Susan Boyle - Saturn In Virgo? Venus In Aries?

If you haven't seen Susan Boyle's appearance on 'Britain's Got Talent' have a watch right now before reading further: here

Wish I had her chart details as there's something strongly emphasising the healing energy of Pluto in Virgo in her ability to draw all the unkind, cynical, disillusionment right out of us all like squeezing a big spot, leaving us wide open to renewed faith that life really IS a series of sassy sublime moments that are difficult to predict or prepare for, and it's this unpredictability that's actually a source of joy and refreshment rather than something to be guarded about.

The whole thing embodies current planet placements too - Saturn in Virgo in the self contained, mature woman who stands self-approving in the face of massive criticism; rising to the challenge Venus in Aries style: uncompromising and thankfully self-ish enough to maintain self-acceptance rather than be diminished by the sneery suspicion that others are projecting her way. There's also something Neptune in Aquarius/Uranus in Pisces here too, as collectively I think we've been waiting to be won over like this for an awful long time. It answers a deep need for people who can take us beyond the emptiness of conditional approval to unconditional appreciation, which can only happen when what is deemed real, important or necessary about gaining others approval is put to the test. It feels so good to watch Susan win the nation over in such an intense way because it feels so good to watch preconceptions fall away and appreciate another unconditionally. It's satisfying and fulfilling because we're wired that way.

New Moon In Virgo 30th August

It's happening around 9pm UK time - the moon in Virgo meets the sun in Virgo at 8 degrees. New moon's indicate new phases of experience coming into being, and with Virgo involved it means bringing definition to intentions for the future. Defining and diagnosing the intention brings more clarity, makes things more specific, and brings desires into sharper focus.

Virgo is the problem-solver when focused on the solution, but can't move beyond critic when focused solely on the problem, so assume a solution is out there, even when it seems far-fetched to do so (which draws in the polarity sign of Pisces the dreamer, symbolising the fulfilment Virgo is reaching for between now and the upcoming full moon in Pisces). Saturn sitting so close by this new moon might make it seem more sensible or inevitable to face a less than ideal reality, but thankfully uplifting Jupiter is in on this too, feeding Saturn some faith in it's own process; a process that in Virgo emphasises how reality is always a work in progress where it's safe to assume there's room for improvement on any less than ideal scenario.

Saturn In Virgo Story

I love this. Two men have been banned from national parks after 'vandalising' a sign by correcting the grammar.

Jeff Michael Deck of Somerville, and Benjamin Douglas Herson, of Virginia Beach, Va., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Flagstaff after damaging a rare, hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon National Park... Authorities said Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States from March to May, wiping out errors on government and private signs.

...An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL. According to the Internet posting, TEAL members agreed to stamp out as many typos as they could find in public signage and other venues.
Rest of story here

How Saturn in Virgo is all that? Saturn is authority, tradition, and the law, and Virgo is about getting stuff right, especially the little things that mean a lot; like mending signposts of their broken grammar. And they are both 28, which means they are going through their Saturn Return, which means they must have Saturn in Virgo in their charts too. So it's the established law ("it's been like that for years, leave it alone!") against their law ("no one should be forced to endure grammatical errors in this day and age"). So whose right? That's the trouble with laws isn't it, it depends what angle you're coming from. Vandalism? or the result of sticking in at school?.

It's So Saturn In Virgo...

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon --- his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (born with Saturn in Virgo opposite Jupiter in Pisces)

New Moon Eclipse In Virgo - When Less Means More

Willard Wigan MBE is an artist who makes sculptures so small they can't be seen with the naked eye, some are so small they are only three times the size of a blood cell. He paints the sculptures with a hair plucked from the head of a housefly, and sets them in the eye of a needle or on the tip of an eyelash.

As a child he had undiagnosed dyslexia, and was made to feel small by teachers who singled him out and told him he would never amount to anything. His response was to run away from school and hide in a shed, watching the ants that lived there. He began constructing houses for them out of splinters, and his obsession with miniature worlds started to unfold, born out of a desire to prove that 'less is more' and that 'nothing could be everything'. And he just sold his collection to date for £11million.

Virgo is the sign which has an eye for detail, and often astrology focuses on the downside of that - the nit-picking, the criticism, the scepticism, the fussing. But when a new moon eclipse comes along in Virgo there's not much time to dwell on the negatives, especially when hard working Saturn has just arrived in this sign, and law-breaking Uranus, the paradox planet that has the power to turn any situation completely on its head, is linking up to the new moon from opposite sign Pisces. The message being, that because in reality anything is possible, now's the time to whittle it all down by choosing what it is YOU WANT to be possible. Scientists and sceptics doubt this artist's creative ability because they don't see how it can be done, but thankfully disbelief didn't dampen his desire to make great things happen out of apparently nowhere.

You can read more on Willard Wigan here
and here
watch an interview here
and here's a YouTube montage of his works:



The 2007 new moon eclipse in Virgo takes place on 11th September at around 1.45pm UK time.

Saturn In Virgo In The News

The symbol of Virgo depicts the only female figure of the Zodiac, so now that Saturn is in Virgo we'll be seeing plenty of women making headlines that embody the principles of this aspect; kicking off with Germaine Greer's new book, which aims to get the story straight about Shakespeare's wife, Ann Hathaway, who according to accepted opinion was so hated by The Bard that he spent most of his time in London to escape her, and at his death bequeathed only his second best bed in revenge for her being such a lousy wife. But it turns out there might not be much evidence for this after all, according to Greer, just a load of criticism and blame (the dark side of Virgo) built up over the years that ripped her reputation (Saturn) to shreds. Read more here.

And in a very Saturn In Virgo style, Greer remarked in a tv interview today that it's a book she could only have written at retirement age, as any earlier the academic circles would have slated her for writing about something so 'soap opera-ish'. Seems she's not the feather ruffler she likes to think she is, being so motivated by approval from the academic establishment that she'd set aside something she herself considers important, just to appease those potential critics, but anyhoo, she's done it right in 'their' eyes, (the extreme Saturn way to do anything), and has eventually got round to writing about Anne in a way that presents her as the love of Shakespeare's life, and devoted supporter of his work... interestingly, the main star of the Virgo constellation, Spica, was known as 'the most dedicated wife' by the Egyptians (article here).

Elsewhere, the first full day of Saturn In Virgo was also Moira Cameron's first day at work as the first ever female Beefeater to guard the Tower of London, since it all began back in 1485 (link). You can't just sign up to be a Beefeater either, you have to have served 22 years in the armed forces - very Saturn - and up to now you had to be a bloke, which is old-fashioned enough to come under Saturn's love for maintaining traditions of the past well after their sell by date.

And both stories have a rather nice but ever so tenuous trivia thread connecting them, in that the Tudor Age, started along with the Beefeaters in 1485 and ended at the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. Elizabeth was a Virgo and uber symbol of the sign, being writer, poet, and aka The Virgin Queen. She was also imprisoned in the Tower of London for two months, which means the Beefeaters were once her prison guards. Shakespeare was of course around at that time, and wrote all kinds of stuff with her in mind, including apparently this poem, published for the first time this year, written in worship of his Virgo Queen... no doubt while wife Ann was home alone with the kids...