Doing Virgo

1.13.12


This is your reminder that we're now entering Month 3 of Mars's extended visit to Virgo… a mega-marathon that continues into early July, due to a 2½-month retrograde that begins later this month (Jan 23).

It would've been easy to overlook this news, in light of holiday/new-year madness and the like, though it goes far to explain why our propulsive momentum presently seems shyer, subtler and/or somewhat more finicky.

Mars in Virgo doesn't announce himself with attention-grabbing gestures or over-the-top bombast. Such excesses are too sloppy, with too much room for error. He would rather tinker with each step long enough to get it right (or as 'right' as possible, before accepting that sheer perfection is unattainable) than create a spectacle of expectation and then fall short. He studiously labors back stage, off to one side, at a desk, behind a cubicle wall, in his workshop, under the radar. It is less important he receive outward accolades, when all he really wants is a bit of understated respect (from others if not himself, his harshest critic) for a job well done.

Though the antsy speed-demons and fidgety attention-deficit types among us are liable to grow irritated with the strain of Mars-in-Virgo's fussy rhythms, there are many useful channels for deploying this energy of logical deliberateness. Allow me to offer some thoughts on how to 'do' Virgo, knowing full well that I play shamelessly to Virgo stereotypes (and not all Virgoan individuals resemble the picture of anal-retentiveness we often paint of them).

At this time of year, many of us find ourselves gathering and sorting all the stray scraps of important paperwork necessary for closing out the prior year's business and preparing for taxes. What? You don't typically start this task so early in the year? You're usually in a frantic scramble to get it all together as the deadline demons breathe down your neck? That's probably because your whole process for keeping this stuff organized (or, ahem, not organized) is hardly serving your day-to-day needs. Maybe you only look at it once a year, at crunch-time, and otherwise prefer to pretend it doesn't exist. Put in a few extra hours of methodological revision at the same time you're gathering and sorting, and you'll save yourself from a good chunk of this mammoth task next year and beyond. Figure out steps for being more regularly attentive as you go, a bit at a time along the way instead of the intimidating all-at-once.

As you're reorienting yourself to your personal business and how you take care of it, perhaps you'll be struck by how you're still in a relationship with financial entities or service providers who charge you fees up the wazoo for 'courtesies' or 'conveniences' you don't actually need or extra add-ons that aren't worth the price. Maybe you've been meaning to switch yourself out of these dissatisfying relationships for a while now, to organizations that better reflect your values or who treat you with more consideration. Making these small changes can really add up, both in your wallet and your peace-of-mind.

And what about those unfinished projects around the house, taking up space in the corners of a room or the back of a closet, nagging away at you? They create more of an unconscious hassle in your peripheral awareness than they would if you simply dedicated a weekend or two to finishing 'em off. The excuses you invent for procrastinating (and especially the economic ones) are no match for the hours of sweat-equity you could invest, once and for all, for a major return. By the way, get that unwanted crap out of your domestic zone. It's doing more harm than you realize, robbing psychic energy you might otherwise use to pursue things you really want to do.

But I suppose those 'things you really want to do' are buried beneath plenty of their own built-up dust-bunnies… in a pile of fear-based justifications for your not having started doing them yet. Right? You realize, of course, these justifications you feed yourself are probably emotional in nature. While that doesn't make them any less significant (maybe, in fact, more), it also means you might consider launching a fact-finding dialogue with yourself about exactly what would be required, on the tangible earthly level, to move toward your unexplored goals. We're talking about actively accounting for the dollars, the time-commitment, the specific calls that would need to be made and applications filled out, the training or educational prerequisites, and any other variables you'd need to address. Compose checklists. Answer questions. Solve mysteries. Take this desire out of the realm of imagination, and discern what you'd have to do to make it real.

The same fact-finding approach always serves you well in trying to get to the root of what in your life isn't presently functioning to your liking. Before you can rescue yourself from this pickle, you must understand how you got there… and what concrete steps must be adopted, in order to march down the correct road out of that dead-end town. All 'errors' are fixed by first taking an audit of the current surroundings: What is the habitual manner? Where are the weakspots in the process which allow unwanted effects to accumulate? What would be required to reengineer this process for sleeker results? There is always a trail of breadcrumbs to follow; they led you there, and they'll lead you back out.

Among all these suggestions (and the branching brainstorms they set off in the specific context of your life), a main theme to draw from this Mars-in-Virgo influence is how somewhat small measures, taken one after the other over a period of time, can yield truly remarkable change… though it's not always obvious as we're altering our habits and setting new patterns. Repetition, coupled with constant fine-tuning, is a hallmark of Virgo's pristine productivity ethics.