A Translator's Trial & The Solar Eclipse in Virgo

When considering the Solar Eclipse in Virgo, we cannot forget that we had its counterpart just a month ago on August 23rd, a Virgo New Moon at the very beginning of the sign. This was the true start and foundation to eclipse season. We have now arrived at the very end of the sign, at 29º Virgo and the very end of the season. That 0º New Moon was the first real aspect to Uranus in Gemini, a portal into our nodal “fate” but also into the next 7 years that Uranus is foreshadowing now in its trial period. Up until that New Moon, Uranus was eerily quiet in its first (almost) two months of transit but this was the lunation that shook him awake, it begs the question– what does it take to awaken the awakener? 

Looking back on that time might illuminate why a particular foundation was set for the token eclipse plot twists that might be found now. What are you awake to now that you weren’t before? Not to speak too soon, but I’m already quite fond of Uranus in Gemini and how it pokes at the mental limits. This has been a month of brain breaking revelations. The eclipse itself is not aspecting Uranus directly however, Mercury, the ruler of Virgo has newly ingressed Libra and is mutually receiving Venus in Virgo who is taking the place of last month’s New Moon with the square to Uranus. There are a lot of moving parts here: this mutual reception, the reactivation of Uranus, Mercury who is opposing Neptune in Aries at the time of the eclipse, and of course, Saturn’s close opposition now that it’s back in Pisces. Let’s digest. 

Mercury has been at the heart of the wilting summer as a symbol of secret languages. Buried in the mundane, it is not always obvious in the moment that everything is speaking constantly. From the interaction at the grocery store, to the pain in your shoulder, to actual written words, Mercury speaks but it’s the translation that can become frustrating. Any diviner knows that signs and synchronicities can actually be very misleading and this is the Virgo-Pisces dilemma. Virgo is understood through many unfortunate archetypes in popular astrology, you might recognize Virgo as the shrill critic with IBS or the type A personality with undiagnosed OCD. This is often not what you’ll find at all when you study Virgo personalities and transits, this is a sign that contextualizes under scrutiny. This is the side of Mercury, the messenger and the translator, that is so talented because it has to be convinced. It is not enough to read a spiritual text or to see a series of angel numbers, Mercury is always speaking but knowing this, and knowing what it’s actually saying, are two entirely different things. 

Take the story of La Lechuza, she is known in Mexican folklore as a vengeful shapeshifting owl monster who targets drunk people, unfaithful men, or unbaptized children. She’s used as a cautionary tale and a symbol of fear to keep others on a spiritually righteous path; her sightings are supposedly omens of death but many stories detail how her story simply amplifies projected fear. Virgo as a representation of The Virgin has this dichotomy written into its daimon– using purity, especially in a religious context, as a platform for shame and control. These things are demonized: drunkenness, not following any one religion, and while I’m not one to advocate for adultery… is this a crime that should be punishable by owl monster death? When framing this concept of Virgoan scrutiny through the lens of folklore, it’s easy to see how religious or spiritual beliefs (represented by Virgo’s opposite sign, Pisces) can take over and form these tales riddled with fear tactics to meet an agenda, but is it so easy to break through the shame-beliefs and fear tactics we may use against ourselves?

Astrology, new age spirituality, and even the average human mind is just as vulnerable to these rigid cautionary tales reimagined in scary or overly positive looking transits, divine signs and omens from spirit guides, or black and white thinking that leads you astray from whatever is truly correct for you. What if the voice you’ve been mistaking for Truth is actually just shame in a mask? At the time of this eclipse, I am in deep observation of the ways in which Virgo’s control and one track mindedness can reinforce narratives that are rooted in belief wounds. While we have the North Node in Pisces and the South Node in Virgo transiting, we are collectively brought fated experiences and Mirror People that articulate where we are tightly gripping anything other than devotion and surrender. It’s a bit of a paradox, to be both devoted and surrendered at the same time. To be devoted, we are constantly returning again and again in service of something. It seems to be an active process on the surface, a requirement that we must put forth effort. To be surrendered, it might seem as though we are giving up and throwing our hands in the air, a passive process with no effort at all. This too, is the paradox that we grapple with all of the time between the North and the South Node. Popular astrology tells us to “release” the South Node and “go toward” the North Node but this is actually impossible due to their axial connectivity. 

We might want to name Virgo as the Devoted and Pisces as the Surrendered but to be on an axis means to be bound to each other. Virgo requires both and so does Pisces. Devotion and Surrender are each an act of each other, both returning again and again back to a space of trust in the unfolding as well as putting forth the effort to be where we presently are. This could be a time where the collective is realizing on a personal level that they are frustrated, angry, or disenchanted by what they thought they were “told” through Mercury’s secret language of what was “supposed” to unfold. This could fit into any number of situations: Being “told” that graduating college guarantees you a job. Being “told” that eating clean will result in losing weight. Being “told” that remaining celibate will make you worthy of the right partner. All of these examples articulate very rigid mindsets where x + y = z. This is logical, simplistic, goal oriented thinking that genuinely might work in someone else's world however, Mercury is known as the trickster and Saturn with the North Node are currently in Pisces, the sign of illusions. These are transits that are spearheading the shift toward illogical thinking and unexpected outcomes. This is where devotion and surrender become elevated, but where devoting yourself to a goal without surrender (or vice versa, surrendering without devotion) may not result in the desired success. All of the examples above articulate one without the other. 

It’s very sad. When you are fed unrealistic expectations and definitives about the future by your parents, your mentors, your lover, your bible, or even your own spiritual channel– when these inevitably fall apart, what is to stop you from falling apart? If this is what you’ve built your center upon, what happens when it vanishes? This is where the real healing begins because now you know that there is no La Lechuza ready to hunt you down when you stray off the beaten path, that this was actually just a projection of your imagined punishment for anything less than purity and faithfulness by the world’s standards. The eclipses and nodes in Virgo-Pisces are highlighting the ways in which we may unconsciously punish ourselves and others for stepping outside of a made up standard. This all highlights how there is no one solution or one path, only the one that feels right to you but this can be hard to embody when people around you tell tales of La Lechuza (destitution, abandonment, homelessness, singlehood etc.) that will eat you up if you don’t finish college. Though it is not enough to say, “just listen to your body,” or “just find your own path,” either, not when your conditioning is mistaken for who you actually are. This is where trial and error are vital to one’s success, this is what going off script requires. 

If there is no laid out path (go to college and get a job, eat this and lose weight), the real work is not in mindlessly devoting ourselves to what worked for someone else, it’s devoting yourself to hard won translation. It’s in noticing and contextualizing the patterns of your own success and failures, your experience alone is enough to start mapping out a personal blueprint. It can be as simple as: If I feel like shit every time I eat dairy then maybe I have a dairy intolerance or, I’m completely drained after I spend time with this person so maybe this needs to be the end of our relationship. Or maybe not. It could be as simple as cutting out dairy or a vampire type from your life or it may open up a complicated web of food allergies or a discovery about the inner beliefs that attract draining dynamics in the first place. If you commit to becoming a translator, it is not likely that you’ll notice the voice that is speaking and immediately understand it. The life of a translator is the life of a scientist, a historian, an investigator, a traveler, a psychologist, and a curious child. It requires questioning, hypothesis, tests, the ability to follow the smallest bits of information back to their origins, and most of all, it requires your imagination for something of higher quality. All of these acts sound devotional on the surface but the surrender to be in the discomfort of not knowing, to trust that the answers will find you in the moments of retreat before the devoted return, this is a part of it too. 

With Uranus now in Gemini, the other Mercurial sign and symbol of the mind, we are seeing a Promethean process play out as it pertains to intelligence. This "Promethean process” and the archetype of Uranus can be defined as that moment where one decides to go off the beaten path. The moment when someone becomes “awakened” by a shocking event or revelation, adopting radical views or life paths as a result. Our baseline knowledge is changing and possibilities are shaken loose because of this. We’re looking at a long 7 year cycle, but with the eclipses and personal planets in aspect right now, the bridge appears for this transpersonal intelligence to become incredibly personal. Venus in Virgo is creating this bridge at the time of the Solar Eclipse, which I might remind you, eclipses do take a full 6 months to complete their development. All of what is said here is only the initiation of change and growth that will gestate and reach its fullest form by the next eclipses in Spring of 2026… and then, we really need to consider what is reaching its fullest form now that was initiated six months before in March of 2025. Venus in a major aspect with Uranus disrupts her natural desire for balance, harmony, and connection. Due to this rupture and epiphany in collective and personal intelligence, we may see rapid and unexpected collapses or emergences of support– that is, financial or tangible, but this also pertains to our relationship containers and value markers. 

The mind (Mercury) as a vehicle for observation can have great radical impacts on the decisions that we make within these “containers,” when perception changes, the relationship to these things change and there are residual consequences that we are both prepared and unprepared for as a result. It reminds me of love relationships that end with seemingly “no warning”. Something was happening internally, in the mind, that made this one-sided decision. The perception changed, so the relationship had to change. Venus in Virgo as a representation of devotion may feel initially disturbed by this square to Uranus in Gemini as a symbol of intelligent liberation. If we take the example of a relationship ending suddenly, it seems on the surface that devotion vanishes too but this is really the true meeting place of devotion and surrender, now simultaneously surrendering and devoting yourself to the aftermath. The unexpected beginnings and endings that Uranus brings to this square with Venus illustrate exactly this sensation of “losing your center” and being thrust into your own trial and error process. Venus in her detriment sign strongly echos disharmony but it is only for the function of her future satisfaction. 

At the time of the eclipse, Mercury will be in a tight opposition to Neptune in Aries. All of this talk about translation, feeling confused about what we might be hearing, what we’re being “told” by others and whether or not it’s true or agenda based… This is all very Mercury-Neptune, an aspect that is almost always like trying to listen to someone on the surface while you’re stuck underwater. Saturn and Neptune are still on their way to making a conjunction next year in 2026 in the sign of Aries (I physically can’t stop talking about it), this means that even while Saturn has retrograded back into Pisces, Saturn is not acting like Saturn. Where we are usually met with limitations, consequences, and authoritarian based systems by this planet, Neptune’s close influence is acting as a solvent. In mundane astrology examples of Saturn-Neptune throughout history, they show us something similar: the 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1917 U.S. entrance into WWI, or the 1773 conjunction at the beginning of the American Revolution, for example, all marked periods where authority and lines drawn in the sand all began to dissolve birthing a new reality and set of rules with it. 

This Saturn-Neptune transition opposite the eclipse in Virgo and Mercury as its ruler is fascinating. We haven’t quite had our large-scale global Saturn-Neptune event just yet as the conjunction hasn’t perfected and won’t until February 2026, but we are all setting up for it– my interest lies in how the global reflects the personal. How these authoritarian shame-based walls exist within a personal context and what it takes for them to fall before us. Authority doesn’t just disappear into the mist, first it has to sharpen its edges so that the dissolution actually means something. If there weren’t a line drawn, what is there for Neptune to wash away? This eclipse may be a harsh reminder that these shame systems are most visible right before they dissolve. Something important wants to be found through the old map that keeps leading to the wrong destination. Frustration and disenchantment flare for eventual clarity and the discovery of a whole new map, maybe even a whole new continent. When control is lost, the ego grips harder because it’s now on notice. It’s losing its very function but it’s important to recognize that control does not actually guarantee safety. Mercury-Neptune in the midst of it all is a call for discernment, the call to become the translator who carefully scrutinizes. 

So, what does it take to awaken the awakener? The crumbling of the old map, the frustration of paths that no longer lead anywhere, the roar of authority just before it dissolves. Uranus in Gemini cracks open our mental containers so that intelligence itself becomes radical, alive, and uncontainable. What once felt like certainty becomes surprise, and what once felt like safety becomes the doorway into something altogether different. Here, Mercury is our guide. Not the prophet who hands down one specific truth, but the translator who inquires, studies, who knows that not every sign is what it first appears to be. Virgo’s Mercury doesn’t fall for the promises and this is not cynicism, it’s devotion in its highest form. To translate is to keep returning, again and again, until the voice beneath the noise is revealed.

Saturn-Neptune is already dissolving the ground beneath our feet. This eclipse pulls us into that threshold moment, by the time the 6 month eclipse cycle completes, we’ll arrive at the Saturn-Neptune conjunction. The invitation of this eclipse is simple and impossible all at once: to put down the old map and start charting your own, to unlink fear and prophecy, and to remember that devotion and surrender are not opposites but allies. Devotion is how you return, surrender is how you release. Together they are the compass that still works when the old maps lead you nowhere. 

Remaining both devoted & surrendered this eclipse.

Your friendly neighborhood astrologer,

Katie

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