From this moment on—Sun in Virgo—August 23rd September 23rd.
No matter how big you get, don’t forget where you came from. Stay humble, stay grateful—Shania Twain.
Autumn has arrived, carrying the scent of change. Already pathways and woodlands are carpeted with bright flashes of crimson and gold. Virgo’s arrival heralds the autumn equinox on September 23rd (spring in the southern hemisphere) and, as the seasons change, we enter a threshold state, a time of in-betweenness where there is no firm foothold, just a knowing that something is is about to change.
This may be the season of our own shedding of leaves. A physical spring cleaning of our home. An emotional emptying out, as we leave a place of work, move home, end a relationship or complete something we have been working on for months.
As the sun moves through Virgo, we stand at a doorway, an opening space between the seasons. In Japanese culture, the word, “ma” means an opening or an interval, in space and time. Ann Tashi Slater writes that ma is “found in unpainted areas on folding screens, void areas in a photograph, silence during a conversation, the hush between breaking waves. It’s the vitality generated by emptiness; in the way a blank page gives rise to creative energy.”
So, at this gateway we may glance back at the months since the spring Equinox here in the north. What do we want to leave behind? What will be nourishing and sustaining in the dark months of winter?
The new moon in Virgo (18 ° Virgo) on September 11th is first lunation after two potent eclipses. The symbolism of the Virgo archetype offers the discernment to see clearly now as we emerge from the eclipse shadow lands. New moons accompany fresh starts, endings and beginnings. This new moon is accompanied by Mercury, which has just moved into rational Libra and makes an opposition to Neptune—a celestial prompt to fact-check, stay in our integrity, and to consider both sides of a situation, as this new season begins.
Virgo carries the energy of pared down simplicity. She presides over the quiet rhythms and routines that root us in seemingly ordinary tasks. Earth is Virgo’s element, and Virgoan qualities are so often depicted in fairy tale where the heroine of the story performs tasks with humility and attention to detail.
Humility derives from the Latin, humilis—down low, on the ground or of the earth. As the sun moved through Virgo, singer songwriter Shania Twain was born in humble circumstances in Windsor Ontario. Her innate talent, business acumen, and hours of hard work have earned her the accolade, Queen of Country Pop. There is no accurate birth time for Shania, so the Ascendant sign and moon placement is unreliable, though her birth chart depicts the slower moving planets and sun in Virgo. 
Saturn was in emotional and empathic Pisces on the day of her birth. Saturn symbolises those tough experiences that grow us up, teach us the value of commitment and responsibility. “I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come,” she is quoted as saying. Saturn (responsibility, resilience, maturity) features in her early life as she took on the role of caretaker to her mother who suffered from bouts of dark depression, and parent to her younger siblings. The home was chaotic, often turbulent, her parents often at war, smashing, screaming. By the time she was eight years old, Shania was singing in bars to bring in money for the household. At ten she began writing her own songs with Virgoan commitment and dedication to her craft.
When she was thirteen, she persuaded her mother to seek refuge in a women’s shelter, but her mother returned to her father with the younger children. As Saturn squared her Virgo planets, both her parents were killed in a car accident. She was twenty-two years old. Shania put her dreams of becoming a musician on hold to parent her younger siblings.
Her first Saturn Return in 1995, was marked by a fated meeting with a Nashville music executive while she was singing at a golf resort. She was offered a recording contract that laid the foundations (Saturn – structure, discipline, responsibility and maturity) for a global career. Another hard Saturnian lesson accompanied the separation from her husband in 2008 as Saturn conjoined her Virgo planets. Her husband, Mutt Lange had fallen in love with her best friend, Marie-Anne. It was Marie-Anne’s husband, Frédéric Thiébaud who broke the news of their affair. Shania and Frédéric became close, and were married as Saturn moved through Taurus, marking the stability of this period of her life.
Shania was enjoying a global musical career when she was bitten by a tick while riding through the woodlands and contracted Lyme disease which prevented her from singing for nearly a decade. This health crisis affected not only her voice (earth element expression) but compelled her to turn inward, pay attention to her health, to serve herself. Virgo rules the nervous system and the immune response. Saturn featured again by transit during this period of seclusion and healing, this time in a trine to itself. She didn’t return to public life after this long hiatus until 2017 as Saturn squared her Virgo planets and she struggled with anxiety and depression.
At her Second Saturn Return, Shania has publicly stated that she is fully recovered from Lyme disease. She finished a demanding residency in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve 2025. Her Virgoan ability to stay connected to life’s realities, despite enormous wealth and global fame, has endeared her to her audiences. May this be a time of rest and replenishment for this remarkable woman who has touched so many hearts over the decades. She epitomises Virgoan qualities of humility, service, and quiet commitment to her craft.
In this Virgo season, we may be prioritising self-care, re-imagining our lives. Executive coach, Vanessa Loder speaks about “following our energetic breadcrumbs,” a daily choice, a tiny moment, that we can all feel into when we begin to focus our attention to those seemingly ordinary encounters.
This month ends with an incandescent Aries full moon on September 26th, accompanying high tides and heightened intuition. Aries carries the impetus for new beginnings, action, and those instinctual life choices, and the moon represents our emotions, often passionate and volatile, when warmed by the fire of Aries. Neptune and Saturn flank the moon in independent Aries, symbolising a tension between structure and reality on one hand and the illusive and the ethereal on the other.
Lauren Elkin writes so poignantly, “And sometimes we hold on with both hands to things we really want to release.
This is a hard thing to admit. How do we know what to keep, and what is just an old idea we had about ourselves?”
In Aries, the fire element is ignited. The sun in Libra makes a trine to Pluto and Uranus, offering opportunities to know what we need to keep and what we need to release as we cross the threshold into something new.
If you would like book an astrology consultation, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com
No Comments