What You Learn in The Abyss (Priestess of the Let Go)

New moon at 0° Virgo

Emily Kam Kngwarray was an artist from Alhalker Country in the Northern Territory, Australia, whose powerful works reflected her extraordinary life as a senior Anmatyerr woman. She was in her late 70s when she began painting in earnest. In the eight years until her death, she painted an extraordinary number of canvases, creating timeless art that encapsulates the wisdom, experience and authority she gained throughout her life. Her pieces are untitled.

Late on Friday, August 22nd, at 11:06pm PT, the moon goes dark and renews herself at 0° of Virgo. Virgo is the high priestess of process, a deep systems witch, a force of healing and integration. As the mutable, adaptable earth sign, she is responsible for continuously evolving and advancing physical forms here on the material plane. In the north, Virgo rules this time in the cycle we’re in now—the closing month of summer—where everything is maturing and bearing fruit. Some of it is overgrown and some of it is thriving, some of it is failing and falling apart. It’s a phase that requires renewed attention to detail, sound judgment, and a lot of persistent, devotional effort, at least if we want to see this growth to its peak; if we want a good harvest. Ruled by the sharp mind of Mercury, that’s what Virgo does best—carefully survey a situation, notice what’s working and what isn’t, and then figure out what improvements are possible, and what order to do them in. It’s like there’s this part of us that knows, both rationally and intuitively, how things should be working or could be working in ideal conditions; some part of us attuned to a higher order of possibility. Virgo is especially invested in tending to what’s broken or what’s gone awry; ruins are sacred to Virgo. She is undaunted by the time and labor that healing and repair asks of us. Virgo is ready, always, to roll up her sleeves, start cleaning and setting things right, trusting that her devotion to process and learning will lead to any needed renewal, not just of systems, but of faith.

Virgo season always follows the Sun’s total blowout in Leo, during which I’ve predictably unraveled. By this time in August, I’ve surrendered to the heat, and I’ve surrendered to the demands of my emotions and my body, which flare up after bowing to the roaring demands of my soul. It may not be this way for you. I go too far in Leo season, I have a natal Jupiter in Leo, so boundaries and enoughness are tricky for me here. It’s like I have to expand way way out, way passed my edges, just to see what my new edges are now; then I have to go even further than that; then I’m like, oh no, and I burn out. Then Virgo season arrives and quietly, respectfully, ushers my mind back in. It hands the reins back to all these humble, sensible, organized parts of my nature. Suddenly the laundry is getting done. Lists are being made and used. Sane decisions are issuing forth from…somewhere. My sleep is deeper and more restorative. My magic and energy steadier. What grace is this? Have I ever been happier to be inside the boring mundane tasks of my everyday life? What bliss to still be alive, and to be grateful for it; to see and actually feel the gift of getting to make food, and do the dishes, and play with the cat, and take out the garbage, and see the clients, and apply the wisdom gently, and make steady progress on my art.

I don’t know if you have a similar experience of the Sun’s move from Leo to Virgo. But I’m guessing that a new moon, the moon phase of reset, in Virgo, a sign so good at resetting, is usually a welcome and stabilizing moment in the cycle for you. This year, magically, the Sun enters Virgo at the exact same time as the moon, bringing us a new moon at 0° Virgo. Zero is a sacred number, (see The Gospel of Neuroplasticity), so this new moon is an especially sacred threshold. That, and the fact that Virgo’s ruler Mercury is still in Leo, retracing its retrograde steps, has me thinking about this transitional border territory between Leo and Virgo, and the role Virgo and a healthy left hemisphere or analytical mind plays in stabilizing our internal development, building systems that serve the agenda of the heart and body and soul, and making the self-actualization called for in Leo actually possible. Like, Leo can’t get it done! Leo doesn’t have a practical bone! So Virgo comes along in the development cycle, assesses the longings and creative gifts revealed in Leo, and makes a solid plan.

All the challenges of Virgo are the challenges of a runaway analytical mind, one that mistakenly thinks it knows everything, and that it’s in charge and responsible for everything. The rational mind cut off from intuition is unable to feel true presence and wholeness. It sees everything through the ego’s agenda for safety, predictability, and control. Left to run the show, it holds on tight to its version of the past, and will only ever lead us to where we’ve already been. It’s also hyper-critical, using perfectionism as protection—a way to shut down a process before its even begun. It doesn’t know how to trust. But Virgo, and the analytical mind, healthy and in right relationship? Virgo answering both to Leo, it’s developmental predecessor dedicated to the individual self and its soul shine, and to Pisces, its opposite/complement Zodiac partner and our deepest connection to the cosmic soul? It’s the best friend a soul and body have ever had. It’s a process genius. It’s the key to creating a life that is a balanced ecology of all your parts, led by your whole Self, and dedicated to manifesting your soul’s dream, for real, on this material plane.

At the moment, Virgo is hosting the south lunar node, the node of karmic cleansing, clearing, and release. The south node has been here since January, and will be here until the end of July of 2026. The previous lunation in Virgo was a total lunar eclipse back in March (When the Going Gets Rough, Turn to Wonder). If you haven’t blocked out the memory of that triple event horizon of an eclipse season, a Venus retrograde, and a Mercury retrograde, that hit us all at the end of last winter, you’ll recall it profoundly spun us out, began the rapid erosion of many of our systems, and delayed our spring rebirth. Even though this current new moon is not an eclipse, it’s entangled with the work of the south node here; it’s eclipsey. And it’s effectively initiating this next eclipse season, one that will see a total lunar eclipse in Pisces, and then a solar eclipse in Virgo happening on the Fall Equinox(!) So while we are receiving a renewal of our Virgo energies, and an initiation of a current of manifestation here, it’s in the context of a much bigger current of liberation and healing. One that wants to help us let go any pattern of behavior of thinking, and the routines and life systems that gave rise to, that is no longer working, no longer in integrity, or simply needs to be cleared away so that what comes next for us can come.

I am personally considering this new moon as a perfectly timed gift. Eclipse seasons are hard on plans and agendas. But this is a time of year when we really need to be thinking clearly and getting organized and making or refining our plans for the fall—it’s back to school, whether or not you’re in school. On this new moon, we are both in the eclipse season’s energies, and we aren’t. We have entered Virgo season, but somehow we haven’t yet. 0° is not quite somewhere yet. It’s also not where we were; it’s in between. So this new moon is an invitation to pause, ground, remember whether we have any intentions, and then cross over a threshold into an open liminal space and time on purpose. Zero is the number of the Great Mother Nothing. The number of potential, of the panoriginal field—the Ein Soph—the dreaming, formless, boundless infinity that gives rise to all boundaries and forms and somethingness. Zero is where we begin before we begin. To get to zero, you have to empty yourself out completely. You have to let it all go. In Virgo, that might mean letting go of all your stories about how things are supposed to work. It might mean surrendering all of your known, worn patterns, all your expectations. It definitely means seeing where patterns and systems have gone off-mission, serving only themselves and their own maintenance rather than the greater vision of the soul.

The best state we can enter into now is one of presence. Presence and curiosity. Don’t seek the new pattern, not just yet. Don’t try and manifest anything but this state of presence. What have you learned this Leo season, or this last year, about your specificness, your uniqueness, the nature of your nature? What have you been creating, according to that nature, or what have you been longing to create? How has your care for others and the collective shaped these new understandings or creations? What are you noticing, right now, about how you need you to love you? These are Virgo’s real marching orders. See if you can rest in all that self knowledge, integrating it, while letting go entirely of needing know the path ahead. Forces and destinies that are larger than us are about to take over, even more obviously, and they will inevitably rearrange and rewrite all of our plans. The effect on us personally might be subtle or profound, but collectively, it will be profound. We’ve already entered an Abyss.

In the Kabbalah, the Abyss is an invisible sephirot on the Tree of Life called Da’ath, meaning knowledge. It’s a great chasm or void made by where the tree itself—the great structure of the universe—was overwhelmed by its own energies of becoming and broke in half. This void now separates the created world from its divine creative source. It’s a place of great Mystery, a space of non-existence from which all existence emerges—a zero space. All these creative and destructive forces are churning wildly there—the widening gyre—in a chaos of possibilities. The path on the tree that directly crosses the Abyss is the path of the High Priestess. It’s said to hang like an invisible suspension bridge over this holy void. I like to think the High Priestess built this bridge, after being dropped into the Abyss many times, and having to figure out the hard way how to get across. The High Priestess is the one who knows that dark and light forces, both, are necessary for growth. The one who has learned by giving and taking, creating and destroying, saying yes and saying no, being merciful and being severe, and can now stand balanced in the swirling powers of the Cosmos. The one who became adept at knowing by not knowing, at seeing in the dark, at reading the signs and symbols and feelings and vibrations. She is the one who can hold fast to the bright cord of meaning and love through long, interminable deserts. To walk this path, to get through the Abyss, we have to cultivate states of deep receptivity. We have to surrender our ego entirely, and trust that we will be guided by loving forces; that we will know, without a doubt, when to be still and when to rise up. On this new moon, let’s all tune in to that—the highest octave chord of Virgo; Virgo’s spiritual teachings about high preistessing. Let us be priestesses and priests, bowing our heads to the great powers, preparing to cross this Abyss. Please, Great Powers, release us from all that is hindering our hearts from knowing what they know. Help us remember who we are. Help us hear and feel wise and timely guidance, the guidance of Time itself, so we can move through this living, changing world miraculously and lovingly. Help us be the shining, self-luminous forms that we are.

Emily Kam Kngwarray, untitled

Ritual & Writing Prompts

Some extras for paid subscribers! It’s because of you that I can keep doing this public project, so my sincere thanks, and the sincere thanks of the Moon, for offering a little of your own life force in this direction. I pray it’s been coming back to you 9 fold, as the Moon would have it.

Ok - as always, I’ve made some shortcut links to the archive of writings on Virgo in In the River of What’s Happening Now, as well as my eclipse season preparation post, where I pass on some timeless wisdom about these passages. Then some ritual suggestions for working with this new moon, and a creative writing prompt brought to you by Virgo and the current unraveling.

(Disclaimer: Prompts are suggestions, not instructions. Play with what inspires you, ignore what’s doesn’t, relate with it and adapt it in any way you see fit.)

How to Prepare for an Eclipse Season

The Virgo archive

When the Going Gets Rough Turn to Wonder - total lunar eclipse at 23° of Virgo (winter 2025)

The Reliable Magic of Process - new moon at 11° of Virgo (summer 2024)

The Ceremony of the Everyday - full moon at 5° of Virgo (winter 2024)

We Made This World, We Can Make Another - new moon at 21° of Virgo (summer 2023)

Washing Order Into Chaos - full moon at 16° of Virgo, Saturn enters Pisces (winter 2023)