#46: When The Floods Come
Flexibility, Discipline, and the Lunar Nodes
Hurricane Helene came barreling through my life on Friday, September 27th. What many people don’t know, though, is that it had already been raining for days.
In early August, I had an abortion— a harrowing experience I never imagined I would personally confront. Two weeks later, 60% of my body was covered in poison ivy. I spent the entirety of the month feeling like I was on fire.
And then, the flood.
I look at life through a metaphorical lens, understanding that the cosmos can’t always communicate with me in plain English. To feel ravaged, to feel displaced in my own body, and then to have my physical home and beloved city void of the amenities that created (at least the illusion of) safety: power and running water, felt like a deluge of lessons around control I could no longer escape.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from navigating an unplanned pregnancy, debilitating poison ivy, and a catastrophic natural disaster back to back to back, it’s that flexibility is a key to survival. In astrology, that particular medicine resides in the mutable signs: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces.
Mercury enters Sagittarius on November 2nd, and then stations retrograde on November 25th. Jupiter will be in Gemini until June 9th, 2025. Saturn will be in Pisces until May 24th, 2025, and then again from September 1st-February 13th, 2026. The North Node moves into Pisces and the South Node moves into Virgo on January 11th, 2025, remaining through July 27, 2026.
This concentration of mutable energy in the heavens indicates lots of impending change down here on Earth.
When engaging with the idea of flexibility, it’s important to remember that it’s different for everyone. You’ve witnessed this first hand if you’ve ever taken a yoga class. While you might easily stand on your head, it could be triumphant for the person next to you to reach down and touch their toes.
Another survival tactic I’ve been working to hone is discipline, which had previously felt antithetical to flexibility— but they’re actually symbiotic. If you want to be able to “go with the flow” you have to be committed to continually stepping into it.
The eclipses of 2025 will provide us that opportunity while highlighting change on both personal and global scales. Find Pisces and Virgo in your birth chart (opposite houses) and meditate on how these areas of your life are ready to evolve. If you’re a planner like me, you can circle these dates on your calendar as epicenters of lessons in both flexibility and the discipline to meet it:
Friday, March 14th, 2025: Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Virgo
Sunday, September 7th, 2025: Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Pisces
Sunday, September 21st, 2025: New Moon Solar Eclipse in Virgo
With the North Node entering Pisces, that’s where we’ll be seeking to expand. Let’s be more empathetic, more spiritual, and more creative. With the South Node entering Virgo, that’s where we’re set to release. Let’s be less critical, less anxious, and less structured.
In what I consider preparation for these upcoming shifts, Mars will soon station retrograde from December 6th-February 23rd, 2025. With the planet of headstrong action in reflective rather than decisive mode, it’s encouragement to slow down and ponder what it would look like to do things differently— particularly if our survival depends on it.
In the midst of compounding personal and collective trauma the past few months, astrology, as ever, has been my beacon. And while I can’t say that horrible things make much more sense to me than they did before my comfort zone(s) burned up and then washed away, I hope that from wherever you’re standing (and especially if it’s knee high in shit) you can look up and remember you’re never alone.
Through time and space,
Erin River Sunday
If you’re looking for ways to help WNC, please consider supporting me and other Asheville small business owners this holiday season. We still don’t have drinkable water and will be recovering for much longer than the media cycle is reporting on it.
You can Shop my Etsy and Book a Reading (email me for gift certificates) and check out this Asheville business directory for other ideas.