September’s Astrology
+ Joseph Stella exhibit and astrologic review
When reading English, you are decoding a line of characters from left to right; but when interpreting the zodiac, it is read in a circle that radiates in and out. So too the story of September’s astrology is not linear, but more a swirl of churning creative movement. You can expect struggles with grandiosity, witnessing the making of problems just to have the feeling of solving them, and also discoveries of brightness where least expected.
Virgo is a Hermit who craves community. Driven by a yearning for a feeling of connection rather than wanting to actually be in a room full of others. The stars in September express a circular consideration and a lesson on how to turn things around. Virgo energy when threatened or out of sorts can turn to victim behavior but pulling that energy to a creative space can build a bridge to a type of spiritual renewal.
In the astrology chart, Pisces sits across from Virgo creating a polarity that is connected by a creative core. Pisces feels like the boundless heart of the artist and Virgo winds the pocket watch of a craftsman.
September offers an abundance of retrograde (rx) planets, unregulated speed, and a flirtation with your unique mystical connection. The retrograde outer planets are intertwined with how history (global and personal) repeats itself and retrograde personal planets are more about inner dives. Introspection. Self-reflection.
Mars is the only planet running fast and Mercury (even retrograde) is very powerful while there is very little energetic resistance in the ether thanks to the dominance of trines. At 120°, a trine is a transit between two planets that lubricates and facilitates energetic movement. This can support rapid achievement but it can also support rapid decline.
Astrologers use good timing during Virgo season for strong elections with business, trade, starting studies and sending children to school for the first time, teaching, taking exams, accounting and transactions, writing and sending messages or presentations, anything requiring dexterity or quick thinking, and skill.
The pragmatism and logic of this Virgo season can be used to observe your relationship with its opposite, Pisces, like artist Joseph Stella who I will talk about a bit below.
SEPTEMBER MOONS
🌑New Moon 14 Sept 2023 9:39 pm et at 22° Virgo - Known as an earth sign, Virgo summons qualities closer to Ore, and this year’s New Moon promotes qualities of tough staying power and attraction. This lunation is powerful. Mercury is co-present in Virgo stationing to go direct at the moment the Sun and Moon conjunt giving an ‘if it's worth doing it worth doing right’ vibe. I offer the softer and just as valid counterargument that if it is worth doing, giving time and space to do it wrong is okay too.
🌕Full Moon 29 Sept 2023 5:57 am et at 6° Aries - The lunar mansion of this full moon is all about love, relationship, and connecting. Communications may get a loquacious, loving boost because this is also when Mercury entirely leaves the post-retrograde shadow, making communications sweet.
Lunar calendar for September:
INGRESSES
Sun Enters Libra 23 Sept
STATIONS
Venus Direct in Leo 3 Sept (Although Venus will be in the shadow of the retrograde period until October 7, 2023)
Jupiter Retrogrades in Taurus 4 Sept - 31 Dec
Mercury Direct in Virgo 15 Sept
TRANSITS
Mercury rx trine Jupiter, 4 Sept
Sun in Virgo conjunct Mercury rx, 6 Sept (read about CAZIMIS here)
Sun trine Jupiter rx, 8 Sept
Sun trine Uranus rx, 15 Sept
Venus square Jupiter rx, 17 Sept
Sun opposite Neptune rx, 19 Sept
Sun in Virgo trine Pluto rx in Capricorn, 21 Sept
Mercury trine Jupiter rx, 25 Sept
Venus in Leo square Uranus rx in Taurus, 29 Sept
Mercury in Virgo trine Uranus rx in Taurus, 30 Sept
Joseph Stella Exhibit and Astrological Review
Artist Joseph Stella (1877-1946) ASC Virgo ☀Gemini 🌙Cancer
The exhibition Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature is being shown at the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art from June 17- September 24, 2023. An exhibit co-organized with the High Museum of Art, it is the first to focus on Stella’s natural subjects and on “the spiritual qualities he felt in nature.”
Well worth the visit, this exhibit does a great job of showing how Stella gained creative strength and stamina by returning to formative places and people from his life “revealing his continued visual and metaphorical exploration of his roots.” To me, it somehow echoes how an artist can use a time like now of energetic retrograde to recharge, refuel, and realign.
Known for his futuristic-styled paintings of buildings and bridges in New York City and Coney Island between 1913-1920, this exhibition documents how Stella turned to nature as subject because to him it offered a form of respite and spiritual renewal.
The exhibition has a curious anchor for me, a smaller painting Banyan Tree. The Banyan Tree can live for centuries and is sometimes called the Tree of Knowledge (and Life). A mystical tree, the Banyan is symbolic of masculine spirituality. The understated placement of this painting was in my imagination a communication from the curator, a subconscious note to the visitor saying “Stella was compelled to express the powerful spiritual connection he felt with the natural world.”
He seemed to see the purity and beautiful mystery in nature and explored it with creative passion, evidenced by about 80 paintings and works on paper in this exhibition - punctuated with biographical curiosities and timelines of his life. This show was successful for me because I left feeling that Stella was a new friend.
Excited to look up the chart of a new friend, I noticed Joseph Stella’s natal chart is currently experiencing a Saturn return. This is helpful to me because I am so curious about the transit of Saturn in Pisces we are currently living through.
Saturn highlights our work ethic and rules anxiety, fear, and karma. Heavy topics that we all carry somewhere in our lives, but Stella, particularly at the end of his life, turned such heavy energies into compassionate and intuitive works despite the anxiousness and fear. And now he is being celebrated for his soft bravery.
"To refresh and rebuild my chromatic vision I went to the flowers to learn the secret of the vibration of their colors." - Joseph Stella, The Birth of Venus, 1941
High Chroma played a large part in my eye’s exploration of paintings Like Purissima and Flowers, Italy. The brightness communicated a purity in leaving a hue in its natural bright state and inviting white and black to play next to it, not with the color. If Stella had mixed blacks and grays in with the yellows and greens, the painting would not sing like a plucked crystal.
But then I turn a corner on the creaking wood floors of the museum to find Red Flower, a low chroma painting whose reds are doused in varying levels of black. This helped me understand a small bit of his color exploration and share in his experimentations. I imagine Stella was active in collecting and networking the knowledge and data of the beautiful plants, perhaps enjoying learning different means to visually communicate thier tone, a very Mercury in Gemini conversation.
If looking at Stella’s work in tandom with his natal chart gives insight into his Gemini placements, I can see this also plays a role as a creative problem solver.
Perhaps Stella’s Gemini Sun prompted him to do things like this, paint a person in profile and try to resolve the massive issues that come when you jump from flat to form. The tendency to liven up even the quietest environment, sometimes even introducing a chaotic element has left its signature along the right vertical of this painting. Now, every corner is not the same. This is the conscious choice of the artist and for those whose look at the variation of corners first, a squeal worthy moment.
The gentle touch drawings that filled this exhibition were perfectly challenging for me. Amidst the dense and rich oil paintings live the most delicate metal point drawings that demanded I slow my roll and, like Stella “turn inward” and recognize the beauty in modist work.
The Stella exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum left me with an understanding of his love of adventure, philosophy, study, religions, and foreign cultures in his art which can also be seen in his chart with a Jupiter in Sagittarius. I bet he was an enthusiastic and inspirational teacher. Always planting seeds of new projects, like his natal New Moon, Stella had placed great emphasis on family relations with a strong drive for a spiritual path.
Leaving the exhibit by visiting the Banyan tree once again, I am still curious about the symbolism right now of the subconscious pull emotions that a Virgo rising must experience particularly one that is highly intuitive, creative, and prolific.
That is my wish for us this September, to honor the part of us that is highly intuitive, creative, and prolific. <3
Thank you so much for being here!