Nodal Shift

The nodal axis shifts.

Last month I discussed the themes that the nodes are leaving behind based on the signs they’ve been in for the last 1.5. years. As a reminder: Ketu is leaving Libra—the sign of relationship—where he has created some distance, detachment and mistakes (which must eventually be reckoned with) and Rahu is leaving Aries—the assertive sign of individuality and independence—where he has managed to create a combativeness and deluded conviction on a wide scale. These two together have sewed a lot of divisiveness in the zodiac, and in the population, over the last 1.5 years.

You may have noticed a fair amount of flip flopping in people’s convictions during this time, which is also created by the polarity of the nodes, which can flip like magnets in an instant, making them extremely unreliable and betraying the fact that they aren’t actually real i.e. the nodes have no physical bodies and are shadows.

The best stance to take in anything influenced by the nodes is generally of the observer who inhabits the middle ground between the two, witnessing the extreme behavior on both sides and participating as little as possible. This position is actually extremely centering and is the essence of almost every Buddhist teaching which focuses on witnessing attachment and aversion without really ‘believing’ in them. The longer you can stay here the more hearty your spiritual foundation will be as the antics of the nodes become less and less convincing.

That being said, it is an extremely delicate task to not get entangled with some degree of nodal influence because they are extremely tricky. You may think you’re firmly in the middle-ground when 10 years later you realize in a moment you’ve been in Ketu-extremist land the whole time! Where you put your center was actually in left field, so to speak. But such is life! The game with the nodes is to just keep waking up to how off-center you actually are. Anyone with the nodes influencing the Moon or other critical points in the chart will have already begun learning this out of necessity.

The nodes will be unsteady until about 11/18, when they both get out of the tenuous one degree boundary of their new signs. Technically, there will still be some unsteadiness until later December, but that is less concerning than this period up to mid November, particularly for Rahu who is in gandanta between the beginning of the zodiac (Aries) and the very end (in Pisces). His transit is essentially connecting the head and the feet, if you can imagine, which is some very delicate and somewhat nonsensical work!

But Rahu as an archetype is the one who creates all things nonsensical, so he has no problem here. His specific foci in Pisces I will get into next month—and it is quite interesting—but this month I’d like to get into what his dwelling between the head and the feet of the body of God (Kalapurusha) which is the zodiac actually is.

You will have noticed that there were a lot of reasons to become more cerebrally-focused over the last 1.5 years, as many circumstances put pressure on decision-making, side-taking and sorting out personal beliefs. Some problems may have necessitated research and fact-checking. This is Rahu in Aries, bringing an obsession to the mind, and a belief that our problems can be sorted out from there. But because he brings a cloud with him wherever he goes, he actually made it very difficult to see clearly. This means that navigating based on thoughts and ideas which have not really been digested in the body and emotions is likely to lead you astray—this is actually probably always the case but was more obvious during this Rahu transits, when there was more pressure to live cerebrally.

Rahu pulling back into Pisces actually pulls the obsession from the head to the feet, as a sort of course-correction. This means that it is likely during this time that many people wake up to their bad decisions, or their erroneous points of view which they militantly inflicted on those around them as a result of the Aries influence. The fog can start to clear, and it may become apparent that a new way of thinking and navigated is needed. This will lead us into Pisces territory, which I can hardly wait to describe to you! But for now we are still in the liminal space wherein the fog is clearing but we have not yet found our feet.

This can be a very confusing time for many people for the reasons just mentioned. It can feel like gravity itself is shifting, or your internal equilibrium is off. Getting closer to basics can be helpful during this time, as the nodal recalibration is likely to be felt more the higher from the ground you are—this can be literally and metaphorically. For example, I personally would not be doing any skydiving during this time. But also: if you’ve been living in some kind of abstract world of high ideas and ideals and removed from reality it is going to be more painful and perhaps shocking when the veil is lifted as Rahu leaves Aries. Basics like: time away from technology, time in Nature, time with loved ones and in silence and in meditation can be extremely helpful in this transition. Anything that gets you out of your head and back into direct, physical sensation and experience is medicinal right now.

Ketu’s transit from Libra to Virgo is considerably less concerning, both because of the nature of Ketu and because he is not moving between fire and water signs where gandanta occurs. Still, it is noteworthy that Ketu is moving from the hips or groin of the body of God into the lower intestines where so much digestion happens. Ketu’s transit in an individual’s horoscope can show a place where there may be misdiagnosis or mystery illnesses or physical issues, based on house placement. For the collective we can see the nature of the sign to understand that there is some sort of mystery circulating in that body part in the general populace during that time.

Libra is associated with reproduction and therefore menstruation. There were widely reported menstrual irregularities which coincided with this transit and for which there seems to have been no consensus in terms of cause. We can now expect some collective digestive difficulties for which there is not a clear cause.