If you are not familiar with Mikhaila Peterson’s story, in short:

Since early childhood (symptoms as early as 2 years old) Mikhaila was sick due to "idiopathic=doctors don't know what it is, disease”, and had to have her ankle and her hip replaced while in her teens due to the mysterious disease that was eating away her joints. She also suffered from severe depression and anxiety, and was medicated for all of it, but her condition worsened. Around 2011 she started researching to find a cure herself, while her health was getting progressively worse and the doctors were helpless. She feared the disease would kill her as it ate away her joints and on top her skin started to fall apart. In 2015 after years of "feverish research" (her words) she started experimenting with elimination diet, which helped some, and once on the right track, she found out by experimentation over the next couple of years, that when she restricted her diet to beef, salt and water only, both her mysterious disease and her depression/mood disorder got cured. Completely! She got off all her medication, got married, had a baby, and became famous, teaching others from her experience.

Pretty amazing transformation story.

As I don’t have the birth hour I cannot see the personal house position of Pluto, but it is worth noting that Mikhaila is from the Pluto in Scorpio generation. The generation with the sparkling intense eyes, and a deep desire for transformation

So with the intense energy of the Scorpio painting the background picture, Lets look at the Lunar nodes. Mikhaila has the North Node of the Moon conjunct a stellium (grouping together of planets) of Moon, Sun, Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn. We can see the symbolism of her illness, with Neptune ruling both illness and what is hidden.

Her mother suspected diet might matter, and made sure they ate healthy food as far as she knew what constituted healthy food (and it did help a little as Mikhaila’s condition worsened when she went away from home to college and ate more pizza). But no one knew that healthy food for Mikhaila was nothing but beef, salt and water. And the doctors assured her mother that diet had nothing to do with the illness.

Mikhaila’s nodes of the moon aka the Destiny Line, are in close conjunction to the collective nodes of Jupiter, which you may picture as the river of our collective beliefs. But her Lunar nodes are going in opposite direction to the nodes of Jupiter. One may say the river of her destiny is running through the river of collective beliefs, but in the opposite direction. The two other planetary nodes activated by planets in her chart are the south node of Mercury conj. Mars and the north node of Neptune conj. Chiron.

So lets first look at the Lunar nodes and nodes of Jupiter. Her destiny line going in the opposite direction of the collective belief systems! So what did she believe that the collective also believed that was wrong for her? What was the belief related to?

her Jupiter (her personal belief systems and their relation to collective beliefs) is in Virgo, the sign ruling the digestive system, diet, purification and health, and Jupiter is trining (120º) her stellium. Planets trining a problematic point in a chart may be used to creatively solve the problem. Thus we have a hint that diet might help.

The ruler of Virgo, Mercury, is in Sagittarius, thus Jupiter and Mercury are in what is called mutual reception, when two rulers have swapped homes. So there is a lot of indication of the interaction of Virgo and Sagittarius energy.

OK Virgo=diet and purification, and Sagittarius? Shooting arrows, galloping horses, primal energy…hunter. Hunter gatherer diet? Mercury is conj. Mars..primitive hunter diet? With the Moon ruler of Cancer, the sign of the south node of the moon, conjunct its own north node in Capricorn, there is a call to bring something from the past (south node) into the future (north node).

The carnivore diet is both from our deep past as humanity, but may also be related to the future as a lot of people who try it, find that it cures their modern diseases, which might cause us to change our collective beliefs (Nodes of Jupiter) about food (Cancer). Mikhaila’s personal story about food, has reversed the beliefs about food for many people.

With Mercury only making aspect to Mars and Pluto, the two rulers of surgery, and Mercury being in Sagittarius, and ruling Virgo where Jupiter the ruler of Sagittarius is, also mirrors the hip surgery, as Sagittarius and Jupiter rule the hips.
Saturn in Aquarius, and Uranus in Capricorn are also in mutual reception. Saturn and Capricorn rule bones. Uranus and Aquarius the ankles. It is interesting to note that the north node of Mercury is in the first degree of Aquarius.
Mercury South node Sagittarius=hips on Mars=surgery and mercury north node Aquarius=ankles. (another perspective: mercury the planet, aspects both Mars=inflamation and Pluto=joints, the nodes of mercury show where the inflammation of the joints was so bad it required surgery)

It is of course very easy to predict the past astrologically, especially after the solution has already been revealed, but how did Mikhaila figure it out?

Pressure to learn

Mercury rules learning. Apart from the conjunction to Mars, Mercury makes a semisextile (30º) to Pluto. With Mercury in aspect to Pluto there is a pressure to learn, whether from an unexplained hunger for knowledge, or from encountering problems that demand learning something to be solved.

Any planet in aspect to Pluto is under evolutionary pressure. Meaning that the archetype of the planet is intensified, deepened and related to the evolution of the soul, or the deepest psychological security attachments, of the individual.
Pluto intensifies anything it comes near. Words and thoughts tend to be of great importance for individuals with Mercury in aspect to Pluto. That makes sense with the dad she’s got. ..Further her Mars that Mercury is conjunct, is located at 26 Sagittarius, the point of the galactic center. The south node of Mercury is closely conjunct Mars at the same degree.

“It took me until I was 24 before I realized my dad wasn’t the usual dad. I thought living in a house with over 200 paintings from the Soviet Union was fairly normal. I thought discussions about mythology over dinner was regular. I thought negotiations about why it was important to tell the truth were the usual. I thought quizzing my boyfriends about why they thought they could date me was... maybe a bit odd. Then the world found out about my dad and I realized he wasn’t normal. Thanks dad. Thanks for telling me that the way to survive kindergarten was to find the biggest kid there and sock him so I’d be at the top of the dominance hierarchy. Thanks for telling me the only rule I had to follow was “don’t listen to stupid rules”. That’s guided my way of thinking for my entire life. Thanks @jordan.b.peterson for being my dad and for being the grandad to my kid.

-Mikhaila's facebook post on fathers day 2020

So there is a lot of power on Mercury. But there was an enormous pressure from her disintegrating body for her to learn how to cure herself. The powerful brains around her could not help. Doctors and specialists couldn’t help. Even her dad, who clearly loves her and would give his life to protect her from harm, and who is so smart he is famous for his ability to think, could not protect her against the illness. He didn’t know how.

I remember seeing an interview with her where she said that what helped her learn (Mercury) was that she got angry (Mars). She got so angry about being miserable and in pain and crippled with no outlook but probably being dead before she hit 30, that she decided to find the cure or die trying. That is how Pluto (god of death) can power up (Pluto ruling power) a planet (Pluto semisextile her Mercury).

the Uranus Pluto square 2012-2015. Facing the dragon

Between 2012 and 2015 Pluto and Uranus made seven exact squares (90°aspect) between 6.57° and 15.18° Aries (Uranus) and Capricorn (Pluto). This was the first time since the conjunction in Virgo in the 1960's they had been in hard aspect (when big changes happen) to each other.

During the Pluto Uranus square 2012 -2015 anyone with personal planets or points affected by the square, most certainly felt it. Mikhaila's stellium in Capricorn, her lunar nodes and the collective nodes of Jupiter being right in the crossfire.

Beginner students of astrology tend to fear transits from the outer planets. Pluto transits require something to die for something else to be reborn and Uranus breaks down previous structures. This is often disagreeable!

Pluto rules transformation (death and rebirth) . With Pluto transiting Capricorn 2008-2024 the structure of our society (Capricorn) is undergoing a profound transformation (Pluto). Pluto transits require something to die for something else to be reborn. In Mikhaila's case what needed to die was her relying on outside authorities (Capricorn) to know the truth. The transformation she needed to undergo was becoming the leading authotity (Capricorn) regarding her own health. It wasn't until she became the boss (Capricorn) of her own evolution (North Node of Moon), took responsibility (Capricorn) for finding the cure herself, and persistently (Capricorn) for 4 years searched for answers, using her own problem solving skills, that the miracle happened. But she was pressed (Pluto) to do it, because her disease worsened; she feared she would die sooner than later. So it was an extremely (Pluto) difficult time (Capricorn). But she won!

Uranus breaks down previous structures and bring radical and sudden change. When Uranus went through Aries 2010-2018, it was a time for pioneering (Aries) breakthroughs (Uranus) and a lot of independent (Aries) people discussing subjects of the higher mind (Uranus) appeared (Aries) on the internet (Uranus), and on the negative side we also saw some sudden (Uranus) bloody wars (Aries). Now in 2020, two years into the seven year period of Uranus in Taurus, we see the unexpected (Uranus) lock down of the world due to a survival threat (Taurus ruling survival) that in return has cost us a lot of money (Taurus), causing instability (Uranus) to the economy (Taurus ruling money). The last time Uranus was in Taurus was the years 1934-1942, and that was a pretty rough time financially.

Uranus transits require individuation. In Mikhaila’s case, with Uranus squaring her stellium those years, she needed to individuate (Uranus) and break free (in Aries) from the consensus (Capricorn) as the cure was something contrary (Nodes of Moon opposite Nodes of Jupiter) to official (Capricorn) guidelines for health, and doctors had assured her that the disease was not food related. But it was! It is difficult to go against the consensus (especially while being sick, thus weakened). It must have been rough. But she won!

And note how she started researching in 2011 when pressure of the squares started to build up (Pluto and Uranus move slowly so the influence is felt quite a while before the exact aspect), and she found the solution (or the first results that lead her to the solution) in 2015 at the last square.

And behold how, by facing the challenge our soul has set up for our I to solve to save it, the negative expressions in our chart can transcend into positive expressions of those very same archetypes:

The previous negative expression of Neptune in Mikhaila's chart, "sickness" and "depression" now transcended into positive expression of Neptune like "miraculous" "healing" and "youtube star" (Neptune ruling film).
Here it is also interesting to note Chiron the wounded healer on the collective north node of Neptune. With her replaced hip and ankle, she is a wounded healer (Chiron) and many people have (collective nodes), through her videos (Neptune), found a cure (Neptune=healing) for their ailments in her “Lion Diet”, that she named her ruminant meat diet that she got famous for on youtube. Neptune north node in Leo=lion & Neptune planet conj. Sun, ruler of Leo. (Sun+Leo ruling fame and lions and Neptune ruling Youtube stars).

The previous negative expression of Uranus "trauma" and "mental instability" (Bipolar disorder before the diet change), transcended into "individuation", "breaking previous limitations" being "unique" and exploring "groundbreaking" "science”.

The previous negative expression of Capricorn "everything being hard all the time" and feeling "restricted" by the illness, transcended into "responsible for own evolution", "achievement" by "restricted" diet, and being "boss".

Rescuing her father from the belly of the beast.

Mikhaila has also been instrumental in finding a cure for her dad. During 2019 a chain reaction of catastrophes hit the Peterson family. First Mikhaila’s mum nearly died but luckily the doctors were able to help and she miraculously recovered, but Mikhaila’s dad then also nearly died and lost his mind in 2019 and 2020 and the doctors failed him.

Mikhaila the dragon killer, regardless of being worried sick for her mum, took on the responsibility for finding a cure for him, knowing well that if she failed, she would not only lose her dad, but millions of people around the world would blame her for doing something so insane as to take him to Russia and put him in a coma. But she won! She’s a killer queen! Her dad recovered and credits her for literally having saved his life. He believes he would have been dead by now had it not been for her. Luckily the whole family are well again after some tough years. Thank God! (and Mikhaila)

Would she have been able to kill that dragon and save him, had she not already killed a dragon? Would she have had the knowledge, the skill, the courage, the persistence?

As Mikhaila's story is a shiny example of, if you are out there facing tough times, have faith that there may be a meaning to the madness. There may be a way to turn the pressure into a diamond.

Best wishes to Mikhaila and her family and best wishes to you on your soul journey.
God bless!