The Lunar Nodes Change to Cancer - Capricorn
by Steven Forrest
As we enter November, the big news looming on the astrological front is that the lunar nodes are about to change signs. That is always a crucial development even though it happens every year and a half.
What does it signify?
Two things: first, that the nature of the collective “karmic chickens coming home to roost” is about to shift dramatically.
The second is that we will soon see the births of children who are members of a very different soul-tribe than the babies who’ve been born since early 2017. That is because south node energy is what you see in a newborn baby’s eyes, at least once you have stripped away all the required rhapsodic cooing. Babies are as human as you or me, warts and all. As the south node switches signs, the nature of the warts switches too.
Here are the details:
On November 15, the lunar north node – always retrograde – backs out of Leo and enters Cancer, where it will remain until June 4, 2020.
Webinar: The North Node Path of Evolution
The north node is where the answers lie. Like the north star, it guides us across life’s dark oceans, revealing the fresh path of energy, breakthrough, and evolution. An understanding of it is perhaps the single most precious catalyst astrology can provide anyone.
In this webinar, we will consider the north node’s message in terms of each of the signs and houses, along with the critical role of its planetary ruler and any aspects involved.
It is customary to give the position of the north node, and to just assume that people know the south node is always directly opposite it. Some charts and computer programs do not even show the south node. Fair enough – except in many ways the south node is the more pressingly obvious of the two in its effects. The focus on the north node derives, I suspect, from the same “font of wisdom” that defines north as “up” and laments a relationship or a business “heading south.” It’s just a hemispheric expression of something analogous to sexism or racism.
In any case, the translation is that on November 15, as the north node is entering Cancer, the south lunar node crosses out of Aquarius and into Capricorn, where it will also remain until June 4, 2020.
The bottom line is that while for eighteen months we’ve been seeing Aquarian chickens coming home to roost, now we are going to see some Capricornian ones. And the “warts” on those very human babies? You guessed it – the ones born since April 28, 2017 have had Aquarian warts. This new bunch will have Goat-warts instead. And maybe some Goat-wisdom as well.
By the way, the dates I am quoting here are for the Mean nodes, not the so-called “True” ones. They are always almost in the same position, but the test comes at “cuspy” times such as this. By the standards of the True nodes, the axis should switch into Cancer/Capricorn about a week earlier. The kids born between November 6 and 15, are the test case – I’d say their south nodes are in Aquarius, while many astrologers would say, no, they’re in Capricorn already.
With the nodes changing signs only every eighteen months, there are obviously not a lot of people in this ambiguous situation. Over the years, I’ve encountered a few – and in almost every case, the south node story fit the reality of their lives a lot better if we stuck with the Mean node.
So that’s what I do. If you would likely fuller discussion of the complexities underlying this whole question, visit my post on the mean vs. true nodes.
While I’m busy promoting the website, let me add another recommendation.
The now-ending passage of the south node through Aquarius has left a vivid mark on the world. In fact, we are bleeding profusely from it. I explored all of that in a lot of detail in my May 2017 newsletter.
So, on to the big question: what does it mean humanly for the north node to shift into Cancer and south node into Capricorn?
Always, with the nodes, regardless of the signs involved, the underlying idea is as follows. The south node represents unresolved karma – dead-end patterns that get us nowhere and yet tend to keep repeating. “There are lessons I have learned hundreds of times” – that kind of thing.
Meanwhile, the north node seems very foreign and unnatural – but if we make a little effort to break our bad habits and instead try on the north node attitudes and behaviors, they work wonders. They leave us astonished, sort of like a doctor’s medicine that actually cures us.
Personally, I think the origin of the south node attachments, illusions, and self-defeating behaviors is karmic – i.e. originating in past lives. You can think of it anyway you want, from bad ancestral DNA, to family patterns – even to just plain “shit happens,” if you prefer. I don’t want to say that “philosophy doesn’t matter.” I think it does. But, with the nodes, we do not need to be philosophical. They work at a practical level even if the extent of your philosophy goes no further than a Gallic shrug of the shoulders.
Think of the south node as a bad habit and the north node as its remedy.
Think of the south node as an erroneous assumption, gumming up all your perspectives and interpretations, while the north node is the light bulb lighting over your head.
If you know anything about 12-Step programs, astrologer Michael Lutin said it best: “the south node is the bottle and the north node is the meeting.”
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Capricorn or any other sign, but all twelve of them have dark sides. That dark side is what the south node brings out. In the simplest terms, it is something that you got wrong in a past life. Just as easily, it might be a place where you got hurt.
As the south node swings through Capricorn, the harmful energies will play out on two levels, one of them noisy and the other one far more important.
Level One is the daily headlines – and the general condition of the zeitgeist – between now and June 2020.
Level Two is the soul-condition of all the babies born between now and then.
As we just saw, unresolved karma – always the essence of the south node’s message – can sometimes have its origin simply in bad behavior in a past life. Somebody annoyed you, so you koshed them on the head.
Hey, we’ve all been there!
It can arise from your virtues too. Sometimes “doing the right thing” leaves a scar on us.
Then there are areas of simple tragedy or of “the evil men do” to each other.
Capricorn represents one-twelfth of all the stories in the universe. That’s a lot of stories. But they have certain common denominators. Above all, Capricorn represents endurance. Imagine facing the winter in Duluth, Minnesota, or Tromsø, Norway. The steel that would have to arise in you as you face those long, dark, cold months is the essence of this sign. You put your pain aside and you do what you have to do.
Many of the kids who are about to take birth have endured enormous suffering. They are tough. The majority of them developed a certain stoicism in the face of it. Many were responsible not only for themselves, but for others as well. Crushing responsibilities arise sometimes – responsibilities that we simply cannot shirk no matter what the cost. For all of these kids, drying the tears – or not crying them in the first place – then simply doing what had to be done has been their signature. Many of them will seem like adults right from their first breath. When you look them straight in the eye, some of them, fresh from the womb, will look like old men and old women, wise – and weary.
Virtue and strength can come at a high price.
If your kids are starving, would you steal a loaf a bread in order to feed them? Most of us have the same answer there.
What about if you yourself were starving?
What if the person from who you contemplated stealing that bread was also starving? It’s you or him – what are you going to do then?
Necessity creates complex moral territory and it does not always bring out the best in people. Life can be very hard. Anyone born with a Capricorn south node knows exactly what I mean by that.
This is a tough group of souls. They’ve been hardened in the fires. Some of them are heroic paragons of moral strength – with scars to prove it. Some have been corrupted by life’s sheer enormity, broken on the rack.
All of them carry another Capricorn mark: a karma of loneliness. There is loneliness that comes from literal isolation, physically or emotionally. Ask the lighthouse keeper. Ask anyone who has endured an empty marriage that lasted for decades. There is also a kind of “loneliness at the top” – something all leaders know. At a simpler level, you might think of the loneliness of the single mother with three children. She might never get a moment to herself, but she is lonely anyway. Even though the kids love her, they cannot really understand her. And feeling seen and known is the cure for loneliness.
Translate any of these metaphors and images into past-life stories, and you’ve got it: this new crop of babies is populated with a lot of strong, tired souls.
By the way, all of this is particularly intensified, both in terms of the kids born and probably the daily headlines, when the nodes contact Pluto and Saturn, which are also resident in Capricorn throughout this period. Pluto aligns with the south node on March 28, 2019. With Saturn, there are three conjunctions with the south node, all in 2019: May 20, June 23, and September 25.
Why are these souls returning to Earth? As with all of us, their work is not yet done. How can they go forward? The answer is utterly obvious, based on all that we have just seen.
They have come to Earth for healing.
They need a hug. They need a rest. They need some gentleness. They need someone else to share their burdens – or even to carry them for a mile a two. They need a laugh. They need a long, hot bath. They need a drink. They need to eat too much, and give themselves a break about it – remember: some of these souls have had experiences of starvation.
They need a good cry.
Crying. There’s a mystery! We humans face dreadful losses sometimes. How do we recover? We let water come out of our eyes. Try explaining that to some alien debarking from a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico!
But crying works. Bottling up our feelings only puts us in a kind of emotional deep freeze.
Some of these souls have been frozen for a thousand years. Remember that some of that “freeze” comes from them doing the right thing and being strong in the face of unimaginable difficulty.
The remedy that I have just described in plain human terms is what astrologers call the sign Cancer, at least Cancer at its best. These souls have reincarnated with their north nodes “in the sign of the Great Mother.” They need to sit in Her lap for a while. If you find yourself in the role of being a parent to one of them, please try to let your see-saw balance in the direction of kindness, forgiveness, and gentleness rather than discipline.
Again, they have come to the earth for healing.
What about the collective karma symbolized by the south node shifting into Capricorn? What does the north node entering Cancer mean for the world?
First some broad hints that apply to this “mundane” perspective on the nodes in a general way . . .
“The soul of the human race” (The oversoul? The collective unconscious? Gaia? God?) has a long, complicated history – karma, in other words. When it ripens, that karma manifests in the headlines, just as it does in the life of an individual.
Think of all the famines and pestilence humanity has endured. Think of all the mad kings who have created nothing but misery. Think of refugees. Think of persecutions.
That is the kind of karma that ripens when the south node passes through Capricorn.
Now think in more immediate terms. This is what really brings all this home. Consider for a moment the emotional wear-and-tear you have endured in this present lifetime of yours. Not to “cry in your beer,” but rather just to think honestly and objectively about all difficulties that you have faced “with a stiff upper lip.”
Even when exercising that kind of strength and maturity is right and morally laudable, the simple point is that you paid a price for it.
That karma has now ripened. You need a hug too!
Here’s the bull’s eye: are you tired enough yet? Reflect on what we have faced as a species over just the past few years. Are you happy with our political leadership, feeling like the world is in good hands? How is the 24/7/365 economy treating you?
No worries, right?
No worry about global climate disruption, the looming failure of antibiotics, genetically modified crops, idiots with nuclear bombs, terrorists, psychotic shooters with guns that Patton and Rommel would have envied, kids watching porno on their cell phones instead of flirting with each other, kids in cages on the border, skyrocketing medical costs, overdose deaths in the heartland, the ebola virus, e-coli in the lettuce, and a Russian operative in every voting booth across the free world . . .
I repeat: are you tired enough yet?
That is Capricorn karma ripening. If you can’t feel it . . . well, then you are a living, breathing illustration of Capricorn karma.
The cure?
The Cancer north node. We all need some gentleness now. We all need some healing. We all need a rest.
It starts with being kinder to ourselves.
From there, it spreads out towards others.
From there, it can heal this tired, battered world.
-Steven Forrest