MOTTO: Critique Life! Analyze and Protect Self! The Troubleshooter
With Virgo rising, you present a “I am a problem solver” type of identity to others when you are feeling supported. When you are not feeling supported, you are more likely to be aloof and critical. The planet Mercury, rules Virgo. In the sign of Virgo, Mercury is influenced by the earth element, influencing your thoughts and communication style in a more concrete and practical way than when Mercury is in air, water, or fire signs. Your discriminative and analytical mind is focused on your physical world.
Virgo is a sign made up of mutable, earth, and yin energies.
The mutable quality of Virgo on your ascendant gives you the ability to discriminate between what is inadequate and adequate; between good and better. (The Ascendant, Your Karmic Doorway, p. 61) It is your instinctive desire to analyze, order and categorize facts in a more precise and clear manner and from there make whatever changes and adaptations are necessary to improve upon the quality of life for yourself and others. (Planetary Symbolism in the Horoscope, p.73 and Introduction to Evolutionary Astrology, discussion on the Virgo archetype)
The earth element focuses your energy on the real, material world. With the influence of the earth element on your identity, you take the practical and productive approach to everyday life. With a critical eye for detail and for the practical and real, you use your energies to methodically get tangible results as you go about your daily life.
The yin energy of this sign directs your thoughts and energy inward on self-analysis and self-improvement. The yin energy shows up in your daily life as the desire to provide the kind of valuable service to others that can also benefit the group or community with which you are involved. You do this with modesty and efficiency, excelling at attention to detail and planning.
Figuratively speaking, the energetic cloak you put on to interact with and meet the demands of the world around you is unassuming, functional, straightforward and unobtrusive. Industrious, helpful, and humble you present as someone who is a problem solver and ready to be of practical service. The doorway to your authentic self, while understated and reserved, shows you approach life with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Your instinctive urge is to bring intellectual (Mercury) order to your world by first noticing details that no one else sees and then adapting (mutable) and refining (earth) your behavior and environment accordingly. Intellectual order provides balance and an easy flow of energy to your daily life and is how you bring calm and harmony (yin) into your world. Order for you represents clarity. Clarity represents freedom because it frees your mind for other things. Paradoxically, this instinctive approach to daily life of improving yourself and your environment through self-analysis and corrective behavior can create chaos in your mind because perfection cannot be achieved. Things can always be improved. When you fixate on what you still need to do to make things better, calm and harmony become elusive. You become overly self-critical. Feeling that you are not measuring up to your own standards of perfection, you experience agitation and discord.
Feng Shui Support for the Virgo Energetic Signature:
Clarity, flexibility, and practicality are the qualities you need in your environment to feel energetically supported. Clarity can be addressed by clearing out clutter and bringing order to any chaos and confusion currently present in your immediate surroundings. Look at your surroundings. Is stuff just laying out in the open with no regard for order or proper placement? Using your discriminating abilities for categorizing what is necessary and what isn’t, pick up what doesn’t belong in the room and place it in its rightful place or discard it if it is no longer necessary or functional. Do this for the entire room before moving on to the next room. When you feel like you can walk into a room without being psychically bombarded by confusion and chaos, you will know you have attained your goal for simplicity and clarity.
Next, flexibility. This is harder to maintain only because once you have attained order and tidiness, you may feel you shouldn’t change anything. But flexibility here means ease of positive energy flow throughout your space. By taking the above step to clear out clutter, you have opened space up for energy to flow, to no longer be stagnant. Your next step will be to ensure a gentle flow of energy throughout your space. To encourage steady but not rushing energy, create a path for the energy to flow with strategic placement of furniture, plants, and/or other decorative fixtures. For example, place furniture so that there is not a straight path from the entrance to the exit of the room. You want a clear, meandering path from one room to the next. The aim is to allow the energy to “visit” the room before moving on to the next room.
An inner wall, or other large obstruction, that is too close to the entrance of a room blocks the energy from entering that room. To encourage energy to enter freely and move into other rooms, add light to the entrance and a mirror on the side wall. However, if there is a mirror on the wall directly opposite you as you enter a room, remove it because it has the energetic effect of pushing the energy back out. Instead place a welcoming picture here. This will energetically serve to deflect the negative energy of a blank wall.
A doorway that opens directly onto a staircase sends energy rushing up the stairs instead of flowing into the ground level room. You can slow down energy that is rushing up a staircase by either hanging a windchime from the ceiling of the entrance or by placing an item like a plant or piece of furniture strategically at the entrance (but not blocking it!) to encourage the energy to meander. (Feng Shui for Everyday Living, pp. 84-85)
Practicality is paramount in the life of a Virgo rising person. While beauty is important, functionality and the intelligent use of space align with the natural, clear expression of your personality. Clutter does not energetically support you. Because you like things to be simple, practical, and functional, your immediate surroundings should favor efficiency, simple decorative lines, and organization. Making sure you have a place for everything and that everything is in its place will support your energetic needs. (Home Astrology, p.68)
Feng Shui tips for boosting the natural, clear expression of your personality:
The Helpers/Travel area in your home, when enhanced with Feng Shui adjustments, will give energetic support to your desire for simplicity, clarity, and functionality. It is located in the front right (Western) or Northwest (Classical) side of your home. Enhancing this area will help to bring synchronistic order to your life. The element for this area is metal.
In Feng Shui, metal is the element that is the “Organizer”. Its function is to refine, purify, and clarify energy. (Decorating with the Five Elements of Feng Shui, p. 97) These attributes align with your Virgo personality traits. Adding metal objects and other representations of the metal element to your environment is beneficial and energetically supportive of your Virgo rising sign’s energetic signature. The energy of the metal element supports you as you go about your daily life keeping what is necessary and discarding what isn’t, both figuratively and literally.
To add metal energy to your space, use objects made of metal or silver. Surfaces like marble and granite are energetic supporters of the metal element and therefore can be used to support the energy of your Virgo rising sign. Adding white, gray, silver, gold or pastel colors to your walls will activate the energy of the metal element. Adding furnishings and objects of those colors to your environment enhance the metal energy as well. Shapes that are round and oval and that form arches and domes also represent metal energy. (feng shui in the home, p. 54)
With the discriminating characteristic of the mutable quality, the exacting characteristic of the earth element, and the inner directing and reflective energy of the yin approach, yours is a personality identity that is constantly seeking to refine and perfect yourself and your surroundings. Paying great attention to detail and how you can be of service to others, you aspire to bring intellectual order to an inherently disorderly world. As Monk (the main character of the TV series, Monk) would say, this is both a blessing and a curse.
Virgo is one of the more misunderstood signs in the zodiac. If you have Virgo on the Ascendant you, too, may have a difficult time understanding yourself and your feelings about yourself and the world around you. Many people think of Virgos as meticulous and intolerant of imperfections, and you may think of yourself in that way as well. In your efforts to make things as perfect as possible, you are as hard on yourself as you are on others.
The instinctive urge felt by one with Virgo rising is to analyze life experiences in a practical and dispassionate manner in the attempt to see what you can do better in this quest for perfection. The trap here is when you define yourself by the ideal of perfection instead of understanding yourself within the context of this imperfect world. When you analyze your behavior and that of others against the ideal of perfection, you create a personal identity crisis of inferiority and disillusionment. Becoming critical and reproachful, you find it difficult to let go of the feeling that everything you do and think is somehow wrong. These feelings of inferiority open the door to the shadow nature of your Authentic Self. Nervous tension, nitpickiness, and insecurity are the result. Instead of being able to operate from your positive, problem solver approach, you become susceptible to the less productive pessimistic, nay-sayer approach.
Feng Shui Suggestions for Addressing this Susceptibility:
To counteract the susceptibility for pessimism and cynicism that being overly aware of and critical of the shortcomings of yourself and others, activate the Knowledge/Self-Cultivation area of your home. It is located in the front left (Western) or Northeast (Classical) side of your home.
By activating this area, you will be energetically creating support for “inner strength and personal growth…. thus, improving a strong sense of self”. (Feng Shui With What You Have, p.65) This area is associated with the aspirations for spiritual understanding, composure, patience, contentment, inspiration, and the pursuit of inner strength and wisdom.
Enhancements to this area include images of mountains, deep blue and earth colors, meditation objects such as an altar, cushions, soft music, and inspirational items that represent your goals for self-improvement and self-actualization. This area is an ideal location for meditation and spiritual aims so is an appropriate place for an altar (table or platform) to place symbolic and functional items to invite chosen energies to guide you. (Feng Shui Revealed, p. 17 & 62; Decorating with the Five Elements of Feng Shui, p. 142-143; feng shui your life, p.144)
Finally, the key word for Virgo is “service”. As a Virgo rising individual, you instinctively feel that being of service to others is a critical ingredient to your happiness. No matter how tired you feel, if someone asks for help, you say, “I will”. Because of the Virgo affinity for detail, analysis, and seeing what can be improved upon, the service you gravitate to is solving problems for others. Your happy place is when you can help someone by putting your acute analytical skills and inquiring mind with its extraordinary memory to good use.
However, when your work is criticized or not appreciated, this can leave you feeling anxious and apprehensive, even angry. This, in turn, triggers the negative behaviors of the Virgo sign. You become reserved to the point of being stand-offish and you find fault with everyone and everything.
Feng Shui Tips to Help You When You are Feeling Unappreciated, Disrespected or Disapproved of:
Enhance the Fame and Recognition area of your home to encourage positive energy for creating a new perception of yourself and to have your efforts acknowledged by others. It is located in the rear middle (Western) or south (Classical) side of your home. When you are feeling that your willingness to be of service is unappreciated or discounted, this is the area of your home to activate. It will also help to quiet your inner self-critic when it emerges with negative self-talk.
As always, clear out any clutter in this area before making your Feng Shui improvements. Next, remove any water features or images from this area. The element for the Fame and Recognition area is fire. “Fire illuminates you and your unique characteristics and accomplishments.” (feng shui your life, p.145 & 146) Water puts out fire and therefore would throw the proverbial wet blanket on any efforts to have your efforts appreciated.
The best colors to use to energize the intention of this area are red, orange, yellow and green. The positive energy of the fire element will be strengthened when you apply any one or a combination of these colors to this location of your home.
Embellish this area with light, lots of light. Natural sunlight, artificial light from lamps, and firelight from candles, lanterns and fireplaces increase the potential to have your efforts to be of service welcomed by others. Although, having the Virgo sign on the house of your personality identity makes you humble by nature, it doesn’t hurt to have others recognize and respect what you do.
While embellishing your Fame and Recognition area, set your intention to support your Authentic Self’s desire to “walk the talk” of trading criticism, including self-criticism, for appreciation and recognition. Cultivate this intention with your proactive Feng Shui improvements and you will be facilitating your sincere desire to be of service to others. It is only when you can be true to and honor your authentic self that you can contribute to the larger whole.
By substituting positive, productive actions for negative, nonproductive reactions, you are inviting into your daily life energetic support for your Virgo personality identity. Increasingly, you will understand and value your authentic self’s uniqueness. This will not only benefit others; it will benefit you. The more you take control of honoring and valuing yourself, the less likely you will feel a victim of circumstances beyond your control.
You are learning about yourself through the reactions of and responses from others to your behavior as you go about your daily life. Their feedback to you regarding your actions will be either positive or negative. You will enjoy positive feedback from others when you operate from a practical, problem solving approach. Whereas, negative feedback can occur when you operate from a “poor me”, victim-type of approach or when you are being critical, cynical, or aloof with others. Regardless of the type of feedback, you will continue to grow, and your authentic self will continue to discover something new about itself. (Introduction to Evolutionary Astrology, discussion on the archetype of the 1st house / ascendant / rising sign)
(references used for background material: Discussions on the Virgo sign in the following books: The Ascendant, your Karmic Doorway discussion on Virgo, Knack Astrology, A Spiritual Approach to Astrology, Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Astrology, and The Secrets of your Rising Sign)
Feng Shui for your Rising Sign 