Sun in Virgo

By seven in the morning you have already noticed three things: the drip under the sink, the email sent to the wrong person, the friend whose message last night was a little too cheerful. By nine you have dealt with two of them.

The second look

At work you are the person people bring things to check, and they are right to. You find the typo in the contract and the flaw in the plan, and you mention both without drama. You are funnier than people expect, too: dry and exact, and the table laughs a second late.

Your days run on small systems, and people tease you about them and then borrow them. You learn a thing properly or not at all, and when you explain it, people remember your version. You are happiest with a real problem in front of you and time to solve it properly, and unhappiest when someone asks you to do it fast and badly.

The harvest

Virgo was named for the harvest of the northern year, and its picture is the Maiden holding a sheaf of grain. The brightest star in the constellation is Spica, Latin for the ear of wheat. The Maiden brings the harvest in, sorts it, and makes sure nothing good goes to waste. Its ruler is Mercury, the planet of the mind, and this is Mercury’s best place too. Your Sun works the same way: you find the use in things, and in people, that everyone else walked past. You are the friend who knows a good doctor and a fair mechanic, and hands out both with the same brisk kindness.

After the day is done

This is the hard hour. The day is finished and your mind keeps working. You should have caught that. You could have said it better. You talk to yourself in sentences you would never say to a friend, and rest feels like something you have to earn, and the earning never quite finishes. Praise slides off you. One criticism stays for a week.

The harvest has an end. The grain is in, the field is finished, the season rests, and nobody walking past can see the one corner you would still fix.