HERALDS WAND Eclipse

Aquarius North Node Solar Eclipse

February 17th 2026 7:00 am Eastern

26th Shape: HERALDS WAND

21° 25' 43'' Aquarius – 4° 17' 09'' Pisces

There has not been a lunation in magical and liberatory HERALDS-WAND Shape since August 22nd of 2021, and there hasn’t been eclipses on this axis since February 15 2018, but that was with the Nodes reversed to their current positions. Last eclipses with the North Node in HERALDS-WAND was August 16 2008. I noticed recently that back then when North Node eclipses were happening in Aquarius I wrote a piece about how the internet was a threat to authentic subculture, and that was before many people had touched a smart phone or had a Facebook account yet. Here we are in 2026 struggling with the aftermath of peak virtual life throughout the early 2020s and people are wondering what to do with their identities and creative endeavors in a world where underground culture and mass culture have flipped.

Outer planets moving into fire and air signs and aspecting softly signals a more dynamic way of existing where ideas pollinate and activity catalyzes, so eclipses which compel us towards escaping what has had us imprisoned in limbos antithetical to life is appropriate, especially with Venus tightly conjunct the North Node in Pisces while the Solar Eclipse sparks off. Neptune and Saturn leaving Pisces as a couple has pulled much of the pollution out of the pool, and we can begin to look at the sludge in a different way. I’m reminded of Iggy Pop’s song ‘Chocolate Drops’ from his 2016 album ‘Post Pop Depression’:

When your love of life is an empty beach

Don't cry (don't cry)

When your enemy has you in his reach

Don't die (don't die)

When its painful to express the things you feel (inside)

When it hurts to share because they're bare and real (so real)

So when everyday is judgement day, I won't pray (don't pray)

When there's none to share that empty chair, well okay (okay)

When You get to the bottom You're near the top

The shit turns into chocolate drops

When You get to the bottom You're near the top

The shit turns into chocolate drops

When You get to the bottom You're near the top

The shit turns into chocolate drops

Drops

So fly (so fly)

So fly (so fly)

When your love of life is an empty beach (don't cry)

When is painful to express the things you feel (inside)

There is nothing in the stars if You fail to move

There is nothing in the dark, it's just some old excuse

Hanging on, let it go

The toxic virality of zombifying Pisces having us literally stuck in the muck of a decaying reality has officially concluded. Upon Saturn’s recent ingress to Aries on February 13th the movie ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die’ was released, in which a man from the future comes back to the now to assemble a crew of people to save the world from a dystopian fate of clones, drones and AI singularities where the virtual is inescapable and teenagers are the antagonists which the characters are trying to not be killed by. This get off your phone or else and teenagers are threatening premise tracks with what people are feeling as outer planets move into new positions and analog yearnings erupt along side personal and cultural expressions which are now more and more not being posted or shared online.

In the movie allergy to digital devices is suggested to be a savior of humanity, and indeed, more and more people are finding their phones and computers physically intolerable. We seem to be heading in a much different direction already as fire and air modalities take the baton from stubborn fixed earth and all permeating mutable water. I’ve said before it’s likely Power is corralling us all offline more the way it corralled us online more at the start of the decade. We don’t understand yet why, but either way, the real world is much more unpredictable and in your face, if we choose to accept the challenge of living in it.

The word the PGM uses which is translated to “heralds wand” is Kirýkeion, meaning caduceus, the often winged and serpent coiled staff most notably held by Hermes. As this is the shape which follows restrictive and bardo-like GARLAND, it is as if the Messenger arrives to tell you it’s time to move on from imprisonment in the void, ushering our zodiacal initiate from Saturn ruled Aquarius towards Jupiter ruled Pisces and onward towards the conclusion of the ceremonial rite. Mercury stations retrograde a week after the eclipse and returns to the degree of the North Node to station direct by Vernal Equinox, when the Sun treads the degree Saturn and Neptune are upon now. There is something going on here, and escalating into the boundlessness of immersiveness has something to do with it.

As Saturn demands autonomy and Neptune makes direct, independent action so dreamy looking we are likely not going to be willing to let anybody or anything hold us back, needing the freedom from all restrictions to both follow our desires and navigate through unfamiliar waters where there are not really any beacons to refer to. Kind of like protocols for lucid dreaming, there is a kind of previously drilled subconscious attention running in the background of totally letting go, i.e. being free to turn off and sleep, but find way in the dream world. We don’t want a sip of other world to just get a flavor, we want the swim within a whole reality.

We find water themes in this mansion which spans late Aquarius to early Pisces, as the Picatrix calls this “The Fore Spout of the Water Bucket” and sees there a “woman washing and combing her hair”. Love is mentioned in both the elections as well as the talisman which calls for white wax and pleasant odor, specifically of mastic, so likely Jupiter related, hence Pisces. The Nakshatra continues watery themes, as the rigveda sees the serpent of the deeps, Ahirbudhnya, as dwelling here, speaking of untapped energies in our unconscious mind, similar to kundalini latent in the body. That which is hidden or unseen, such as secret knowledge, is potentiated. This may even be considered how the scholarly, preserve classical knowledge, which seems worth contemplating in our “don’t waste your energy or breath” sick of sharing and knowing being able become easily corrupted moment. GARLAND is ascetically yogic, (picture the body bound images of Houdini, reminiscent of a fakir) but the 26th Nakshatra is more directly magical and tantric, able to overcome opposition and removes calamity, misfortune and grant refreshment, delight, enjoyment, and bring about happy fruitful endeavors.  In perfect Piscean fashion this Nakshatra is likened to mist and fog, as in the upward movement of water which produces rain.  There is a dragon of the deep here but rather than being chaotically chthonic it is instead the Sesa Naga deep underground giving steadiness to earth.

Following along with themes of escape from bondage the Grimoirium Verum spirit is Morail, who “makes you or anything invisible”. Reflections on the various “rings of invisibility” lore are appropriate here, aiding in you moving about unseen. The Quimbanda syncretic counterpart to Morail is Exu da Sombra, meaning ‘shade’ or ‘shadow’. This is interesting as the inner planets have only recently become visible again, where they spent several weeks in a state of renewal and reprogramming preparing for introducing ideas from our internal realities to the external world once again refreshing the plot, as well as having passed over Pluto on the way, so some of the cloak and dagger power dynamics inherent in our contemporary moment infuse within this current initiation into the future.

The Chinese Xiu talks of performing ritual blood pacts, which reflect both post-GARLAND energetics as well as Picatrix’s love bindings. Key to the themes is hunting divination in the presence of bow and arrow and namely the finding of good omens. Furthermore, medicinal plants, preparing for feasts, clannishness, longevity and reliability are all on the table, which makes sense as this leads to the 27th Shape, CHILD, where music and banquets are across the board, like a metaphysical baby shower celebration, only to be followed by the 28th Shape, KEY, which is basically a pilgrimage parade. This is essentially encoded in HERALDS-WAND zodiacally being the turning point of winter when we are now noticeably moving away from The Great Cold and Spring is inevitable and oncoming.

Astrologers in our day and age love to downplay the seasonal importance within the archetypes, and fetishize the more esoteric star lore, although, if you lived in the archaic world “seasonality” would be literally everything in the lack of contrasting media and industrialized utility; just eavesdrop the Yellow Emperor in conversation with Qibo. HERALDS-WAND in this sense can’t be underestimated. It’s filled with these very signals that spring is on its way despite the still persistent cold. This is literally “signs of life”, that which revives and allows stories to “unfreeze” and continue on with dynamic movement. It is how one survives The Flood, the all encompassing deluge, and perpetuates the species in a new earth, after any singularity of disaster; it’s the escape hatch, the moment you hear your the voice of whoever was sent to rescue you. The restoration of hope, you survived the ordeal.

The lunation is square to Uranus, so this sneaking out of the clamping jaws in the nick of time has some revolutionary purpose. Some violently quaking stuckness has just about shook itself apart and as it tectonically shifts under our feet we may be keen to hang ten on the plate and end up elsewhere, with a shifted perspective all of a sudden. When our baselines have properly changed, and we’ve been accidentally shot out of our cannons into new territory, then we might truly start to witness and participate in change lie we may have never before known in our life (unless we are well over 84 and remember the last time Uranus was in Gemini). At this point we can only imagine, and in fact we are obligated to with Saturn conjunct Neptune. Picture something that is other than what currently is, and poof, off you go into a new long term tangent.

This requires decisiveness, something which might have become atrophied from too much outsourcing. Also we need to run appropriate risk management. To not gamble at all is to remain unchanged, no chance at the jackpot, but when you play make sure to lose small and win big, usually by sensing when to get out and not be locked in to bets. If we neglect to take a stab at winning we are not playing it safe with Saturn now in Aries. We’re being pushed into tactical position. Things are likely not going to stay as they are, so keeping your current position becomes impossible in the medium to long term. Home-base is no longer a safe bet as now anything can happen.

So if HERALDS-WAND initiates a prompt to proceed forth from that which has bound you and kept you in stasis, have your wits about you as you wander off towards the next oasis. Remember, it’s an eclipse, so try to not initiate anything to close to the swallowed sun lunation, as it’s operating in the extreme, and tends towards turbulent trajectories. Stay calm and alert, connected to hidden knowledge, and via unfurling shadow watch your escape route unfold.