Molt.

Life is a series of patterns.

Some patterns we try to suppress. While others we embrace like a drug, never quite satiating our hunger. Then there are those that we try to run away from, but just when we think we're "fixed" they repeat and we feel defeated by the very thing that keeps calling us back. The pattern leading us to the very thing we've been trying to escape.

I'm well acquainted with patterns. My own, my clients, and the celestial ones I get paid to interpret.

Some patterns are easier to spot than others, predictable and reliable. Others are chaotic, rippling outward with unforeseen outcomes. Yet, they felt divine and a part of the grand plan after all.

It was 2007. A year where my life presented a series of sliding doors moments. I'd forgotten how much I'd changed my trajectory that year until I took a deeper look at the patterns.

I'd been living in Australia for two years, and my relationship wasn't working. We were young. I was strong-willed. We were a 'nice' New Zealand couple, but wildly mismatched. Love that stemmed from a drunken Wednesday ladies' night with a plethora of $1 drinks. We were engaged, and the wedding planning (in hindsight) was a disaster. It was the best two twenty-somethings from a small town knew.

I didn't know it at the time, but the south node was conjunct my sun, and I wouldn't understand this until 13 years later. My identity was radically changing, what I desired had shifted, and I felt stuck and restless.

I don't remember all the specifics, as my memory is coloured from my earlier years due to addiction, but I can wholeheartedly say I blew up my life. And likely didn't handle anything with consideration or grace.

The wedding was called off. I relocated to another city. I quit the fashion company I'd been working at for 8 years and moved into beauty. I studied makeup artistry, I made new friends, and I felt a freedom I hadn't felt in years. It led to a bunch of bad decisions and also a whole lot that would be the springboard of my life today.

It was a reckoning, and if I look towards my stars, I am part of the greater plan.

Fast forward to June 2026, and as the month ticked over, I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I had a sudden urge to crawl out of my own skin. I started reflecting (let's be real, ruminating) on the past, and overthinking inconsequential details I hadn't poured over in years. Decisions, I'd felt excited by recently, started to lose their sparkle and instead felt way more risky. So after a few days of observing crunchy thoughts enter my arena unexpectedly, I decided to carve out some time to map my horoscope.

I always have in the back of my mind a general consensus of my current and future map, but I don't obsess over the greater details—it's way more fun to fixate on my clients' transits rather than my own. It wasn't until I pulled up my chart that I realised I'd overlooked the karmic nature of the nodes, and how much they were influencing my current reality.

These destiny points, mathematical calculations tracking the moon's orbit through all 12 signs in approximately 18 years, sit in our birth chart showing us where we feel stuck and safe versus where we need to rise and expand. I've always thought of them as sliding doors, and there they were in mine, activated and determining exactly what was coming to light.

The south node is associated with past life influence, what's familiar, and our comfort zone. It's the point of mastery, yet we feel compelled to retreat to this energy, often. It can show up as excess baggage, burnout, blind spots, and wounds.

When connected to our sun, our life force, vitality, and where we're destined to shine—one word, serpent.

Like a snake shedding its skin, I realised I'd outgrown a chapter and a season in my life, and it was time to replace my current layer of skin with a new one.

The process is never fun, as the serpent is the very depiction of duality. Both life-giving and destructive duality—another pattern in itself, existing simultaneously and interdependently. But it's also the symbol of wisdom and rebirth. A state you cannot obtain or acquire without some form of dismantling on the way.

As I write this, I'm on the other side of this transit. I'm reminded that life is a continual journey. It's not the astrology I appreciate the most; it's the patterns. I've lived what's felt like nine lives between 2007 and 2026. The circumstances aren't the same, but the feelings are.

I felt stretched, but with a little life experience on my side, I was able to respond radically differently.

Rather than blow up my life, I hit pause on it. I created space to explore the real reason behind what I was feeling, so instead of feeling "scary," it felt exciting.

I've changed, but the pattern hasn't. That's the real gift when we look towards the stars; we get to co-create in real time… if we're open to it.