Zemnya, original artwork by Seattle artist Karen MacKenzie. See end of article for more info.
In other words if you have Virgo Rising, you can consider yourself to be a Virgo Soul, and you Soul’s purpose is to bring greater degrees of love into the world through your sacred work.
In modern times, the meaning of work becomes distorted when we think we have to accept jobs that are soul-destroying because we need the wages. In contrast, our true vocation is actually our spiritual calling. It is our divine work and our very reason for being. It is the purest expression of our life and soul, and finding our vocation, discovering the place of wholeness where we can fully be and express ourselves through our life’s work, is the highest purpose of Virgo. Before we can do this we have to purify the fear-based expressions of Virgo and access the highest love-based expression of this beautiful sign.
Ruled by Mercury, the Virgo mind is perceptive, discerning, detailed, incisive, and analytical. These attributes combined with an inherent desire for perfection can lead to many of the challenges that our Virgo friend experiences at the fear-based personality level. If left unchecked, your mind can go into overdrive, run you around in circles like a dog chasing its tail, and leave you feeling jaded, anxious, disheartened, and somewhat overly critical as you become cynical about the “imperfect” world around you. Yet ironically, in Esoteric Astrology, Mercury is also associated with the development of higher mind. The action of Mercury may seem to be Virgo’s downfall, yet it actually indicates the pathway to the higher purpose of Virgo. The real purification that Virgo needs is purification of the mind, and the true perfection that you seek is perfection of your soul.
The word “pure” comes from the Latin purus, which derived from the Greek pyr, meaning “fire.” The words pure and pyre (as in a funeral pyre) originate from the same root. Originally, the word “purification” meant cleansing by fire, and this is a clue to the deeper esoteric mysteries of Virgo and her highest soul purpose. The cleansing that happens when the soul is in Virgo is a spiritual cleansing, and the fire of which we speak is the cool spiritual flame of awareness that burns off all ignorance and reveals the light of awareness.
[quote cite=”~ Osho”]Once your awareness becomes a flame, it burns up the whole slavery that the mind has created.[/quote]
Once the flame of awareness has arisen in Leo, it is Virgo’s job to bring that pure awareness into the real world in practical ways. At the personality level, Virgo has a brilliant, sharp, analytical mind. Let’s pause for a moment and (in true Virgo style!) examine the word “analyze.” In the 1600s, the analyse meant “to dissect.” So when we are analysing something, we are “cutting it up.” Figuratively speaking, and sometimes even literally, we are taking it apart so we can examine all its component parts more closely. While the sign of Virgo is often associated with brilliant research and detailed analysis, the true gift of Virgo (and her association with healing) lies in the way she puts things back together again!
To an analytical mind, the characteristics of Virgo themselves may appear as separate things. Yet when we reverse the analytical process, they lead us back home through a process of purification or spiritual cleansing. We return to the Mother and reap the harvest by becoming healed, healthy and whole, from where we can be of true service in the world. This process of putting things back together again is called “synthesis.”
For synthesis to happen, there must be separate parts that require synthesising, so we can see that by nature, during the process of synthesizing there is still a sense of separation. Once the separate parts become whole again, the highest octave of Virgo has transcended separation and returned to wholeness. The very word “heal” comes from the Old English haelan, which literally means “to make whole.” That which makes things whole is pure awareness itself. At the highest level, your Virgo Soul already knows that all things, all phenomena in material existence, arise from pure awareness (or consciousness) and resolve back into pure awareness itself.
[quote cite=”~ Dr. Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe“]Consciousness is the ground of all existence.[/quote] Your Virgo Soul knows that it is pure awareness itself that resolves all. So we can see that it is not analysis itself that heals (because by nature analysis dissects and separates), but rather it is the quality of the awareness that we bring to something that heals, because it brings us back to an awareness of wholeness, and in this wholeness, we find love. Cold analysis, without the presence of love, only increases separation and dis-ease. One of the deepest sacred mysteries of Virgo understands that it is actually our loving awareness that heals. We heal by bringing our loving, aware, conscious presence to something. By doing so, we return to the wholeness from which all arises and therin we find the purest divine love. Flowing this pure divine love into the world by bringing pure awareness (presence or consciousness) into our everyday work is the highest soul purpose of Virgo.
[quote cite=”~ Anya Sophia Mann”]We bring the Being to the doing.[/quote] Some spiritual traditions refer to a “Mother and Son” awareness. The “Son awareness” would be our everyday fear-based mind made up of thoughts, stories, fantasies, ideals, concepts, strategies, plans, emotions, and so forth. The “Mother awareness” would the ocean of pure loving awareness from which, and within which, everything else that we know (including ourselves) arises. In meditation, as we observe the activity of the everyday mind rising and falling, we may come to realize that we are none of those things, and that who we really are is the ever-present pure awareness that observes all. At this point it is said that the son has returned to the mother’s lap. This succinctly points to the process experienced by the soul in Virgo. In Esoteric Astrology, this process of “all things returning to the mother awareness” is reflected in the soul keynote for Virgo:
[quote cite=”~ The Tibetan, Esoteric Astrology”]I am the Mother and the child.
I, God, I, matter am.[/quote] So now we can begin to see that when we talk about our vocation or spiritual calling, we are not talking about searching high and low until we find some special kind of perfect sacred work, but rather it is about making the ordinary things that we do sacred by bringing the purest quality of our loving awareness to them in deep recognition that all things really are sacred. We purify the things we do, with our conscious awareness. This is the true meaning of Virgo. This reminds me of the Zen proverb:
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water!
If you have Virgo Rising, your soul’s purpose is to bring divine love into the world. When you become fearful, it is too easy for you to become lost in mental activity and exhaust yourself by trying to find perfection in the outer world. The key is to recognize, through your brilliant clear direct perception, that the source of your exquisite discernment and analysis is awareness itself, and within that awareness is love. When you realize that you are that awareness, you also know without doubt that you are love. You realize that you are the embodiment of loving awareness. At that point, all work becomes your vocation, as the quality of your loving awareness brings perfection to everything you do by making it sacred. This is the soul’s journey through Virgo.
Ruth
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Ruth Hadikin – Soul Astrologer
To get your personal Soul Sign/Life Purpose Report (FREE with a consultation), contact Ruth via her website. You can also request a FREE mp3 download, “The Energetics of Soul Astrology.”
Karen MacKenzie is working on a series of astrology inspired paintings using goddesses from different cultures. For more information about the symbolism in this print and to view other works in her ongoing series, check out her website, Karen MacKenzie Art.
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