Reflections on Late Virgo
The Co-Star app's brutally honest push notifications, Austin Coppock on Virgo III, and how I feel called out
Back when I had the Co–Star astrology app on my phone, I really enjoyed the brutally honest push notifications and thought the app should be named The Daily Callout. As a Scorpio with a Virgo stellium, I have a certain fondness for criticisms that cut to the bone.
If you’re curious about what I’m talking about, Google image search produced the following examples of Co–Star push notifications. Imagine seeing any of these messages pop up on your lock screen randomly each day:
Your nervous energy won’t be especially useful today.
Co-dependence is a temporary fix.
You talk about other people because you don’t have your own life.
Has falling in love with a fantasy ever worked out well for you?
Life has practical requirements. Are you aware of them?
Here is a Teen Vogue article from 2019 about Co–Star’s push notifications, one of many think pieces from that year on that very topic, a period that coincided with my own usage of the app.
I got to thinking about astrological callouts this weekend after reading about the third and final decan of Virgo in Austin Coppock’s book, 36 Faces: The History, Astrology and Magic of the Decans.1 This is a decan where I have three personal planets: my Mars, my Venus, and my Moon. This decan is also of interest because the Sun will enter it this week, on Thursday, September 12 at 2:41 am Eastern Time.
In regard to the last decan of Virgo, Coppock writes,
The last decan of Virgo shows the fate of all matter — to be brought to perfection and then crumble to dust, for there is naught created which is invulnerable to the ever-shifting tides of generation and corruption. The spirit gazes upon its inevitable separation from matter here, contemplating the consequences of its brief union.
And this is fitting: the final decan of Virgo comprises the final ten degrees the Sun travels through before the autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere, corresponding to the final days of astronomical summer before darkness overtakes the light. It is a time of harvest, where fruits are at their most ripe. But this idea of ripeness brings us to the idea of corruption and decay.
In her wonderful guidebook on the 36 decans, Kira Ryberg associates the third decan of Virgo with “a fruit that is just past-ripe”: “It is still sweet, but it is consumed with the knowledge that if you had waited a day, it would’ve turned rotten.”
Sometimes this makes the fruit that much sweeter, and sometimes the inevitable rot has already begun to seep in. A mushy, brown center underneath a vibrant casing. The preservatives that have been applied to the exterior to keep it looking juicy, plump and ultimately purchasable, have outlived the interior of the fruit itself. With themes of embalming and preservation attached to this decan, this metaphor feels especially apt.
The tarot card associated with the third decan of Virgo is the Ten of Pentacles.
In the image we see an old man in the foreground. He is wearing an ornate robe with images of grapes on them, much like the grapes in the Nine of Pentacles card, which I discussed in last week’s post on the New Moon in Virgo II.
The Nine of Pentacles has both a Venusian and Saturnian quality to it, speaking to that which is gained through time and discipline. Venus is the planet of sweetness and Saturn is about that which unfolds through time. As Ryberg writes, “you do not eat the fruit the day you plant the seed. Rather, it takes time, care and intention to get to the point where you find your garden blossoming to life.”
In a recent Instagram post on the second decan of Virgo, Ryberg continued on this theme. Ryberg uses the term ‘face’ to denote ‘decan’ (‘face’ is a translation of the Greek term prosopon, one of the words that was used to refer to the decans in ancient astrology):
This face always [Virgo II] reminds me of growing grapes on a vine — it takes years for the vines to bear fruit and several years after that for them to be sweet enough to enjoy. It’s a cultivation process that takes time, tending and attention to fully benefit from. This is the nature of Venus and Saturn’s combined influence.
If the Nine of Pentacles is about the process whereby sweetness, beauty, and wealth come into being, the Ten of Pentacles is about what comes after one reaches one’s prime, after one has achieved peak perfection, hence the image of the old man. This card is often thought to be about wealth and the transmission of wealth intergenerationally, and the man certainly appears to be wealthy. In the background, we see a man, a woman, and a child, presumably the progeny of the old man. This card is often thought of as speaking to themes of inheritance and lineage, whether in terms of wealth or in terms of what is passed down biologically. The pentacles correspond to the earth element and the five-pointed star resembles a body with a head, two arms, and two legs, thus pointing to the theme of incarnation that the pentacles represent.
The Ten of Pentacles is about things past their prime, about the corruption and decay of the body, but also points to what lies beyond, whether that’s death and that which is passed down to the next generation. The foods we harvest are no longer living when we eat them, but they sustain our own bodies, just as the seed fallen from a tree contains the potential for new life.
In 36 Faces, Coppock offers significations for each of the traditional planets in each of the decans. I have three personal planets in Virgo III: Mars at 20° Virgo, Venus at 22° Virgo, and the Moon at 26° Virgo.
So as someone with a stellium of personal planets in this decan I naturally had an interest in what Coppock had to say about how these planets show up when they land in this decan natally. Reading Coppock’s description felt much like reading Co–Star push notifications back in the day.
Mars in Virgo III
Those born with Mars in this face of Virgo have a talent for deconstruction. They have an eye for the weakness in the structure of ideas, people and things, and thus a great capacity for destruction. Yet unless angered, they are not destructive people. In fact, knowing weakness, many move to protect what they hold dear from exploitable flaws. They may attack weaknesses in order to reveal them. Though this might serve in some areas of life, it may create difficulties in their romantic life if they do not consciously moderate their critical tendencies.
Ooooooooof… this hits hard. I’ve always thought that my talent for deconstruction was attributable to my Scorpio stellium, as Scorpio is really good at using its stinger to penetrate and hit where it hurts.
This passage makes me think about how, with those with whom I’m most intimately connected, I often lean on criticism. Often this is born of a desire to correct and improve, to help someone become their best self, which is very Virgo. But I feel that it also pushes people away, especially when I understand that not everyone is out here to change what I perceive as flaws and the things that I perceive as flaws are often intimately connected to what makes them beautiful and radiant. And while a significant other might often appreciate my sharp, discerning, deconstructive tendencies and find them helpful, there is a hurtful, corrosive side to all this. People need to hear words of affirmation, and while my capacity to criticize might come from a place of intimate knowledge of the other and a sense of safety that allows me to be radically honest with them about their flaws, I can’t simply harp on what needs to be overhauled in a significant other, as they will eventually move onto those who are more apt to celebrate them as they are. And for someone like me, it is very easy to use astrology as a means of calling people out rather than building them up.
Venus in Virgo III
Venus is in her fall in all of Virgo, yet in this face she reaches the single degree of her greatest impediment, for it is here that the fragile truth of beauty is revealed —the fact that all flesh and fruit must inevitably rot. For those natives who embody this beauty, there is often a struggle to accept this fact. Their understanding of the fragility of form is hard to bear, and may lead some toward the preservation of youth’s appearance at increasingly severe costs. Many find themselves obsessed with the figure of the forever-young maiden. Yet Venus here is also key to unlocking that beauty which is immortal in nature — the perfect animating the imperfect at every moment. The desire for the permanent beauty can be sated here, but not by conveying immortality on the flesh, but by finding it within cycles of generation and corruption.
So I’m 40. I’ll be 41 in November. And one thing that people have always told me all my adult life is that I look younger than my age. I get it a lot on dating apps, people telling me that they can’t believe I’m 40, that I “must be doing something right.” I’m not so sure that I am. I remember someone in a medical office telling me that a couple years ago when I was in the midst of the most acute episode within a prolonged period of chronic illness. If I am doing something right, then why do I often feel like shit?! I often think my youthful looks are related to the fact that I don’t have the most expressive face and thus lack smile lines. But amidst all this, I’m focused on everything that gives away my age: my teeth that are worn down from grinding them in my sleep, the decreasing suppleness of my skin, the sensitivity of my gums, how I need to keep my hair buzzed and shouldn’t let it grow too long lest I expose my receding hairline. When I post selfies, I rarely smile because you can really see my age when I do that, despite the fact that I hear that I have a great smile. And while my Virgo Venus allows me to present myself in a way that feels put together, but not too showy, I am bound to notice every single one of my personal flaws. Venus in Virgo isn’t shallow per se, but it has a fetish for perfection.
Moon in Virgo III
Those born with the Moon in the third decan of Virgo have sensitive, thoughtful dispositions. They are aware of the fragility of physical bodies, and many have maladies which makes this universal truth difficult to ignore. Many of them are careful about what they take in, and many come to follow strict diets and other careful health regimens. Yet just as many react in the opposite manner, and indulge themselves during life’s short theater. It is common for them to alternate between extreme prudence and wild indulgence. These natives are often reserved, caring, and have great sympathy for the unfortunate.
Wow. This speaks so much to my last few years. Virgo is a sign that is associated with the digestive tract, and as a result of digestive illness (the most acute phase of which coincided with transiting Neptune in Pisces opposing my Mars a couple years ago) I have maintained a strict diet. I also practice intermittent fasting and spend way too much money on supplements. I am very careful when exercising not to hurt myself and feel offended when people tell me to be careful and not overdo things physically because that’s never going to be a worry for me: if something feels off when exercising, I immediately stop and rest. I am very gingerly when it comes to these things and I carry myself with a great mindfulness with regard to my body and its limitations. I can be rigid with my diet, showering schedule, and things like sleep hygiene, often in a way that is socially restrictive.
On the other hand, I have a very indulgent streak and tend to overdue vices. I’m a big emotional eater and I eat to feed feelings of emptiness (which might also be connected to my stellium in Scorpio I, a decan associated with hunger and insatiability). I stopped doing weed because I would love to get really, really high all the time. And even though I quit coffee for a couple years, once I got back into it, I started drinking multiple cups a day. It’s hard not to have one vice, but I have trouble doing anything in moderation, so I have a tendency to go hard when it comes to health routines, on the one hand, and indulgences, on the other.
Overall, my Virgo stellium makes me “very demure, very mindful” (a phrase that, I might add, trended about a month ago when Venus was in Virgo), but it’s a stellium in a decan that certainly has its challenges.
Pay attention if you have any natal planets in this decan, as next week’s lunar eclipse will be at 25° Pisces, and thus in hard aspect to this decan.
That’s about it for now. If you have access to Coppock’s book, which has been out of print for years, I highly recommend reading about what he says about your own planetary placements. If you’d like a reading, feel free to hit me up at astronotesnewsletter@gmail.com and we can talk about the decanic signifcations of your natal planets.
Be well, everyone!
The decans are 10-degree segments of the zodiac, which divide the 360° zodiac into 36 equal segments and each 30° sign into three 10-degree segments. Each decan is associated with certain images and themes.