And look, we were completely open to meeting someone new, and willing to make it work because, well, our grades were on the line. We divided up the work, and we did status check-ins. Barry did not pull his weight anyway, so we ended up cobbling something BS together to cover his part at the last minute. I think we got a C on it at first. And of course we snitched, because WTF, and after the professor heard the whole story, I remember my pal and me walking away with an A- and trust issues.

"Eboni," you ask, "why are you telling me this random story from two decades ago?"

I'm telling you this because the North Node slides into Aquarius on July 27th, where it'll stay into early 2028. And the next 18 months are one long group project.

There are two versions of a group project. There's the one I just described (a hot a$$ mess), and then there's the version where a bunch of musicians took over Electric Lady Studios in the late 90s and basically never left. D'Angelo, Questlove, J Dilla, and James Poyser were the core, with Erykah Badu, Bilal, Common, and more floating in and out. Masterpieces like Voodoo, Mama's Gun, and Things Fall Apart all came out of those rooms within a couple of years. To this day, nobody can fully tell you who came up with what, because it was a room full of stars and nobody was guarding their solo. They called themselves the Soulquarians, and they named the collective after the sign because damn near all of them were Aquarius people.

The next year and a half is asking which project we're building and what role we play.

Quick node refresher

The lunar nodes are where eclipses happen, and they act like the collective's syllabus. The North Node points at the skill we're all being stretched toward, while the South Node marks the muscle we've overworked, the thing we do on autopilot. They sit exactly opposite each other, so when the North Node backs that thang up into Aquarius (it moves backward—crazy, right?), the South Node lands in Leo at the same moment.

Aquarius is a fixed air sign ruled by Saturn. Fixed air means ideas that get frozen in place, and these are the folks who will argue you down about the sky being blue. It's the sign of the collective that is somehow ALSO the sign of the weirdo who doesn't fit the group. That tension is at the heart of the story.

Exit stage left 🎤

Jan Spiller called the approval of others "a false barometer," and that's the crux of it: a barometer that only measures which way the wind is blowing can't tell you whether the thing you made was good. If you need the likes to know, that's the addiction talking, and the next 18 months are the taper. Is there a 12-Step program for vanity and self-centeredness? 💅🏾

Barry lives on this side of the axis too, by the way. Leo South Node is also the part of us that expects royal treatment, assumes the group will carry us, and still wants a bow at curtain call. The transit has notes for both the performers and the coasters.

Enter the weirdos 🛸

Now the Aquarius side. Pluto has been in Aquarius since 2024, asking one question on repeat: who gets to decide what a better future looks like? On the 27th, the node joins it in the sign, which means eclipses will spend the next year and a half forcing that question into our actual lives. (Back in February, I told you the eclipse at 28° Aquarius had us "in the goo," mid-metamorphosis. The node is now walking in through that same door, and next month's eclipse season lands on the Leo side, so consider this your heads up.)

Here's your part in all this. Aquarius ideas work like radio signals, and some of us have better antennae than others. If you've been sitting on an idea that feels too strange to say out loud, this era is FOR you, boo. Say it in the meeting, or drop it in the group chat, even if it earns you a side-eye. Being ahead of your time only pays off if you speak up before the time arrives, Amen? And the alternative is watching somebody else launch your idea in 2027 while you point at the screen like the Leo DiCaprio meme.

And you don't have to shrink to do it. Aquarius's tarot card is The Star, the card that comes right after the Tower knocks everything down. The figure on it is naked, and that's the point: she's done performing. You bring your whole weird self to this era, but you bring it TO the group instead of performing it AT an audience. Ultimately, The Star is a card of hope and symbolizes meditating on the future. The time to envision a better world is now.

I hate to tell you what to do, but do this... 📝

[Okay, I'm lying! Honestly, I kinda like telling people what to do because I have Mars and Jupiter in Capricorn and somebody's make the trains run on time 😅]

• Pull your weight. Whatever group you're in (the job, the friendship, the movement), do your part like the other four people might drop out. Don't be a social loafer like Barry. [Going forward, the only Barrys I acknowledge are Obama, White, Marion, and Manilow.]
• Say one unorthodox idea out loud this week, and pick the one that scares you a little.
• If you feel shaky in a room, put the spotlight on somebody else and ask about their thing. Try it out.
• Audit your applause intake, and notice the next time you check for a reaction before you decide how you feel about something you made.
• Move your blood. Aquarius rules circulation and the nervous system, so this era rewards long walks and actual fresh air. Cold hands gang, I'm looking at you.

The Leo-Aquarius axis runs through 2 specific houses of your chart, and that's where this story gets personal. If you want to know which rooms of your life the next 18 months are renovating, book a reading, and we'll map it.

Stay weird on purpose, homie!

p.s. My bad re: the janky newsletter that went out earlier this week. What a Mercury Retrograde cluster, amiright? I did lose a couple of subscribers after that debacle, but I appreciate you sticking with me for the mercurial madness!!