtney Love and whatnot influencing him to write about certain things. And he wrote more about the drug side of it instead of the healing, the feelings that he was going through, and the depression that he was going through. He just threw it all on his own back, because he was living so much as that other person.
TH: This is off topic a bit but that’s an important point, too, about… Both of their charts with the Pisces over there and a little on the Descendant and being a bit more porous and influenced by the others. And so kind of choosing those others really wisely being really important, and because they are going to have a really strong influence.
R: Exactly.
CB: Yeah. And it’s all the more so in both of their charts because with a Virgo rising and having the ruler of the Ascendant being Mercury in the seventh whole sign house, it even more not just directs them there, but sometimes can make more of the person’s identity, but be partially shaped by the people that they’re in close relationship with.
TH: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think you can see the fingerprint in that really well.
CB: Sure.
TH: Others, there’s some other pretty great musicians though that take us in a different direction. We have to mention Beyoncé or somebody is going to be mad. And they’re probably going to be in the comments already, “Why haven’t you talked about Beyoncé?” [laughs]
R: Because she doesn’t have a time chart!
CB: Yeah, she doesn’t have a time chart. However, I do have a funny anecdote about that. Did both of you see that news story a few weeks ago where it was this story where there was somebody, I forget her name but she was in Glee, who said this report that supposedly Jennifer Lopez once did auditions for backup dancers. And then supposedly, and I don’t know if that’s true, it’s not verified, but asked people at the end of the auditions once everyone had auditioned, how many Virgos are in the room. And some people raised their hand and then all the people that raised their hands supposedly, she then said thank you and then dismissed them just for being Virgos. It was kind of this weird story because that’s obviously not a good use of astrology and raises all sorts of issues where normally people that are actual astrologers wouldn’t do stuff like that. But I always thought it was funny when I heard that story because then I immediately thought of Beyonce, and I was like imagine if Beyonce is one of the dancers. [laughter]
R: Jennifer Lopez is like, “No, get out.” [Tony laughs]
CB: Yeah, she’s like, “Get out.” And you just dismissed this amazing dancer and becomes known even way more than yourself, because you have a prejudice against Virgos or something like that. That’s why you would not… That’s your astrologer story about why you don’t want to do that. Sort of cautionary tale when it comes to typing people just based on zodiac signs.
R: I think I’ve noticed that the most pop astrology is people hate on the Mercurial signs. They hate on Gemini and Virgo the most, in my opinion.
CB: You think so? Well, you think that as a Virgo, but the- [crosstalk]
R: No, Scorpio gets a lot because Scorpio gets really bad stereotypes. But I feel like they don’t get hate, because so many people will defend and say that they love Scorpio still.
TH: They really hate on Geminis, though. You’re right.
R: They really do.
CB: Yeah, but then Leo’s sometimes will get some hate for certain things. What are the signs that get the least?
TH: Taurus.
R: Aquarius usually gets forgotten about. [laughter] Let’s be honest. Because they’re off excluding themselves from the group.
TH: That’s funny. That’s funny.
CB: Okay. I guess there are- I might have to do a ranking at some point of those signs that get
TH: It’s time for another poll.
R: Yeah, we got to do a poll. Which zodiac sign do you hate the most? See, but then everybody just talks about their own acts, their own personal experience.
TH: That’s right.
R: Like, “Oh, I’ve been screwed over by one too many Aries, that’s the sign that’s going on number one.
CB: Well, yeah. And that’s the danger, especially among less educated public that know much about astrology and the nuances and how you have to look at a person’s entire chart and how it’s more complicated. And that even if you had this experience with one person who had this manifestation of these placements, that doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to have this experience with somebody else. But that might be where something like that Jennifer Lopez story was coming from if that was a true story.
TH: Yeah, that story was interesting, because I use JLo a lot in teaching for some positive Leo traits where, you know, when you have cultivated self-love as a Leo in a really healing and positive way, you’re then able to have that generosity of spirit with others that we describe with Leo sometimes. And I think she does that really well and you can really see that on that dancing show where she’s a judge, where she can be so generous and supportive of other folks. I like to think that maybe that story is not true, or that that it’s a little bit something about that game of telephone, because I was really interested in that story because I used JLo’s chart and I was like, “No, not JLo! I can’t… If she’s hating on Virgos, I have to stop right now.” [laughter] So I looked into the story, and the person who told the story, it really was, “I heard somebody said that somebody blah blah blah,” and that’s the story.
CB: Okay, so it’s hearsay?
TH: Yeah, it’s really just for clicks, I think.
R: So you’ve done the critical analysis of the story?
TH: I did the critical analysis of the story. [laughs]
R: I appreciate that.
CB: It didn’t check out. So we don’t have a time chart for Jennifer Lopez?
TH: No, unfortunately. I really wish we did because I really like using her chart.
CB: So she’s a Sun and Mercury and Leo, and the only thing she has in Virgo is Pluto in late Virgo.
TH: And she probably didn’t know that, if the story is true. She might not have known that.
CB: Okay.
R: Or then she would just probably say, “Well, Pluto’s not a planet so it doesn’t matter anyway.”
CB: We will withhold judgment then about whether that story is true and just use it as a cautionary tale of encouraging people as professional astrologers not to type people purely based on zodiac signs or things like that.
TH: Yeah. And I think what we have with Beyonce is a nice lead into– I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this on the podcast but you can edit it out. But there are a lot of Virgo badasses. And I think we can put Beyonce in this category, but also Joan Jett and Idris Elba. I mean, come on.
CB: Yeah. And that notion of humbleness and everything that we were talking about earlier, while true and relevant, shouldn’t be overstated in terms of the ability of Virgos to rise to the occasion and excel in their field and stand out for their own skills and traits and other things like that.
TH: Yeah, totally. I don’t know. When I first saw that Joan Jett was a Virgo, all I could think of was the lyrics to Bad Reputation. [sings] I don’t give a damn ’bout my bad reputation. There’s something really interesting that we don’t talk about a lot that I think we could spin as a Virgo dynamic there.
R: I think that’s more H.E.R. I think she has an Aquarius rising, and do correct me if I’m wrong. Because we share that. And I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Because she also has a Virgo sign.
TH: Because you don’t give a damn about your reputation? [laughs] Just kidding.
R: Well, there’s a very particular part of Aquarius that really does not give any Fs. Not at all. Not a single one.
CB: The rejection of social convention is definitely an Aquarius trait. And I associate that with sad… Modern astrologers that use modern rulerships tend to associate with Uranus as a rebellious thing, but I sometimes see it as more of a Saturn principle of rejecting things and standing outside of things.
TH: Because Saturn is the No, right. Yeah, I go the same direction. That’s a whole nother… We could do that as another podcast, but that’s a passionate topic of mine.
CB: You just gave a lecture on that.
TH: Uranus rulership of Aquarius and how I think that might be a mistake.
CB: Okay, that would be a good topic. We don’t have a time chart for H.E.R. but this is Beyoncés chart where she has her Sun at 12 degrees of Virgo. And she does have… I mean, I got to point this out. She has a very large Libra stellium so the delegation from Libra may want to claim her from Virgos. But I mean that Sun is still in Virgo.
TH: Yeah. But she has this elegant quality. There’s some classic Hollywood actors like Greta Garbo, who are Virgos as well.
R: Lucille Ball? Oh, she’s I think Virgo-Venus, not Sun.
TH: Not Sun. Is she Leo-Sun. I don’t remember now.
R: I can look it up.
TH: [laughs] Internet, tell us. But yeah, there’s
R: She’s a Venus in Mercury, specifically in Virgo. But I don’t know her Sun sign.
CB: Lucille Ball, double A chart.
TH: Yeah, the Mercury in Virgo rings true especially if you think about… Like, if that portrayal of her behind the scenes that we just saw in that film with Nicole Kidman was at all realistic. You know, just the amount of getting back to comedians and the attention to the craft and the workmanship involved.
R: Definitely learning from other people that have killed it. I don’t think Lucille Ball would have been able to be Lucille Ball had there not been other comedians coming before her doing the same thing.
TH: That’s something we haven’t talked about which I think Virgo, you know, Gemini is a good mimic and I think Virgo can be really good at picking up on something that someone has done and improving on it, doing it even better. This is going to be a little bit controversial to say, I’m sure, but Michael Jackson has the Sun in Virgo. And there’s a video you can see online of Bob Fosse dancing as the snake in the, I think it’s the Jungle Book, I think it’s dance version of that. But I think if you just Google Bob Fosse the snake on YouTube and if you watch that, you’re like, “Whoa, all of those moves were replicated by Michael Jackson.” And you could argue that he took it to the next level, of course, and that he, I don’t know if you want to say he achieved some kind of mastery of it or whatever, but he definitely was taking something someone else did and improving on it. At least with those particular dance moves.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I can’t remember, he may have studied directly under Bob Fosse or something like that.
TH: Well, he definitely gave Bob Fosse some acknowledgment. I mean, he at the least was really in love with his work.
CB: Yeah, but it’s a good point that he definitely-
TH: It’s pretty clear that he saw this specific video, though. [laughs]
CB: Right. But then he definitely took it to the next level and he made that something. He perfected something that you could see it there, and it’s more nascent form in some ways in the person that you took it from. That reminds me of the idea of sometimes taking something and remixing it in addition to improving it. Like, taking the best pieces from something and then putting it into something new. Even though I don’t think he had Virgo placements, but it just reminds me of something that different people do at different points. For example, George Lucas with Star Wars was just taking pieces from earlier things that he saw in serials from his childhood and then creating an updated version of that for the 1970s with newer technology and things like that. So that’s a good point in terms of sometimes the ability to take something and to recognize the value. And Virgo can recognize the value in something, but then also knows how to elevate it and bring it up to the next level.
TH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. Other contrasts. I’m thinking we’ve gone through all of the major connected signs that share some sort of major aspect to each other. One of the last things I’ve sometimes done in some of these episodes is then mentioned some of the signs that are in aversion. We’ve already mentioned and talked about two of them, which is Leo and Libra, which are the adjacent signs which at least share some sort of connection through that corrective function that we’ve talked so much about. But the other two signs that are in aversion to Virgo are the signs of Aries and the other sign is Aquarius. I guess we’ve mentioned Aquarius briefly already, right?
TH: Yeah, that one I’m really still working on. I’m really interested in that one. Because I feel like there’s– and this could just be because of my own experience with people– but I feel like there’s a little bit more of a connection with Aquarius. And I’m somebody who, well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I think Mercury is exalted in Aquarius because I think using that term has a specific reference that we should respect. I do think that Mercury has some real tangible gifts and observable gifts in the sign of Aquarius. And maybe not as much in Aries. [laughs]
R: Yeah, I can’t think of anything to say about Virgo in Aries.
CB: Yeah. Yeah, it’s like because Aquarius-
TH: That one does feel more like oil and water. Yeah.
CB: Aquarius is an air sign and a lot of the air signs have this sort of stamp on them from the first air sign, which is Gemini in this communicative or intellectual quality. But yeah, when you’re comparing Virgo to Aries, so just in terms of the basic qualities of those signs and the reason why they have a disconnect, you know, Virgo is a diurnal sign or a Mars… Sorry, Virgo is a feminine sign or a nocturnal sign versus Aries is masculine or diurnal. Aries is a cardinal sign, Virgo is a mutable sign, and Aries is a fiery sign, whereas Virgo is an Earth sign. They just don’t share any commonalities between those two. So, what are some of the things though, that are properties of both of those signs that don’t quite get along drawn from those qualities? One of them we talked about with Aries in the first episode is that Aries likes to do things very quick and likes to move very fast, whereas I think Virgo tends to be a little bit slower and a little bit more doing things in its natural order in order to do it right, and not wanting to like rush through just for the sake of getting it done.
TH: I think with that one, the desire to get it right supersedes the speed.
R: Yeah, I agree. Because I was thinking about how I was putting up a bookshelf the other day. I just flipped to the last page of the instructions and looked at the finished picture and was like, “I could figure this out,” and did not want to stop and do every step, you know? But I still kind of see that.
TH: Whereas Aries is the just do it, leap before you look energetic, and let’s just take some action fire and based on some kind of passion fire. And Virgo can definitely be more deliberate or cautious. Virgo can be pessimistic, we haven’t talked about that. Virgo can also be overly prepared. And that implies having sat and thought about it and made some plans before going on the trip like the story you were telling earlier with the Sagittarius, you know, comparing the Sagittarius just kind of like, “Let’s get our itinerary together first, let’s not just jump on the plane tomorrow morning.” So that kind of energy. I do think, though, just to come back to something you said, Chris, I think especially Mercury in Virgo– and maybe it’s just Mercury in Virgo– but I think that can be a pretty speedy placement.
R: I agree.
TH: Maybe not. Maybe there’s-
CB: Mercury can be a speedy- Yeah, because Mercury is a quick planet and it’s the fastest of the visible planets besides the Moon. So there can be a quick quality to it.
TH: Yeah, but maybe we have to imagine that Earth kind of slows it down in some way. Right? Versus fire, if we’re just trusting the elements and the meaning.
CB: I would say Aries is impulsive versus Virgo, I think is a little bit more planned out. Even if once it does make a plan it can execute it rapidly.
TH: Right.
R: What did Rick Levine say about Aries? Ready, fire, aim?
TH: Yeah, I use that one all the time.
R: Virgo is, “Ready? Ready? [laughs] Not ready already. Ready? Question mark.” About 800 more times and then maybe you could pull the trigger.
CB: Right. Yeah, Aries is shoot first and ask questions later, definitely Aries is the first through the breach. You know, say if you are in ancient medieval times and you’re in a war and storming the castle, the Aries is the one to go in first. Whereas Virgo is probably the one that’s planning the strategy or something like that.
TH: Yeah, I think strategies… I like that word for Scorpio actually, and especially in the work context, but I’m not so sure maybe because of the mutability if we- You’ll read a lot that Virgos like strategy or planning it out, but I don’t know that they’re the planner of the zodiac.
R: I feel like they like structured logic more than they like strategy. And that’s a very similar but very distinct difference between those two things.
CB: Right. Maybe a better one would be like, Virgos are the engineers of the Zodiac that have mechanical abilities. So they would be the person building the catapult or something like that. Will that float with you two, how do you feel about that?
R: I like that. They like the mastermind making the weapons for war, they’re not planning about the war.
TH: Or making the weapons be more efficient.
R: Yeah. Something’s gotta get it corrected.
CB: Like, “Did you know if we switch this around and tinker this around, we can hurl twice as many rocks over the castle wall?”
R: “Why not just set them on fire too while you’re at it, you know?” Do more damage to them. [laughter]
TH: Right. That’s Mars in Virgo, it’s like setting it on fire. That’s something I think though that could be good between those two is Aries, especially with Mars has a cutting quality, and Virgo with its editorial and ability to think critically, I think that combination some good things that could come out of placements there could be maybe even heightening that ability to edit or know when or what to cut out or to slice out of something.
TH: And just being willing to cut. Yeah.
CB: Yeah, which is crucial. Because sometimes cutting can be painful, especially if you’re the author of somebody that’s created something. You don’t want to cut anything out of it and that can be like a painful process, removing things, but sometimes it’s a necessary process.
R: That relates back to the whole editor thing. It’s like sometimes you got to take that little clip out. Sometimes you got to rearrange the whole thing just by getting rid of this one little bit, but it’s necessary. And it’s that pessimistic value of Virgo also to just be like, “Yeah, this is the part that needs to go.” You don’t want to do all of it but you know, you have to.
CB: Right. Yeah. All right. Those are some good qualities. There’s some contrasting things, but also some positive reconciliation between those two signs as well.
TH: And with the Aquarius side and one difference between the two of Virgo and Aquarius, I think that they have something in common in the sense that they– I think there can be an impulse toward improving things with Aquarius, but it’s got a different focus where Aquarius got a skill looking at systems. You know, I think that in Capricorn we’re building the systems, we’re upholding the systems. And then in Aquarius, we’re looking at how those can be improved or made better. But there’s still an impulse to work within a system a lot in Aquarius in a lot of folks. But I think that ability to see the whole system like you’re using the engineer, you know, the Virgo engineer is the one that can come in and figure out the part that’s broken that’s making the doodad not work right. And the Aquarius person is going, “Wait, the doodad shouldn’t even be over there in the first place because it doesn’t relate to the whole thing.” So it’s a bigger picture view in a way. But not bigger picture in a Jupiter way, it’s it’s more of like in an engineering kind of way, but being able to take in a lot more of the information.
R: Yep, just plans a little bit more for the future.
CB: Yeah. So structurally, structurally might be a good Saturn keyword.
TH: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
CB: One of the incompatibilities between them since Aquarius is like a fixed Saturn ruled sign, there can be a resistance to change or a reluctance to change. And I think that can maybe be some of the tension between the mutableness of Virgo, even if it’s in some ways the least– Virgo might be the least flexible of the four mutable signs which are generally the most flexible, but nonetheless I think Saturn and Aquarius might sometimes be even more resistant to changing things than Virgo is, and that could be a source of tension between those two signs.
TH: Sure.
R: I very much agree. Because going back to that Virgo clay thing, clay is really hard to work with. It may be mutable, but it’s the least mutable of the mutables.
CB: So, Virgo is clay. I like that.
R: Did we talk about Cancer in Virgo?
CB: No, we completely skipped Cancer.
R: I was looking at the chart and thinking about it, but we missed a sextile.
CB: Yeah, that’s the other preceding sextiles. We jumped straight to Scorpio the other water sign, but Cancer is the final sign that we have not talked about at all. And those two signs share some things in common because they’re both nocturnal signs. They are in sextile, so they have somewhat complementary elements of water and Earth. So, what are some of the qualities we would associate with those two signs that are either complementary or that aren’t complementary?
R: I feel like they’re both nurturers. I mean, very nurturing in different ways but they still have that quality to them.
TH: Yeah. When a Virgo is fixing something for you and it isn’t unsolicited, [laughs]
R: That’s their love language. Yeah.
TH: it feels like they’re taking care of you, but they’re taking care of something. That can feel like care. But the Cancer version of care is, you know, it’s a water sign and has a bit more emotional warmth to it where it feels more like a really nice hug. Right? And Cancer, definitely, I don’t think has the attention to the details, and maybe not the interest to fix something except maybe your broken heart. [laughs]
CB: Right. One of the things we talked about with Cancer being associated with the Moon was like cooking as a way of helping to take care of somebody or to nurture somebody and an act of of that, in some ways. And I can think of Virgo as would be the one that would bring really healthy organic foods to cook or something like that.
TH: Totally. Or the Virgo could be making the food for you because you can’t make it for yourself and they’re doing it to help you out. Versus the Cancer is doing it to make you feel better, maybe.
CB: Yeah. Like if you’re sick, your Virgo friend is the one that shows up with some food and medicine and stuff to take care of you.
TH: Especially the medicine. “And these are the ones you should take in this order and I know because I’ve done it myself and…” [laughs]
R: Exactly. Yeah. “Here’s some VapoRub too, just in case, even though you don’t have a stuffy nose but being prepared for the inevitable.”
TH: It’s funny. And my experience is in those moments, it’s the one time where people don’t complain about the unsolicited advice. [laughs]
R: Exactly. It’s when you’re actually helping.
CB: That takes me back once again, and maybe the final time, to the herbs and the apothecary stuff. Because I sometimes think about how some of those herbs people have been using them in folk medical traditions for forever, for hundreds or thousands of years, and just the question of like, “How did people figure out that certain herbs did certain things and had all these different effects?” And a lot of it was through trial and error, and people trying a little bit of something and seeing how it went and noting it and noting those different things. And that was probably somebody with heavy Virgo placements that had that ability to notice the minut differences of something and to sort of write that down and keep sort of records, even if not written in memory, to build up that sort of archive of knowledge about different plants and medicines.
R: Yeah, I’d definitely risk my life to try out some cool basidiomycetes or something. It’s a type of fungus.
CB: Right. Some different mushrooms and things like that?
R: Yeah, just be like, “What does this one do? Okay.”
CB: Right.
R: If it was for… If I knew that the information wasn’t out there and the only way that I could find out is if I ate it, yeah, I would do it.
TH: That might be your Moon in Sagittarius influence coming through with the Virgo. Because I wouldn’t do anything that might risk my life at this point. [laughs]
R: No, you would take it back to the lab and run a bunch of tests on it to see if it’s poisonous or not.
TH: Absolutely.
CB: Okay. So no strange mushroom tests for you.
TH: No strange mushrooms for me. But I’m really curious to see how it goes, so let me know.
R: Well, I have a pretty good microbiology background. So I feel like I could do a pretty good job identifying them.
CB: Brilliant. All right. Well, we’re at two hours and we’ve gone through all of our different signs of the Zodiac and our contrast, and I think we’ve been able to draw out some really great stuff by going through those contrasts and it’s developed a pretty good picture. Before we wrap up, are there any other keywords or any other major things we’re going to be kicking ourselves for that we wanted to mention but we didn’t during the course of this?
R: I’ll let you know tomorrow, probably.
CB: Yeah. Tonight. Two in the morning. Like, you’ll be thinking about it?
TH: Absolutely. Yeah, there’s other things we could talk about but I think I think that’s a really great start.
R: Oh, can we dispute the neat freak stereotype?
TH: Oh, we haven’t done that! Yeah, now that’s a good one.
CB: Yeah. So, cleaning, neatness, aversion to clutter… Or where do we go with that?
TH: Organization.
R: Okay, things should be organized to a degree, but organization is subjective.
CB: Sure. But there’s definitely, like earlier you mentioned the labels in an apothecary, the different things that-
R: That’s because I need that to be organized.
CB: So you need things to be organized as an impulse to organize. So does that extend to- Because I also think of things like when people build computers cable management, they have amazing cable management. I think of that as a Virgo thing. Does that extend to the cleaning thing or are you saying there’s a division there?
R: No, I think it extends. I just think that so many people are like, “Oh.” I introduce myself as a Virgo and they’re like, “Oh, your apartment must be amazing, immaculate.” And I’m like, “No. Absolutely not. It’s a cluttered mess, but it is an organized nice cluttered mess.”
TH: Well, when you say, and you were talking about it, made me wonder if you like the kind of organization where you understand it and know where everything is but it might not look organized to other people. Is that?
R: Yeah. Is that… Do you feel the same? Or are you very much ‘the pens need to be in the exact same?
TH: No, I’m not the way that you might think or definitely not like the stereotype, but on the other hand… Actually, this may be controversial to say and that’s gonna come out in the comments. [laughs] But my experience with my own friends is that Cancer and Pisces are the messy kind of signs of the zodiac. But, you know, my Cancer friend every time she comes over, she says (she’s Sun in Cancer, Venus and Mars in Cancer) and she says, “You know, I love coming to your house because it’s so nice and calming. But it also makes me angry because I’m like how do you…” [laughs] It makes me feel bad because I can’t do that, but I definitely like things to be in order in the house. But I’m not obsessive or I wouldn’t call myself a neat freak. But definitely, it’s in order in a way that people comment on and notice. But my closet’s not organized by label or anything like that. I have to admit, I did have a time in my 20s where I color-coded my T-shirts. I hang all my T-shirts in a [crosstalk]
R: Noo, color coding’s the worst. You color code by sleeve length, or your code by sleeve length. That’s how you organize. What are long sleeves, and short sleeves, and weather types. But why do you color too? That’s too much.
TH: Well, here’s another fun conversation for two Virgos. I worked in video stores when I was younger and record stores. Do you organize the videos alphabetically, by genre, or by director?
R: I’d say by genre. Because that’s in a video store, most people are going to want to look at all the horror movies together. They’re not going to be like, “Oh, let me look at just the Christopher Nolan’s work” You know? And there’s a lot of directors that go other routes with a lot of the things that they direct. So I would say genre.
CB: That brings up something for me. I saw somebody’s library recently, and this is something I think is a major Mercury versus Venus difference but with books, I went up and I saw a poet’s library and he had it organised by colour. So the books were just purely based on the color of the outside of the book. And that would drive me crazy because to me more Mercury inclined, I feel like you need to organize it either by author or by theme or something like that. But their primary impulse was the aesthetic of just grouping it in certain colors.
R: I would go insane if they weren’t alphabetical by author.
CB: Okay. Yeah.
TH: Maybe it was a Libra who introduced that organizing books by color. And in fact– a real-life anecdote– I had a Libra realtor, and I just know because she asked me to do her chart, that’s the first thing she did to my bookcase. She was like, “Buyers really like how it looks to have the books organized by color, it just creates a nice visual impact.” And when she started doing it, something inside me just started… [laughter] It’s like, “Noo, that book doesn’t go next to that one!”
R: My friend tried to do that once. I have all of the One Piece manga and they’re all different color-coded bindings. But the colors don’t correspond to the volume numbers. And the volumes are one through like… There’s like 98 of them now, it’s ridiculous. But she’s putting them all in the different colors and I was like, “What do you think you are doing? Absolutely not. Those go in numerical order, please. The story needs to be told in the story, not the way the colors look.”
TH: Okay, so what we’re getting at is you do have some organizational impulses.
R: Oh yeah. [Tony laughs]
CB: I definitely think the librarians and the Dewey Decimal System, I feel like that’s a Virgo thing.
R: Oh, a hundred percent. A thousand percent.
TH: I don’t know. I sometimes wonder if it’s a little bit Gemini too, though. I feel like the Gemini might be the part that names the things but doesn’t necessarily put them in order. So I feel like they might work together. I don’t know.
CB: Putting things in order, that’s a good overarching Virgo keyword that combines a lot of topics, just the idea of order. Or orderliness.
TH: And I’m definitely the kind of person that in a best-case scenario, I have a clean kitchen before I start cooking. If the kitchen is not clean and I need to cook, even if I’m running late, I will clean the kitchen first. And I was telling my students about this last week, to me it just feels like it’s, you know, relating it back to Virgo, its preparation for the mental space to be able to kind of do its thing. It’s the same thing with lots of different kinds of work that I do, I like to kind of organize the space first.
R: That’s always nice, because your environmental mind state or your mind state is developed, or… Wow, your mind state is dependent on your environmental state. There we go. That was a difficult sentence to get out there.
TH: But just back to your first point, there are definitely messy Virgos out there. And I think another thing I like to think about with some of these keywords, if you put “This person is learning about…” and then you put the keyword there, that works more often than saying, “This person is [blank].
Sure.
R: I actually love that.
TH: Yeah, thank you.
R: That’s a beautiful way of phrasing it. And then it’s not putting labels on people, shoving them into a box.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And last point, it’s not a really great ending point but another example I just thought of when we’re talking about organising things and that question of whether to organise books by colour versus author or something like that, it just reminded me that wasn’t Kim Kardashian the closet organiser of Paris Hilton at first? And she has Venus and Jupiter and Midheaven in Virgo.
R: They actually just did an episode about that on Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
TH: You did?
R: No, they did. I think in the second episode of the newest season, they talked about how Kim was super close with Paris Hilton and that’s how she kind of got famous, was through organising her closet.
CB: Through organising her closet. So here’s her chart, she has Sagittarius rising… Venus
TH: Venus in Virgo.
R: Yes, and Jupiter.
CB: -conjunct the Midheaven in the 10th whole sign house in Virgo. But then Saturn, Sun, and Pluto in Libra in the 11th house of friends, which is really funny to me.
R: Kim Kardashian is a great case for even when planets are very uncomfortable on Virgo, it still works out. Because Virgo is that amazing.
TH: [laughs] You heard it here first, folks. Yeah, that’s great. I don’t know anything about her. But I do have used Paris Hilton’s chart because she’s an Aquarius and a really great example that contradicts a lot of stereotypes. She does have the Moon in leo so there’s an interesting dynamic going on there.
CB: Right. But yeah, with Venus supposedly having its fall or depression in Virgo, it’s because when you put Venus, which is like an artistic and aesthetic planet, in a sign that’s supposed to be more about numbers and orderliness, it may have trouble initially functioning in that environment because it’s a little bit different than what it’s used to. It can still function well, it just has to express that in some way like through, you know, organising the books according to colour or something like that, rather than number.
TH: Or you could just think about it that it does it in a way that may be not second nature to Venus or, you know, Venus has to make a little bit more of a stretch to get there. But in this example that you just used, it’s about, you know, it’s still a Venus intention of beautifying the space. And it’s doing it in a Virgo way.
CB: Yeah. And it’s bringing benefits to the native through the expression of that placement ultimately.
TH: Yeah. I’ve heard sometimes it said that planets in detriment and fall can be used well when they’re being used on someone else’s behalf. That’s just, you know, an idea. These are all just ideas.[laughs]
CB: Yeah, that would be interesting. I’d like to actually explore that more because sometimes that notion of being in the seventh or being in the sign opposite breaking in a component of the other, that could be really interesting insight into how that does work out positively in some instances.
TH: Yeah. Yeah, totally.
CB: Cool. All right. Well, in order to keep things on time and interest of brevity, just because I don’t want to take up too much more of either your times, and in order to you know, since the Virgo Virgo episode conciseness being… What is that phrase? Like, concise is the brevity of wit or something like that.
TH: I don’t know that one, but I like it.
CB: I butchered whatever that phrase is just now, but somebody in the comments will let me know what the actual phrase is. So, where can people find out more about your work and what do you have going on?
R: I am actually going to be giving a talk on Twitter Spaces for CazimiCon. I don’t exactly know what topic I’m going to be doing yet, but you can find out more on Twitter. All my handles are @astrorosalie, A S T R O R O S A L I E. And that’s also astrorosalie.com.
CB: And then you also are on Tik Tok. You have a pretty large Tik Tok account somewhat.
R: Yeah, it’s a small village following me. And I don’t exactly know why, but yes, I am also on Tik Tok.
CB: Okay.
TH: Awesome. Tell us about what is CazimiCon?
R: It’s just like a small little group of astrologers that are just putting this casual informal talk together for the Venus Cazimi. It’s going to be at the end of October.
CB: Okay. And you do consultations as well, right?
R: Yes.
CB: Cool. All right. What do you got going on, Tony?
TH: Most of my work is done through Astrology University these days at astrologyuniversity.com. And most of my focus is taken up on running our four-year training program. We have a four-year program training astrologers to either be professional astrologers or just to, you know, work with astrology more deeply in your own life. And we have four cohorts going at once now. This is the first year that we have that, and it feels pretty great. It’s just an interesting moment for me personally to be in that, to have come this far from the original idea to seeing it manifest and just seeing how people engage with the material and everybody that’s involved. It’s pretty amazing and I’m really, really happy with the way it’s going. Yeah, we’re training a whole new generation of astrologers and it feels really great. So that’s where most of my work is. I also do some webinars through there. And we have lots of great astrologers almost every weekend doing webinars, you know, Demetra George, Mark Jones, Kelly Surtees, just tonnes of really amazing folks and I’m just so gifted to be able to work with these folks. The weekend webinars are shorter form, they’re like an hour and a half and really affordable and accessible and we cover a lot of specialty topics. Usually we just cover whatever the speaker is interested in that particular year or month, and so they always end up being really, really great.
And I think that’s it. I’m not doing personal consults anymore just because I spend all my time teaching now. The one thing that I do that I’m debating whether to do again next year that I love doing is I’ve been doing Saturn return boot camps with folks. It’s kind of like a group coaching experience with 10 to 20 people where everybody has the same Saturn placement. The last two with all the folks with Saturn and Aquarius, it was really amazing. I’m learning so much too about Saturn placement in each sign by doing this work. But it’s really cool for the attendees because they get to come together and they all have a shared placement and they’re kind of going through that experience at the same time. And so they get insight and support from me, but I think at least 50% of the experience for folks is connecting with the other people who are having that same experience and living through it together. Just experiencing each other’s stories is pretty, pretty magical and fun to be a part of. I may do that again next year. I shouldn’t, though. [laughs] I will say that because of time but yeah.
CB: Well, that’s a really cool concept because we’re getting towards the tail end of Saturn in Aquarius at this point so people are kind of finishing up their Saturn return the story in Aquarius that started way back in early 2020. But that might be needed, you know, because there’s gonna be a whole new group or a whole new cohort that begins theirs next year when Saturn moves into Pisces.
TH: Exactly, yeah. And they’ll probably, I mean, every Saturn group needs support. But yeah, they’ll probably really need the support. And then the other thing is I got a couple of pretty great publishing projects. One is a reprint of The Elements of House Division, which is a really cool book. It’s a technical book about how different house systems are calculated. I think it’s pretty non-controversial book from your perspective, I think. [laughs]
CB: Is that the one that was published by the AFA at first?
TH: It was published by the Faculty of Astrological Studies.
CB: Okay.
TH: Yeah. Just got the rights to publish that, get that back in print. I use it as a reference book for one of our courses where I go through different house systems for the students to teach them how the different ones are calculated and when certain ones were used. It’s a little bit like a history of houses class in a way. But just to introduce students to the math of some of the different house systems and some of the reasoning behind them. It’s a great book. It’s written well, it’s easy to follow and understand, but it’s out of print. Don’t buy it right now because it’s like $1,000 or something.
CB: Okay.
TH: And don’t, just because I mentioned it, please. I mean, I’m the person who actually drove the price of that book up. [laughs]
CB: Coz you bought all the copies?
TH: No. No, just by talking about it in class. It was like $3 when I started the program and now it’s like $1,000. But um…
CB: Is it the one by- Is it by Ralph Holden?
TH: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, who is not the same as James Holden.
TH: Correct. Yeah.
CB: So that was before whole sign houses had been rediscovered.
TH: Yeah. That’s not really in the book. It’s really more for kind of understanding a lot of the quadrant systems and some of the other house systems. So it’s not up to date. I don’t think I’m going to put that in there because I don’t, you know, he’s not around and I can’t ask his permission to do that. And I don’t want to write something that he didn’t write for the book. But I may just mention in there that there’s a whole bunch of work that’s been done on the whole house system since then and so, you know, this is a starting point but you’ll want to kind of explore more. But anyway, I’m really excited to get that one back into print coz I think it’s a really useful book. There’s not another one like it. It’s a nerd book for sure, so it’s not going to have big reach. [laughs] But the other, I don’t know if I should say this one out loud but I’m going to. Mercury’s stationing so I hope I don’t regret this one.
CB: Right, we recorded this on what? A day or two after Mercury station retrograde. So today, I forgot to mention the data but today is September 11th, 2022 and we started just after 3:30 pm here in Denver, Colorado.
TH: Well, maybe I won’t say it then. But I will say that I did get the green light to get a couple of out-of-print books by [unintelligible] back into print. And one of them I’m really excited about so, yeah. But hopefully that project will keep moving forward and we’ll see how it goes.
CB: That’s awesome. Yeah, I love how one of your things over the years has become helping to publish the books of a bunch of astrologers. And I think publishing to some extent is kind of a Virgo thing as well.
TH: Yeah, and I’ve got Sun-Jupiter on the IC. Jupiter rules my Midheaven so I’ve Pisces Midheaven. So the publishing kind of comes, you can get there that way as well. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Nice. All right. Awesome. Well, thank you both for joining me, this is amazing. And I think we’ve pretty thoroughly covered Virgo for this episode.
TH: Yeah.
R: Goal achieved. [laughter]
CB: Yeah, good job. Good teamwork. All right. Well, thanks everyone for watching or listening to this episode of The Astrology Podcast and we’ll see you again next time.
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