Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run
- “Dog Days Are Over” from Florence + The Machine’s Lungs (2009)
A Note on Trying Something New
As I mentioned in my update for our 1 Year Anniversary! I’m trying something new with the New Moon Horoscopes. One of my primary missions as an astrologer is to encourage others to live astrologically—like, actually use this stuff as a tool. It’s one thing to read your horoscope, and it’s another thing to track the movements and recognize how the ebbs and flows make you feel.
Clients and friends are always asking me the best way to start using astrology in their day to day life, and in my personal experience, the best place to start is the moon. Noticing the moon’s phase. How it waxes and wanes.
This month, I’m also including a poetic guide to the lunar cycle ahead so you can take notes, make a map, and consider how the seeds are being planted at this New Moon can be made visible in the waxing phase, and then digested through the waning phase. As the months go on, I will add more detail to these guides, but for now, we’ll start very simple with just 4 checkpoints: New Moon, First Quarter Moon, Full Moon & Last Quarter Moon.
Now let’s set the scene for the New Moon in Virgo…
Years ago, I was chatting with my Sagittarius BFF from college and told him that I’d somehow fucked up preparing Instant Ramen.
“Wow,” he responded, always blunt, “the only thing ramen requires is patience, and you have none.”
I’ve been thinking about patience quite a lot lately. As I wait with what I hope is a calm reserve for my life to take a more sculpted shape. There’s security in patience. There’s trust in it too. But patience also implies an ache. The pain of wanting something so badly that you’re willing to wait for it. Something that you may never have. Whether that’s love, acceptance, success, or just a chance to catch your breath. Patience implies a crossing. There’s distance between where you are and where you’d like to be, and the only thing that will get you to the other side is the unfolding of time. Patience is a commitment. It’s the courage to see something through.
From an etymological standpoint, patience comes from the Latin patientia which means “the quality of suffering or enduring; submission.” We’re taught that patience is a virtue, and impatience is unbecoming. I can tolerate delay. I can accept uncertainty. These are my mantras. But I also wonder if performing this placid meditation gives the false impression that I’m some kind of saint. Somehow above and beyond all of life’s wanting. Or worse: happy to fly under the radar of desire. What does it even mean to be patient? Is it a scam? What if I just impatiently declare exactly what it is that I want? Is that casting a spell or provoking a curse? This weekend’s New Moon in Virgo exists in the tremor between patience and impatience. Between fulfillment and lust.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to moon missives to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.