VIRGO HOROSCOPE

The south node finally leaves your sign on July 27th. This brings to an end that Groundhog Day feeling of being stuck in a loop where you keep revisiting situations you thought you had escaped and problems you believed were solved. The point of south node energy is to get you to repeat old patterns until you're so sick and tired of them that you let them go. Consider it the karmic version of taking back an Ex who you know is no good. Not the easiest way to learn life lessons, but it's effective as you'll see when you break the cycle on November 25th.

The collapse of a pledge or agreement should be cause for concern so why are you breathing an enormous sigh of relief on December 23d? Probably because this is something you never wanted anything to do with in the first place. You had your fair share of doubts from the start but didn't voice them because you felt obligated and/or guilty. As you distance yourself from this situation keep in mind that this could happen again. Every time you don't speak up you're leading people to believe that you're happy with something when you're not. Do yourself a favor next time and just say “no.”

A Sun/Neptune square on December 20th brings the sinking feeling that everything is at loose ends. This will make you want to pin people down to specifics. You'll want to firm up agreements, lock in specifics, and ask loved ones for guarantees of emotional support and reassurance. Well, this won't be happening anytime soon. In fact it may take until January 26th for you to feel the ground beneath your feet again. Meanwhile tread water and give people plenty of leeway. They're deluged with their own pressing concerns and simply can't be there for you in the way that you would like them to be.

Neptune out of retrograde in Pisces on December 10th reintroduces a quandary. On one hand you'd love to be more independent and do what you want when you want, but on the other hand you're not sold on flying solo either. You've gotten used to sharing your life with a partner even if things aren't simpatico now. The trick to navigating planetary oppositions – both Saturn and Neptune are opposite Virgo now – is to turn an either/or situation into a “I'll have some of this and I'll have some of that” one. This allows you to build on the things that work and toss what doesn't.

You're going to shake your head in disbelief when once again a business partner experiences cold feet or a higher up hems and haws about something they promised to do. You've had your fill of these last-minute second thoughts, but instead of going into your song and dance where you have to razzle-dazzle the naysayers – do yourself a favor and just leave things be. A propitious Mercury/Saturn trine on December 7th shows that you have everything in place to launch the best campaign ever and it will launch whether this person is on board or not. Stick to the plan and they'll fall into line.

It was fun playing around with the idea of trying something different. Whether it was changing career tracks or indulging in a romantic flirtation, it looks like you'll soon be returning to familiar territory. You don't do well with phantasmal possibilities; you prefer down to earth ones. For most people Saturn coming out of retrograde on November 27th will feel like a cosmic homeroom teacher calling all the kids in from recess, but you'll be overjoyed. You've been missing those dependable tasks and responsibilities that make up your day. You've had your fill of free time and are looking forward to getting back to work.

There's nothing wrong with going back the way you came. It often happens during a Mercury retrograde. But if you were to return to something you just left wouldn't that be considered backsliding, self-sabotaging, or worse: desperate? There's only one way to find out and that's to travel back over the ground you just covered. Either you will reconfirm everything you knew to be true (nothing wrong with that) or discover something you overlooked the first time. And if that were to happen, isn't it better to know so you can fix things instead of continuing down a path you don't want to be on?

Switch mental caps from analysis to reflection when Mercury retrogrades past Mars on November 12th. It will help you to start practicing a more emotional kind of intelligence. This isn’t as hard as it sounds but it does require you to listen more than to speak. In fact if you focus on what the other person is saying rather than on what you expect to hear then you will be present and mindful in ways that are totally new and fresh. This ability to see things from somebody else’s perspective will do a lot to enrich yours and move you closer to a heretofore unattainable goal.

You know you got something wrong, but you can't quite figure out what. It's not unlike adding up a column of numbers and getting a different answer every time. You pore over every detail, but the solution stubbornly resists you. Welcome to Mercury retrograde. Mercury will be retrograde from November 9th to 29th. Planet of the mind, Mercury becomes a brainteaser when it's retrograde. What you want to watch out for is insisting that the rules still apply and that it's reality that's wrong. Think Alice through the Looking Glass. Get into the spirit of exploring the ridiculous and you could discover the sublime.

Check in with a client or customer to make sure that you're both on the same page with how a certain project or endeavor is coming along. You've been given a lot of leeway to do what you want but you don't want to set yourself up for any unpleasant surprises. It would be great if you could just wow him with your creative genius, but people in charge are rarely easy to please. They're often skittish and full of second thoughts which is why you'll want to walk him through what you've done and the reasons for why you made the choices you did.