The Lunar Nodes Have Crossed The Pisces/Virgo Axis

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Newsletter, March 2025. The lunar nodes have crossed the Pisces-Virgo axis. Lunar nodes shifting into a new pair of signs is always a big deal. It happens every year and a half or so, and it impacts everybody, both personally and in the world's headlines. A few weeks back, on January 28th, the moon's north node, I used the mean node, by the way, crossed the line. and entered Pisces, where it will remain until it transitions into Aquarius on August 18, 2026.

Of course, the south node entered the opposite sign, Virgo, at the same time, January 28th. In this short essay, my intention is to put the... personal meaning of the nodes shifting signs in the spotlight. Since we'll all be experiencing some of this energy collectively, it will impact the positives and negatives of the wider world too. As always, we start by underscoring a point that is really the bedrock of evolutionary astrological theory.

The south node of the moon represents the gravity of old habits which are holding us back, while the north node symbolizes the remedy that can liberate us. In my own work, I view the soul cages represented by the South Node as problems and challenges that originated in prior lifetimes, although other philosophies can be made to fit too. In any case, as the late lamented astrologer and my dear friend Michael Lewton once put it,

The north note is the meeting, and the south note is the bottle. If you know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous, Michael really covered the essence of the point in those 13 words. Now, for each of us personally, the detailed, specific nature of our unique south node gravity emerges from an analysis of its sign house and aspects. along with the same factors for the planet or planets that happen to rule it, this kind of analysis

quickly gets complicated. If you're new to this branch of astrology and want to learn more, try my book, Yesterday's Sky, or just enter nodes in the search engine at forestastrology.com. Right now, the bottom line is that we're all collectively beginning to experience the pressure of any unresolved Virgo karma that we may be holding on to. And hopefully looking to Pisces.

for some answers, resolutions, and a new direction. Let's start by understanding those Virgo questions and issues. As with everything else in astrology, your mileage may vary. Possibly you're very reactive to these energies, but perhaps not. More about all that just a little bit later. The Virgo South Node. Once again, We're talking about an era running from this past January until August of 2026.

During that whole period, the shadow side of Virgo will be manifesting everywhere. You'll see it in the headlines, and you'll feel it in your own life. It's pivotal to remember that while every sign of the zodiac represents a lofty evolutionary potential, they all have dark sides too. That dark side is what comes up when the south node is passing through.

Virgo, or any other sign. These kinds of unresolved karmic patterns compel us to look at the world and at ourselves through a dirty window. Everything is distorted. The happier point is that we're potentially ready to clean the glass to see more clearly, in other words, which means putting a stop to the way that we're compulsively clinging to a distorted interpretation of almost everything.

As we will recognize in a few moments, the path to liberation from that distortion is now wide open to us all, and it lies in the direction of that Pisces north node.

First, let's consider the exact nature of this particular south node problem, an issue which I believe is always rooted in psychic wounds originating long ago. With the south note in Virgo, I count four dark patterns, four unconstructive attitudes, to which the mind can become accustomed, and which will halt our evolutionary progress until our attachment to them is released. Every one of these four is ultimately about clinging to a fundamental error of perception.

or understanding. The best analogy I can conjure up would be those brilliant astronomers from a millennium ago who reasoned from the idea that everything, the sun included, revolved around the earth. They were incredibly innovative in defending and rationalizing that mistake. They constructed a fairly coherent, convincing belief system that actually made sense of it.

We all do exactly the same thing, and now we have a chance to fix it. To free ourselves, we need to identify these four dirty windows to which we are clinging, often without even realizing that's what we're doing. Here's the first clinging. You walk into a room in your house, and you think this room is a total mess. That's a Virgo moment.

We all have them. Here's the room as it actually is, and that condition is in contrast to how the room could or should be. The ideal versus the actual. That is the basic Virgo template of perception. it is hardwired into everyone's head, yours included. Virgo is not just about keeping a tidy house, though. What happens when you look at yourself through that same lens? How well do you measure up to the standard of perfection. Naturally, we all fall short of it.

The question is, how do you handle that shortfall? Face it honestly and humbly. Struggle to improve yourself. And in evolutionary terms, you're on the Virgo fast track. Fall into shame and self-criticism. and you're living out the shadow. In prior lifetimes have you ever unfairly criticized yourself? Or perhaps even more likely, internalized other people's ungrounded criticism of you? Have you sabotaged yourself through a lack of self-confidence or a sense of your own worthiness?

Bad religion, anyone? Naturally. It's hard to answer questions about past lives. How can we possibly really know the truth? The transiting nodes actually provide a clue. That's because if any of those Virgo problems I just mentioned are part of your own karmic wound, they're guaranteed to come up for review over the next 18 months. You'll be feeling it, in other words.

Possibly it will be repeating itself in your present experience, circumstances. That's the first clinging, and it's time for it to end. The takeaway? If you find yourself feeling a sense of impossibility, as if you were tantalized by a dream that will never come true, ask yourself this question objectively. Is old unresolved shame blinding you to a real opportunity?

Keep perspective. If you doubt your ability to swim across the Pacific Ocean, you're probably right about that. But if you doubt that you'd ever get that more meaningful, better paid job, It's time to wonder if that limitation is rooted more in your head than in reality. This brings us to the second clinging.

It's a short step from what we just saw to our second area of Virgo distortion. Clinging to a pattern of endless internal self-criticism can quickly lead to criticizing everyone and everything else as well. In pop astrology, Virgo is often characterized as picky and critical. That's not really fair to Virgo in general, but it is an accurate view of its shadow side. When Virgo energy goes...

bad, the soup is always at the wrong temperature, the mosquitoes always ruin the whole vacation, and the music always sucks. You know, here's the heart of the matter. If I am inhabiting that Virgo soul cage, when I look at you, I will be unconsciously comparing you to perfection too. Naturally, you'll fall as short as I did. Maybe I...

verbalize that negative judgment of you, or maybe you just see it in my eyes. In either case, a little bit of that constant correction goes a long way for anyone who's on the receiving end of it. Again, the actual origin of the second form of Virgo-South Node clinging lies in an internal atmosphere of self-criticism, a feeling of not being good enough yourself. self, which is then projected willy-nilly onto the world at large and all of its inhabitants. The takeaway?

Notice any feelings of judgment arising in yourself. They may be directed at people in your life, or they may be aimed at circumstances. In any case, they unduly accentuate the negative. Catch yourself doing that, and you've taken an important first step. The next step is to remember that while nothing is ever perfect, saying that the cup is half full is every bit as accurate as saying it's half full.

empty and a lot more joyful. By the way, when we get to that Pisces north note, we'll see how humor, compassion, and acceptance can really accelerate the cure. What about the third clinging?

So we can go further. Virgo is often seen as the sign of the servant. There are beautiful dimensions to that symbolism, such as the urge to be competent at something that is helpful. to other people. But as ever, there's a dark side to that symbolism as well. To be a servant is to be placed in a subordinate position. Someone is giving us orders. Some social structure is holding us down. In a prior life, was your existence ever defined by other people's decisions?

Were you treated as a utility rather than as a person? Were you taken for granted? Were you the one who was always assigned the scut work? Perhaps you were oppressed by some social mythology, which meant that your human potential was kept from blossoming. Being a victim of racism, sexism, and ethnic prejudices are obvious possibilities here. So is any other situation where people are cast in a negative light as categories rather than as

individuals, maybe you were one of them. If those shoes fit you karmically, then the next year and a half, offers you a chance to turn all of that around. You don't have to cling to those feelings of frustrated anger anymore. You can release them. Ominously, the south node transiting through Virgo also warns that you might slip into the same old self-limiting patterns, projecting them onto your circumstances, even if they're not really relevant. As always,

Mindfulness is the path to liberation. The takeaway? Stand up for yourself. If a tyrant appears in your life, Don't knuckle under the tyranny. Don't accept it. Walk away from the situation or the relationship. You have that power. You are fully capable of dealing with whatever consequences might be. follow. This brings us to the fourth and final clinging, the fourth piece of this dark Virgo-South node equation. The question

What could possibly go wrong is often invoked humorously when someone sets out in an obviously shaky direction. Sadly, there's always an answer. Things do go wrong. Even when people aren't making patently dumb moves, nothing in life is ever 100% safe. No positive outcome is ever guaranteed, and pretending otherwise is foolish. Hence the wisdom of always having plan B. Nothing attracts a flat tire faster than not having a spare. Maybe in a past life.

You were endlessly trying to hold things together, trying to keep the leaky ship afloat somehow. One form which that particular piece of unresolved karma can take in your present life is simply compulsive fussiness and worry. Now keep perspective. Perhaps in that prior life you had good reason to worry. Maybe you were actually in an insecure or dangerous situation. One present life trouble that such a past life circumstance can create.

is that a chronic habit of worry continues to take hold of your mind. The next thing you know, you're struggling to plan ahead. for what to do when a meteor crashes through the roof of your house, or for when the sun finally burns out. I mean, there's always something that could possibly go wrong. Does that compulsive worry shoe fit? Maybe not.

Maybe your personal karma isn't so centrally of that nature. Still, there's a little bit of it in everyone. And here it comes again, rising to the surface. The takeaway? There is a difference between appropriate necessary concern

on one hand, and eating yourself up with endless worry on the other. If you make sure that you have plan B in place, that's just being realistic. If it's four o'clock in the morning, and you haven't slept because of an endless fugue of disaster scenarios playing compulsively in your mind, that's the dark Virgo karma making itself felt.

liberation begins with recognizing it for what it is. Let's take all of this twice as deep by adding one more technical step to our analysis. It's about the role of Mercury. Mercury rules Virgo. And so its natal position in your chart is likely to play a big, obvious part in the unfolding story. That's because the planet that rules the south node is always triggered in these kinds of situations.

What is Mercury's actual position in your own chart? That house and sign will certainly be one epicenter in the action we are describing. There are some general Mercury areas that will have relevance to many of us. First among them is speech, along with its foundation, which is thought itself.

Adding your own Mercury's house sign and aspects brings everything into sharper focus and probably adds a unique new dimension or two. But let's start with an easy question about speech. At least it's easy to ask. ask, but not so easy to resolve. How can Virgo self-doubt limit people's ability to express themselves verbally? There's the connection. Here's what that might mean in practice.

A brilliant insight, shyly muttered sotto voce, and cluttered with provisos, unnecessary complications, and second thoughts will often be ignored by everyone. That apparent lack of confidence in your style of expression sabotages everyone's faith in what you're saying. You don't seem to believe it yourself. The takeaway? Trust your voice. When you see something that no one else seems to be seeing, pursue it.

Talk about it. As we saw a few lines ago, we could take all this a lot further by knowing your personal Mercury signature. Just for one example, let's imagine that your Mercury is conjunct Pluto. You'll have psychological insight. about what nobody else sees or is willing to deal with. So trust them. What about Mercury on your midheaven? Is it time to write your book? There's a possibility. What's stopping you?

Mercury in Pisces? You're probably more psychic or clairvoyant than you believe you are, so trust your intuitions. Act on them. Speak up about them. Now, there's a big question, what if none of what I am saying seems to fit you? That's a real possibility. Now, in my experience, astrology always works.

If someone were to tell me that none of what we've been exploring had anything to do with them, I'd politely nod my head, but my assumption would be that they were just not looking in the right place or weren't willing to do that. I do believe that the passage of the moon's south node through Virgo will have some relevance to everyone on the planet. We are all collectively entering a time when we need to stand up for ourselves, believe in ourselves, and not...

doubt our own power. Still, if you drop a burning match, In a dynamite factory, the results are a lot more spectacular than if you drop one in a puddle as the nodal axis shifts from sign to sign. It's very much like that. for each possible karmic issue. Some of us are dynamite factories, while some of us are only puddles. In your soul's history, were you ever oppressed? Were you made a servant in some dark sense of that word?

Did you ever sabotage yourself? Did you fail to believe in yourself? Were you somehow subject to chronic, endless, vitiating worry? The point is that not all of us have the same answers to those questions.

of this will be impacted mightily by this nodal passage, others less so. All of this brings us to the North Node in Pisces. No surprise, north node's always opposite the south node. That's not, however, just a geometric statement. It's a symbolic one, too. In parallel with how wetness is the cure for dryness, or heat is the cure for... chill. Similarly, Pisces is the cure for Virgo.

To state that principle more precisely, the higher side of Pisces is the cure for the lower possibilities inherent in Virgo. To keep this honest, let's add that the higher side of Virgo, service can also cure the lower possibilities of Pisces, which are escapism and spiritual self-importance. It's just the basic doctrine of dualities and remedies that underlies the entire theory of evolutionary astrology. Now, Pisces, at its best, is about openness and surrender.

It's about love, in other words, cosmic, life-affirming love, not just desire and romantic projections. Beating yourself up, limiting yourself, doubting yourself, those are the opposites of Piscean love. Virgo traps. What's their remedy? Loving yourself, rather obviously. Pisces to the rescue. There goes our first Virgo clinging, which is endless self-battery. Love fixes that.

With it, the second clinging evaporates as well. That sense that everything and everyone is wrong was always just a projection of our inner attitude towards ourselves anyway. Let's take it a few steps deeper. It's hard to talk for long about Pisces without getting into areas that were traditionally viewed as religious. There's a cosmological mystery.

built into the fabric of reality. Some cultures call that mystery God. Buddhists call it the Dharmakaya. In the old Star Wars films, it was called the Force. Whatever you call it. What happens when you surrender to it? What happens when you become transparent to that mystery? The answer is it enters you. You become one with it under those circumstances.

How can you feel anything about yourself other than love? How can you look at other people's predicaments and feel anything toward them other than compassion? Let's take it a step further. It's a truism. we treat other people ultimately mirrors the way we are treating ourselves. A person carelessly tosses a spent cigarette on the sidewalk, not caring about how they're impacting that shared space. Now, how carelessly are they treating themselves?

by smoking in the first place. There's the connection. The takeaway that by relating compassionately to other people, we are in fact working toward relating to ourselves more compassionately. And that's a fine example of how the higher side of Pisces remedies the lower side of Virgo. Planet-wide, for everyone everywhere, as the North Node passes through Pisces,

It's high time for a spiritual reawakening. For many of us, that limiting karma has ripened. We are ready to break free of what is holding us back. In the light of that wisdom,

petty worries loom much smaller. So, what's going to happen? For the next 18 months, we will see a wide spectrum of responses to the shift in the nodal axis. Some people will get it right, and some will get it wrong. Dark servant-master scenarios will certainly play out, both publicly and in private, intimate situations. Negative projections will abound. People will hurt themselves, undercut themselves, and sabotage.

themselves. They'll volunteer for slavery. They'll obey when they don't have to, and they will tie themselves in knots with compulsive worry. For some of us, that will be all that happens. We'll just numbingly live. out that bad Virgo energy. Many of these people will even try to deny their failures by

pointing a critical finger at everyone except themselves. Here's the person I'm blaming for my own situation. Maybe those same kinds of mistakes will serve as a wake-up call for a few other people. As they say somewhat facetiously in aviation, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Learning things the hard way is still learning, in other words. And remember, when we're attuned to that Pais

in North Node. We're looking at the world through the clear lens of compassion. It applies to our interpretations of other people's mistakes as well as to our own. for all of us however there looms a higher path as i describe it who can decide if i'm talking about the easiest thing in the world or the hardest it's about surrendering to the great mystery. It's about having faith no matter what happens. I can think of no better way to end this essay than to quote the great Ram Dass. Here it is.

Whether this is the first day of the apocalypse or the first day of a golden age, the work remains the same, to love one another and to ease suffering wherever possible. So, Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac. In a sense, it's the highest one of them all. In another sense, it's the one where the stakes are the highest.

Along with Pluto and Aquarius and the upcoming configurations of Neptune, Saturn, and Uranus, the astrological indications that humanity has come to a turning point are unmistakable. Hold on to your hats. And remember, as Ram Dass said, whatever happens, the work remains the same. Thank you.