The Lunar Nodes
After having written about the Sun and the
Moon, further thinking has made me question more and more the function of the
lunar nodes in the horoscope, particularly as nowadays the nodes appear to be
assuming more and more importance in interpreting charts.
For the sake of any beginners here, the lunar
nodes are those small horseshoe-shaped objects that adorn the chart in addition
to the planets – sometimes, only the ’upright’ one is shown – symbolising the
North Node. The point directly opposite, the South Node, looks like an
upside-down-horseshoe. They are mathematical points, not planets, and show
where the moon crosses the ecliptic – the path of the sun. Where they are close
to either the sun or the moon when these are either full or new, they show that
an eclipse has taken place – and straight away, this suggests something of an
’irrational’ theme in their symbolism . the ’lights’
of consciousness being blocked. In Vedic astrology, each node practically
enjoys ’planetary’ status in significance. The North Node is called Rahu, or
The Dragon’s Head, whilst the South Node is called Ketu, the Dragon’s Tail. In
Vedic astrology, both are considered malefic.
I am very aware that there are many so-called
’karmic’ astrologers who consider the nodes to be as important in astrological
readings as Sun, Moon and Ascendant – if not more so. If you believe in
reincarnation, the nodes do not just refer to this one lifetime, but to the
soul’s journey through several lifetimes. Other astrologers might be more
inclined to replace the word ’karma’ with ’genetic heritage’ or ’genes,’ which
also still outlive us. Still others prefer to see them as providing information
about our goals just within this lifetime – but the fact remains, that the
Nodes have recently ended up become rather more major players in the shaping of
character than hitherto suspected - if the hype is to be believed. Until
recently, however, there has been little material on the nodes available. In
Western astrology, the North Node is generally considered to be benefic, though
a spiritual goal difficult to attain. The South Node is said to be, from that
point of view, what holds us back, being the ’baggage’ of our karmic past.
I personally am not entirely comfortable with
the idea of reincarnation, though do not actually rule it out as a possibility.
I would define myself here as having an agnostic approach to the subject. I did
once, however, come across a book by Penelope Thornton in which she discusses
the case studies of two or three individuals who claim to have been able to
remember specific past lives. The birthdates of these past lives were also
conveniently remembered. I was gratified to see one myth about reincarnation
and astrology being exploded – here, anyway – that the moon position of this
lifetime corresponds to the sun position of the last lifetime. I do not,
unfortunately, remember what the findings were in relation to the lunar nodes,
or more specifically to the south node, which is where reincarnationalists will
attempt to divine how the native spent their previous incarnations.
What does make me
uncomfortable is the tendency of some spiritual astrologers to polarise the
significance of the nodes so much that the one becomes almost entirely ’bad,’
the other entirely ’good.’ Most polarities in the chart – Sun and Moon,
Ascendant and Descendant, MC and IC are simply treated, in the main, as being
’equal.’ It is only where discussing the North and South Node polarities that
the idea is definitely introduced that here are two polarities that are
definitely unequal, one defininitely being desirable, the other most definitely
undesirable (though the same idea is expressed with Sun and Moon too, according to some
astrological thought). The problem then is that character delineations based on
these, whilst very perceptive in some recent publications, may also tend
towards negative labelling of some tendecies to a point that may become just
short of destructive.
This perhaps is the
trouble with oppositions of any kind – the possible trap of defining one in
terms of the other in mutually exclusive polarities: it is not long before
’black and white’ become ’good and bad.’ The consequences of this seem to be
that on the one hand, the North Node potentials can offer a tantalising vision
of higher levels of integration ’butterfly effects’ as opposed to downward
spirals and tipping points.
On the other hand, the forces that keep us comfortably mired in detrimental
South Node patterns are painted in ever more negative colours, in ways that
perhaps may ultimately less than therapeutic – and certainly make excellent
ammunition for those with a taste for character assassination! As what little experience or feel I have for the nodes to date has
suggested to me that these areas may be sensitive points (as in areas of life
where there may be some degree of vulnerability) in more ways than one, I have
doubts about the wisdom of meting out heavy character assassinations for our
South Node shortcomings, whilst painting North Node visions that may seem more
and more unattainable in comparison.
Perhaps, enlightening humanistic approaches
aside, there is always going to be the need for a ’bad guy’ in the chart, on
which all our shortcomings can be blamed. Once Saturn and Mars, the two great
malefics were rehabilitated – then maybe the gap had to be filled. Well then, the
natal Moon made a good candidat. In Western culture, where being an
Individual, we are ready to cut roots from family, past, background in order to
function more and more autonomously, without the need to fall back on ’the line
of least resistence’ of redundant habits or cultural biasses. In my piece on
Sun and Moon symbolism, I observed that for most intents and purposes, the
natal Moon could just as easily be a larger version of the South Node according
to this kind of interpretation, whilst the North Node had a more ’solar’
significance – and there is some truth to this astronomically, if the nodes are
seen as a type of sun/moon midpoint.
It could, however, also denote fuzzy
thinking.
The Nodes may be related to the natal moon,
but they are surely distinct, each node with a recognisably different signature
in its symbolism and distinct again from either purely lunar – or for that
matter, solar – symbolism. At the moment, however, a whole spiritual philosophy
and outlook seems to be embedded in the way these two points are interpreted in
chart reading nowadays.
I recently came across an interesting article
in a blog recently that did manage to get right to the crux for the the
resistence I have felt towards examining the nodes in any great detail.
Acceptance or non-acceptance of reincarnation and karma aside, what was
identified as a real issue in interpreting the nodes is what was called the
’overcoming mindset.’ That is, that evolving, becoming more spiritual or
whatever, must necessarily mean killing off lower or more ’primitive’ aspects
of our being. Whilst it is acknowledged that the South Node does seem to
indicate an area where we may seem to be less than
well-adjusted and where we might easily attract criticism, and the North Node
often seeming relatively underdeveloped, a cautious attitude is expressed
towards the idea that any factor in the chart has to be overcome, even if it
appears to go ’against the grain’ of that persons’s nature. (I will be happy to
provide a link to the blog where these ideas were put forward if able to
contact the individual concerned.)
This ’overcoming mindset’ does all tend to
come across as some kind of home/grown brew of eclectic spirituality combined
with a tough work ethic. Nothing Is Meant to Come Easily. There is not the
space here to explore the lofty ideas that inform this kind of wisdom, however
diluted, but it may well be interesting at a later date to explore these along
with how they might marry with any general popular New Age Calvinism.
It was suggested in this source that personal
experience did not seem to support the idea that expressing North Node
qualities necessarily makes us any happier or spiritually fulfilled, but did
come up with another, very interesting idea. It was suggested instead that
those who can express their North Node tend to be more ’socially appropriate’
in their behaviour. That does seem to be more in keeping with the claims of the
Hamburg and cosmo-biological schools,where the North
Node is interpreted as having great significance for our social success and
’meetings with other people.’
Whilst I do not doubt that we all have
qualities that may need overcoming at times, I would question whether ot not
the whole issue can be simplified that easily. I have
certainly come across other individuals within the astrological community
expressing concern about the possible unhelpfulness of interpreting the nodes
with quite such an extreme mantra: ’South Node Bad, North Node Good.’ One such
was Garry Phillipson, the interviewer of astrologers and what they believe in
his book ’Astrology in the Year Zero.’ In his own interview with Darelyn
Gunzburg, he states that ’You can become too one-sided with the nodes….although
we often need to develop the North Node and restrain the South Node, it is
possible to to go too far with that process and and up denying the South
Node altogether.’
In many cases, the South Node placement is said to show areas of
great natural talent.
Take Mozart. He
had the South Node in Pisces on his descendant, conjunct Uranus, the planet of
genius. Amadeus might well have realised as a struggling ageing artiste that
his genius, which came so flowingly to him, was not going to continue to be a
meal ticket once he was no longer a chubby-cheeked prodigy. His
Sun-Saturn-Mercury stellium in the 5th House certainly hinted at
that. Yet, had he decided whilst still a boy that 'he had to
grow up and grow beyond his karmic heritage,' we might have lost much of what
his genius had to offer. But Mozart was still only 37 when he died,
therefore maybe still had little chance to develop the emotional maturity to be
anything less than the obnoxious spoilt brat of the Salieri myth (he had been
an excellent asset for his father too, as a child celebrity). Perhaps he just
did not have the chance to balance his formidable natural South Node talents
with any Virgoan North Node ability to deal with the little people who could
have given him more work.
There may be
many other factors in Mozart’s chart to account for his prodigal gifts and I
know that not everyone with Uranus on the South Node is necessarily a genius,
but it does suggest that somehow Mozart had hit the jackpot in bringing with
him into his life huge accumulated talents that were totally innate. Perhaps
this was indeed the flowering of several lifetimes of toil at the piano. Or the
gift was in his genes, passed on by his ancestors. It does, just come across as
South Node gifts in action.
The Salieri myth
also hints at why South Node gifts can also be such a downfall. A huge gift
such as this, innate and not toiled at through blood, sweat and tears, is bound
to create jealousy in those who may suspect that their talents are mediocre at
best and who have to really work to reach any reasonable standard of
excellence. Possibly, again, this could be galling for those again with a
spiritual or creative work ethic. I have actually come across websites that
compare the genius of artists such as Van Gogh, whose North Node was strongly
emphasised in the chart and that of Picasso, whose
South Node was more emphasised, and which might hint at the more ‘evolved’ kind
of genius.
I shall leave
any further possible judgements on any of the artists mentioned here to the
reader. Personally I think that ideally, the best work should express an innate
talent, but one honed through dedication and new applications of old ideas.
Dane Rudhyar is
another who explored this South Node/genius connection much more
comprehensively in his essays on the nodes, accessible at the Rudhyar Archival
project. His own research intro the way the nodes work made him question why it
is that the South Node, whilst traditionally unlucky in the way Saturn is, can
sometime apparently bestow so much. He was thinking especially of artists such
as Wagner, who had his South Node in the 10th and who enjoyed
universal acclaim for his operas. In the above example, though, Rudhyar felt
that this success was also Wagner’s downfall, pointing out that as a human
being he appeared to be somewhat ‘unregenerate’. He was, it is suggested,
rather ‘too enthralled with his own genius.’
He concludes
that in order to better understand why the nodes work the way they do, it is
important to re-examine the basic symbolism of Dragon’s Head and Dragon’s Tail.
Rudhyar did not
believe in over-polarising with the dragon either, thereby losing sight of the
fact that head and tail belong to the same animal. He
suggests that whereas at the North Node we most need to ingest new experiences
and to have access to the right kind of spiritual nourishment, the tail shows
the end result of such ingestion. This – and here, Rudhyar almost seems to
relish in the sheer biological nature of it all – this end result can be seen
to be symbolic excreting through the anus – the ‘letting go’ that the
Descending Node is already famous for – or in the creative artist’s impulse to
‘impregnate’ their audience with sperm (he did not consider the possibility
that a female artist might instead let loose a new egg, so there still seems to
be that curious contempt for the Feminine that has come across, to me at any
rate, in Rudhyar before).
In focussing
more on the South Node’s function in releasing waste, however symbolic, Rudhyar
further suggests that it may be easy to miss the more creative role it may have
to play. It may therefore be less than helpful to tell certain individuals
within a reading that what may be perceived by them as being some kind of a
calling may, in fact, represent some kind of a spiritual dead end. That may not
necessarily do justice to certain kinds of creative individual who may not
necessarily of Mozart’s stature, but who may certainly feel the pressure that
Rudhyar has described to ‘release’ their memes to the world at large.
At the same time
it is possible to be mindful of the admonitions of Tracy Marks, for example, to
look for spiritual nourishment through the Dragons’s Head rather than the
Dragon’s Tail. In view of Rudhyar’s comments on the biology of the Tail, then
this would indeed seem to be a rather strange place to go for ingesting new
experiences and areas of new growth……
It also draws
attention to something else which may simply a function of what this sensitive
point may play. Take an example of an individual with North Node Scorpio in the
10th, South Node Taurus in the 4th. Throw in one or two
aspects to the nodal axis from, say, Moon, Saturn or Mercury. The individual
presents as a hoarder, someone with a cluttered home who cannot throw anything
away (Recently I did, indirectly, come across a real-life story from someone
born with this nodal axis and who did seem to be faced with this kind of
challenge.)
The obvious
astrological advice would be to be ruthlessly Scorpionic about it all and bin
all the hoarded possessions away for good. Yet even without any understanding
of the symbolism of Scorpio, the South Node in Taurus could already be
symbolising that process, the need to let go of old attachments and it would be
resistance to that which would be the cause of the pain. The Vedic perspective
on the Nodes, as has been noted beofre, is a little different: both tend to be
somewhat malefic. The North Node, or Rahu, tends to be somewhat obsessive in
its attachments and desires for new experience, whilst the South Node, Ketu, is
said to be good for spiritual development, as it seeks to sever away from
over-attachment towards material things.
There would therefore be no need for an ‘overcoming mentality’ if the
need to ‘let go’ or to foster detachment, as the Vedics might possibly have it,
is already an innate function of the South Node. As the area shown by the North
Node is said to be relatively undeveloped or – as the Vedics would have it,
‘immature,’ then it is perhaps little wonder that there is a sense of destiny
and expansion involved in developing it – hence the well-known wisdom according
to which the need to strive to develop the North Node is paramount for personal
fulfilment in life. That which is incomplete would then need to be sought in order for each individual to find completion. So according to the Vedics, the North Node is already
greedy and intemperate for new experiences in this area. The problem then would be, as Dane Rudhyer suggests, of finding this already-quoted 'right' kind of spiritual nourishment, as we shall see again later. Anyway now, as opposed
to ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ the challenge represented by the nodal axis becomes a
question of synthesising the new with the old. Obviously, then the temptation
could indeed be to remain and stagnate with the tried and tested – even if this
ties us to posibly maladaptive or self-sabotaging behaviour. But
should that still mean doing away with the tried and the tested altogether?
The question wil be returned to a little later.
Meanwhile,
writers like Maritha Pottenger return to the polarity theme of the nodes. She
suggests that sometimes it is in the arena or relationships where the need to
balance nodal issues becomes most paramount.
Whilst never
claiming to be an expert in this area, the nodal positions in some charts do
seem to make themselves felt in ways that cannot be explained by any other
factors in the chart.
For example, an
individual known to me has frequently become involved with strongly Libran
women. There women always seem to want more commitment from this acquaintance
of mine than my acquaintance perhaps has sometimes wanted to give. But I did
wonder – why Libra specifically? He did not have any personal planets in Libra.
Then, the penny
dropped. I happen to know that my acquaintance has an Aries South Node, Libra
North Node. So, in the absence of any knowledge about the angles in the chart,
this may explain a few things. My friend somehow ‘looks’ for Libra-type
partners who can live out his North Node for him – in this instance, fulfilling
the Libran need for a relationships, the ‘we’ as opposed to ‘me.’ The Libran
women concerned do seem determined sometimes to bring the message home, tending
to pull my acquaintance in line for his more outrageous or inconsiderate Aries
South-Node ways, with stern lectures about how to behave in polite society.
(Many writers go on about the uniting Venus-Jupiter side of North Node
directives, but at times, these do seem to have a more Saturnine side, about
the need to Grow Up socially. This does seem to run in line with the ‘socially
appropriate’ model discussed earlier. I would be interested to hear of more
unbiased personal experience in this connection).
But what about
taking the already accepted symbolism ascribed the Nodes and applying these
interpretations as they stand? The North Node is about potential futures, the
South about past patterns which may be potentially redundant, both polarities
stretching over more than one individual life time. I thought about writers who
might have expressed themes like these in their writings and then checked to
see what was happening with the nodal axis in their charts, and came up with
one particularly interesting example.
Arthur C Clarke
was the inspiration behind the film 2001, where human destiny is shown to
extend beyond even the limitations of our own species. First - the obelisk,
showing the apish proto-humans how to fend better for themselves foodwise, so
that their brains and general capacities would develop better over time. Finally, the image of an embryo of a New Human, right at the end of
the Odyssey. Stirring stuff. But there is more.
In Childhood’s
End, humanity is saved from itself at the brink of nuclear war by vastly
intelligent aliens who take over human affairs and create a contented and
prosperous Utopian society – but at the expense of human creativity and
scientific endeavour, both of which are forbidden. The aliens look like Devils,
complete with horns and tails, and it is suggested by them to one that his
image somehow came from a precognitive recognition that they somehow spelt the
end of human potential.
As it happens,
this race of devils is at an evolutionary dead end, but they still serve what
are called the mysterious Overlords in helping to midwife a new species of
superhumans on earth from existing humanity. But once these superhumans start to
mature, they consume earth totally in order to nourish themselves for their
next god-like leap into the Unknown.
So there are
themes of huge and irretrievable loss in Arthur C Clarke’s stories, along with
extraordinary visions of unimaginable potential, coupled with a certain
preoccupation with evolutionary dead ends. It therefore came as no surprise to
find that Clarke has North Node in Capricorn conjunct a Sagittarius Sun,
opposing a South Node in Cancer conjunct Pluto.
These themes
also appear in another book he published, called The City and the Stars, set in
the distant future, where human society now functions in a Utopian and eternal
city, called Diaspar. Its inhabitants are actually closer to androids than
humans as there is no death, just reincarnated humans recreated from memory
banks.
This society is
contrasted with another that did not ban birth in the interests of vanquishing
death, old age and disease – and not everyone is model-looks beautiful, either.
However, this latter society of pagan country-dwellers is depicted as being
infinitely more dynamic than the cowardly and agoraphobic citizens of Diaspar.
The North Node
solar hero emerges as a young Diaspar boy who has no previous past etched in
his memory banks and is therefore a completely new template. His role proves to
be to take humanity back to the stars, no matter how much trauma and
readjustment this may cause the two deviating branches of humanity in the short
term.
New examination
of other charts in the light of what new clues the nodes have to offer in terms
of motivation of specific individuals does seem to be telling.
Three examples
in individual charts of well-known people with North Node in Aquarius, South
Node in Leo, come to mind. Elvis Presley the ‘King’ has already been noted not
to have strayed too far from Leo South Node patterns of finding ways to be
glorified, whilst remaining to the end of life personally unfulfilled, because
he was not able to find new sustenance through his Aquarius North Node. Tony
Blair, Prime Minister of the UK, appears on first sight to have realised the
long-term idealism of his Aquarius North Node a little better in his support
for more enlightened EU aims and in creating a world of more ‘equal
opportunities’ for all in the UK. A more despotic side to all this is not
difficult to discern in his achievements to date, most notably over the Iraq
So the question
remains – what exactly are the real pitfalls in working with and integrating
the nodal axis?
It is time to turn to an excellent piece of writing on
the Nodes by Kevin Burk, who has also extended his ideas into a book. He,
whilst recognising that there is little mileage in becoming entrenched in
self-defeating South Node modes of being, cautions jettisoning these qualities
altogether in the interests of embracing all the bright new potentials that the
North Node has to offer, pointing out that being too headstrong about following
North Node directives has its own special dangers – a certain amount of ‘future
shock’ and a certain amount of alienation if some of the earlier cases looked
at here are anything to go by – the Vedic link with obsession has already been
noted. Rudhyar on the other hand, expresses concern that in the North-Node
search for new arenas of spiritual nourishment and development, the individual
may simply ‘feed’ on the wrong kinds of experience, in the same ways that more
traditional spiritual pastors may worry about what young people are listening
to on their walkmans or playing with on their computers. Others may talk
bravely of becoming more evolved by walking along the North Node path, only to
give up in the absence of any supports to fall back on. This, he suggests, may
lead to a strong sense of ‘spiritual failure’ if the path proves to be too
threatening without the opportunity to use existing South Node supports. In so
doing, he raises the important question of why there might be any
genetic/karmic memory at all.
If we have incarnated many times already, then it would
seem strange if somehow, part of our ‘soul’ was not able to remember some of
the wisdom of all this experience. If genes cannot be passed on, then surely it
would not be a very intelligent arrangement if later generations could not
benefit from these – as Rudhyar also noted, then
surely, a creative individual must surely feel the impulse to pass these on,
also. That is not to say that these old ideas should not be revised, worked
through for old flaws, or updated – and certainly not excluding the precious
opportunity for new tricks to be learnt through the agencies of the new areas
for growth and potentials suggested through the North Node. Burk therefore
suggests that ideally then, that ’The true process of the
North Node is not about turning our back on the past. The North Node is about
taking stock of the past, honoring it, working with it, building on it, and
learning how to use it in a new way.’
How
can this be actually done?
An excellent example of how this could be
achieved is cited by Anita Doyle, who write about Morihei Ueshiba, the
mastermind behind aikido. I do hope that Doyle will not mind me referring to
her ideas in this piece and the address for the web page where the original
article can be found is included at the end of this page.
Doyle gives a farily detailed biography of
this man and his achievements, finally stating how ’thrilling’ it was for her
to find that in his path in life, Ueshiba did not leave behind his Aries South
Node for his Libra North Node, as he continued in path as a martial artist. In
fact, what he did was to take both Aries and Libra a step further in creating
new syntheses and methods to resolve conflict and build peace within the world.
This is just one example of how each nodal
axis can be creatively synthesised and Doyle also discusses the cases of Ghandi
and Nelson Mandela in great detail.
Here also, then, is a model that suggests at
ways to resolve what may be a highly problematical area in each an every
birthchart. This may perhaps be an antidote to any tendency to polarise in
looking at the functions of the nodes, thereby creating any sense of spiritual
one-upmanship on the one hand, or of any sense of shame on the other. In
order to work creatively with the nodal axis and each of its components, even where
problematical, the North Node may ’need’ the accumulated wisdom of the South
Node in order for its potentials to be better realised, whilst the South Node
should still, never simply be left to thrash pointlessly around like – well, a
headless dragon.
Links to other sites
Dane Rudhyar Archival Project
Here is acknowledgement of the ideas of his I
have used here.
http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/astroarticles/moonnodesatbirth.php
Kevin Burk
Thanks, Kevin, for giving me permission to
quote you.
http://www.therealastrology.com/HTML/HOME/Nodes.html
Lunar Living, Martha
Pottenger
I have not used Martha’s
ideas much here, but she has some interesting things to say about projecting
either one of the nodes on another in relationships, seesawing between them and
resolving these issues. There are some helpful delineations
of conjunctions of all the major planets to each node.
http://www.lunarliving.org/featured/nodes_of_the_moon.shtml
Garry Phillipson
Here is his interview with Darrelyn Gunzberg on
Skyscript, in which he discusses the Nodes, amongst other things. Thank you,
too, Garry, for letting me quote you fully on your views on the Nodes.
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/gpip.html
Anita
Doyle
Here
is the link to her take on the Nodal axis, along with her comments not just
about Ueshiba, but about Mandela and Gandhi also. Well worth checking out.
http://www.integralbeing.org/articles/partners.htm
2007
Lynda Stevens
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