Virgo Traits & Personalities
(August 23 – September 22)
DUALITY: Feminine
TRIPLICITY (ELEMENT): Earth
QUADRUPLICITY (QUALITY): Mutable
Virgo is reserved, modest, practical, discriminating and industrious, analytical and painstaking, seeking to know and understand.
RULING PLANET: Mercury – Ancient god of communication and commerce. In astrology, Mercury rules intelligence and reason, and predisposes toward a high strung temperament.
SYMBOL: The Virgin – Representing purity of motive, modesty, industriousness, and service of oneself and one’s talents toward helping others. The virgin is usually pictured holding a sheaf of wheat that symbolizes the utilization of ideas and skills to benefit (nourish) the world.
GLYPH (WRITTEN SYMBOL): ♍ The symbol represents a Virgin, for it is a pictograph of the human reproductive organs closed and untouched. In symbolic terms, the glyph is a straight line connected to two curved lines, one of which is crossed. This represents wisdom tied to feeling and emotion, and crossed by practicality.
DOMINANT KEYWORD: I ANALYZE.
POLARITY: Pisces
Virgo is the sign of work and self-improvement. Its natives are perfectionists who dissect facts in order to find the truth and obtain all the information available. Pisces, Virgo’s opposite sign, is the sign of illusion and self-deception. Pisceans are prone to dreaminess, imagination, vagueness, self-delusion, and escapism.
PART OF THE BODY RULED BY VIRGO: The nervous system and the intestines: Virgoans are prone to illness caused by stress and nervous tension. They are particularly susceptible to ulcers.
LUCKY DAY: Wednesday
LUCKY NUMBERS: 5 and 3
MAGICAL BIRTHSTONE: Sapphire – Brings tranquility of mind and protects against illness and injury while traveling.
SPECIAL COLORS: Navy Blue and Gray: Classic colors of refinement and taste.
CITIES: Paris, Boston, Heidelberg, Strasbourg
COUNTRIES: Turkey, Greece, Crete, West Indies
FLOWERS: Morning glory and Pansy
TREES: Nut-bearing trees
METAL: Mercury
ANIMALS RULED BY VIRGO: Small domestic pets
DANGER: Virgo people sometimes arouse anger and violence in others because of their tendency to interfere, their critical tongues, and their unemotional attitudes.
All About Virgo
The real drama of Virgo’s personality is interior. To the world you may give an impression of calm authority, but you are aware of your own nervous, restless, controlled intensity, the desire to be up and doing, rearranging, improving. You can exhaust yourself more by simply sitting still than others do moving around.
The planet Mercury, which rules both Virgo and Gemini, inclines its subjects toward constant activity. However, in Gemini the nervous energy is directed primarily toward stimulation and adventure, while in Virgo the ceaseless drive is to accomplish and perfect. It’s impossible for Virgos to put off until tomorrow what might be done today, or to do later what might be done now. You are, in a word, organized. Your idea of taking it easy would seem like hard work to most people. You are not a daydreamer, you’re a day-doer.
Your emotional life is a constant striving to bring order out of chaos. Although you have a great capacity for love, love alone is not enough for you to be happy. You need more than a mate, home, children, friends. You must justify your life, conduct yourself as a good bookkeeper keeps a ledger—always ready to give a reckoning on whether there’s a profit or a loss. You’re ambitious, but not just for money. You want to know more, to gain in wisdom, and put this wisdom to practical use.
Your astrological symbol of the Virgin tends to be misunderstood. It does not mean you’re a prude or lack sensuality. The Virgin stands for purity of purpose. You’re not in the game of life to cheat or extract from others. You have higher motives. You want to be of use. In ancient times Virgo was the sign of the harvest—and the symbolic meaning of the Virgin holding a sheaf of wheat is that Virgo people take what has been sown (knowledge, information, skills) and harvest this energy to do something of practical benefit. In the same way wheat is turned into bread to feed our bodies, you want to utilize the gifts you were born with to nourish the world.
Intelligence is the hallmark of your sign. You have an excellent memory, an analytical mind, and are known for crystal-clear thinking. You also have a keen ability to probe into human motivations. People like to check their plans with you before putting them into action because you have microscopic vision when it comes to detecting a flaw. Your superb logic cuts through muddled thinking like a laser beam. You instantly zero in on a problem, take apart difficulties, and put them back together in proper order. Because you believe life should be approached rationally, you are without peer in solving knotty problems or tangled disputes. You are convinced that a reasoned presentation of the facts will carry the day. Until you have the facts before you, you are reluctant to make a decision; you want to know why and how a thing will work. Your faith is not in Chinese fortune cookies but in facts, and you distrust vague ideas that don’t stand up to critical appraisal or people who make emotional judgments.
Yet it would do you a world of good to have a little more faith in general and to trust in synchronicity—that certain events occur or people connect for a fortuitous reason. Your important life lesson is to expand your vision, to look at things in larger terms and believe in the power of faith. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the planet of thought and mental perceptions, and your ideas form your reality. If you hold on to a negative attitude, then your reality will also unfold negatively.
You tend to have difficult getting in touch with your deeper feelings because your mechanism of denial is so firmly set in place. “I’m not upset,” you’ll say. “I feel okay about [this other person being promoted instead of me, him dating another woman, etc.]” Saying you feel “okay” covers a lot of messy feelings you’d rather not examine.
Also, you often don’t see the forest for the trees. A preoccupation with neatness and precision sometimes limits your breadth of vision. That estimable faith in logic also confines your imagination and leaves you a little shy on inspiration, too dependent on established practices and methods. Your nature is to look back and analyze rather than push forward in a new direction. You must know the why and how of everything. Virgo is a mutable sign, however, so you can adjust easily to change once you find a way of fitting the new situation into your routine.
You may run into difficulty because of a tendency to complicate everything. No problem is ever simple for Virgo. For every answer you’ve got a question, and making mountains out of molehills is one of your specialties.
Your nature is shy and reserved; it’s hard for you to relax, to make small talk or be gregarious with strangers. You prefer one-on-one encounters, in which you can offer the full benefit of your sharp insights and discerning opinions. That’s also when people discover how well-read, perceptive, charming, and witty you are.
The first thing you learned about money matters is that money does matter. Although you tend to downplay your own ability in financial affairs, no one is better than you at staying within a budget. You aren’t tempted into foolish ventures. Your bank balances usually jibe to the decimal point. You want the finest but rarely overpay, and you have a built-in resistance against self-indulgence.
A highly developed sense of discrimination may lead you to be hypercritical. You are unsatisfied with things as they are and continue to analyze situations and people in the hope of finding a way to make them better. At times your finely tuned sensibilities can even make you unhappy, for they give you a heightened awareness of the world’s imperfections. However, you resist criticism of your faults from others. It’s a rare Virgo who takes criticism well or who can admit to being in the wrong.
You are health-conscious and try to make sure you get enough vitamins and go for regular checkups at the dentist. However, in this as in other areas, you can’t help being a worrier. As a result you are prone to tension and nervous ailments. Hypochondria is common among Virgos.
A warm, loving relationship brings out the best in anyone born under this sign because basically you are kind, devoted, and very loyal. When your affections are engaged you tirelessly try to serve loved ones. They will never have to worry about who’s going to keep the checkbook balanced or look after them when they are ill.
The Inner Virgo
You have plenty of willpower and dedication, and you work harder than anyone to make sure something is perfect. Why? Because if you can’t do everything superbly, you begin to fear that you’re failing. You are much too critical of yourself. Actually, you’re an enigma that no one has quite figured out. You hold back with people you don’t know well and are reserved even with those you love. Inwardly, though, you feel very deeply. Intensity and extreme sensitivity are part of your secret self. You like looking after others—giving advice to friends, feeding stray animals, tending sick plants—but you need to be appreciated for the kind things you do. Above all, you want to be useful because you truly care about people.
How Others See You
You’re regarded as a real go-getter. People trust you to handle any job. They think of you as a person who can analyze almost any problem in a logical way. Others come to you when they want their own actions explained to them, or are feeling confused about relationships. You are valued for your ability to set priorities and to create order out of confusion. Because you’re both discriminating and truthful, people trust your judgment on books, theater, and clothes. However, you don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, and as a result others often perceive you as haughty and cold.