sar-taur-ial head, scor-sual tail
on the cultural impact of the taurus-scorpio nodal axis
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This is a brief reflection on the Taurus Scorpio nodal axis from Jan 2022 to July 2023, particularly on how they relate to the upcoming Libra-Aries eclipses, themes of fashion, beauty, stability, “enough-ness”, endurance, creativity, collectivity, harm, profit and celebrity power.
The nodes are mathematical points that mark where the eclipses will happen in two opposite signs for roughly 18 months. The nodes travel backwards, so we had the Capricorn (South Node) Cancer (North Node) eclipses, then the Sagittarius (SN) Gemini (NN) eclipses, then Scorpio(SN)—Taurus(NN) and now Libra(SN)—Aries(NN).
The eclipses are typically solar and lunar eclipses happening 2 weeks apart (e.g. the 30 April solar eclipse because of the Taurus New Moon conjoining with the Taurus Sun, followed by the 16 May lunar eclipse because of the Scorpio Full Moon opposing the Taurus Sun). A disruption and upheaval starts and is then touched upon again roughly 6 months later when 2 eclipses happen again with the Sun in the opposing sign (e.g. lunar and solar eclipses happening during Scorpio season). Events happen in the Taurus-Scorpio houses for 18 months, with each eclipse cycle unearthing new revelations; if the houses are angular, they are seismic shifts over 6-month intervals.
The north node is the head of the dragon, known for appetite and greed. The south node is the tail, a point of release and surrender. Very importantly, these may not be things you are willing to surrender or happy to gain. Eclipses are usually times of turmoil. As the Sun suffered, so would the monarch. Historically, certain cultures would hide away the real monarch and install a fake one temporarily to trick the skies, so bad luck would befall the puppet. Eclipses are unwanted disruptions in nature, an aberration, which is why events that unfold should be dealt with slowly, evenly and cautiously.
However, if you’re looking to initiate something considered “unnatural” in your culture, eclipse points might be a great time to do it. I don’t think eclipses are necessarily bad. Bad is a matter of personal will not aligning with circumstance. Turmoil might be exactly what you need to escape or to overthrow someone. You may want the Sun and monarch to fall, so you may be the eclipse personified.
Please note that all nodal axes are not personally relevant for people. They may be relevant if:
they square or conjoin your natal placements
the eclipses fall in your angular houses (1, 4, 7, 10)
if you have the Sun or Moon as a time-lord (with the profection year activating a Leo or Cancer ruled house, as determined by Whole Sign House technique) because those are the two bodies involved in the eclipse
or if you are experiencing a nodal opposition (such as at roughly 27) or a nodal return
- Beyonce’s Renaissance (whose visuals are still NOT HERE) is released in 2022 and officially brings disco and house back. The visuals and music draw on a history of queerness and transness dominating electronic, disco, house, club and fashion, able to make beautiful music because they were willing to be weird and earnest, able to make spaces where the world outside was bleak but the world inside the club was safe, full of beautiful people with brilliant minds.
To draw on the rich artistic repository left by those before you is so Taurus. It also draws on post-70s Black ball culture, club culture and house music. As such, it is a tribute to artistic expression by the marginalized who live on in the art they made and pioneered, remarking on death, decay, pleasure and immortality (an ode to artistic persistence and communal recognition echoed earlier in Everything Everywhere All At Once and Michelle Yeoh’s career arc). Is pleasure truly pleasure when brave?
American fashion and media would be nonexistent without Black, Indigenous and Queer communities.
- Visible mending (where you repair the tear in your clothes by making it even more visible by decorating it with beautiful patterns) entered mainstream fashion debates with the Taurus-Scorpio nodal axes. It was already spreading in 2020 (when Uranus had moved into Taurus to disrupt our ideas of beauty and enough-ness and innovation regarding beauty), as evidenced by a Vogue article on it. It was framed as a resistance to the ways fast fashion had monopolized the fashion industry and demanded constant endless renewal. You could show off the wear and tear as a thing of beauty instead of throwing out the entire thing to buy a cheap top that would disintegrate after 3 washes.
- brands such as Balenciaga, Abercrombie and Fitch and Victoria's Secret were brought back into the limelight because of new campaigns (November, Balenciaga) or new documentaries (March for A&F and July for VS) that all emphasized their failure to impact culture responsibly. They had flagrantly put profit and possession above safety and protection of their audiences. However, part of this was used to drum up moral panic by right-wing celebrities, such as Tucker Carlson, and I like to see the Moon struggling as a sign of “who will think of the kids?” debates about purity striking up again.
By the way, the consecutive “rise and fall” documentary releases then also started a discussion on the onslaught of cheap gratuitous documentaries: the kind that propagate masalaydaar tabloid-y news (sensationalized, badly researched and unethical) disguised by high-budget production and general media illiteracy. The prestige behind the “documentary” label protects what is essentially TMZ-standard reporting by intellectualizing it as an expose when it is a cash grab on the new trendy thing to discuss on the internet for clout (Y2K, thinness, heroin chic, the it-girl, etc.) to show that you know all the current debates and can weigh in without listening to any of the experts or reading or researching.
- Kanye, famed partly for being a fashion icon, ran his legacy into the ground for good when his anti-Semitism was finally taken notice of (as well as the company he kept) and due consequences were meted out, such as brands cutting ties with him and it reducing his net worth.
- Barbiecore's hyper-pink ensemble pieces took off in 2022 because of the Valentino Pink Pierpaolo Piccioli fall 2022 collection, worn by entertainers such as Rihanna and Aishwarya Rai. One reason Barbiecore entered the mainstream was because of Greta Gerwig working on the Barbie movie, with set pictures spreading everywhere over summer 2022. Another major reason was a resurgence of whiteness post-COVID-19, pushing youth, pert fitness, high-maintenance femininity (the kind that requires able-bodied-ness to perform on a daily basis) and traditional gender back into the mainstream. The white woman ideal was back full force, as per a video essay by Kimberly Nicole Foster.
(I mean, sure, it’s cute and fun but let’s also acknowledge the fascist historical precedents in the room with us.)
This will culminate this summer as the nodes change signs right after the Barbie movie release. I wonder if it'll impact the movie's performance to be so close to the end of a trend. Will it close the chapter it opened and be a fond memory? Or will it flop for releasing on the tail-end of cultural relevance?
- Rihanna revolutionized maternity fashion with her photoshoots throughout 2022, such as with the Dior Paris Fashion Week show.
- as countless Black and /or Disability Justice scholars have already pointed out (such as @crutches_and_spice), eugenics reenters the mainstream after epidemics and pandemics, such as with the 1918 Flu. Thinness becomes a beauty ideal touted by white survivors primarily, who believe they lived while others died because of their health and fitness (the moon exalting in Taurus and falling in Scorpio). This dovetailed with the return of Y2K fashion and its obsession with heroin chic looks to mark the end of the Brazilian Butt Lift era. The pendulum swung away from commodifying and fetishizing Black people's bodies (a cultural effort pioneered by the Kardashian-Jenner family) to celebrating the thin ideal of a fragile/fit White Body. As @kardashian_kolloquium has pointed out, the family's effort to align themselves with American history, media and future-making ensured they would follow suit.
- on the subject of cultural appropriation and as a minor aside, Hailey Bieber in Sept 2022 claimed to herald a new "brownie glazed lips" trend. Of course, this came as a surprise to million of Black and Brown people because this makeup technique had been used for decades - at the very least - by them. Unlike many other incidents, internet audiences were quick to document the inaccurate historical rewriting. I personally find it very cool how the relationship between Venus, Mars, Saturn and the Moon over Libra-Aries and Taurus-Scorpio means the historical element of fashion always keeps being brought up because history is what takes fashion to culture.
- on this point, Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe's dress (worn for JFK's birthday in 1962, that she sang the happy birthday song in) for the Met Gala sparked an overdue discussion. She had worn a dress she didn't fit into, causing irreparable damage that was then increased by the lights and environment it was exposed to. The lack of archival ethics and care (lunar themes) displayed by Ripley's was also a key point of contention, with many bemoaning the lack of historical archives that allowed careless and thoughtless private companies like Ripley's to spring up in the vacuum, where they would operate destructively but get away with it because there were no other alternatives that cared for fashion history. Fashion could be wildly lucrative but also considered frivolous at the same time, because the audience contributed more to its respectability than the moneymaking executives.
- as more and more info comes to light on SheIn's products causing severe reactions and tags containing pleas for help from workers trapped in dehumanizing conditions, SheIn becomes the most popular brand in the world (as per a money co UK report). Now companies like Uniqlo, Temu and ASOS are replicating its structure. The debates surrounding humane working conditions, upcycling and sustainability expanded to include the big fashion houses as well, with fashion scholars pointing out that big brands often also produce fast fashion. They just aren't called that. They often employ the same practices, use similar materials, poor fast-paced stitching and produce the same cheap results and must be similarly held accountable for doing the same as SheIn, just at a higher price point.
With the Taurus-Scorpio nodes, we saw questions about stability and accessibility regarding beauty. Jupiter's move into Taurus for the next year feels like both a balm on the wounds left from the eclipse and a chance to create something new in the ruptures left by the eclipses. It seems like the ongoing WAG strike will be joined by a SAG strike as well. Sometimes, art needs defending from culture because the humanity in it is being stamped out. As Jupiter and Mars square, the strike brews.
What is the new cultural meaning we could give to beauty? To enough? To endurance? To relating and art so it feels less immaterial, especially as AI engines remove the humanity and feeling behind art and make it a product?
Art is rooted deeply in its Taurus process of being created and its Scorpio process of being scrapped to be recreated. Sometimes, art helps you come to terms with violence and harm. Sometimes, art is the source of violence and harm, from breathing in the fumes to suffering the consequences of propaganda against you.
It is not art without cultural effort and connection behind it. AI engines are just an extension of greed and overconsumption.
More and more people are turning away from makeup, skincare and clothes-related overconsumption, with direct parallels being drawn between 2016 makeup YouTuber hoarding and the current skincare drawers and mini-fridges. As the nodes shift towards Libra and Aries (July 2023 to Jan 2025), these questions will expand to include social media celebrities, with their practices and brand deals being more heavily interrogated. The complaints around influencers facilitating rapid micro-trend cycles through their hauls and their -core obsessions have already begun.
How much is enough? What does making it last look like? What are the problems with too much or too little and who's dealing with them? With the Libra-Aries axis, we may see debates around the historical value and importance of fashion, particularly the ethics of preserving it, because with preservation come questions of accessibility (who do we keep it safe from and who gets to see it?), ownership (where does it get to be kept safe?) and time (when is it archiving and when is it endless hoarding that goes nowhere?).
Because of the Sun exalting in Aries and falling in Libra, we may also see questions of visibility among the collective. Social media teaches us to believe in the myth that fame is a gift but attention without protective infrastructure leads to inevitable collapse. We live in economies where attention may be required to pay bills but is exacting a massive toll, exposing people to harassment and harm. And as attention becomes a commodity, so does private surveillance security to protect against unwanted attention. The eyes on the internet are watching you back. If you think you're the voyeur, you're a guaranteed exhibition too.
Who gets to be seen and reap the harms and benefits of it? As Mars creeps towards Leo where it will oppose Pluto and as Venus prepares to retrograde through Leo, beauty becomes even lonelier because of how deeply celebrity relates to power and violence. We aspire towards it as a collective but the victory can only be individual.
Beauty has always been both a social act — a collective pursuit — and a lonely conquest. Who gets to be the singular ideal: of beauty, of individuality, of leadership? Who has to then fight to maintain that distinction? As seats at the table dwindle, who stays away to show solidarity and who goes onwards for personal interest anyway? Who realizes they must make their own tables, instead of waiting eternally for invitations?
So much of beauty is about virality and visibility, about spectacle. And the Sun is about visibility and spectacle. When you think of a painter, you think of the person who made the piece that now hangs in a museum, not the person sketching on walls to show how Baba (insert name) will fix your (insert illness) or the Nelson Paints ads.
As graffiti artists fight to demand respect, these people aren’t part of the debate. Their work isn’t even considered painting. It’s called “wall-chalking” and is considered illegal, with authority figures frequently rebuking it for making a city ugly and requiring clean-up. It’s not about whether it’s a TTP recruitment slogan or a harmless heart because that level of discernment is too much work. All of it must go.
The entertainment aspect of Venus is a visibility aspect. Are you a performer or a public menace? Are you considered hers or are you forgotten?
Are you worth knowing? Are you worth relating to? And who do you think is worth knowing and relating to? Whom do you align yourself with when you have power? Who chooses to be seen with you when you’re a pariah?
Who are you willing to fight with? What have you seen stolen that you are now willing to go to war for? What is a useful war, useful ally, useful enemy? You cannot just help, you must also accept help or you will get nowhere.
Celebrity is the craft of relation: you make a brand — a sellable self — based on who you know and who wants to know you. Many celebrities go through periods where they’re everywhere and people then resent them. The Aries-Libra axis is also about the hypervisibility that it takes to be seen and heard in a culture so driven by visibility and Taurus-Scorpio sense-focused media (such as social media, as videographic media grows in popularity must have a face and a voice). As Jia Tolentino noted in Trick Mirror, social media demands you curate a sense of self and center it everywhere; your only mode of interaction with the other users is building an endlessly opining avatar. It trains you to never question why that design choice exists and what it means for communication and relation, if everyone is their own starting and most important point.
The last time we had Libra SN and Aries NN was Dec 2004 to June 2006. The longing for a Neopets Geocities populated internet, away from social media site monopoly, is growing. The current landscape of the internet can arguably be traced to this period, so we can either get worse or we can regret what led us here and try a new path (Aries NN).
What fashion trend did you observe in 2022? How do you think it relates to the Taurus-Scorpio nodal axis? What do you predict will happen during the Aries-Libra axis?
the aspect of the shift from black/brown bodies as the cultural commodity back to the white hody makes me think of a certain someone i currently have the misfortune of working for