Solar Eclipse in Virgo

finding your role in the revolution

I’m never sure anymore if what I’m writing here is a story or an essay or a letter — despite what the name moon missives might lead one to think and more on that soon — but because we’re deep in this chaotic mutable eclipse season, I think a letter might be in order.

Some necessary promotion before we get into it:

A Field Guide to Eclipse Season is still available and will be up for sale on my website until Libra season begins on 9/22. Eclipse season isn’t really over until the end of the month (and in a way not fully until the New Moon in Libra on October 21) so you can still get a lot out of it, even if you’re starting “late.” I made this guide to be a companion but also to be used in retrospect. Field notes you take now will be very useful for the next eclipse season in February and March 2026.

If you’re looking for more guidance while we’re still in the eclipse portal, my books are open through the end of October. The equinox arrives on 9/22 with a major momentum shift and some (almost surprising) back to school energy (finally).

Hallo bb,

How are you feeling in these spiraling times? A lot happening to say the absolute least. Despair stock is up. Hope stock in decline. These are Saturn-Neptune times. There’s a solar eclipse at 29º Virgo coming on Sunday September 21, going exact at 3:54 pm ET. It’s a partial solar eclipse so even if it’s daytime where you are when it goes exact, the visual phenomenon won’t register. That being said, it’s a good day to lay low and avoid tempting fate and the luminaries. It’s a south node eclipse meant for release and shedding. It’s a new moon in conversation with Saturn: the vibes are not high, the lessons are hard, and what’s being let go feels permanent.

When I made A Field Guide to Eclipse Season, I came very close to making the title Finding Your Role in the Revolution. I made that the subtitle because it’s that serious. Now’s the time to find your role in the revolution.

Here’s an excerpt from the guide:

The North Node entered Pisces and the South Node entered Virgo on January 11, 2025, and will remain there until July 26, 2026. Eclipse cycles are imperfect, and often commence in a sign before the nodes arrive there. Our first lunar eclipse in Pisces was on September 17, 2024, and our final lunar eclipse in Virgo will be on February 20, 2027. Though other stories with other signs will be weaving their way through this same timeline, this eclipse cycle is a particularly long one.

Eclipses along the Pisces-Virgo axis:

challenge our ideas of attention (Virgo) and devotion (Pisces);

push us toward order (Virgo) and disintegration (Pisces);

complicate what it means to serve (Virgo) and transcend (Pisces).

Eclipse along the Pisces-Virgo axis make attention, devotion, order, disintegration into transcendent acts of service.

My friend and fellow astrologer Whitney Will describes Pisces and Virgo as the “essential workers” of the zodiac. As old systems and structures decay and burn, as events of struggle, chaos, war, genocide, famine, and administrative collapse pervade, we need our essential workers more than ever.

Mr. Rogers, a Pisces, always said, “Look for the helpers.”

What these eclipses in Pisces and Virgo are desperately, and somewhat chaotically, trying to communicate is:

THE HELPER IS YOU.

September’s eclipses are about finding our role in the revolution. I know that might sound heavy. But being a “helper” doesn’t mean being a political activist—though if that is you, go forth and make waves! Being a helper is about doing your part. Pisces and Virgo are mutable signs. The point is to stop being stubborn, get over forcing your own agenda, and to simply: meet the moment. Whether that’s as an organizer or an entertainer or a caregiver. And more likely: it’s all of it, everything at once.

-

To give an example of what finding one’s role in the revolution could look like, I want to talk about Ben & Jerry’s. Co-founder Jerry Greenfield resigned from the company this week over an ongoing dispute with their parent company, Unilever which bought Ben & Jerry’s in 2000. This is an eclipse story.

Ben and Jerry in June 1987, a few months before their third nodal return.

Ben & Jerry’s co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were born 4 days apart on March 14 & 18, 1951. This makes Cohen and Greenfield both Pisces and thus main character in the current eclipse story. Both being born in March of 1951 is even more important to this story because then, like now, we were having eclipses across the Virgo-Pisces axis. The North Node was in Pisces and the South Node was in Virgo.

The nodal axis in one’s birth chart speaks to the two signs and archetypes that must constantly be reckoned with throughout life.The point isn’t to eschew one and claim the other, but to find balance between the two.

Someone born with the South Node in Virgo usually has natural talents in the Virgo area of life: finding order in chaos, material acts of service, putting things into a list or a shape or a container. On the other end of the spectrum, this same person has the North Node in Pisces, which speaks of someone who must learn to go with the flow, be a compassionate mess, and meet others in their moment. The South Node in Virgo is the bowl and the North Node in Pisces is the potion. Or in Ben and Jerry’s terms, the South Node in Virgo is the eco-conscious packaging and the North Node in Pisces is the Phish Food ice cream.

Ben & Jerry’s was founded in May 1978 during another eclipse cycle in Pisces and Virgo¹. The childhood friends had initially planned to open a bagel store but the equipment was too expensive so they learned to make ice cream instead. After getting their Cherry Garcia millions, the two Pisces used their platform and wealth to advocate for progressive causes, and make their product as socially conscious as possible. When the company was sold to Unilever in 2000, a unique deal was struck that allowed the company to keep its social values while going big corporate.

This year’s eclipses in Pisces and Virgo are Ben and Jerry’s fourth nodal return. Just after the Lunar Eclipse in Virgo back in March, the founders filed a lawsuit against Unilever who had fired the company CEO for seemingly political reasons. In May 2025, Ben Cohen was arrested at a Senate hearing for protesting the genocide in Gaza. And now in September 2025, Jerry Greenfield is stepping down from the company.

He wrote in his resignation letter,

Love, equity, justice — they’re part of who Ben and I are, and they’ve always been the true foundation of Ben & Jerry’s. From the very beginning, Ben and I believed that our values and the pursuit of justice were more important than the company itself. If the company couldn’t stand up for the things we believed, then it wasn’t worth being a company at all.

I think there’s something here in this eclipse season about finding your role, knowing your role, and also knowing when it’s time to walk away. Things are overwhelming. Things are disappointing and demoralizing. All of this needs a shape. Sometimes we outgrow our old shape. Sometimes the work needs a different container and that’s OK.

1. If you track Ben & Jerry’s and the founder’s personal history throughout Pisces-Virgo eclipse cycles, there’s always some development around Pisces-Virgo eclipse times— this goes all the way back to their first nodal return in the late 1960’s when Ben worked as an ice cream man during his senior year of high school.