9th house profection year

I am 20 years old and nearing the end of my 9th house year. I still have four months to go in which I'm sure all of the action will happen (because that’s just how it goes), but I have spent the last 8 months saturated in this energy. It has activated my North Node in Cancer, my destiny, who I am to become. It has been a Moon ruled year, often reflective of home, family, the inner world, and emotions. My Moon is conjunct Venus of love, value, money, and attraction. In the whole signs system it is in the 6th house in Aries. Aries is the sign of anger- deserved and undeserved, felt and unfelt, seen and unseen. It’s the sign of the inner child, the sign that begs for drive and flame, the sign in which the Moon and Venus are restless and uncomfortable. It is not pretty or dainty or malleable by others. Aries is not a sign you can shape, it is eternally at its purest form, its innermost child and self. Even if an Aries tries to hide it, the flames and the steam burn through until it’s too hot to handle and you end up burning yourself. Or others. Or everyone in your wake.

My North Node in Cancer is activated. The North Node is destiny, what you have come to Earth to learn in this lifetime. While I have had a 9th house year before, as we all do at age 8, and while I will have quite a few more 9th house years to come (ages 32, 44, 56, 68, and so on), this is the first time I have been so aware of it.

Cancer is the sign of home, family, loved ones, gentleness. Cancer is the sign of care, sensitivity, mastery of emotion. It carries all the wisdom of the Moon as this is its ruler. This is what I am supposed to grow into. The North Node is where we are going and what we are learning to be, but the South Node is what we come to Earth equipped with already. The South Node will always be the opposite of the sign your North Node is in.

My South Node is in Capricorn in the 3rd house. I came equipped with the knowledge of street smarts. Capricorn, the mature, industrious, rigid sign ruling over my third house of local environment, communication, perception, friendships, and siblings. I know how to be efficient in communication. Capricorn over the third house is like a local gangster. Badass, terrifying, but able to handle business with maturity. Its maturity is what makes it frightening. It’s funny because as a teenager I was nicknamed “Mob Boss Kiddo Kahoots” by one of my employees. I was a child, but I knew how to be the boss. The way that I processed information and communicated was mature and worthy of recognition. Capricorn is efficient, but it can have a rigidity to its perception, thinking and therefore believing that life has to be difficult, and strict, and mature. This is what it has known. It has experienced the roughness of the streets and it thinks that life always has to be this way– this is the way it is for any Capricorn south node.

The 9th house is about expansion, spirituality, beliefs, other cultures, places and ideals that differ from your own. It's about big picture thinking and distance. Travel. Experience. It is the opposite of the 3rd house, it isn’t the perception you were born with, it’s the perception you develop. Having Cancer on the 9th house, the sign of homey, comforting love. The sign of care, gentle, slow nurturing. This is a year that forces a wider perception to include these themes. This year has served as a catalyst to force me out of my 'mob boss' past and thrust me into a gentler future. The 9th house year is incredibly humbling because it knocks you on your ass and fundamentally breaks down everything you thought you knew about the world. It requires compromise with the 3rd house and forces you into changing your perspective, broadening it. This is so contradicting because while this year is, in a larger sense, pulling me closer to gentleness– it does this by waving it my face at a distance.

In a 9th house year everything is at a distance from you. You reach out for the things that you want and you take a journey. You journey to what you want, thinking you’re going from Point A to Point B, but of course you aren’t.

You are instead taken down many winding roads, and detours, and nothing looks like you thought it would– like you pictured– opposite of the 3rd house where we conjure our ideas and thoughts. Oppositions require compromise. So the 9th house (your destination) requires compromise with the 3rd house (your initial thoughts). Once you get to Point B, the destination is so unrecognizable that you’re completely unsatisfied and you want to start all over. The 9th house will teach you that your initial thoughts about your destination are usually wrong. It's entirely about the journey and the experiences and the people you meet along the way.

During a 9th house year, you might go on a journey that leads to an unfulfilling destination or you might meet beautiful people (conjunct my Venus) who have beautiful bodies and beautiful souls who are constantly dreaming about something bigger than you and better than you and they won’t take the time to be still with you. Not because you aren’t enough (my 6th house) but because they are off to the next thing because they think it’ll make them happy. They might leave you, bringing up inner child wounds, thinking there is something better out there. They might travel far, far away only to discover that their innermost joy was right there in front of them, before they had the insight to see around their gigantic map. No shame in this, because you’ll do the exact same thing to them.

My Moon ruled 9th house year has taught me that home is a mindset. It isn’t four walls and furniture, it isn’t found in a GPS, it isn’t something you can physically find. It is found unexpectedly and it is usually (ugh, so cliche) within. Or it might be in your lover’s eyes, or in your little brother’s smile, or in the rumbling purr of your cat. It might feel like it’s at a distance from you, but it’s always inside. Waiting for you to tap into it. Waiting for you to become still enough, quiet enough to hear it.

That being said, your own inner vision is extremely important. You’ll meet so many people who have different inner visions. People who downright disagree with your personal vision for yourself. People who might act like they’re on board with your personal vision, just to completely jump ship. Or if they aren’t abandoning, they might instead take a bath in the mud and run their dirty footprints all over your painting. Your vision. Ruining the canvas? Maybe. Or maybe they are showing you that your vision is meant to be protected. They might leave marks because maybe you needed to expand this in some way. Maybe your vision wouldn’t have been complete without the footprints of others, the insight of others. You spend your time crying over how it would’ve been better if they hadn’t mucked it up, but it wouldn’t have. Though it will teach you who is supposed to be at a distance. Leaving their mark and sharing their piece once is good enough. You don’t need their mud caking the entire canvas because then… whose canvas is it? It wouldn’t be your vision anymore. It would blend and mold with theirs. Protecting your personal vision is important.

Upholding this and refusing to compromise your flame and inspiration (Aries) for others (6th house). Because deep down, you know you deserve to have this vision. For me, in a Moon ruled year, this is about home, and family, and partnership. The physical and nonphysical version of these things. My vision of home and family deserves to be fulfilled, but the universe will teach you a few things about what it is that you don’t want first. This is to preserve the vision. Think about the canvases. You don’t create a masterpiece the first time, you practice. You learn about what kind of paint you like and what brushes to use and– oops! Maybe I should have sketched this out better... and shit! I added too much there and, fuck, I didn’t mean to do that. You emerge with an imperfect painting and before you know it, you’re begging to try again. You know more now. You’re so much older and wiser than when you started sketching the last painting. So the universe lets you scrap it and try again. You know what you want now. Maybe there were parts of the last painting that you can never imitate again. No two paintings are alike and while you may have hated big parts of your practice painting, you also really loved parts of it. You can’t get those things back or if you can, they might look very different. This is okay. It is a part of the fleetingness of life, of art, of experience.

The 9th house will teach you about fleeting moments. You won’t appreciate them for what they are until they’re gone. Though after the first few times, you get the memo. Life is abou