With tough Saturn now securely gone from your sign (it ended a three-year run July 22nd), the coming year should be a lot easier than the last few. Celebrate the person you’ve become during this “boot camp” cycle, Virgo. For better or worse, you KNOW yourself. Continue to honor the boundaries you discovered, while also boldly marking new terrain. When the Sun enters Libra on the 22nd, you’ll see tangible results: a new line of work, new daily habits, and a peaceful sense of finding your groove. What a lovely fall harvest!

Don’t turn your back entirely on the past, though. Your ruling planet Mercury is retrograde (backward) in Virgo until the 13th, a good time to reflect, revise, and polish your act for a mid-September debut. Eager as you are to start anew, you want to make sure you don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Expansive Jupiter, also retrograde, backs into Pisces on the 9th until January. Pisces rules your commitment sector, so you’ll need to be a bit greedy with your attention. Cherry-pick what (and whom) you say “yes” to for the rest of 2010.

LOVE & ROMANCE:
You take relationships by storm this fall—or perhaps they take you. On September 9th, expansive Jupiter backs into Pisces, your partnership sector. For the rest of the year, Jupiter links arms with revolutionary Uranus, igniting an Eat, Pray, Love-style awakening for Virgos who’ve been auto-piloting through intimacy (if that’s what you want to call your critical, humdrum attitude). These two planets rarely travel in sync, and on September 18th, they form an exact conjunction, jolting you with electricity. You’ll barely tolerate “business as usual” from that point on. Jupiter and Uranus herald radical change and a progressive stance. Long-distance (even open) relationships, equal divisions of household responsibility, a much younger or older lover…romance could come in an interesting package. Don’t judge it!

With transformational Pluto resuming direct (forward) motion in your romance sector on September 14th, you become more conscious of imbalanced power dynamics. Overthrow the dictator in your relationship—whether that’s you, your mate, or that picky devil on your shoulder that never allows anyone to be good enough. Make an effort to be social and to try new activities, too. With love-planet Venus and outgoing Mars both in your third house of communication, you need intellectual stimulation and great conversations. Take a class, join a Meetup group, go see a local band play. A friendship could even turn romantic this month.

Watch for storms at the September 23rd Aries full moon in your intimate eighth house. On the upside, this lunar event could bring engagements, pregnancies, births, and cohabitations. However, it will also square volcanic Pluto, ruler of the unconscious. The more dependent you feel on someone, the harder you’ll fight to push him/her away. Catch yourself red-handed before you lapse into regrettable behavior. You may have lost “that lovin’ feeling,” but perhaps it’s waiting to be rekindled. Don’t rashly call things off without some deep, psychological self-examination. Your motives are likely to be suspect near this charged date.

MONEY & CAREER:
This is your annual “what do I want to do with my life?” season. With the Sun in your sign and your ruler Mercury in a reflective retrograde position until the 13th, it’s a great time to take inventory. An online quiz or a more extensive Myers-Briggs test (pick up the book Please Understand Me or have it administered by a certified career coach) can provide valuable clues. With pleasant Venus and energizing Mars in your learning sector for much of September, you may literally want to go back to school. Sign up for an extension course—you’ll benefit doubly from the social interaction and new contacts. Join a writer’s group, a book club, a weekly salsa class. You need to be around interesting people, not alone in your head.

On September 22nd, the Sun enters Libra, your work and money sector. Roll up your sleeves and get busy sending out resumes or establishing your own venture. Stick to consistent hours and reward yourself with pleasure breaks—music, window-shopping, a decadent latte. With taskmaster Saturn in Libra for the next two years, you’re learning to quiet your anxious mind, stop worrying about the future, and put one foot in front of the other. Before you know it, you’ll reach the mountaintop. (Note: kvetching and neurotic what-ifs never got anyone up her personal Kilimanjaro.) Bone up on the Buddhist principle of “chop wood, carry water.” It’s not the work you do, it’s the attitude you bring to it.

HEALTH: MIND, BODY & SOUL:
You’re in master-planner mode for the first half of September, and it’s good to keep a watchful eye on yourself. Structured Saturn is ensconced in Libra, your daily routine house, until 2012. Old habits will die hard, but you can start by taking inventory of those which no longer serve you. When it comes to food and exercise, moderation will be hard at times. Deprivation gives you a false sense of control, but it also leads to the other extreme. You end up swinging between austerity and reactive bingeing. Saturn is here to teach you the power of equilibrium and slow, steady results that actually last. Throw away your scale and other self-punishing standards.

The Aries full moon on September brings out intense feelings, tensely angling Pluto in your dramatic fifth house. Buried emotions swell and every gripe is magnified, sending you down the warpath. You’re entitled to an occasional meltdown, but please rage responsibly, Virgo. Otherwise, you’ll rip through relationships like a twister in a trailer park. Are you yelling and stewing when you really just need a good cry?

Get to the heart of what’s really going on: you’re deeply confronted about asking others for support. Said simply, you won’t allow people to love you. It’s actually a form of stinginess, Virgo. The human heart expands through contribution, and people know their greatness through giving. (That’s why you’ve been hogging this role for so long.) If you can let that go—or at least, admit that it’s hard for you to receive—you’ll create a new level of intimacy. Next up: your Virgo Weekly Horoscope >