There’s something about the Sun moving from Leo into Virgo that perceptibly downgrades some of the heat and intensity.

With the Sun no longer in fire-sign Leo — the sign of its rulership — the molecules that buzzed so rapidly in the heat of August are now beginning to settle into the mutable space between summer and fall, a space where this lovely serenity coincides with the very real sense that playtime is ending and we’re all going to have to get back to work soon.

That’s not to suggest Virgo’s a bore — or even remotely “virginal.” Virgo humor is “one eyebrow raised, slicing and dicing through your bullshit” humor. Virgo is the person you want on your team when it matters to be thorough and prepared. Virgo takes this ethos all the way to the bedroom, where technique (and attention to detail) become unexpectedly hot.

The archetype of the virgin is often much less about sexual purity than it is about the integrity of a concept, idea, or the physical form. Virgo is being selective about what you put into your body, and it’s being a little bit of a neat freak. Virgo is elevating the importance of environmental regulations, and it’s being somewhat uncompromising about your standards. Virgo is finding the flaws in someone’s argument, and it’s refining the raw expressionism that was Leo. Virgo is at once an earth sign and a Mercurial sign, which involves both the material (our bodies, the literal Earth) and the cerebral.

Logical, hyper-analytical Virgo follows buoyant, “all attention is good attention” Leo. “Look at me,” we all said. Except now that we’ve got everyone’s attention, everything about us is entirely on display. This might feel fun initially, but if you know anything at all about celebrity culture, then you know that an attentive gaze brings a critical gaze. And once you really look at something — anything at all — it becomes hard not to see everything that’s wrong with the picture.

Assuming we’re not wrapped up in hypercriticism and complainaholism, the keen eye of Virgo serves an extremely important purpose. Virgo, after all, is all about service, and it performs its work in a diligent and self-effacing manner, undoing the messy seams we stitched and replacing them with quality craftsmanship. This metaphysical expression of purification, refinement, and distillation is very much about separating the wheat from the chaff. Indeed, the Virgo maiden is often depicted holding a sheaf of wheat, because this is the time of the year traditionally linked with the harvest: of labor, diligence, and preparation for the winter ahead.

In a more modern sense, Virgo’s no-nonsense, “get it done right” mentality is what saves our asses when sloppy thinking (and sloppy work) begin to threaten our state of affairs. Too much living it up (Leo) will almost always necessitate a period of getting your shit together (Virgo), so even if Virgo has to carry the unfair burden of being pegged as the anal-retentive one, the entire premise of Virgo exists to make our pleasure sustainable.

When you weed the garden, the good stuff can thrive. And if you don’t know where to start, just make a list.

This post was originally published on 8/22/2017 on thedailyhunch.com.