Favored Ways to Spend Time for the Next Day or So

WORK IT! 

The Moon trudges through Virgo until 6:38 pm ET (GMT-4) tomorrow. 

Key words for favored ways to spend time (other things being equal) include...

... work, mental activity, and details.

TELL US ABOUT IT

How are you spending your time today, while the Moon is in Virgo?

Post below to let us know!

FOR FURTHER IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO SPEND YOUR TIME...

... each month, while the Moon is in Virgo (for two or three days, each time ... such as today and much of tomorrow), here's what you can do:

1. Get a copy of your birth chart. 

(If you don't already have a copy of it, then you get a free copy of it by going to www.astro.com and entering your birth date, time, city, and state/country in the appropriate form.)

2. With a copy of your birth chart in hand (or in sight, on your screen), figure out which house (or houses) contain the sign Virgo.

(For an example of how to do this, see the section "AN EXAMPLE: MY BIRTH CHART," below.)

NOTE: Depending on technical factors (which I won't go into right now), Virgo may occupy one, two, or even three houses (or "pie slices") of your particular chart.

3. For each of the houses that Virgo occupies in your chart, combine 

(A) one or more of the key words that I noted above for Moon in Virgo (i.e., work, mental activities, and details) 

with 

(B) one or more key words for whichever house(s) in your chart contain Virgo. 

NOTE: For a house-by-house run-down of what each of the 12 houses of your birth chart symbolize, see my article at http://www.proudphoenix.com/houses.html 

Feel free to "mix and match" the way that you combine key words for the Moon in Virgo with key words for the house (or houses) that apply to your chart.

Yes, part of astrology is technical/memorization kinds of stuff, but another part of astrology (and, hopefully, it's a much larger part of it!) is creative/intuitive/experiment-and-see-what-works-for-you kinds of stuff. 

So let yourself be creative. Experiment and see what works for you. And if something comes to you intuitively, then consider it at least as much as you do anything that comes to you through logical reasoning.

AN EXAMPLE: MY BIRTH CHART

Take a look at my birth chart. 

In my chart (as in every person's birth chart), each section (or “pie slice”) represents one house. 

The houses are numbered from 1 to 12, starting with the section that is immediately below the horizon line (the horizontal line, which is located on the left side of the chart). 

The houses are numbered in a counterclockwise direction around the circle. 

Therefore, if you start at the 1st house (the house that lies immediately below the horizon line, on the left side of the chart) ... and you count from 1 to 5... then you should find yourself ending at the 5th house. 

Here's how you'll know if you landed in the 5th house or not:

The 5th house lies in the lower right-hand quarter of the chart. It contains numbers and symbols, including the symbol for the sign Virgo--twice--and the symbols for the planets Uranus and Pluto.

(Fortunately, if you are using a birth chart from astro.com for yourself,  the houses are numbered in their charts. To identify a house by number, just look toward the middle of the circle to see its number.)

I'll say more about what the houses mean in a moment. For now, though, let's continue with getting to know where the houses are in relation to other parts of the circles.

Specifically, let's consider where the houses are located in relation to the signs of the zodiac (in relation to the sign Virgo, to be exact).

If you look at the outer edge (or "rim") of the circle, somewhat toward the lower-right-hand side of it, then you should see the symbol (or "glyph") for the sign of Virgo there. 

(Virgo's symbol looks kind of like the a cursive letter "m" with an extra "hump" toward the right-hand side of it.)

If you look at the numbers near that symbol, you should see that they are "04" and "38." The first number ("04") refers to degrees, and the second number ("38") refers to minutes. 

Virgo (like each of the 12 zodiac signs) is 30-degrees long. 

(A circle equals 360 degrees, right? And there are 12 zodiac signs. So if you divide 360 by 12, you get 30. Each sign equals 30 degrees of 1/12 of the circle.) 

Now, since there are 30 degrees in a sign, and 4 degrees 38 minutes (or 38/60 of a degree) Virgo lies at the "doorway" (or "cusp") between the 4th house and the 5th house of my birth chart...

... that means that most (but not all) of Virgo lies in my 5th house. 

To be more specific about that: 

The first 4 degrees and 38 minutes of Virgo lie in my 4th house, and the rest of Virgo lie in my 5th house.

Now then, let's return to the matter of what the houses of a birth chart mean. 

Each house is associated with a certain set of issues and activities in our life. 

Depending on whichever houses are emphasized in our charts, we can expect for a higher power (or God, or Goddess, or Spirit, or the Cosmic Wow or destiny, or ... whatever power you believe in) to present us with certain existential or moral questions--questions that are related to those houses.

How we answer these questions and what we learn in the process of coming up with our answers are up to us.

Again, for a quick-and-dirty version of what I consider each of the 12 houses to mean, see http://www.proudphoenix.com/houses.html 

  

WHAT ABOUT YOUR EMPTY HOUSES? 

If you're concerned about the fact that some of the houses in your chart are empty, worry not! 

With 10 "planets" (i.e., the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, ... Neptune, plus Pluto) to go around, we all have some empty houses in our birth charts. That's just the mathematical facts, ma'am.  ;-)  

Even though some of your houses are empty, they still matter in your life. You still have work to do ... experiences to have ... live to live ... and songs to sing ... in those parts of your life. 

(We astrologers use techniques other than planets-in-signs-in-houses to get at the details of such matters.)