The Moon’s Nodes

With the Moon’s Nodes, we begin to address the essential meanings and psychological significance of the non-planetary astrological symbols, the points and the minor astronomical bodies.  Evolutionary astrology sees the Moon’s Nodes as representing an evolutionary axis and I agree that this constitutes the essential meaning of the Moon’s Nodes from which all other meanings can be derived.  Along this axis, the South Node symbolizes the psyche’s comprehensive past and the North Node symbolizes its future or destiny. 

“Past,” with respect to the South Node, should not be thought of as the historical past but as the collection of experiences that the psyche has accumulated through its lifetimes.  In terms of the evolutionary theory of the soul, those experiences form the context for and the motivation for the experiences of, or lessons to be learned in, the present lifetime.  Another view of this is that our past experiences determine (or at least influence) what we are to experience in the present life, and perhaps even how we are to experience this life.  Thus, we have the association of the South Node with karma, or predestination. 

This association with karma is one reason why the South Node is viewed by many as a malefic, although as we shall see the South Node is also be seen as bringing beneficial qualities.  For, although (in the West at least) we tend to equate karma with “bad karma,” karma is actually neutral, or rather it extends along the full value spectrum.  While prior “evil” actions bring “bad karma,” prior virtuous actions result in “good karma” and actions that are morally neutral may bring neutral karma (as when we have neutral interactions with others, with whom we may have had some association in a past life).  So, while the South Node can signify the baggage that we bring with us from our karmic past, baggage that can trip us up in this life, this Node also signifies the talents we have developed in the past and resources (the result of good actions) that we bring with us into this life.

In the general view of evolutionary astrology, however, those talents and resources, while valuable, are qualities that we should use to move forward toward new evolutionary goals—toward the signification of the North Node.  If we rely on what the South Node brings to too great an extent, we risk falling into spiritual laziness or complacency—resting on our karmic laurels as it were.  Even more dangerous and unproductive is to get attached to the talents and resources that the South Node signifies.  It has been noted by astrologers that a conjunction of the South Node with a planet tends suggest that this danger may be more likely to manifest. 

Even more than being attached to what comes easy for us and, therefore, not putting in the effort to move beyond these past accomplishments, we may become attached to psychic patterns that have outlived their usefulness and that actually have taken on a dysfunctional form.  This can pull us deep into self-destructive tendencies. 

While we would like to think of our past lives as a series of evolutionary steps through which we have steadily built competency, wisdom and accumulated positive experiences and resources to be used to carry us forward on our evolutionary journey, we should know from observation that life is not always like that.  The South Node can be associated with two common types of life experience, both of which have a far-reaching and long-lasting impact on the psyche.

The first has been alluded to above.  We may take (at least apparent) wrong turns, go down spiritual rabbit holes and run into evolutionary dead ends.  If these tendencies have been predominant in our past lives, or if the cosmos has dealt us a karmic hand in this life that draws from such experiences in our many past lifetimes, then the task signified by the South Node may be to do the work to undo or resolve the consequences of such decisions and experiences.  This may be a lifetime in which we must dig ourselves out of a psychic or spiritual hole, address and repair dysfunctional patterns, and/or reorient ourselves toward the positive direction symbolized by our North Node.  Often, this only occurs after we experience the dysfunction that is symbolized by the South Node placement (or planetary conjunction).

The second common life experience that we can associate with the South Node is trauma.  Even if we have not experienced trauma in this lifetime, all we need is a little awareness to realize that many people do experience trauma—through war, physical or sexual abuse, violent loss of loved ones, financial collapse, etc.  Sometime in our past lives, we have all experienced major trauma, probably multiple times.  Thus, when we speak of the South Node’s association with our evolutionary past, we must include our past traumas.  In fact, many astrologers see the South Node as a past-life trauma significator.

Just as trauma in this life carries severe and long-lasting psychic consequences, so traumas experienced in past lives carry forward through the subconscious into future lives.  The South Node can, therefore, be seen as an indicator of the effects in this present life of past-life trauma and of the need to address those traumas that we have experienced in our past lives.  Since we generally cannot remember those prior life incidents (unless perhaps through past life regression), we are left to deal with those traumas by dealing with their lingering consequences or by adopting more general techniques to promote healing and forgiveness. 

As noted above, the South Node symbolizes bringing with us into this life those resources that we have developed and these resources can be employed to help us heal our past life trauma.  This healing is necessary in order to be able to move freely and effectively toward our destiny or the life lessons symbolized by the North Node. 

Trauma by its very intensity produces deep attachment.  One characteristic of trauma, as opposed to the traumatic event itself, is that we often become attached to our trauma.  Trauma occurs when we cannot stop focusing on the traumatic event.  We replay that event over and over, either consciously or subconsciously, and we become trapped in that cycle.  An important part of healing from our trauma is detaching from the traumatic event, or detaching from the lingering effects and cyclic patterns associated with the traumatic event.  This, therefore, potentially becomes `the work associated with our South Node placement.

As noted in previous posts on the outer planets, not everyone is willing to face or engage in the deep psychological work that is associated with the transformative astrological symbols (in fact, this is the case for most people) .  For those who are not responsive to the transformative pull, the psyche chooses a “safe” route that provides psychic stability and ego-protection.  With respect to the South Node, this safe route manifests in the further development and employment of talents that we have developed and resources that we have accumulated in our prior lives. 

These beneficial artifacts become embedded into our current life and often form an integral part of our identity.  They may provide us with direction or a calling in life,  They may provide us with a particular advantage through which we can advance in life.  We may use our talents to gain more wealth, status, power or comfort; or we may use our talents and resources to give back to our community or to benefit some other greater whole.  In some way, whether apparent or not, we may be taking small evolutionary steps or we may be preparing for a next evolutionary move. 

Perhaps less tangible than talents and resources, the South Node also may symbolize our predispositions.  These may be predispositions toward “positive” or “negative” behaviors and attitudes.  Regardless, these predispositions are formed through our past life experiences and brought forward into this life.  Like our talents and resources, we may identify with them and they may also move us forward, in whatever way, in our evolutionary journey.

We can also conceive of predisposition as cosmic conditioning.  We do not choose our predispositions (notwithstanding the theory that we [apparently] choose our life course and circumstances before incarnating into this life).  We can view psychological predispositions as the result of patterns of thought and action, often carried forward through many lifetimes, that are not only conditioned by our past but that also condition us to act in certain ways and, thus, shape our future.  Thus, a spiritual task that we can associate with the South Node is to free ourselves from our past conditioning, which is a component of Jungian individuation—a North Node process.

Life is uneven.  Thus, even when the South Node is manifesting as the predispositions, resources and talents associated with “normal living,” we may hit periods during which the Higher Mind, acting through our subconscious and through its projections into conscious consensual reality, acts to shake us out of our spiritual complacency.  This generally takes the form of events that we perceive to be unpleasant and jarring, often creating chaos and turmoil and potentially reactivating past trauma.  The “cause” of such events can often be associated with the misuse of our South Node talents and resources or the falling into dysfunctional patterns symbolized by our South Node placement.  Whether or not we respond to these events by “waking up,” they are repercussions from our past that are designed ultimately to move us toward our evolutionary goal.

We can assign “evolutionary goal” as the essential meaning of the North Node.  As a point along an “evolutionary axis,” the North Node is what is being moved toward and, therefore, is synchronous with the forward motion of time.  As the South Node is associated with the past, so the North Node is associated with the future.  This future, however, is not the future of events which are to occur but, rather, of our future evolutionary state. 

Most astrologers—particularly evolutionary and transpersonal astrologers—would agree that evolution is not a random walk.  In other words, our psychological or spiritual evolution is purposeful.  Inherent in the idea of purpose, particularly in its dynamic sense, is that there is some defined goal toward which we are proceeding.  We can acknowledge that, in a tactical sense, this goal itself may evolve and change over time.  Yet, if we adopt a cosmological scheme that is not a random walk, then we must posit some ultimate Goal toward which we are drawn.  Then, our changing goals are recognized as really nothing but revelations or further mileposts along the way toward that ultimate Goal, which may be conceived of as Self-actualization or as God-realization. 

Thus, though the process may appear to be fluid and flexible—an ever evolving process—the Goal is something that is fixed and definite, toward which we are inevitably proceeding.  If we are inevitably proceeding toward the Absolute, then this is the essence of the idea of Destiny.  Destiny is, after all, a state that is predestined, a point that we are bound to reach, an inevitability, rather than an open set of possibilities.  This, then, is the theoretical basis for the North Node’s association with the concept of destiny.

Destiny, however, is a multi-scaled concept.  At its most macro level, we all have a common Destiny, which is to Return to our Original Source.  This is summed up in the Qur;’anic verse, “To Allah we belong and to Allah we shall return.”  Along the way on our journey to Return, we travel our own unique and individual path, which involves a series of “life lessons” with an ultimate purpose of spiritual preparation.  We can look to the North Node placement for some indication of our current “life lesson,” or life’s purpose or destiny. 

Destiny can be further particularized especially when the North Node is conjunct an astrological planet.  That planet can indicate the nature of our particular destiny or sense of destiny.  This concept of particularization is also true for conjunctions to the South Node.  Thus, a North Node-Venus conjunction may indicate a relationship with a strong sense of this being destined.  Of course, if we ascribe to the idea of karma, then any and all relationships are predestined but we may feel that destiny with greater intensity and if we have a North Node-Venus conjunction (or, if the relationship is specifically with a male, a North Node-Mars conjunction).  Mars conjunct the South Node, on the other hand, may suggest unresolved karmic issues relating to violence, warfare, aggression, or taking action. 

We may recognize that both the South and the North Nodes have strong associations with karma, for destiny is what is formed or indicated by the collection of karmic consequences that we bring with us to experience in this life.  The Nodal axis may be viewed as representing a karmic time arrow.  The South Node represents those karmas that we have collected in the past and have brought with us into this life, forming our predispositions in the broadest sense of that term.  The North Node represents those karmic events, karmic lessons and karmic evolutionary development that we have yet to experience.  The geometric connection between the Nodes symbolizes the time connection between collected karmas, or sinchit karmas, and those karmas that will achieve fruition in this life, our pralabdh karmas.  One shapes the other and, thus, our predispositions as indicated by our South Node placement determines, by the pull of their opposite nature, the direction in which we need to go in order to fulfill our karmic responsibilities and move toward further spiritual development.

Because we have yet to fulfill our karmic destiny, the North Node represents where we have not yet gone, or what we have not yet developed.  Thus, it is an unknown and the unknown for most of us is met with some trepidation.  The North Node also represents new ground to be plowed, as it were, and new ground is always more difficult to break than previously plowed fields of experience.  While we are inclined to be comfortable in the qualities and nature indicated by the South Node placement, we tend to be uncomfortable entering into the territory symbolized by our North Node placement.  Although we are called in that direction by our destiny, we are sometimes loathe to face it.  We may be apprehensive or we may find that the work that we are called upon to pursue is difficult. 

We may, therefore, try to avoid those situations, lessons and life experiences symbolized by our North Node placement.  We may even view them as inimical to our well-being.  They may be seen as a direction that disrupts our comfortable ordinary life, that challenges us in unwanted ways or that imposes difficulties that we are forced to confront.  If this is our attitude, then we are likely to view the North Node as malefic.  Could destiny’s disruption of our ego-wishes for living this life be at the heart of why Rahu is considered malefic in Vedic astrology?

The alternative, and a much more positive, wholesome and productive alternative, is to embrace the lessons signified by our North Node.  When we realize that the North Node is showing us the path forward, toward greater spiritual freedom and competency, then we can set our sites in that direction and consciously work toward that end.  We can also most effectively draw upon those resources that are symbolized by our South Node placement in order to help us on our way to achieving our right destiny.

A planet squaring the Moon’s Nodes has been seen as signaling a propensity to displace the dynamics symbolized by the Nodal axis by engaging with the energy symbolized by the squaring planet.  Focus on the squaring planet enables a person to avoid confronting their destiny or working to positively actualize the potential symbolized by the South Node.  The challenge, then, is to turn one’s attention to the lessons associated with the Nodal axis while positively manifesting the energy symbolized by the squaring planet.  In an article in The Mountain Astrologer (July-September 2022), Acyata-bhava Das pointed out that in Classical astrology, the North Node was considered to indicate increase, while the South Node was considered to indicate decrease.  She also suggests that Vedic astrology applies these concepts, albeit indirectly, to indications of material gain or loss, coinciding with overweening desire for the material and turning toward spiritual development, respectively.  While these interpretations seem to be removed from the evolutionary concepts of future/destiny and the past.  However, these concepts can be linked.

A key difference in approach is that, while the evolutionary astrology approach is oriented toward the psyche, both the Classical and the Vedic approaches, especially the Classical, are oriented to the person's place and lot in the world--the part they have been scripted to play as indicated by their natal chart.  In a sense, for the more ancient forms of astrology, the Nodes both represent a person's destiny--in fact, it can be said that the intent of both these systems is primarily to discover (and help the native navigate) one's destiny.  With respect to the Nodes, by focusing on the material station, the underlying concepts of "future" and "past" are applied with very different outcomes of meaning than with the evolutionary approach.

We can connect the concepts of future and past with increase and decrease by examining the nature of time.  Let us imagine time as a linear, directional phenomenon.  The present is a moving point along this linear and uni-directional continuum.  Moving toward the future points to increase in many ways.  Our experience and our knowledge of the world all increase as we move toward the future, as the future reveals what has hitherto been hidden.  There is also the element of optimism that is associated with the future.  Most of us have conscious or unconscious hopes that the future will provide us with increase, rather than with deprivation.  Unless we are mired in pessimism, our look toward the future is a look toward increased abundance, increased knowledge, increased development, and increased wisdom.  This is certainly not to say that the future may, and often does, hold the opposite--catastrophe, loss, ruin and destruction.  Yet, our hope is that the future is ultimately an evolutionary path forwards and upwards.

Now, if we imagine ourself traveling along the path of time, we are traveling away from the past, leaving it behind.  This phenomenon has marked characteristics of decrease.  For instance, as we get further away from something, that object recedes and appears smaller and smaller until it disappears.  So, with time, the past becomes more distant and, as it becomes more distant, it seems less distinct and less accessible.  Things and memories become lost in the past.  If we focus on the past, we will realize that there are many things and conditions that once were and no longer exist, and this applies to what we ourself have once possessed, either physically or in our mind.  So, in this way, the past can be associated with decrease and with loss.

What Classical and Vedic astrology do is to apply these concepts associated with the core meanings of the Moon's Nodes to one's material fate.  Vedic astrology takes a step further and overlays a dualistic framework of material and spiritual endeavors onto the increase/decrease polarity.  An implicit assumption seems to be made that we can move either toward materialism or spirituality and that a "loss" in the material world is, or can be, compensated for by a gain in the spiritual world.  To some extent, there is some truth to the concept that we can either be facing toward the material (the outcome of which is ultimately lust for the physical) or we can be facing toward the spiritual (which will often be prompted by and--from a certain viewpoint--must be accompanied by loss in the material world).

I will take this opportunity to briefly address another astrological point that I include in my book, Depth Astrology: An Astrological Handbook—the Part of Fortune.   Traditionally, the Part of Fortune is seen as indicating the area of life in which one experiences good fortune.  By aspect, the Part of Fortune is also seen as bringing fortunate circumstances to any planet in which it is in favorable aspect (or depriving fortunate circumstances if the planet is in a malefic aspect to the Part of Fortune). 

My view is that the Part of Fortune primarily indicates where, or in what field of experience, one is inclined to seek their good fortune.  Through seeking, the potential is opened for good fortune to occur.  If seeking is obstructed, the potential for good fortune to occur is reduced.

An important consideration with regard to the Part of Fortune is to realize that this astrological symbol, too, manifests on a continuum of meaning that is dependent upon the level of consciousness that the native brings to life.  Thus, with respect to the Part of Fortune, the operative question is: what constitutes good fortune? Or, more relevantly, what is true good fortune.  In this respect, each person consciously or unconsciously must define for themself where their good fortune lies.  Most are conditioned by society to define good fortune in materialistic terms.  However, from a spiritual perspective, such “good fortune” is impermanent and illusory.  From a spiritual perspective, good fortune is that which leads us closer to our spiritual goal of Return to our Origin. 

The analytical framework that has been applied to the Part of Fortune can also be applied to other Arabian Parts.

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