Virgo (Greek: Parthenos) is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans the 150–180th degree of the zodiac. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between August 23 and September 22, and the Sun transits the constellation of Virgo from approximately September 16 to October 30.
The constellation Virgo has multiple different origins depending on which mythology is being studied. Most myths generally view Virgo as a virgin/maiden with heavy association with wheat. The myth of Parthenos (virgin) explains how the actual constellation Virgo came to be.
The symbol of the maiden is based on Astraea (star-maiden” or “starry night”), in ancient Greek religion a daughter of Astraeus and Eos. In Greek mythology, she was the last immortal to abandon Earth at the end of the Silver Age, when the gods fled to Olympus – hence the sign’s association with Earth.
Astraea is the virgin goddess of justice, innocence, purity and precision. She is closely associated with the Greek goddess of justice Dike (“Justice”), a daughter of Zeus and Themis, the personification of divine order, fairness, law, natural law, and custom.
Themis is an ancient Greek Titaness. She is described as “[the Lady] of good counsel”, and is the personification of divine order, fairness, law, natural law, and custom. Her symbols are the Scales of Justice, tools used to remain balanced and pragmatic.
Dike is the goddess of justice and the spirit of moral order and fair judgement based on immemorial custom, in the sense of socially enforced norms and conventional rules. She and her mother are both personifications of justice.
She is depicted as a young, slender woman carrying a physical balance scale and wearing a laurel wreath. She is represented in the constellation Libra which is named for the Latin name of her symbol (Scales).
She is often associated with Astraea, the goddess of innocence and purity. Astraea is also one of her epithets referring to her appearance in the nearby constellation Virgo which is said to represent Astraea. This reflects her symbolic association with Astraea, who too has a similar iconography.
Virgo is also associated with Demeter, the goddess of the harvest that presides over grains and the fertility of the earth, and her daughter Persephone, the Greek goddess of vegetation, especially grain.
Although Demeter was most often referred to as the goddess of the harvest, she was also goddess of sacred law and the cycle of life and death. According to Greek mythology, the earth experienced eternal spring until the god of the underworld abducted the spring maiden Persephone.
Homer describes Persephone as the formidable, venerable, majestic queen of the underworld, who carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead. She becomes the queen of the underworld through her abduction by and subsequent marriage to Hades, the god of the underworld.
The myth of her abduction represents her function as the personification of vegetation, which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence, she is also associated with spring as well as the fertility of vegetation. Similar myths appear in the Orient, in the cults of male gods like Attis, Adonis, and Osiris, and in Minoan Crete.
Virgo has the equivalent sign in Indian astrology as the Kanya (“maiden”), that marks the start of harvests and festival season across the Indian subcontinent, and is connected with the Virgin Mary, a first-century BC Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth, and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran.
While this is only one myth of the origin of Virgo, she is seen throughout all manner of myths. In Egyptian mythology, the time when the constellation Virgo was in the sun was the beginning of the wheat harvest, thus connecting Virgo back to the wheat grain.
Mercury is the ruling planet of both Virgo and Gemini and is exalted in Aquarius. Pluto is the modern ruling planet of Scorpio and is exalted in Virgo. Mercury rules over Wednesday. Uranus is also associated with Wednesday, alongside Mercury (since Uranus is in the higher octave of Mercury). Uranus is the modern ruling planet of Aquarius and is exalted in Scorpio.
Mercury is the messenger of the gods in mythology. It is the planet of day-to-day expression and relationships. Mercury’s action is to take things apart and put them back together again. It is an opportunistic planet, decidedly unemotional and curious.
Astrologically speaking, Pluto is called “the great renewer”, and is considered to represent the part of a person that destroys in order to renew, through bringing buried, but intense needs and drives to the surface, and expressing them, even at the expense of the existing order. A commonly used keyword for Pluto is “transformation”.
Mars, the Roman god of war and bloodshed, whose symbol is a spear and shield, is associated with Tuesday. Pluto is also associated with Tuesday, alongside Mars since Pluto is the higher octave of that planet in astrology.
Mars is the traditional ruling planet of Aries and Scorpio and is exalted in Capricorn. The Sun is the ruling planet of Leo and is exalted in Aries. Pluto is the modern ruling planet of Scorpio and is exalted in Virgo. Saturn is the traditional ruling planet of Capricorn and is exalted in Libra. Venus is the traditional ruling planet of Libra and Taurus and is exalted in Pisces.
Before the discovery of Uranus, Saturn was regarded as the ruling planet of Aquarius alongside Capricorn, which is the preceding sign. Many traditional types of astrologers refer to Saturn as the planetary ruler for both Capricorn and Aquarius.
Ceres (Demeter) is the ruling planet of Virgo, The majority opinion of modern astrologers, however, denotes Ceres being the ruler for Taurus and exalted in Virgo. In an updated revision, Taurus is also ruled by Chiron with that very same kentaur having an astrological maverick character being a co-ruler to Virgo, and exalted in Sagittarius.
Pisces (Ancient Greek: Ikhthyes) is the twelfth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans 330° to 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this area between February 19 and March 20. In Sidereal astrology, the Sun currently transits the constellation of Pisces from approximately March 12 to April 18.
Divine associations with Pisces include Poseidon/Neptune, Christ, Aphrodite, Eros, Typhon, Vishnu and the Sumerian goddess Inanna, who in her aspect as Anunītu was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces.
The story of the birth of Christ is said to be a result of the spring equinox entering into the Pisces, as the Savior of the World appeared as the Fisher of Men. This parallels the entering into the Age of Pisces. The age of Pisces began c. AD 1 and will end c. AD 2150.
Atargatis or Ataratheh, whom Lucian calls Hera, was the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical antiquity. Her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis, modern Manbij, northeast of Aleppo, Syria. Michael Rostovtzeff called her “the great mistress of the North Syrian lands”. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite.
Michael Rostovtzeff called her “the great mistress of the North Syrian lands”. Her consort is usually Hadad. As Ataratheh, doves and fish were considered sacred to her: doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, and fish as symbolic of the fertility and life of the waters.
At her temples at Ascalon, Hierapolis Bambyce, and Edessa, there were fish ponds containing fish only her priests might touch. The fishpond of fish sacred to Atargatis survives at Şanlıurfa, the ancient Edessa, its mythology transferred to Ibrahim.
In the city of Eridu the E-abzu, a ziggurat temple surrounded by Euphratean marshlands near the ancient Persian Gulf coastline at Eridu. It was the first temple known to have been built in Southern Iraq.
It was located at the edge of a swamp, an abzu, also known as E-engura (Sumerian: engur; Akkadian: engurru), meaning “house of the subterranean waters”, the name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology.
Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu. In this respect, in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology it referred to the primeval sea below the void space of the underworld (Kur) and the earth (Ma) above.
It is hypothesized that the original deity of the temple was Abzu, with his attributes later being taken by Enki over time. The pool of the Abzu at the front of his temple was adopted also at the temple to Nanna (Akkadian Sin) the Moon, at Ur, and spread from there throughout the Middle East.
Certain tanks of holy water in Babylonian and Assyrian temple courtyards were also called abzu (apsû). Typical in religious washing, these tanks were similar to Judaism’s mikvot, the washing pools of Islamic mosques, or the baptismal font in Christian churches. It is believed to remain today as the sacred pool at Mosques, or as the holy water font in Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches.
Jupiter is the traditional ruling planet of Sagittarius and Pisces and it is exalted in Cancer. Neptune is the modern ruling planet of Pisces and is exalted in Leo. Like with Venus, the planet Neptune is also associated with Friday because Neptune is the higher octave of Venus. Venus is the traditional ruling planet of Libra and Taurus and is exalted in Pisces.