The Nodes of the Moon are not planetary bodies.
They are points made where the Moon's orbit around the Earth intersects with the Earth's orbit around the Sun. They are always retrograde/move counterclockwise. The North Node is the ascending node (closest to our North Pole). the South Node is the descending node (closest to our South Pole). They are 180 degrees apart. In Evolutionary Astrology the North Node is like a North Star/direction forward and the South Node is like the present/past.
On July 26th and until spring of 2028 - our 'way forward' changes from Pisces - allow, live and let live, release, dream, drift, connect, pray, be compassionate, be unsure. To Aquarius - participate, differentiate, question, experiment, collaborate, innovate, contribute, organize, envision, connect without merging, build toward the future.
This change is a pretty big shift of the galactic steering wheel! A significant shift in the way forward. Pisces trusts the unfolding. Aquarius trusts participation in the unfolding. Those bigger hands than ours that have had the wheel for the last 18 months, well ... now they are our hands. We have the wheel. All of us. TOGETHER (or else AI will have the wheel because those are our collective hands, too - what's it going to be?).
Something to keep in mind is that unless you were born during a time when the North Node was in Aquarius, you have your own personal/natal North Node, too.
The collective North Node is the direction of the moment. That is what has shifted. Our natal North Node describes our particular developmental path. They don't replace each other. This is important to remember. The posts I write here are COLLECTIVE. Our natal North Node tells us something about our road. The transiting North Node tells us something about the landscape everyone is traveling through right now.
For example, my North Node is in Cancer. My Sun is in Aquarius, so I am familiar with both the similarities and dissimilarities of the two signs already. Both are concerned with belonging and the creation of a place for people within a larger whole. Cancer creates belonging through home, intimacy and attachment while Aquarius creates belonging through shared purpose and relationship among individuals. The transiting North Node in Aquarius will eventually form an inconjunct to my own North Node in Cancer - it is actually happening right now because my North Node is at 29 degrees. An inconjunct is not the same as a conjunction, opposition or trine. It doesn't say, "This is your destiny now." But something more like - your way forward and the collective way forward don't automatically fit. Adjustment is required.
The collective South Node - where we are and what we are needing to release if it has grown over-blown - has just moved from Virgo into Leo. This will be complicated and also expedited by the next year of Jupiter (expansion) in Leo, too.
We are being given an enormous dose of something we already know how to do so that we can finally see what it looks like/feels like when we have too much of it.
The South Node in Leo (Leo is the sign ruled by the Sun) for roughly 18 months describes a collective familiarity with solar consciousness. The individual, the leader, the hero, the creator, the sovereign, the person whose particular light becomes the organizing principle. Then Jupiter spends roughly the first year of that passage in Leo, expanding exactly the terrain we're being asked to examine/release.
Jupiter doesn't tell us to release something by making it smaller like Saturn might. He often teaches by making something BIGGER. And with the South Node here it's amplification of the very habit the axis is asking the collective to graduate from!
If Leo's healthy gifts are courage, creativity, generosity, leadership, warmth, loyalty, and the capacity to stand visibly in one's own identity, Jupiter can make those things magnificent. But Jupiter can also magnify the Leo shadow which is stuff like - needing to be seen in order to feel real, mistaking applause for connection, celebrity and spectacle, heroic narratives, "I alone can do it", the belief that one's personal story is the larger story. And because the South Node is there, we may be watching a culture celebrate and exhaust itself with Leo AT THE SAME TIME.
(it is not a coincidence the movie, The Odyssey about our flawed hero Odysseus and a teen lifeguard saving a boy in California - who stepped back from the applause and spoke of it being just his job and a team effort - both caught the collective attention as the nodes shifted)
Jupiter in Leo can amplify the longing for the larger-than-life person. Who is going to save us/me? Who is strong enough? Who is the real leader? Who deserves the crown? Who will restore greatness? And then the South Node says, hey notice how much energy we're putting into that question. The North Node in Aquarius asks a different question - what kind of system doesn't require a hero? That's a profoundly democratic question. A healthy democracy doesn't require extraordinary people to function. It requires ordinary people participating in extraordinary numbers. That's Aquarius.
And remember we had asteroid Herakles/Hercules sitting with Saturn/Neptune at their historic meeting in February at 0-degrees Aries. Life was asking what kind of structure can begin after the old reality has dissolved. Then put Hercules there (also Borasisi, the dystopian tech Sun God). As the Nodes shifted into Aquarius/Leo asteroid Herakles/Hercules had moved on to 26 degrees Taurus, the exact home of powerful fixed star Algol (losing one's head, algorithms, among other things).
Hercules is the hero who solves everything by becoming STRONGER. His entire myth is organized around extraordinary individual capacity. He is the strongest. He performs the impossible labor. He defeats the monster. He cleans the stables. He captures the impossible animal. He descends into the underworld. When there is a problem - send in Hercules :)
He is the perfect mythic figure for a culture, and this is especially strong in the United States and movie culture, that has become accustomed to believing that enormous problems require an enormous person. The heroic model says - give me the impossible problem and I will overcome it. But Saturn/Neptune asks something much more unsettling. What happens when the problem cannot be overcome by strength alone because the problem is the structure itself?
So maybe one of the great tests of the next 12–18 months is whether we continue looking for the exceptional individual to resolve collective problems or can we start developing the relationships, institutions, networks and civic capacities that make exceptional individuals less necessary.
Rereading Tolkien this summer and the difference between Leo and Aquarius also reminds me of the distinction between the king and the fellowship. The king remains necessary. Aragorn's kingship matters. But The Lord of the Rings isn't ultimately saved by the king alone. It's saved by an interconnected fellowship in which every seemingly insignificant member carries a piece of the whole. Gandalf cannot do Frodo's task. Frodo cannot do Aragorn's. Sam cannot do Gandalf's. None is the center of the story in isolation, yet each is indispensable. That's Aquarian thinking. Not equality because everyone is the same. Interdependence because everyone is uniquely different.
Everyone gets to be Hercules in some small way. And no one has to be Hercules for everyone.
The question may be something like - what kind of system doesn't require a HERO. Because if a society continually requires extraordinary individuals to rescue it, something about the underlying structure isn't working. A healthy system distributes competence. It doesn't collapse because one person leaves. It doesn't require everyone to agree on one charismatic center.
But Aquarius doesn't kill Hercules. Aquarius gives him/us a different job. Instead of - Hercules (or the king) must save everyone. it becomes - Hercules contributes his extraordinary strength to a group in which everyone has a role. The hero becomes a participant rather than a savior. We stop asking the hero (Leo) to do the work of 'the people' (Aquarius).
Maybe for now though with Jupiter in Leo, too - enlarging what's already there, we get the shadow expression turned up - spectacle politics, cult-of-personality leadership, a hunger for main-character narratives at exactly the moment history is asking for coalition-thinking. That's the "seductive last hurrah" reading - the old pattern gets one more grand, generous, golden performance before the work of Aquarius really sets in. Maybe.
And keep in mind Jupiter here isn't only inflation. In evolutionary work, Jupiter conjunct the South Node can also be read as benevolent permission to bring the gift forward rather than exile it - the difference between "leave Leo behind" and "stop hoarding what Leo does well." Jupiter's job might be less about amplifying the trap and more about making the handoff generous instead of punitive. Carry the warmth, the creative courage, the willingness to be visible FORWARD.
The last time these nodes traveled this axis was 2007 - you likely remember what technology and networked belonging looked like then, still analog-hearted and mostly innocent of what it would become. I started selling on Etsy and met so many amazing people online. Whatever waits on the other side of this door in 2026 through 2028 will probably not be so innocent because we have Pluto in Aquarius now. Pluto's presence means old structures of belonging - who counts as "us," what a collective even is, which platforms hold power over which crowds - will not evolve so much as they will be excavated, and some of them will be buried.
Also something to keep in mind is that every soul/each one of us carries both ends of this axis which is the part I don't want to forget to say plainly - we are not asked to renounce the Leo self. You are asked to stop mistaking it for the whole of us. The heart that wants to be witnessed is not wrong. It simply has a new room to enter, one with more doors than walls, one where the light we carry is only useful once it's willing to be one among many - think about a constellation instead of a sun.
Some ways we can use this axis in the coming year to make our lives and other people's lives BETTER.
1. LET YOURSELF BE EXCELLENT - but don't make 'being excellent' thje price of admission. Leo can have a hidden bargain of something like - if I am special enough, talented enough, generous enough, successful enough, then I will matter. Aquarius says you already belong. You already matter. So, develop the talent. Make the beautiful thing. Be proud of it. Let yourself shine. But experiment with belonging that doesn't have to be earned through being impressive.
2. SHARE THE STAGE - This may be one of the simplest Aquarian practices. Notice where you instinctively become the person who knows, decides, organizes, performs, fixes or entertains. Then deliberately create room. Ask someone else what they think. Let someone else lead. Recommend someone else's work. Introduce two people who could help each other. Give credit publicly. And, importantly, don't step back because you think you're taking up too much space. Step back because you want to discover what happens when another person occupies the space. That's Aquarius.
3. BECOME GENUINELY INTERESTED IN OTHER PEOPLE'S UNIQUENESS - Leo says - Here I am. Aquarius says - Who are you? Not as comparison. Not "what can you do for me?" Genuine curiosity. Aquarius is higher mind. One of the most Aquarian things an individual can do is become fascinated by people who are not like them. Different generation. Different politics. Different profession. Different temperament. Different way of solving problems. Not necessarily agreeing. Learning how another mind works. That's how collective intelligence develops. The reason AI has been able to take over is because we are forgetting how to do this!
4. MAKE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO MORE THAN YOU - Leo creates. Aquarius shares. Make the recipe and give it away. Teach what you know. Start the neighborhood project. Create the gathering. Mentor somebody. Build something with friends. Make art that invites participation rather than simply admiration. The question becomes - can my creativity become a meeting place? That's Leo becoming Aquarian.
5. PRACTICE BEING USEFUL WITHOUT BEING INDISPENSIBLE - Leo can secretly enjoy being the one everyone needs. Aquarius asks - what happens if I teach you how to do it? Instead of solving someone's problem, give them the information, connection or confidence to solve it themselves. Instead of being the person who holds the group together, help other people develop relationships with each other. Instead of building something that requires your constant presence, create something that can continue without you.
6. LET OTHER PEOPLE'S SUCCESS MAKE YOU HAPPY - this may be one of the purest practices of the Aquarius North Node. Leo naturally notices and states - I did that. Aquarius learns to experience genuine pleasure in - look what they did. And even - look what we did and it doesn't matter who did which part.
7. STOP CONFUSING VISIBILITY WITH IMPACT - this is particularly important right now. Leo asks -was I seen? Aquarius asks - did it make a difference? Those aren't the same things and they never have been. Some of the most important things we do may be almost invisible. A conversation that changes someone's direction. Introducing two people. Encouraging a young person's talent. Showing up consistently. Sharing information. Voting. Volunteering. Making someone feel that they belong. There may be no applause whatsoever. This is how life always worked, and we have forgotten and forgot to teach our children. And if we don't teach our children this, they will look around them at the world and learn something else.
8. BUILD MORE HORIZONTAL RELATIONSHIPS. Rather than relationships that are organized around hierarchy like teacher/student, expert/novice, leader/follower - look for reciprocity. "I know this, you know that." "I can help you here, you can help me there." "We're both learning." That creates networks rather than pyramids. And it doesn't mean abandoning leadership. Aragon is still a king, keep this in mind. It means leadership circulates.
BOTTOM LINE - USE JUPITER IN LEO for the next year. Be more creative. Take the risk. Start the project. Write Teach. Lead. Love. Make the thing you've been afraid to make. Claim your gifts. Have the baby. Let yourself become bigger. And then ask, who else can this benefit?
I hope something here is helpful.
xo all
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