The Nodes Have Changed Signs — What It Means & Why It’s Important

Hey everyone. This is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology [https://nightlightastrology.com/].

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Today we're going to take a look at the nodes of the Moon changing signs. The North Node has just moved into Aquarius. The South Node into Leo. We're going to discuss the meaning of these nodal positions today and give you some things to watch for, as well as the timeline of the nodes of the Moon being in these signs overall, I think that you'll find this useful.

I'm also going to draw on a text today that I used as a part of my source material for today's talk. It's called "Yesterday's Sky: Astrology and Reincarnation" by Stephen Forrest. Just revisiting that text recently to see what his take was on the nodes of the moon in Aquarius and Leo. I'll share a few thoughts from that text as well. Always like to shout out anyone, any other astrologer that I'm using as source material.

So hopefully you will enjoy that book if you like today's talk as well. All right. Well, anyway, before we get into it, remember to like and subscribe. Share your comments. Share your reflections. Give us that little thumbs up. It takes two seconds to subscribe, and it's free to do so. We really appreciate it. It helps us grow and sustain what we do.

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So here's Nachepso, which is our affiliate software program. You can get a 20% off discount perpetually. It never ends if you get the link to our affiliate in the comments or the description of the video, but here's Nichepso, and you can see the nodes of the moon in Leo and Aquarius. Let's let's I'm going to take out everything but the nodes.

Now let's go forward and just watch how they roll through. They are always moving retrograde, so we're taking them through Leo and Aquarius. Yeah, North Node in Aquarius, South Node in Leo, and they don't retrograde fully into Capricorn and Cancer until April of 2028. So it's it's just a little under-it's like a year and a half, like around that amount of time that the nodes spend in each sign.

And that means during this period of time, eclipses will form around this axis. During this period of time, we have a number of eclipses that will be taking place in the signs of Leo and Aquarius. Not as many as you might think, because of out of sign eclipses. For example, this August we have on the 12th a solar eclipse in Leo coming up very shortly now, and then on the 28th of August we've got a lunar eclipse in Pisces out of sign.

Then we go to february 6 of 2027, and we have a solar eclipse in Aquarius this next winter in the northern hemisphere. But then we have on february 20 a lunar eclipse in Virgo, out of sign. We then go to july 18 of 2027 for an out of sign lunar eclipse in Capricorn, followed on august 2, 2027, by a solar eclipse in Leo again, and then one last lunar eclipse on august 17 of 2027 in Aquarius.

So that means between this August and the end of the stay of the nodes of the moon, and actually one there's one more that I missed. So the last one is January 26, 2028. There's one more solar eclipse in Aquarius. So between now and early 2028, we have what five eclipses in Leo and Aquarius. So we're officially in the season of this setting for the nodes of the moon.

So what I want to do today is I want to talk about what this axis represents. I think one of the things that really helps is I want to just I want to show you just something that that there's a section of yesterday's sky that I mentioned part two the cookbook. In this section, if you want a really good reference for the nodes of the moon moving through the signs from the evolutionary perspective.

Stephen Forrest has a really nice outline, and some of my notes come from this outline today, so I want to be explicit about that. But in particular, if you happen to be following along, or if you have this book, or if you get a copy of it, check out the section that starts on page 118 and runs to about 120. I'm not going to read it, but my notes come from this section in part.

And this is the South Node in Leo, North Node in Aquarius. But I actually read both sections as a part of my note taking. I revisited some Jeffrey Wolf Green on Pluto and the Pluto polarity point in Leo and Aquarius, kind of some similar evolutionary themes. So here's what comes to my mind when we're talking about this access in general, we're usually talking about authentic individuality and the intersection between authentic, totally unique individuality and the collective, meaningful participation in the human community.

So, all of us are social animals, but we're also utterly unique and unlike any other animal in our heart, in our essence as a spirit soul. It's like snow falling. It's all the same snow, but each flake is unique. It's that kind of thing. Both signs, Leo and Aquarius, deal with individuality, but they deal with it in very different ways.

Aquarius is often about groupthink, and that could be ideology or community or culture. It could be religion. It could be you know intellectual or scientific views on things. It can happen within a discourse community, like one group of scientists that think one way about a problem, and another group that's on the other side thinking about it differently. String theorists versus some other group.

So, it's not just political; it's also cultural, and it can be. It really has to do with where we consider our identity to meaningfully overlap with a group or collective identity, and frequently both signs will push and pull on what it means to be unique, but they do it in very different ways. For example, Aquarius can be about individuality.

It's not that Leo has the market cornered on unique heart-centered individuality. Aquarius can be individual insofar as it breaks from certain groups in order to it will break from certain groups in favor of different groups, and so one of the things that Stephen Forrest talks about is the heretic as an archetype that can come up across this axis. The reason for that is that Aquarius might have to break from certain communities and belong to other communities that risk some kind of social ostracization or being misunderstood.

Aquarius is frequently like I have to be a free thinker. I have to be my participation in the world has to be based on the groups or the collectives or the trends or the thoughts or the ideas that feel most individual to me. Now, sometimes Leo, on the opposite hand, on the other hand, will be like, I don't want to belong to any group. I don't want to belong to any collective.

I just want to be an individual, not a social construct. And so it'll push back against Aquarius's version of individuality, where Aquarius is like, you know, for example, I remember how revolutionary it felt to become an astrologer, and to align myself with astrology as a field, as a career, as a spiritual path in life, as opposed to the Christianity that I grew up with. For example, that felt like a pretty daring choice.

Why the South Node in Aquarius on the mid heaven? You know. So there you go. It's like, yeah. There's been choices I've made in my life. I remember drinking ayahuasca and aligning myself with Reality Sandwich, this group online magazine that I wrote for in a community of people who were interested in entheogens and alternate states of consciousness and mysticism and neuroscience and all this kind of stuff.

And that group felt more like me than the other groups, and so Aquarius is very much about individuality and individuation, but usually along the lines of ideas, and how ideas put us in certain spaces with other people that share similar values or ideas. So Leo sometimes can want to be liked too much and want to be popular or famous or in the spotlight to the detriment of being an individual.

You know, like the only thing that matters is that I'm famous or that I'm liked or that me as a individual person is celebrated or praised, to the detriment of social individuation, which means understanding that you're part of something bigger than just yourself. On the other hand, Aquarius can do the same thing. Aquarius can mistake group, an interesting group or a progressive group or a forward-thinking group in whatever that means to an individual for individuality.

It's like no, it's still a group. Who are you? So you can feel the way that these signs push and pull against each other. So, south node in Aquarius, north node in Leo. If we had it that way, we don't. We have it opposite. Will usually be that the individual will already possess with the south node in Aquarius a healthy sense of intellectual independence, he says, a willingness to question authority.

To think outside of convention or consensus, the courage to be unconventional or original. He talks about the courage to stand apart socially. That doesn't mean to not identify with anything socially. It means to do so in ways that are somewhat unconventional, or independent, or forward-thinking, or whatever. And so, there's a competence there for people with the South Node in Aquarius, and I can relate to that since I was born with the South Node in Aquarius.

I, I've always been interested in that. That's been easy for me. You know, like it just felt so natural to find my way to entheogens and astrology and yoga and all of these things out of the Christian church to sort of be the person that questioned. I went to a Christian school, and like half of my dorm mates thought I was a heretic. You know, because I was reading existentialism and all this stuff, and like questioning my faith in ways that to them was like, oh, like shocker.

And I'm sure some of you can relate to that. Maybe you have strong Uranus placement, or maybe you also have the South Node in Aquarius or something. There's lots of ways that kind of thing can show up, but the South Node in Aquarius is a pretty good one, and the shadow is that he says the shadow with people with the South Node in Aquarius is that they can be a little too detached.

Or they can get identified with ideas rather than feelings. They can get emotionally dissociated from their own body in favor of groupthink. They can get alienated from ordinary humanity because they just have to be so different all the time, they can become somewhat isolated because they're looked at as very unconventional and strange by a lot of people. They're more, sometimes more invested in being a part of the right group or right idea than being a person.

They're attached to outsider identity as a matter of ego investment, not that that's maybe not been looked at. So these are all south node problems potentially in Aquarius. Now the north node in Leo, if we had it that way, Forrest would he says in his text that there's something about Leo that needs to be seen and heard, not just to be right. So the rightness alone isn't good enough.

It's not good enough unless you can reach people from the heart. So you have to develop warmth if you have a North Node in Leo. Instead of having good ideas, become approachable, become persuasive, charming, charismatic, become relatable, communicate from the heart, and so that's one thing that Leo might be developing relative to the tendency toward ideological self-righteousness or progressive outsider complex.

It's like, yeah, your ideas are great, but you still have to develop the capacity to be likable, to be lovable, to be more than just an idea, so that you're not constantly polarizing with people who don't share the same. And he says, in a way, like the North Node in Leo is developing a bit of theatricality, confidence, style-not in a superficial way, he says-but he says that it's because it builds effective bridges.

So South Node in Aquarius people may have a bit of a chip on their shoulder, and may need to become genuinely more likable. I was like, "That's, I love that. That's a great, that's a, that's a, it's a great kernel of wisdom. He says that such a person with the North Node as Leo is moving. He quote, "Such a person is moving beyond rightness into effectiveness. Can you actually move people's hearts?

So, if you have experienced rejection and you are a part of an unconventional or outsider thought group, culture group, ideological group, he says that the person with the South Node in Aquarius can become judgmental, cynical, and emotionally guarded, and Leo will say, "Move into the heart, forgive, reconnect, and learn to trust because you are seeing the goodness in your heart transcends which ideas make ideas don't make you good.

Your heart alone is good enough, and when you see that in others, then your idea is not as much of a castle that you're trying to defend and protect yourself within. And now we're talking about ideas in terms of social ideological constructs of belonging and identity. Okay, well, let's go to the South Node. North node flip now, right? Because if we put the South Node in Leo and the North Node in Aquarius, that's what we have right now.

And it just inverts things a little bit. So the South Node in Leo, the gift is leadership. It's visibility. It's confidence, presentation, charisma, heart centeredness, recognition, and it's about being an individual apart from any idea, or being an individual that's able to effectively carry ideas because your heart is is sort of bigger and more central than the idea, which is not that's not a bad thing.

That's a good thing. So, you know, we are living spirit souls, not ideas. Even if the ideas are good, and even if ideas and social constructs are an important, unavoidable part of life, but the South Node in Leo has developed in the past life, according to the EA tradition, all of these kind of Leonic qualities. So he says that the shadow of the South Node in Leo is success being defined by the expectations and values of an audience or of others.

That say this is what this is what makes you valuable. This is what makes you special. This is what makes you praiseworthy. Instead of instead of I am who I am and I know who I am and I'm acting from the heart of who I am, Stephen Forrest says that the shadow becomes I know how to be admired, I know how to be liked, but I'm not necessarily being myself.

So he talks a lot about external validation with the South Node in Leo being worked on karmically, with reputation or success or applause or status or popularity. That the to whatever extent these things have replaced authenticity, that's the karma that's being worked on. I think that's great. That's I think that's spot on. Yeah, he talks a lot about. I'm just looking at my notes. He talked a lot about a performative identity rather than a living heart-centered identity.

And okay, so then he flips to the North Node and he says, like, what would you choose? What do you like? What are you interested in? What ideas are worth living for? What's your? What are the social orientations you would take up if nobody? If you were not looking for the applause or approval of anybody, so the development of the North Node in Aquarius is freedom, authenticity, independence.

Unconventional choices, honesty, and following one's own script, which is funny because you can see how they the two signs do the same thing, but they do them in different ways. So freedom and honesty means well. It turns out that the real person that I am has ideas that might not get me applause. The real person that I am has values or thoughts or philosophies that may not get me liked or admired.

And so, freedom and honesty, intellectually, philosophically, and ideologically, at the perceived expense of likability, because that likability is coming from something that has become artificial. It's lacking substance. So they both both Leo and Aquarius again concern individuality, but Leo is that visible, self-centered individual. Where Aquarius is psychological, intellectual, mental, social kind of individuality.

Leo says, "I am, I am. It's like that heartbeat, and Aquarius says, "I think differently than others. I'm individuating in terms of the way I think and where that places me in the human experience, but both can get trapped by identity in different ways. Again, so and both can struggle with community. Leo wants recognition from a community.

Aquarius wants the right, progressive, most interesting, best community. You know, ultimately, both are trying to discover what it means to have a healthy relationship with the society in which they live. The person lives. All of us who are going through this, but we have to balance. I was talking recently when I was talking about Prince, and I was saying like this. You can imagine this at a dinner conversation.

Someone's like, "Oh, I love this movement or this group or something. It's the best. And there's always someone at the table who's like, "I'm not joining your stupid club, not because it's actually stupid, but because they're just they're not a joiner, you know. And then the other person is like, "Well, you're just gonna bury your head in the sand, you know. And then the person says, "Well, what are you just part of a mob mentality?

You know what I'm saying? This is like archetypal. So, and round and round it goes. Can you think freely? That's the North Node in Aquarius right now. Can you think freely? What does it mean to? And can you think freely? And then the Leo South Node comes in and says, "Don't think freely to the detriment of being a likable, kind-hearted person, how can you think differently without becoming self-righteous, which closes off the heart?

How can you think differently without alienating others or developing a chip on your shoulder or some kind of complex? Sometimes the outsider has to become a leader, and sometimes the leader has to become an outsider. Right now, with the South Node in Leo, North Node in Aquarius, it's a bit like the leader has to become an outsider, or leadership takes us in the direction of intellectual honesty and a relinquishment of the need for approval or applause.

I because this is my nodal axis and I'm now in a flipped nodal space. I can feel these things pulling, and it'll be interesting to see you know where it goes in my own life. I'm wondering if there's any other, I guess probably 1919, 8019, 81 babies, because we're all going through it right now. And then what else would it be? Right, was it 1989? something like that.

You could do it every nine years. It gets flipped. We've gone through it before. Maybe we'll go through it again later. Yeah, Aquarius is about the future and ideas, and Leo is about presence and heart, and both of them need to be a part of a growing, evolving sense of individuality and social participation. Leo is the solar principle. Remember, purpose, heart, generosity, courage, legacy.

And there's you know some people when they hear legacy, they immediately think that's arrogant to care about your legacy. Who are you? You know we're all going to die someday. No one's that big of a deal. But legacy doesn't have to be a big, a lot of bravado and bluster. Legacy can be as simple as saying I want to do a good job playing the roles I play.

If I'm a parent, you know, or a lover, or whatever, I just want anyone that came in contact with me and whatever radiates outward from my life into the future. I want to have been the best that it could be. That can be a quiet, humble thing, so the concern with legacy is inevitably tied to a social reality that's bigger than the individual.

So, the heart-centered legacy of Leo is to touch the world through the heart, but you can't do that unless you have meaningful overlap with things that people care about and are involved with. Aquarius, on the other hand, is Saturn's Saturn's domicile, and Saturn was a planet because it sat at the edge of the visible cosmos and was the gateway or threshold between this material world and the numinous world beyond.

And Saturn as the limit or boundary of this world is the keeper of time because time is the limit, mortality, death, endings, impermanence, Saturnian things. But at the threshold of Saturn, we think about what lies beyond this world. What lies beyond the status quo? What is of a higher nature than what the status quo currently contains? So Saturn's the Saturn is like a planet of tremendous juxtaposition.

Which is why it also rules the opposition as an aspect. So Aquarius is always thinking about what lies beyond the status quo, what is progress scientifically, or in religion, or theology, or philosophy, socially, technologically. Aquarius is like this: is the limit, this is what's present, and what lies beyond it. Interestingly, Saturn rules both popularity and the status quo, and close-minded, ignorant traditionalism. But it also rules outcasts and heretics and people who push the envelope or live at the margins of a society.

Just want to say it. All right. Anyway, so if you know, then you know. Um, that's all I've got. So those are my notes. It's an is going to be an interesting series of eclipses. The first one is august 12. That solar eclipse in Leo. Don't be surprised if in the next year and a half, intellectual honesty and having to take some risks. That ooh, will people like me?

But with Jupiter and Leo, chances are they will. If you're honest, if you're honest and coming from the heart, you can make shifts that just feel like, yeah, this is more aligned. But you can do it in a way that's not going to burn bridges and provoke and make enemies. All right, that is that is it. I hope you're having a good day, and we'll see you again tomorrow. Bye.