The 2026 Aquarius Solar Eclipse
Portals, permutations, plus your definitive guide to this charged lunation
What: Aquarius North Node Solar Eclipse
When: February 17, 2026
Who’s Impacted: EVERYONE (for real), but esp. the Aquarius part of your chart and any fixed sign placements at/near 28°
TL;DR: with the Sun and Moon eclipsing in the futuristic air sign, this charged restart is showing you what your future requires, and what your present may no longer sustain.
There’s a tunnel in Colorado—the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel—that carries Interstate 70 literally through the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. At 11,112 feet, this tunnel is one of the highest in the world, and I drove through it a couple of years ago for the first (and only) time. My partner and I traveled the scenic route back home from Denver so we could admire the beauty of the high country. The EJMT tunnel was our portal to those higher-altitude views. However, I hardly remember any beautiful, high country sights. I was too panicked driving through that damn tunnel.
The official webpage for the tunnel says, “The approach grades are steep, being seven percent on the west approach and six percent on the east approach.” That’s Colorado code for: “whether you’re driving east or west, gird your loins because you’re about to scale an extreme slope through a literal mountain.” It literally feels like you’re descending a vertical line at top speed. Because that’s what we did: we drove 75 MPH through the narrow, dimly lit passage, up, up, up then down, down, down—and I was equal parts panicked, paranoid, and unsure of when the confining darkness would end or what things would look like on the other side. (Spoiler, they were just as dangerous and steep.) This was the image/feeling that came to mind when I thought of eclipses—namely a new eclipse series.
Yep: Eclipse season has begun with the Aquarius Solar Eclipse on February 17. In my weekly forecast, I said this Solar Eclipse is like a black hole, but I’ve realized that was both dramatic and inaccurate. Because this lunation is more of a wormhole, a tunnel, a portal to another chapter of your life and we’re tearing towards it. Which, also sounds dramatic, but such is the nature of eclipses. And a North Node Solar Eclipse like this one has an extra tinge of drama / urgency / acceleration to it. Not only because that’s just how the North Node (aka the Hungry Head of the Dragon) operates, but also because of the eclipse’s conjunction to Mars in Aquarius and its square to Uranus in Taurus. Mars spurs us into action, while the Uranus puts some restless pressure on us to break free.
This Solar Eclipse is ruled by Saturn, which has just entered Aries, and is moving towards its rare conjunction to Neptune. Also in Aries. Which is to say: if you aren’t sure what the hell is going on—both in your life and in the world—but you feel like something is shifting like tectonic plates underneath you (you just aren’t sure what or where it’s coming from), and you’re as restless and frustrated as you are motivated but tired, that’s the eclipse at work.
It’s taking us somewhere, and urging us to get going, we just don’t know where we’re heading—yet. The destination is shrouded, the call to shake something up is strong, but the uncertainty is even stronger. As we ponder the quantum-leap into another chapter of our lives, we aren’t quite sure what life will look like on the other side of it. But one thing we know for sure: This Aquarius Solar Eclipse is the first of a new eclipse series that will unfold over text 18 months, and it is a foreshadowing of rapid changes on the horizon.
