Change of Fate

Lunar nodes shift into Virgo / Pisces

I feel like I’m being pulled in a new direction.

It’s not that my fundamental reason for being here on Planet Earth has shifted - does it ever? - but more like the forces of fate around me are tugging in different places. And as they do, my attention is drifting. I’m appreciating that the world has somehow changed, I’m starting to see things from another perspective, I’m understanding that it’s time for me to reorient my internal compass.

Yesterday I noticed for the first time that the direction I’m facing completely changes my worldview. It now seems so obvious, of course - we all know that the feeling of looking up a mountain is nothing like the feeling of looking down a mountain. But I hadn’t clocked just how formative this is, how it very literally shapes everything that we see. Try it out yourself, turn around and feel how your energy adjusts to your new point of view.

I’m also noticing how we experience ourselves at the center of Our Universe, how it will always look to us like the Sun is flying across the heavens even when science reassures us that we are the ones in motion. And so it is with the Zodiac, a wondrous wheel of stars that forever turns before our eyes as the fates align us with our destiny. These twelve constellations call us with celestial messages of healing and hope, and we are wise to listen to their stories.

Okay so these symbols bear little relation to the actual Zodiac, but I’m here for it.

And as we look up now, we can feel that the wheel has turned. We can see that our attention is indeed being drawn in a different direction, for this week the faithfully fateful North and South Nodes of the Moon have changed signs. The Moon’s Nodes aren’t physical bodies in the sky, but rather energetic points connected with the places that the Moon crosses over the path of the Sun in its orbit around the Earth. This makes the Nodes powerful points that - among other things - portend the Solar and Lunar eclipses that happen when the Earth, Moon and Sun assume a linear formation.

If you’ve tuned into what life feels like during eclipse season, you’ll know that these celestial events can bend time and space to move us where we need to be. The Moon’s Nodes are like marks in the sky that tell us the direction that energy will flow, and - much like eclipses - they can activate sweeping changes in our collective and individual lives. They move backwards around the Zodiac and change signs roughly every 18 months, a slow spin around our stellar wheel.

The Moon’s North Node is a point of rising up. Depending on the astrological tradition you follow, it can be equated with what you are becoming, what you long for, what you attract. On the other polarity, the Moon’s South Node is a point of descent. It can represent what you have already experienced, what no longer serves you, what you release. Personally, I have come to think of the Nodes as directions: the North Node is what we look towards, and the South Node is what we sense behind us. Both have something to offer, and we are best served by extending our awareness equally into the spaces they hold.

For the past year and a half, we have faced the North Node in Aries and sensed the South Node in Libra. These signs have drawn out the tension between the individual and the interpersonal, and we have all done work to let go of sticky relational patterns that prevent us from asserting who we are. We have learned that having a greater connection with ourselves makes it possible for us to have a greater connection with those around us, that it is in everyone’s best interests for you to unapologetically be you.

There will, of course, be more time to integrate these lessons as the heavenly wheel spins. And while we do so, we can now open our eyes to see the shimmering stars of Pisces before us as we feel the titillating twinkle of Virgo at our backs. The North Node in Pisces promises us a date with the divine, and we are being asked to embrace the idea that we are all part of the same thing. The idea of a you that is separate from me makes little sense in Pisces, much like it would be absurd to think of an ocean as an accidental conglomeration of unrelated water molecules that just happen to move together. Pisces would tell us that we move as one because we are one.

As its brilliant counterpart, the South Node in Virgo will help us to release the rigid belief systems that lock our perspectives in place. In its denser vibrations, Virgo can fall into the trap of technocracy. We can become locked in a quest to gather evidence that would validate our way of seeing things, getting so fixated on the apparent rigor of our investigation that we miss valuable information outside the bounds of our present awareness. Fear can drive us to exert control over the input we are willing to accept, to dismiss and discredit the experiences of others that we don’t yet know how to explain.

Together, the North Node in Pisces and South Node in Virgo will help us loosen our convictions to let more truth in.¹ I have already seen this dynamic at work in my own life this week when a fellow parent recommended that I listen to the Telepathy Tapes. This podcast brilliantly brings to light the way that non-speaking autistic children experience shared consciousness, how they lovingly communicate with their parents, teachers, therapists and each other without ever opening their mouths. And it also - more painfully - shows how this community has been sidelined and silenced for decades under the prevailing scientific paradigm of materialism.²

My hope for these children - and for all of us - is that this nodal shift opens us up to embrace the veracity of things that we cannot yet rationally account for. I imagine the progress that would be possible if we made resources available to study more than just what we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch, and I know that all of our lives would become so much richer as a result.

And so for the next 18 months, I encourage you to step more into the great big unknown. I invite you to let go of what you think you know, to listen for the truth that doesn’t square with what you were taught about the world. I promise you that it will be worth it, that your heart will grow three sizes in one day. Because if the Telepathy Tapes can show us anything, you are only ever looking at the tip of the iceberg. And perhaps the child who sits before you isn’t mute or illiterate, perhaps she’s an amazingly talented writer just waiting to be your best friend.

Love,

Patrick

PS: After last week’s post about the Mars retrograde and its relationship with the fires in Los Angeles, I was so touched to hear stories about firefighters rescuing photo albums and family heirlooms from houses that were set ablaze. These courage acts to protect our precious memories are the best of what Mars in Cancer has to offer, and I hope that they give comfort and solace to those who have lost their homes.

1. Thank you to my superstar friend

Candice M. Sanderson

for helping me find the clarity in these words, and for understanding how deeply connected we always are.💖

2. The basic premise of materialism is that nothing exists beyond the observable physical world. A corollary holds that if something cannot be measured, then it does not exist.