‘Every single one of those nodal returns to my natal MC/North
Node/IC/South Node has been life-changing for me’ – AW

In this article I will be reflecting on the recent Taurus/Scorpio nodal shift, together with some of its personal and collective implications. I will also consider the Moon’s nodes’ return cycle of 18.6 years – as well as setting a broader context via sharing some conclusions from my research study, to be found in my book The Moon’s Nodes in Action.

In just-past mid-January 2022, the Moon’s North Node moved into 29° Taurus 59’, the South Node into 29° Scorpio 59’. They will continue to occupy that pair of signs, travelling backwards until the next shift into the signs of Aries and Libra in mid-July 2023: a period of around 18 months.

The accompanying Taurus/Scorpio eclipse season began on 19 November 2021 with a lunar eclipse at 27° Taurus 14’ and concludes with another lunar eclipse on 28 October 2023 at 5° Taurus 9’ (the new Aries/Libra season having already begun with a solar eclipse on 20 April 2023 at 29° Aries 50’), a total period of almost two years.¹

It takes the lunar nodes about 18.6 years to complete a return cycle: the last time they occupied Taurus/Scorpio was from mid-April 2003 to the end of December 2004. The next time will be from mid-August 2040 to early February 2042.

I, for one, do not expect to be around to comment on that!²

A personal story…
My natal North Node is in the 9th house at 28° Taurus conjunct a 28° Taurus 25’ MC. Hardly surprising, then, that the symbolism here describes in essence my career path and life direction: this has always centred round enlarging people’s
perspectives in ways which would be useful to them in living their lives more fully – via teaching, counselling, writing and the practice of astrology.

On 19 November 2021, the 9th-house lunar eclipse at 27° Taurus 14’ closely conjoined my MC – this saw me sitting in an investment company’s office. I was then told that the agonisingly slow process of settling my late husband’s estate (he died on 13 January 2020) had at last produced the transfer of all financial assets to my name.

What a graphic illustration of the Taurus/Scorpio polarity operating in real life: transfer of resources (Taurus) following a death (Scorpio). Also, the deep grief that goes with benefiting materially from the death of a much-loved and cherished life partner.

In terms of the North Node being a symbolic North Star, as it were, pointing one towards the path of fulfilment of one’s life purpose, having some extra material resources enables me to contribute funds to local land acquisition and development projects. These are for the promoting of outdoor learning and related activities to help young people in crisis (Scorpio) ground themselves in earning money (Taurus) by doing something practical and worthwhile with their lives. 

I can also continue funding the publication of my own books via ‘Writing from the Twelfth House Publications’ which in recent years have been in electronic form only³: very relevant to the content of this article is that the next one on the list is to be a print version of my research study The Moon’s Nodes in Action. So, as the nodal axis and eclipses travel backwards through the Taurus/Scorpio polarity in the 9th and 3rd houses, one can see through the lens of just one person’s story, the interaction of angles and house positions against the backdrop of the pair of signs occupied by the Moon’s nodes – and the ‘rocket-fuel’ impact of the first eclipse of the new Taurus/Scorpio season launching new, but related themes as my life direction unfolds.

It would be most interesting to have some comments from readers of this article who have strong links with the Taurus/Scorpio polarity through planets, major asteroids, angles and Moon’s nodes, in order to hear from you folks out there how this Taurus/Scorpio nodes and eclipses period is affecting you.

It might also be enlightening to go back to previous periods in 2003/4, 1984/85, 1966/67 (if you were around then and can remember the 60s, that is!) to see how the 18/19-year return nodal cycle has impacted on your life’s direction.

Every single one of those returns to my natal MC/North Node/IC/South Node has been life-changing for me.

Recent collective events
The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26, was held in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, from 31 October to 13 November 2021. It occurred most aptly during the end point of the nodes’ traverse through the Gemini/Sagittarius polarity. After all the talking and goal-setting, with that first eclipse of the Taurus/Scorpio season occurring at 27° Taurus 14’ six days later, came the crunch point as delegates travelled back to their nation states to begin the process of translating words into concrete action: the goal being literally to preserve the future of our Mother Earth (Taurus) now collectively acknowledged to be in a state of climate emergency (Scorpio).

Another kind of deadly disruption of the fabric of Earth itself came in the form of especially powerful earthquakes. On 17 January 2022, two magnitude 5.3  earthquakes struck a remote, mountainous area of western Afghanistan, killing at least 27 people and destroying hundreds of homes. Then on 16 March 2022, a strong and deadly earthquake struck off the coast of Fukushima, Japan, causing widespread destruction.

The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.4 according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine via Russian incursions and aggression since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in the spring of 2014⁴, took a deadly turn on 24 February 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin
launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This invasion, essentially a further land grab in the long trajectory of Putin’s core ambition to restore to Russia the lands lost when the Soviet Union broke up in the 1990s, is especially dangerous to world peace because of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal and Putin’s threats to use it.
The astrology of this event, timed to 5 a.m. Ukraine time, is very powerfully resonant with the 10th/4th-house nodes conjunct the event’s MC/IC axis, and very closely linked by trine to Pluto in the horoscope’s 1st house. Venus, Mars and the asteroid Vesta, significator of home and hearth and dramatically included in this line-up, are all applying to the nodes/MC/IC/ Pluto pattern.

My colleague Christina Rodenbeck of The Oxford Astrologer has written a fine article on this, and the horoscope’s striking links to the start of World War 2.⁵

In all three collective examples I have given, you can see very clearly the underlying pattern of the Taurus/Scorpio nodes and its attendant symbolism. 

Research findings: setting a bigger picture context to the Taurus/Scorpio shift

The research I did for my The Moon’s Nodes in Action book was directed to a core question: How significant is the nodal axis in the interpretation of horoscopes?

It focused in detail on the lives of six people: three men and three women, three famous, and three selected from my client files anonymously and with their permission, bringing in some event horoscopes when relevant, as well as personal ones, thus balancing personal and collective life in the research process.

There were two lengthy case studies: one was a whole life scan of a male client. The other was of Mary Shelley in relation to her authorship of Frankenstein after I realised that she had conceived the plot of that world-famous novel just before her 19th birthday. She completed the book before she was 20, as the North Node returned to her natal North Node in Gemini in the mystical, prescient 12th house.
The other four studies examined ‘nodal moments’: specific points in four people’s lives which were clearly life-changing.

The famous two referred to Princess Diana’s death in a car crash on 31 August 1997, and USA astronaut John Glenn’s return to space for the final time on 15 January 1998.

So – what were my conclusions?
Here I quote my summary from the book.

‘I did not expect my research in ‘The Moon’s Nodes in Action’ to present me with such a strong suggestion that we all have our destiny, and that at certain potent times in life there are events and turning points which are initiations into the furtherance of that destiny – and that outwith our lives there may be some intelligent ‘other’ observing and/or guiding that movement. But that is the feeling which persists in me as a result of my work. As the Indian astrologers have been telling us for many centuries, the Moon’s nodes really do seem to be connected to the workings of Fate in the shaping of personal destiny.’⁶

The research bore out what I had concluded from observation over many years of both practising and teaching astrology, as well as from observing the shifting energy patterns of my own life: in contemplating the unfolding picture of a particular time period, the combination of nodal activity with the foreground
presence of outer planets, especially Pluto, points out that something powerfully transformative is going on and should be carefully noted.

It becomes important then to pay particular attention at those times to natal nodal patterns along with the transiting nodal/eclipse picture through the backdrop of the houses/angles thus highlighted: so, my research finding continues to be highly relevant both in collective and personal lives currently and until mid-July 2023, as the nodal axis continues its journey through Taurus/Scorpio.