8:13:24

“Virgo is about wellness and well-being. It takes maturity to receive wellness or well-being. It requires maturity to realize what it even is. Love is manifested through wellness and well-being. Without maturity, you can never realize wellness or wellbeing…Virgo has the maturity to see what is good for her. This is where you have the maturity to see what is good for you. This is where you have the Spirit of abstinence. The Spirit of abstinence does not only apply to your sexual impulses, it is an insight that allows you to see the benefit and the blessing of delayed gratification and choice. It is the maturity to see the benefit of self-denial and self-sacrifice. It arrives you at the Hermit card in the Tarot, Divine Masculine. This is where Mother Mary influences your intuition. In my immaturity, I will reject well-being or wellness—my highest good, my destiny. In my maturity, I will receive and respect well-being and wellness. Well-being and wellness represents love. Love is not to make somebody feel good. Love is to be a resource of well-being and truth to another person. That is love. To become a resource of well-being for another person, a resource of wellness for another person, that is love. But does the other person have the maturity to receive it? To be healed? Virgo says: ‘Oh, honey, are you sure you want to go and do that because maybe that's not good for you.’ When a person stands between you and your desire, this is Virgo. That's what well-being looks like. Well-being stands between you and your desire. So when Venus comes through Virgo, this August, this is that expression; standing between you and your desire, so that you can obtain wellness or well-being for yourself first. Taking care of yourself by delaying gratification. That is what it means for Venus to pass through Virgo—delaying gratification, Temperance. So that you can see and realize wellness or well-being over your life. With the view of Virgo, you respect yourself and you love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Yes, I may have access to this, I have access to that, but you know what, I'm going to delay that gratification because I see through the view of wellness or well-being, I see through the view of maturity, that I need to delay this, what I want. Because there’s something else that needs my attention and focus. There’s a certain sequence that must be followed if I am going to pull this off. Otherwise, I am guilty of negligence and self-indulgence. That’s what this Mercury retrograde, and Virgo in general, is all about…Virgo, and wherever it rules your natal chart, allows you to examine yourself for imperfections, and what can be cleaned up, what can be perfected. What could be corrected, what needs to be addressed, and how can you tidy up this image. How can you polish this Crown? Are these whites white enough? Should I have put more bleach in this when I washed it? That's looking at it through Mercury, the introspect into how you are shining, or could shine, and how you think you should shine. How you want to shine…Virgo is the finishing school.”

-Bukola on the August Mercury retrograde in Virgo and Leo.

(Note: The “Oh, honey, are you sure you want to do that because maybe it’s not good for you,” is me, a Virgo rising, in a nutshell. I love Bukola’s voice and all his beautiful analogies.)