the dragon changes direction: a Q&A and horoscopes for the rising signs

Mercury has now stationed direct! 

This Mercury retrograde was essentially a speed run reviewing Jupiter in Cancer’s transit (from June 2025 to June 2026). The last year has been pushing us to explore what our needs are, what environments nourish us, and has driven many of us half mad when we’ve denied ourselves those things. 

Mercury retrograde may have brought back these important reflections on our needs to integrate them and make them truly functional in our lives. It’s a very vulnerable thing to talk about what we need without apologizing, shrinking ourselves, or even becoming overly demanding or dependent on others to fulfill the needs that we may abandon ourselves. 

We’ve been learning the challenging lesson of how to be in relationship with other parts of our lives while remaining in relationship to ourselves at the same time and this isn’t the only area of the sky pointing to that kind of reassessment. Saturn-Neptune in Aries and the nodal shift into Aquarius-Leo are just as concerned with the art of individuality and merging with others, albeit in very different ways. 

The nodes have now moved into Aquarius and Leo on July 26 after spending the last 18 months in Pisces and Virgo. As a collective, we’ve been experiencing twists and pivots around our sense of control, perfectionism, and mistranslation on the tail end of the dragon, while ultimately learning to adopt a more intuitive approach, surrendering and finding compassion, with the dragon’s mouth.

That lesson isn’t completely over. We have one final Lunar eclipse in Pisces at the end of August 2026 and a final Solar eclipse in Virgo in February 2027. So, even while the nodes are moving on, the eclipses are still activating these parts of the chart and converging with the new lessons we’re learning on the Aquarius-Leo axis. 

RIDING THE DRAGON

I think it’s always important to reestablish nodal meaning: we cannot release one and embrace the other. This is how the nodes are often framed but it’s confusing and incredibly unhelpful to reject one side of an axis that is integral to balance. The South Node likes to minimize and shrink one area, sure, but that doesn’t mean that we throw out that sign or the part of the chart it represents. A lot of the time, that means we’re reassessing an approach and changing it through decrease. 

With the South Node eclipses in Virgo, we’ve been called to a time of accurate scrutiny and translation to restore health. For that reason, communication has been a big part of this transit: how and why we speak or even when we should stop speaking altogether. We usually talk about Virgo’s tendency to control as a very negative thing, but if we had no control at all… that would be quite a mess, wouldn't it? So instead, we adjust, we decrease control over the things that we have no power over. We redirect that anxiety towards the things we can and should influence. 

We can’t cut off the dragon’s tail and disown all of Virgo’s precious qualities, but we have been pulling back and adjusting in order to release the patterns that keep Virgo from this right relationship with itself. Health, work, and daily devotion, these are just some of the methods you may have worked with to rebalance the South Node in Virgo this last year. 

The North Node, the dragon’s mouth, expands and devours from the other side. This is a very consuming, sometimes obsessive transit, drawing us closer to materializing something that we want but through means that we didn't ask for or that are out of our hands. It magnifies, often uncomfortably, expanding in the name of fate. The North Node in Pisces has expanded the need for surrender, naturally reinforced by the adjustments we’ve made around communication and control. 

The North Node in Pisces wasn't asking us to become passive or idle, it was asking us to discover where force simply doesn't bridge our desires into form. There are seasons where effort produces a harvest and seasons where effort only produces friction. Surrender wasn't an abandonment of responsibility but a relinquishing of the illusion that everything meaningful can be engineered. In making peace with uncertainty, we've created enough space– by no longer filling the space with an agenda–  for something genuinely new to emerge rather than endlessly recreating the familiar.

A COG IN THE MACHINE

Now that the North Node is in Aquarius and the South Node is in Leo, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to invest in a whole system instead of elevating one specific aspect above all the others. Leo is a spotlight, it zeros in “The One”, whereas Aquarius gathers many significant “ones” to build a whole. Again, though, we’re not “releasing” all of Leo, the core of the spotlight is recognition, and this quality is inseparable from a truly functioning whole.

One reason this axis is often misunderstood is because we rarely talk about Leo and Aquarius as material signs. We give Taurus-Scorpio a lot of credit for its emphasis on money or accumulative power, but the other two fixed signs are just as important to tangible investment. Leo is the investment in identity, Aquarius is the investment in community. 

There is a tendency, especially in a materialistic world, to funnel our resources toward a single objective. The spotlight lands on a career, a relationship, or the family until everything else begins receiving what's left over. The North Node in Aquarius asks us to spread our resources, to learn how to seamlessly shift between many different areas and interests of life. 

We may have to ask questions like: Does this fit into the overall life I’m building? Or does it require me to shape the rest of my life around one thing? Aquarius asks us to become aware of where those resources are flowing because over investment in one part of life almost always creates underinvestment somewhere else. This is a familiar ongoing lesson that parallels with Saturn in Aries.

There can’t be “The One” with this transit. We can love something deeply and even prioritize it, but shared responsibility and boundaries are key. It’s the only way to preserve a life that’s healthy and supported. That also means we have to acknowledge when something is driven by ego. When responsibility is all on us, it can make us feel (temporarily) big and strong. This all blends nicely with the lessons in Virgo-Pisces, a signature for trying to manage it all and then some.  

THE FULL MOON & INVISIBLE DEPENDENCIES

On July 29, we have a Full Moon at 6º Aquarius. It’s too far from the nodes to be an eclipse, but it is the partner lunation to the first Solar eclipse in Aquarius that we had on February 17 of this year. Basically: it’s still pretty eclipsey, it’s kicking off the upcoming season that we’ll see in August. 

This Full Moon is also significant because it reactivates the Jupiter-Pluto opposition that perfected on July 20, this time with our annual Sun-Jupiter conjunction in Leo (the Jupiter cazimi). When the Sun conjoins a planet, it illuminates and clarifies its meaning. 

Since Jupiter entered Leo on June 29, we’ve started a new story in this sector of the chart that intends to unfold throughout the next year. Jupiter is known for expanding through exploration of the uncharted. However, with the South Node of decrease traveling through this sign too, we’re having to be very careful in our approach. Lest we accidentally elevate this area of life, making it “The One”, and sabotaging the network of support that compels us in the Aquarius sector. 

The Full Moon is conjoined to Pluto opposite the Jupiter cazimi. Pluto is a roughly 20 year transit and we’re currently only on year three. It lasts this long so that it can fully expose and excavate from the root up, working in extremes to demolish and reinvent societal architecture. It’s not an overnight job, but this Jupiter and nodal cycle are accelerating its agenda. 

The Full Moon conjoined to Pluto is an amazing reflection of the times. Astrologers and human design practitioners have been writing for years, even decades, now about the shift in the infrastructure we currently have in place. One of the first places we see this restructuring is in the systems we depend on every day. 

For that reason, I’ve been especially concerned about our food systems and I'm not the only one. It’s not natural to have all of this unseen labor assembling what we see in stores today, and as the current structure dissolves, we can no longer rely on any one source. The recent cyclospora outbreak is remarkably mirroring that sentiment. 

A healthy ecosystem does not have one single indispensable component. If removing one thing causes the whole system to collapse, it isn’t sustainable. If one institution controls everything, one relationship carries every emotional need, or one income stream supports your entire life, Pluto in Aquarius is excavating and challenging it. That’s the core of this transit. The nodes, eclipses, Jupiter, and this Full Moon are all calling attention to this by revealing invisible dependencies. 

Some questions we could be asking ourselves at this time: What invisible agreements am I participating in? What system have I mistaken for nature? Which responsibilities have been centralized when they should be distributed? 

Leo rules the heart both biologically and metaphorically. It’s not about abandoning what we love, it’s just asking us whether our heart is functioning inside of a whole system or if it's demanding that we give everything else up to serve it. The truth is that our heart gives to many different places. Like the blood it pumps, our love has to circulate. When all of it pools in one place, it can clot dangerously until the rest of the body fails. 

That might be one of the lessons of the Aquarius North Node: not to love less or to create competition, but to keep love moving, building a life that can support that movement. 

*Horoscopes for your rising sign can be found at the end.

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ANSWERING ANON: A NODAL Q&A

I was waiting for the right time to address this question and now with the nodal shift, I think the moment has finally come. I do still have my Q&A open if you want your questions answered in a future newsletter. I've been so impressed with these and encourage future submissions! Don't forget to add your birth details in the form (-:

ask a question

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Hi there! I love this question because it requires us to get into the nuance of transiting astrology and furthers the general concept of the nodes. 

Before we even get into your chart, I think it's important to remember that astrology describes timing, but it doesn't promise spectacle. One of the hardest lessons with transits is learning to observe before we project meaning onto them. We only do this because we want to prove to ourselves that it is real and meaningful in a world where astrological merit is still practically nonexistent. 

Sometimes the biggest transits are loud, but sometimes they quietly rearrange the way we see ourselves. Only hindsight reveals how significant they were. We don’t get out of participating in the mystery of the human experience even with knowledge of the stars.

I think we could always benefit from asking the planets: what are you trying to teach me? instead of pre-determining the meaning we think a transit is going to have. And one other thing: I do think the nodes are fated, but fate typically just means it’s not solely free will. I think the nodes do a great job of handing us things we probably wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves, but again, that doesn’t necessarily mean our allotment is sensational. 

I actually remember having a very similar experience with the nodes transiting my 1st and 7th and feeling like not a whole lot happened. Looking back years later, maybe not a lot happened, but there were certainly a few significant events that changed the way that I related to other people. That lesson revealed to me what it was like to feel misunderstood or misrepresented in my relationships with greater awareness, it changed the way that I show up and invest in others now. 

We have to understand that the 1st and 7th houses are simply the ecosystems in which relationships and identities form. To soak up the potential there, we have to expand the 7th house and descendant definition of “partnership” to include anyone that we closely interact with, including friends and adversaries. A lot of my 7th house nodal story was actually centered around a sibling relationship, for example. We also have to understand the 1st house and ascendant as the arena of life that we develop ourselves within, a certain set of themes and trials that open the door to becoming. 

Let’s look at your chart:

We can’t isolate the nodes from the rest of the sky. The nodes tend to describe the storyline, but the physical planetary bodies often provide the event that moves the story forward. 

One thing that immediately comes to mind here is the Mars-Uranus conjunction in Gemini that just went exact on July 3, it acted as a nodal bender. I’m curious if this question came too soon and if something more overt happened (or is happening) this month, particularly because your natal Mars is in the 7th at 3º Pisces and Uranus is at 29º Aquarius not far behind! 

You essentially have a Mars-Uranus conjunction natally, so this transit stands out even more. The transiting conjunction is in the 10th house and I imagine it’s starting to shake up some of the external roles that you have willingly and unwillingly taken on, it’s showing you that there’s some kind of alternative path or approach to identity and your place in the world that wasn’t visible before. 

The South Node transiting your 1st house Moon-Jupiter conjunction in Virgo (which would’ve been exact at the end of 2025) probably brought important changes, but they may have been subtle. The South Node can sometimes represent a more internal process that’s happening, especially because it’s not so concerned with accumulation, it’s about decrease, announcing itself through a shift in what no longer feels compelling.

This may have shown up as a time where you’ve been quietly assessing your needs or removing pieces from your identity that aren’t helpful. Sometimes hindsight provides more clarity as we gain space from a time where “nothing happened”, it’s harder to see how meaningful some moments are until much later. Sometimes "nothing happened" is itself information. If a transit passes quietly, that doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't active, it may mean your current life already reflects what the transit was asking of you. Not everything is surprising. 

When we look at timing, we do have to consider the degrees as well as other transits that act as a catalyst. Since the nodes are only just now reaching some of these sensitive points in the chart, it’s possible that it’s actually the upcoming eclipse cycle that impacts you more. 

Even though the nodes are moving, we’re about to have a final Lunar eclipse in Pisces next month in August 2026 at 4º on top of your natal Mars. February of next year, we’ll have the final Solar eclipse in Virgo on your ascendant at 1º conjoined to Mars retrograde and square Uranus in Gemini– so, um, yeah! The story is far from over. My thought is that you’ve probably been laying the groundwork for something more significant. 

I did take a peek at your human design chart as well, I’m not sure how familiar you are with it, but a few things struck me regarding your question: 

1) You have innocence motivation and 2) your Mars in Pisces and Moon-Jupiter in Virgo create the 37-40 channel, which is what the nodes and eclipses have been activating over the last year. 

Innocence motivated people (and I’m one of them!) can’t be “proactive” or move strategically. Instead, we meet life as it is without manipulating it. When we try to plan or get attached to a specific outcome, we are severely disappointed. This is another piece of your chart that is pointing you back to observation and acceptance. 

The 37-40 channel is about bargains made and the continuous oscillation between being independent and belonging to a community– this is where I wonder if the theme of the nodal cycle is less about specific relationships for you and more about a general sense of how you relate to others and the agreements you’re willing to partake in.

I’d stay curious over the next 6-8 months. How are the people and communities around you acting as mirrors? What bargains or deals are actually mutually beneficial… or even natural? Especially because Mars is about motivation, transits to this planet are going to show you what motivations are productive and which ones will derail you. 

You may be going through an important process of identifying your attachments or rigid agendas and letting them go. With innocence, you’ll find that your desires come to you when you stop planning and clinging– your correct motivation gives a very different context to the typical Virgo rising archetype. It’s about translating your experience honestly instead of gripping onto the translation you desire. 

Thank you for your question, I hope this helped! Much love!

Your friendly neighborhood astrologer, 

Katie

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HOROSCOPES FOR YOUR RISING SIGN

artwork by smnya

Read for your rising (ascendant) sign, you can calculate your birth chart here.

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Aries rising:

The last eighteen months invited you to rebalance your relationship with work, health, and daily responsibilities (South Node in the 6th) by expanding rest, surrender, solitude, and your inner life (North Node in the 12th). Now the North Node moves into your 11th house, compelling you toward community, friendship, and long-term visions, while the South Node in the 5th asks you to decrease the tendency to make one creative pursuit, romance, child, or personal passion "The One." The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined Pluto exposes whether your communities and future plans are built on shared support or invisible dependency. Jupiter in Leo may bring exciting creative opportunities, but don't allow one opportunity to consume the rest of your life.

Taurus Rising:

The Pisces-Virgo cycle expanded your communities, friendships, and future goals (North Node in the 11th) while decreasing overinvestment in personal creativity, romance, or the past (South Node in the 5th). Now the North Node compels growth in your 10th house of career, reputation, and purpose, while the South Node in the 4th recalibrates your relationship with home, family, and emotional security. This may be a time where you are releasing roles and attachments that keep you from your bigger goals. The Aquarius Full Moon illuminates your public life, exposing where your ambitions depend too heavily on one role or one structure instead of a sustainable foundation. 

Gemini Rising:

The previous nodal cycle emphasized career, visibility, and long-term ambitions (North Node in the 10th) while decreasing attachment to home, family expectations, or old foundations (South Node in the 4th). Now the North Node enters your 9th house, expanding travel, education, publishing, teaching, and your worldview, while the South Node in the 3rd asks you to simplify everyday obligations, information overload, or the need to elevate your own perspective above new or different ones. The Aquarius Full Moon reveals which beliefs are capable of supporting your future and which perspectives have become too small, diversifying and adopting foreign approaches serve you well.

Cancer Rising:

The North Node in Pisces has been expanding your 9th house of education, faith, travel, publishing, and perspective, while the South Node in Virgo has been refining how you communicate, learn, and process information in your 3rd. You may have learned that not everything can be reasoned or communicated through– some things require surrender. Now the North Node enters your 8th house, compelling you toward shared resources, trust, intimacy, and deeper transformation, while the South Node decreases overreliance on your own income, possessions, talents, or definitions of security in the 2nd. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined Pluto exposes hidden financial or emotional dependencies, asking whether your systems of support are sustainable.

Leo Rising:

The North Node in Pisces has been expanding your 8th house of shared resources, intimacy, trust, and transformation, while the South Node in Virgo has been refining your relationship with income, possessions, and self-worth in the 2nd. You may have learned that security isn't just about what you own, but also about what you're willing to share and receive. Now the North Node enters your 7th house, compelling you toward partnership, collaboration, and mutual support, while the South Node decreases over identification with your own needs, appearance, or independence in the 1st. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined Pluto exposes relationship dynamics that have become imbalanced, asking whether responsibility has been shared or quietly carried by one person alone. You’re being asked to open your heart to others again.

Virgo Rising:

The previous nodal cycle unfolded across your identity and relationships. The North Node in Pisces expanded your 7th house, asking you to surrender to partnership and collaboration, while the South Node in your 1st encouraged you to refine your identity and release the ways you carried everything yourself. Now the North Node enters your 6th house, compelling growth through work, health, daily routines, and practical devotion, while the South Node in the 12th decreases unconscious patterns, burnout, and the tendency to disappear into anxiety or isolation when you’re not feeling confident. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined Pluto reveals whether your daily systems genuinely support your life or whether invisible habits have quietly been running the show. There’s more support available to you than you realize. 

Libra Rising:

The North Node in Pisces has been expanding your 6th house of work, health, and daily routines, while the South Node in Virgo has been decreasing the things that contribute to hidden stress, overthinking, and unconscious patterns in the 12th. You may have learned where effort restores your life and where too much of it only creates friction. Now the North Node enters your 5th house, compelling you toward creativity, joy, romance, and self-expression, while the South Node in the 11th asks you to decrease overcommitment to groups, friendships, or idealizing one goal as golden. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined to Pluto exposes whether your creative life is being supported by your community or sacrificed to it. What is preventing you from having fun?

Scorpio Rising:

The previous nodal cycle expanded your 5th house of creativity, pleasure, romance, and personal expression, while the South Node in Virgo refined your friendships, communities, and future goals in the 11th. Now the North Node enters your 4th house, compelling you toward home, family, emotional security, and stronger foundations, while the South Node in the 10th decreases over investment in career, reputation, or external achievement. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined to Pluto asks whether your ambitions have become the center of gravity for your entire life or whether the foundation beneath them is strong enough to support them. Focus on creating a full and sustainable life, not just thriving in one role.

Sagittarius Rising:

The North Node in Pisces has been expanding your 4th house of home, family, and emotional foundations, while the South Node in Virgo has been recalibrating your relationship with career, responsibility, and public life in the 10th. Now the North Node enters your 3rd house, compelling you toward learning, communication, local community, and everyday connection, while the South Node in the 9th decreases attachment to certainty, distance, rigid beliefs, or needing to elevate one golden path above the rest. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined to Pluto reveals which conversations, ideas, and kinds of proximity are capable of supporting your future and which have quietly become too limiting.

Capricorn Rising:

The previous nodal cycle expanded your 3rd house of communication, learning, and everyday life, while the South Node in Virgo refined your beliefs, worldview, education, and perspective in the 9th. Now the North Node enters your 2nd house, compelling you to build greater stability through your income, values, and self-worth, while the South Node in the 8th decreases unhealthy dependency on shared resources, debt, or obligations that force you to over give. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined to Pluto exposes where your resources have become too concentrated, asking you to build security that can support the whole of your life.

Aquarius Rising:

The North Node in Pisces has been expanding your 2nd house of income, values, and personal resources, while the South Node in Virgo has been refining your relationship with shared finances, trust, exchange, and dependency in the 8th. You may have learned what truly nourishes you and where your resources have been quietly leaking away. Now the North Node enters your 1st house, compelling you toward personal growth, authenticity, and a stronger sense of self, while the South Node in the 7th decreases relationship patterns that require you to abandon yourself. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined Pluto in your sign marks the beginning of a profound personal transformation, exposing the parts of your identity that have elevated your attention on the other.

Pisces Rising:

The previous nodal cycle unfolded across your identity and relationships. The North Node in your 1st house expanded your sense of self, while the South Node in Virgo refined your partnerships, asking you to release relationship dynamics built on perfectionism, over functioning, or unequal responsibility. Now the North Node enters your 12th house, compelling you toward rest, healing, surrender, and trust in life's quieter rhythms, while the South Node in the 6th decreases overwork, hyper vigilance, and the belief that everything meaningful can be managed through effort alone– there are no awards for overdoing. The Aquarius Full Moon conjoined Pluto exposes unconscious patterns that have shaped your daily life, inviting you to release what stretches you thin.