Dear Friends,
Imagine the meticulousness it took to create the genre-defying, layered harmonies of Bohemian Rhapsody. The devotion of a life spent tending to the poor, sick, and dying in Calcutta. Or the vision and political skill that helped bring Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and the National Endowment for the Arts into being in the United States.
Freddie Mercury. Mother Teresa. Lyndon B. Johnson. All three had both the Sun and Mercury in Virgo.
- Last night at 10:19 p.m. ET, the Sun left its fiery home of Leo and began its annual sojourn through earthy Virgo.
- On Tuesday, Mercury follows. Virgo is Mercury’s second home and its sign of exaltation—the place where its powers of observation, discrimination, and precision are especially strong.
- On Thursday, Mercury enters the heart of the Sun in a Mercury–Sun cazimi.
- And just after midnight Friday, we have another eclipse: a Full Moon eclipse in Pisces, the last eclipse in Pisces in this cycle.
A lot of Virgo this week, with a Piscean twist at the end.
Virgo is the sign I think of as taking us from good to great.
When I talk to Virgo clients, I explain it something like this: many people have the energy it takes to get something from zero to 80%. Fewer are willing to put in what it takes to go from 80% to 90%—and far, far fewer still to bring something from 90% to 93.76%. It isn’t literal math, but you get the idea: the closer we get to that elusive 100%, the more attention every small improvement requires.
Some people keep looking long after everyone else has packed it in and shipped the product. They hear the note that could be cleaner. Notice the seam that’s a millimeter off. Find the word that isn’t quite right. That capacity for sustained attention can produce extraordinary work. Excellence. Even greatness.
Virgo cares enough to keep looking.
We all have Virgo somewhere in our birth chart, quietly asking: How could this be even better?
If you’d like to understand where Virgo lives in your chart—and what it may be asking you to tend, refine, or bring toward excellence—that’s something we can explore together in a reading.
Imagine a world without that instinct. What we would miss!
Of course, like all things, that gift has a shadow.
A friend of mine once worked in a factory that produced fine silk cloth. His job was to watch enormous swaths of beautiful fabric spool past him and spot imperfections. The moment he saw one, he stopped the machine so it could be corrected.
Yards and yards of exquisite silk passing before his eyes—and his attention trained on the tiny dot that shouldn’t be there. Extremely useful when you’re making beautiful fabric. Much harder when that’s how you’re looking at your life. At yourself. Or at the people you love.
Attunement to excellence can become attunement to what’s wrong.
Brené Brown makes an important distinction here: perfectionism is not the same as striving for excellence. In her research, she places healthy striving and perfectionism on opposite ends of a continuum. Perfectionism is driven by an attempt to avoid shame, judgment, blame, and criticism.
The silk worker needs to see the spot. He also needs to see the silk.
And perhaps that is where Pisces comes in.
Friday’s eclipse falls across the Virgo–Pisces axis—an axis I have written about before as one of service and devotion. Virgo tends what is immediately before us; Pisces remembers what all that tending is ultimately in service to.
Pisces reminds Virgo that eventually we have to release our grip on the result. Do the work. Make it better. Give it your care. And know when to let it go.
Thursday’s Mercury–Sun cazimi offers another possibility: a moment of clarity about what is actually worthy of this much care and attention.
But Virgo is so much more than its shadow.
I want to thank the Virgos of the world—and the Virgo in all of us—for caring enough to notice. For the work that happens after everyone else has gone home. For seeing what could be better and giving your time, attention, and sometimes considerable personal sacrifice to making it so.
Years ago, in my real estate days, I worked with an architect who taught me a great deal about design. His firm’s tagline was just three words: Thoughtful. Detailed. Solutions.
I’ve remembered it ever since.
That, to me, is Virgo at its best. Not perfection for perfection's sake. Care made practical. Attention in service of something that matters. Often without much fanfare.
Every time I write about Virgo, I'm aware of the person with the most Virgo in my life: my mother. This newsletter is dedicated to her—for the love and care with which she has quietly and thoughtfully tended to our family, since before I was born.
From good to great.
With love,
Meghna
P.S. If there’s a Virgo in your life whose quiet care, devotion, or particular way of tending the world you love, send this their way. And if this rings true for you, hit reply and tell me what it brought up.
Source: Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. Brené Brown: The Gifts of Imperfection podcast discussion
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