The sky holds a great focus on Virgo right now with Saturn’s move there on Sept 2nd and a New Moon/Solar Eclipse at 19 Virgo today. In practical, perfectionist Virgo we find the personification of work as service, a topic that will be emphasized for the next two and a half years as Saturn travels thru Virgo.
What exactly does work as service really mean?
Certainly not everyone views their work as an act of service. Yet, once you recognize that everything in life is interdependent, work becomes the act of serving others that expresses yourself and your gifts. A Virgo’s urge for perfection is clearly expressed in their emphasis on providing service to others.
Growing up my stay-at-home Mom would complain about doing the laundry and having to pick up after us. Dad would drag in the door and barely move from his chair all night. Adults seemed to be burdened and always complain about the work they had to do.
By the time I was in my mid 30s, I had two jobs – office worker by day, housewife and mother by night. I was acting out the “work is work” approach they taught me. Dad always said, “Work is work and then you come home and do what you love.” Ugh!
Yet, work is not something separate from living. It is, in fact, a key component of your life. You spend so many hours working, if you don’t feel fulfilled, you are wasting you precious life.
But you’ve got to earn a living, you say? If you do not feel satisfaction and fulfillment in your work, you are “earning a dying.” Why can’t work give you energy, increase your joy of living rather taking it away?
Work that gives you life? No, it’s not an oxymoron. When you are doing what you love, what your heart calls you to, and using your unique skills and abilities, you feel fulfilled and enlivened not drained and burdened.
I know this because since I left my corporate job in 2003 to do astrological consultations and writing full-time, I have found joy and fulfillment in my work and all areas of my life have been thriving as a result.
Do you wake most mornings dreading to face your work day? You are probably not giving your gifts, not doing your mission, and not providing your unique service. You may be facing “work as work.” In fact, if you are not doing what makes your heart sing, you dishonor yourself and the whole world is suffering. It is missing an important part – your unique skills and abilities.
Whatever you are doing, consider that if you are giving your life energy to it, it must be important. If it is important, do it to the best of your ability. That is “work as service.”
If you don’t feel good about what you are giving your life energy to, consider how you may be wasting your energy, begin listening to your heart’s calling, and create a plan to step into that calling.
Some of you know that I am founder and director the Holistic Entrepreneur Alliance, a holistic business networking group that meets in MD and VA. Many of our members have come to the group suffering from a “work as work” career and ready to step forward into “work as service.”
It is my vision that, with Pluto entering Capricorn in late January until 2024, we will see a huge transformation in how and where work is done. The Soul-less, narrowly-defined, cubicled jobs inside corporations and other large organizations will be come less and less desirable. Entrepreneurs, sole-proprietors and loosely organized business alliances will thrive. I call it the “Era of Soul-Driven Livelihood.”
The Virgo’s urge to serve is based on the reality that through service to another we recognize what we have to offer and moving toward personal wholeness.
Let me close with the wisdom I found inside an Honest Tea bottle cap a couple days ago which says it all.
“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”
–Albert Pine, Biographer of Mark Twain
A Quote of Note
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
– George Bernard Shaw
