Consciously Using The Virgo Pisces Polarity

 Similar to life, astrological understanding requires reconciling opposites.  So how do we go about balancing the polarities with our lives and ourselves?

There are twelve signs and six polarities.  Aries/Libra, Taurus/Scorpio, Gemini/Sagittarius, Cancer/Capricorn, Leo Aquarius and finally Virgo/Pisces.

We contain all of the signs/polarities within our charts and thus within our lives.  Each one is asking us to develop certain qualities.  Some may be more emphasized than others but they are all part of our journey. All of them bring wisdom that we can consciously develop.

For longest time the Virgo/Pisces polarity was somewhat mystifying to me.  I understood the cookbook definitions but what was it asking from me?  From my clients where it was emphasized?  In other words, what did it really want? 

Both signs have the idea of serving or suffering associated with them.   But serving what?

On many levels I often feel that Virgo is the most misunderstood.  It certainly has had a bad rap, often being associated with anal, fanatically neat personalities…perfectionism.   And the dark side of Virgo can certainly go there.

At its best Virgo is about bringing order to chaos, about consciously choosing.  Used well it helps us focus and direct our energy.  Virgo is about being willing to do the work necessary to bring our creations into being.   It is the vessel.

For Pisces on the other hand it is easy (natural) to experience the all.  Boundless, it senses everything.  It is full of compassion and creativity and yearns for the connection with everything it senses.   And it can get lost in all that boundless possibility experiencing disillusionment not quite knowing how to connect this vision to everyday reality and feeling overwhelmed as a result. 

It needs the polarity of Virgo to bring all this boundlessness into being.  Pisces needs focus, Virgo needs inspiration and compassion, and together they feed each other.   Virgo is the vessel that is the receptacle of the universe’s (Pisces) boundless creative energy so that it can be contained and focused.  Without the compassion and vision of Pisces the vessel is empty. 

While this just scratches the surface, here is one of the more powerful ways that you can use to look at this polarity:  Wherever Virgo/Pisces lies in your chart you are being asked to consciously look at what you are devoted to and then to focus how you demonstrate that in the actual nuts and bolts of everyday life.    In other words how do you make  your visions a reality?

Consciously or unconsciously we are all devoted/committed to certain things within our lives.   If you are not sure what you are or have been devoted to look around your at the details of your daily life.  Those details will reflect the current commitments you have both conscious and unconscious.  Life will reflect who you are being. Then it is up to you to choose and practice (Virgo) who and what you are going to serve.  You can either serve the greater vision or your insecurities (Pisces). 

Consciousness is the substance between the matter of dreams or nightmares. 

As I write this I am reminded of the statement -Before enlightenment: Chop wood carry water. After enlightenment: Chop Wood and Carry Water.  To master the Virgo Pisces Polarity you must serve the greater vision that you carry within. 

A few years ago a close friend of mine would ask me about the women he was interested in and then when I gave him the information he asked for (both the smooth and challenging matters at hand) take issue with any incompatibilities between their charts. “I refuse to believe that this is just how it is!” he would claim indignantly, “We have free will, you can’t tell me that these ‘problems’ are just the way it is!”

We all do this; I know that personally I too feel this way when it is someone I really like.  I will happily justify an aspect between our charts that I would warn any client will be highly challenging.  But the question remains…is it written?  

If we have a basic incompatibility between our chart and that of another person, is there nothing we can do about it, can’t we just make it work?

On an individual level, aspects represent energy between planets in our chart – our own personal constellation.   There are energies that flow more readily, and energies that create a certain amount of friction.  In synastry  (which describes the effect you and your partner have on each other) our chart meets another’s personal constellation, and where they line up we are sensitive, receptive to that person and they are to us as well.  We literally energetically resonate -magnetic attraction at its’ core!

While these aspects represent the initial energy that pulls us together, underneath the attraction there are deeper things at play. The energies or aspects, between our charts are telling. 

Here is one example; let’s say your moon, the part of you that yearns for security, filters your emotions, represents what you need and hunger for on a primal level, is in a hard (challenging) aspect to someone’s mars – the part of the chart that deals with how you assert yourself, take action and express anger.   

The good news is there are sparks…big ones!

The challenging news is this is similar to a cross-cultural difference in relating to the world.   It is as though these two planets, both personal planets (meaning we feel them personally), speak completely different languages and come from different worlds: One modern American English and the other ancient Chinese. The cultures have vastly different ways of interacting with the world, different needs and different ways of expressing those needs.

What this means in a relationship is that you often just misperceive each other. They do something (mars) and you feel hurt (moon) by their action as though they have completely disregarded your needs. They feel you are being overly sensitive, they didn’t intend to hurt you.

In the early days of a relationship, while we are experiencing what I call the delightful hormone high, we don’t care.  We are just having too much juicy fun.  Then, little by little, the dust settles.  

A client of mine had this particular aspect between her chart and the chart of her new boyfriend.  I gave her this information and three weeks later she called to inform me that I was completely wrong – he was the kindest most sensitive man she had ever been with.  I told her to get back to me in six months.  Sure enough, this pattern of interaction between them had become one of the hallmarks of their relationship.  He did something; she was hurt.  This could be as simple as he wanted to watch television at the end of his workday, she felt like he was ignoring her and didn’t care.

Is this a death knell for a relationship?  No, but the people involved will have to work at it harder than they would with a flowing aspect.  This dynamic between the two will always be at play.  Successfully navigating it requires a certain amount of awareness.  These so-called “hard” aspects provide a lot of juice that feeds the attraction but also bestow a certain amount of volatility.  

From a larger perspective – we are all here evolving.  The energy between us that is so mesmerizing pushes us to grow in ways that our soul yearns for – often beyond current boundaries into new and uncharted territory. The trajectory of our lives in this moment is providing us the opportunity to become more conscious in the area of our life being activated in by the energy of the other person. 

In any relationship there will be times we are better at it.  I firmly believe that anyone we are powerfully drawn to, whether as a friend or something more, has arrived for a reason at that point in our lives.  Our job is to cherish the possibility and promise at hand without being attached to the outcome.  Kismet in motion;)

“Astrology is a language, if you understand this language the sky speaks to you.”   -Dane Rudhyar


I love to read.  According to my mother, I began to sound out words at the tender age of 18 months.  For as long as I can remember I have read each night before I go to sleep.  Even when I am exhausted I have to enact this bedtime ritual – at the very least one paragraph.  Stories, from fairy tales to epics, notable literature and the “you can ‘t put it down piece of pulp fiction” have always captured my imagination.

Why is this important to astrology?  Because to me, each chart holds a never-ending story, an epic journey full of mystery, magic and yes- fate. 

In this analogy, the natal chart would be the book. Here all sorts of themes are exposed about our hero or heroine.  Do you get obsessed, almost captured and dragged to the underworld by your relationships? I guarantee somewhere Pluto is involved and at best he is asking (ok it is Pluto so perhaps demanding might be a better word) you to let go of needing to call the shots and embrace change so that you can better understand your soul.  Or alternately Neptune might be the player and you are either being taken to new soul merging heights (usually the beginning of a Neptune dominated relationship) or learning just how self- deceiving you can be.  I have a Neptune dominated chart and I used to say self-depreciatingly of the relationship with my ex-fiancé “The writing was on the wall in huge graffiti and I was pretending that I was illiterate.”  In the end, all of the trials and tests along the journey are here to serve our soul and its greater purpose.  This may sound dramatic but for each of us our life is an epic journey – we are all the hero of our own story. 

I should add here that I fully embrace the view that we picked the journey and the astrological chart along with the transits to it and the progressions within it reflect “our itinerary” in this lifetime.  Is it that literate?  The truth is sometimes yes. 

This doesn’t mean that we don’t have free will.  But if we are on a divinely inspired journey who is to say when those choices took place?  From our family of origin to  our relationships and dreams I subscribe to the notion that we chose it all. There is a lot of inner peace that comes with this, and frankly, when I look at a chart my breath still gets taken away by the beauty of each soul’s travels. Think of your natal chart as a map, a form of sacred cartography.  Decoding it helps you understand (remember) the course that you have set.