Neptune Conjunct the North Node: The Magic of Abundance

astrology

Feb 6

We are presented with a paradox.

On the one hand, we live in a universe of abundance. We are loved, and we are cared for, and we have everything that we need to thrive.

At the same time, our communities are struggling. Here in the United States, we have a housing shortage and food shortage and not enough medical care. The streets are full of sick and starving people, and the prices of everyday things are rising at a staggering rate.

Somehow, both the abundance and lack are true, and we are being challenged to reconcile that fact. The solution is not to just announce, “We have abundance,” and call it a day. We need magic that can make abundance out of lack.

Like stone soup. Have you heard that old folktale?

The Story: Stone Soup

Once a stranger came to town and asked the villagers for some food.

“We’re all hungry,” the villagers said. “There is nothing to eat anywhere. We don’t have anything to share with you.”

“It’s good I came, then,” the stranger said. “I have a magic rock that will make enough soup for everyone. All I need is a big pot, some water, and a fire.”

The villagers brought out a pot, filled it with water, and set it over a fire. The stranger took the stone out of their pocket, kissed it, and threw it into the pot.

The pot of stone soup bubbled and boiled, and the villagers gathered around and muttered hungrily.

“When is it going to be ready?” they asked.

“It’s coming along nicely,” the stranger said. “Can someone bring me a ladle, so I can taste it?”

One of the villagers brought a ladle, and the stranger dipped the ladle into the pot and took a small sip.

“Delicious!” the stranger said. “You know what would really make this soup better, though, is a potato. It’s a shame you don’t have any.”

“I have a potato!” the mayor said. She ran to her house and came back with a somewhat wrinkly potato.

“This will do nicely,” the stranger said.

After requisitioning a cutting board and knife, the stranger chopped the potato and threw it into the pot.

More time went by, and the villagers pressed in closer around the pot and muttered hungrily. The stranger tasted the soup and sighed with pleasure.

“This really is an amazing soup,” the stranger said, “but it really would be so much better if it had some onion in it. It’s a shame you don’t have any.”

“I have an onion,” the potter said.

He ran back to the house and came back with an onion. It had a big green sprout sticking out of the top, but the stranger accepted it as if it was the most beautiful onion in the world. Then they chopped it and threw it in the pot.

Over the course of the afternoon, the soup grew as the villagers found a few carrots, a bay leaf, a handful of dried thyme stems, a bulb of fennel, a few leaves of parsley, a pig’s ear, a crust of bread, and a scrawny (but deeply flavorful) old hen. Everything went into the pot of stone soup.

Finally, as evening came, the villagers couldn’t stand that delicious smell without eating any longer, and they ran to their houses for mugs and bowls.

“Ah, yes, the most important ingredient,” the stranger said, “hunger,” and they filled the mugs and bowls with stone soup. The villagers ate every drop of that soup until there was nothing left in the pot but a slimy old rock. The stranger wiped the slime from the magic stone with their shirt and dropped it in their pocket. They walked off into the woods with a full belly, whistling.

No one in the village went to bed hungry, even though that morning no one in the village had enough to feed themselves, thanks to the stranger’s miraculous stone soup.

The Mystery of Abundance in Stone Soup

When I was a child, I heard the story of Stone Soup at Thanksgiving. I was told that the villagers really did have enough to feed the stranger, but they were suspicious and greedy and hid their abundance because they didn’t want to share.

What if the truth is more complicated? What if none of the villagers were lying? What if they didn’t have enough to make a meal for themselves that night? What if the mayor really did have nothing to feed her family with but a potato? What if the potter had nothing but an onion? What if there was a family with sixteen children and nothing but a three pound hen?

Calorically, the list of ingredients that went into stone soup isn’t enough to feed a village, but there is a magic in soup. With a few scraps of food waste, you can fill an empty belly.

Neptune Conjunct the North Node: Finding Abundance

The north node and Neptune in Pisces tell us that the path forward for us is to embrace the magic that dances around the impossibility of abundance. We are like the stranger walking into the village surrounded by a fog of unknowing. They didn’t actually know what the villagers had, but they had the courage to stop approaching the problem at a rational level. In sinking into the heart of their desire, they were able to find abundance.

“There isn’t enough to eat… but I’m really hungry for a potato… and there it is.”

Gemini Planets square the North Node in Pisces: Wait just a second…

As I am writing this, the north node of the moon has met up with Neptune in Pisces and is square (by sign) Jupiter and the moon in Gemini.

Sometimes, it is enough to trust in the abundance of the universe and follow your desire. When planets in Gemini are square planets in Pisces, we don’t have it that easy. There are real problems. There are unavoidable facts we cannot avoid. We have to look at the data. We can’t just magic them away. Any solutions we come up with have to work in the real world.

In the story of Stone Soup, the stranger was able to make soup out of a potato and a carrot and an onion, but they couldn’t just wish it into being out of thin air.

In the real world, we know that soup has the ability to fill empty bellies in a magical way, more than would be suggested from the pure calorie count. We can get by on that for a while. That is the magical tension between Gemini and Pisces. Pisces brings magic that transcends the possibilities in Gemini’s data, but this is a dynamic tension that can’t last. The stranger has to move on. The soup trick can work for a night, not a hundred nights.

Sometimes, though, all we need is one night where the answer to the paradox is in the magic of community and soup. There are moments when, if we bring together what we have even though it isn’t much, we are able to create something that is so much more than the sum of its parts.

All we need is someone with the courage to admit that they are hungry and a community with the courage to show up with honesty and hope.

If you have Neptune conjunct the north node in your natal chart, you are living out this story.

Put more accurately, you are trying to make this story come true. You are carrying this vendetta because you experienced a time when this story was definitely not true.

Maybe there was a time in your childhood or a past life when the magic failed. Maybe you were the stranger who showed up hungry, and no one answered the door. Maybe, you were one of the villagers, and a stranger ran off with the only food you had after promising to magic it into a feast and share with everyone.

These experiences make you inclined to believe that the story of Stone Soup isn’t possible. There is no magic in the world. 2+2 will never = 5.

But stories like this will present themselves to you over and over and over, trying to help you rebuild your faith in magic again.