Wheat From Chaff

Each of the four seasons offers a particular impetus that feels natural to the body, fitting the logos of that season.  In the shift to fall, we reach for a fresh start, and may pull back in dismay, feeling overwhelmed. Spring’s bright beginning has an entirely different energy to its new life. The fall ‘new year’ carries weight. Perhaps it is childhood years of beginning a new grade, and adjusting to an unknown teacher? With falling leaves, the psyche is assigned to grow and own itself in new ways, expressing itself in better forms.

Ancient memory-bones that gathered in the harvest, preparing for winter, celebrated bounty, or knew death approached. It is a serious time.  There is less possibility in this beginning than spring’s exuberant birth.  In the Northern Hemisphere, the first stray turning of green to gold announces summer’s somnolence over. Even tropical locations contain signs of a new dance, replacing August’s easier waltz.

Astrologically, moving from Leo’s creative enjoyment to Virgo’s perceptions of refinement, and integration, ask we separate wheat from chaff, that we take inventory for the time ahead, and bring talents into alignment.  Virgo asks the soul, “What is your sacred work, and what do you need to heal to grow whole?”

Along with the Sun’s entry into Virgo, Rosh Hashanah, literally ‘head of the year,’ symbolically gives fall an extra new year oomph. In the Jewish oral traditions, Rosh Hashanah marked the completion of the world’s creation, and perhaps some world-memory feels we now have to go out and do something about it.  In Virgo fashion, we’d best do it impeccably, and preferably looking as chic as possible.

Whether we love fall, or loathe it, follow the Jewish faith, or none at all, facing these shadow elements gives pause, and can bring anxiousness.  The anxiety has to do with doing it perfectly, a quality that paces side by side with Virgo’s desire for wholeness.  We can all too easily become submerged in overwhelm, and because it is sub rosa, it’s more difficult to acknowledge.

If you are marching into fall with unfinished business, or bad endings, and un-resolved baggage, take a moment to step back and ask to see the sacred aspect of your work.  Take a breath, and abstract daily patterns and detail to integrate the myriad pieces.  Honor your usefulness, and the right decisions you have made, then eliminate old, outmoded constructs.

‘Shanah Tovah,’ to my friends of that faith. And a good new year to my friends of other persuasions, as well.  May we all find faith in ourselves.  May we become whole. May we begin again with the New Moon, circling within, to grow and shine once again.