Do you experience transformation at your nodal return?

From what I understand, the nodal return changes us and orients us toward our North Node journey (e.g. at age 38). So is it like Pluto, which governs transformations? Do we get transformed in a way similar to Pluto during a nodal return?

I experienced transformation at age 38, but I'm wondering if it was my nodal return, or Pluto. My Pluto sextiles NN.

The actual age for nodal return is 37 years and two months. And that's the second one. The first is at 18 years 7 months. If you were 38 when this transformation happened for you, it was about a year past your second node return. Whatever transits were happening in that year, when you were 38, would be more pertinent.

I have observed a running theme in my node returns (I've had two), but it's a minor note. Each time, something happened that reflected the theme of my north node placement. For me, that's Scorpio, eleventh house.

Both happenings were people coming into my life. At my first node return, when I was 18, it was a person with some very dark secrets. I'd known this person casually for a couple of months, but on the day of my node return we had our first significant interaction, and it was a huge conflict. It ended with me telling them off, very forcefully. Turned out, this person has the utmost respect for people who dare to tell them off... so that started us being friends.

The reveal of the secrets came a couple of months after that. That was in the eclipse season closest to my node return. Incidentally, Pluto was sitting on my north node during that return--perhaps that's why the experience I had then was so heavily Plutonian.

When my second node return was coming along, I decided to try hypnotherapy... not just because I thought it would be fun, but because there was some serious nasty stuff going on that I couldn't work through, and a conversation I overheard made me think hey, maybe that would help. Then a hypnotherapist turned up in my network. We emailed back and forth a few times, scheduled an appointment... and when the day of that first appointment came, my node return was exact. (Scorpio, remember, is the sign of the hypnotist.)

That did end up being a deeply transformative experience, but I'd say the node return itself was a minor note in the big picture.

Yes, I have Celeste Teal's book on the nodes, it's not bad.


There's also another book, "Lunar Gospel" (Cal Garrison), which does describe nodal returns as transformational events:


"By the time you get to be about 35 or 40, you begin to realize that things aren't working the way you thought they would, and you can't keep doing the same old thing because you're not growing... There is a moment of truth that comes to everyone, somewhere around their 40th year, when we look around and say, 'Hey, this isn't working for me anymore.'"


"The first 19 years of our lives give us a chance to see the pattern unfold one time. Adding 19 to 19 gives us 38. What I have noticed is that no one really understands what they're supposed to be doing with their lives until they're about 38. It's as if we have to go through 2 nodal cycles."


"At 38, the past-life patterns start to decompose, and we begin to say, 'Maybe I should start moving in a whole new direction.'"

AVisitor said:

Yes, I have Celeste Teal's book on the nodes, it's not bad.


There's also another book, "Lunar Gospel" (Cal Garrison), which does describe nodal returns as transformational events:


"By the time you get to be about 35 or 40, you begin to realize that things aren't working the way you thought they would, and you can't keep doing the same old thing because you're not growing... There is a moment of truth that comes to everyone, somewhere around their 40th year, when we look around and say, 'Hey, this isn't working for me anymore.'"

Click to expand...

Age 40 is astrologically significant for many reasons. Nodal return is perhaps the least of them.

All of us have a Saturn square to its natal position at age 36-37, followed by the nodal return at 37, followed by Neptune square its natal position at 39-41, on average, followed by Uranus opposition perfecting at age 42-44 (43 on average) and Saturn opposition at 44-45. That whole period from one's mid-late thirties to early-mid forties is a series of once in a lifetime (or just a few times in a lifetime) transits. Hence the popularly known midlife crisis. Which is transformation, if you make a positive response to it.

For the Pluto in Virgo and Pluto in Libra generations, and the oldest members of Pluto in Scorpio, there's also a Pluto square to its natal position in those midlife years. That greatly intensifies the crisis and transformation power of that time.

Again, it's not just the lunar nodes. They're one note in the cacophonous symphony.

AVisitor said:

"The first 19 years of our lives give us a chance to see the pattern unfold one time. Adding 19 to 19 gives us 38. What I have noticed is that no one really understands what they're supposed to be doing with their lives until they're about 38. It's as if we have to go through 2 nodal cycles."


"At 38, the past-life patterns start to decompose, and we begin to say, 'Maybe I should start moving in a whole new direction.'"

Click to expand...

That's rounding up. We've completed and moved on from our first node return by the time we turn 19, and moved on a few months farther from our second one by the time we turn 38. So, the process actually starts before we reach those birthdays. What's happening at 19 and 38 is that we've become aware of the effects of the process the nodal return initiated.

I had that age 38-40 NN return in 1' virgo-29' Leo that's said to be the degree of plagues opposite SN return in 1' pisces-29' Aquarius in 2018-20 (Feb 15, 1980 birthdate) to transit my natal sun conjunct moon in the 26' solar-20' Lunar or 6' close proximity to represent my experience of getting covid in Jan 2021 before I turned 41, then I lost my mother who had a different virus than covid on easter Sunday that's a soli-lunar holiday on Apr 4th and my emotional ups and downs and repeat roller coaster on the Apr 23rd-29th (mom's birthday week) to Mother's to memorial day in May to father's day around June to the July 1st-4th period last year.