North Node in Aries, South Node in Libra: Relationships and Soul Growth 

On July 17, 4:00 PM ET, the Lunar Nodes change signs shortly after the New Moon in Cancer has taken place. The North Node leaves Taurus and enters Aries, while the South Node leaves Scorpio and enters Libra. The Lunar Nodes are going to remain in these signs for the upcoming year and a half, inviting us to focus on the journey of developing healthy interdependence within our relationships while remaining committed to our Soul’s growth.

This shift will be relevant for all of us, but particularly so for those of us who have planets in Cardinal signs, and especially those of us who were born with the Lunar Nodes in Aries and Libra. The individuals born with the Nodes in these signs are about to experience their Nodal Return or Reverse Nodal Return, pivotal times of karmic shifts and accelerated growth that will invite them to make radical choices and commit to live in alignment with their Soul purpose.

The Lunar Nodes: Points of Destiny, Purpose, & Soul Growth

The Nodal Axis or Lunar Nodes are two opposing points in space, located at the same degree of opposite signs, that typically move in retrograde motion. These points mark the intersection of the orb of the Moon with the Ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun from our perspective. When the luminaries conjoin or oppose each other close enough to the Lunar Nodes, Eclipses happen.

The South Node corresponds to something we are very familiar with, something we know well, something that comes naturally to us, qualities we express effortlessly and unconsciously. We can say that the South Node corresponds to existing emotional attachments, to something we find it easy to gravitate towards and hard to move away from. The planet ruling the South Node offers us more information about habitual ways of operating and behaving we tend to rely on to generate feelings of security in our lives.

The North Node is the exact opposite of the South Node. Its energy feels foreign and unfamiliar, the qualities connected to the North Node represent something we have little to no experience with. For this reason, embodying the energy of the North Node requires us to step into the unknown and does not feel comfortable. The North Node and its planetary ruler offer us keys to balance the energy of the South Node, something we are already comfortable with, which nonetheless should not be disowned. 

South Node from Scorpio to Libra: Relational Maturation

The Scorpio South Node encouraged us to move away from connections that have an element of enmeshment and that are based on unhealthy emotional attachment, manipulation, power struggles, and control dynamics. This transit invited us to redefine our relationship with our sexuality and sensuality and choose carefully who we share our bodies with, while encouraging us to keep going deep in our own psychological and emotional self-exploration.

The South Node in Libra continues on a fairly similar thread, that will be less centered on emotions, psychology, and sexuality and more focused on the dynamics that come up in our interpersonal connections. The upcoming year and a half will be still very much about relationships, and the invitation for us is to move away from situations of mutual dependency, stop people-pleasing, and develop more trust in ourselves and our desires. 

During this transit, expecting to gain validation, reassurance, and security from our relationships will be a stronger collective trend, and many of us will become aware of how often we sacrifice ourselves and our desires to maintain connections or keep the peace. We are likely to feel more drawn than usual to keep ourselves socially busy as a way to distract ourselves from ourselves, to avoid solitude for fear of loneliness, and to choose to be around people rather than spend quality time with ourselves and our passions.

While the South Node is in Libra, we will have opportunities to let go of codependent tendencies, stop disappearing in relationships, stop being too nice and polite at the expense of authenticity and truth, and stop clinging to people and relationships that are no longer supporting our growth, but still represent a source of comfort and security. 

Venus, the planetary ruler of the Libra South Node, is about to station retrograde in Leo. Venus’ shift of motion will offer us a great opportunity to revision, reassess, redefine, and renew our relational habits, and to ask ourselves why we tend to attract similar people and situations over and over in our lives.

North Node from Taurus to Aries: Owning our Desires

The Taurus North Node taught us important lessons about the value of self-sufficiency and self-reliance, the importance of being grounded in our physical body and in the present moment, and the meaning of living in alignment with the rhythms of Nature. It offered us an opportunity to become aware of the value of our talents and skills and cultivate a sense of self-worth and self-love independent of the validation we are receiving from the outside.

The North Node entering Aries keeps directing us toward ourselves and invites us to look inwards rather than outward when it’s time to make decisions. This shift inaugurates a time of personal and collective work centered around owning our desires, asserting ourselves healthily, and trusting our instinct. While the North Node is in Aries, the path of Soul growth will involve learning to move in a new direction alone, trusting our strength, becoming a pioneer, doing something completely new, embracing spontaneity and playfulness, and allowing our instinct to lead us.

The North Node in Aries invites us to focus on unleashing our spontaneous selves and discovering who we are independently from our relationships and from the roles we tend to assume in our connections with others.

Learning to be true to ourselves, honor our desires, and follow our path even when it might mean disappointing others will be a major theme of the upcoming year and a half. The Aries North Node invites us to embrace raw authenticity and work on letting go of people-pleasing tendencies, which represent a shadow of the Libra South Node. 

The last time the North Node was in Aries was between November 2004 and June 2006. Looking back to what happened around that time could give us clues and hints about what themes could be especially relevant for us in the upcoming months: observe how you reacted in the past and think about how you would react now to similar situations.

Pluto square the Moon’s Nodes: Breaking free of Internalized Conditioning

As the Nodes change signs, Pluto is at 29º Capricorn, squaring them to the degree. The New Moon and the Sun in Cancer are also squaring the Nodes at the moment. The Pluto-Nodes square has been already active for several months and will continue to be active for most of the calendar year, as both Pluto and the Nodes are moving in retrograde motion. However, we currently feel it the strongest.

Planets squaring the Nodal Axis are also referred to as `skipped steps` and they have a karmic nature. They underline the need to address developmental blocks that are preventing us from growing and evolving further. Because we are dealing with Pluto, these blocks are primarily unconscious, and they are both emotional and psychological. Pluto squaring the Nodes indicates some degree of disconnection from our Soul’s true desires as well as an inclination to fall into compulsive behaviors, obsessive patterns, and cycles of repetition and suffering.

Pluto in Capricorn squaring the Nodes in Aries and Libra points to the need to gain awareness and break free from patterns and habits that result from the conditioning and programming we internalized from our family, society, and culture. On the unconscious level, this conditioning, together with repressed emotions, unacknowledged fears, and unhealed wounds from the past, still shapes our behavior, and in particular how we show up in relationships, what we attract, who we are attracted to, the boundaries we set and those we don’t set, and so on.

The upcoming months will offer us opportunities to deepen our deconditioning journey and move past inner blocks that prevent us from creating a reality that is fully aligned with our Soul’s desires and fully resonant with our authentic selves.

North Node in Aries, South Node in Libra: Relationships and Soul Growth

Exploring a balanced expression of the Nodal Axis requires refining the harmony between the expression of two polarities, one of which feels more familiar, comfortable, and attractive than the other. Moving from the South Node towards the North Node and finding a dynamic balance between their expressions is the path of Soul growth, the path of collective and personal evolution.

The Lunar Nodes shift of signs encourages us to refine the harmony between the energy we invest in ourselves and the energy we invest into relationships, partnerships, connections, and collaborations. We don’t have to sacrifice ourselves to be in a relationship, and being in a relationship won’t solve all our problems: these are some of the key lessons of the Nodal Axis transit through Aries and Libra.

During this upcoming year and a half, we will have opportunities to notice where we feel tempted to sugarcoat reality, to choose to be nice over being real, and to sacrifice our authenticity in order to be accepted by others. We will have chances to observe when we feel tempted to lose ourselves in relationships to avoid making uncomfortable choices, to avoid being alone, and to avoid taking responsibility to do what it takes to move towards our purpose.

The Nodal Axis changing signs is an invitation to work on developing relational intelligence and letting go of repetitive patterns that keep us from creating healthy connections, first and foremost from creating a healthy connection with ourselves. The upcoming months will offer us opportunities to work on gaining awareness of how we are wired to show up in relationships and invite us to choose to invest in connections that support our commitment to our Soul calling.

Crystal Pick for North Node in Aries, South Node in Libra: Citrine

Citrine is a beautiful choice to harness both the inspiration and action that the North Node in Aries will bring, as well as the powerful inner trust that the South Node in Libra is ushering in.

This shimmering yellow quartz is a Libra-associated stone that heightens self-awareness, confidence and a positive outlook on life, helping you to break free from old relationship patterns, people-pleasing, and codependency, and assert your individuality as you follow the call of your innate instincts and desires.

Work with citrine to help you clarify your direction, hone in on your truth and begin to move forward towards your highest goals, the desires that live within your soul, to ultimately find a deep sense of fulfillment from within yourself. Citrine shines the light on your true purpose and power and gives you the energy, courage, and motivation to bring your dreams into reality!

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