According to astrology, the Moon’s Nodes represent pivotal points in a person’s spiritual development and are especially vulnerable to eclipses. By definition, Lunar Nodes are the points at which the Moon’s orbital path intersects with the ecliptic plane. Given that the Nodes are neither visible nor objective planets, the horoscope’s interpretation of their significance takes on an air of mystery. The Nodes are considered particularly malefic in Vedic astrology due to the’shadowy’ reputation they have. The Nodes have always been used in astrology in a mysterious fashion, and their significance lies mostly in the belief that each person must travel a predetermined karmic path.
The nodal axis acts as a straight line into the past, storing all of your accumulated knowledge up to this point (SN), and points forward into the future, where happenings will take place (NN). The Nodes are often referred to as the “line of fate” because of the belief that they reveal crucial information about one’s karmic destiny. The Nodes embody the esoteric beliefs about past lives and the notion that all of life is interconnected by one continuous thread. By examining the position of the Nodes in a birth chart, we can gain insight into a person’s likely evolutionary path, and those who enter our lives while a major transiting planet is in close aspect to the Nodal Axis tend to do so under quite fatalistic conditions.
The Astrology of the Nodes – Nodal Axis
From a psychological perspective, the South Node in astrology symbolises the subconscious and the habits and routines that emerge from it. The South Node is what is already present in the personality, it is what a soul has brought into incarnation. The North Node exerts an opposing influence and, with deliberate and persistent work, can set the course of the future.
Conscious Experience
It is at the North Node that we must ‘turn on the light’ and raise our level of awareness by paying attention to and participating in its activities. The South Node is knowledge and skill acquired via deep, innate familiarity with a particular area of life. . A psychology professor once admitted, “When I have to give a lecture, I turn my mouth loose and go to sleep.” If we want to make better use of the Nodal Axis, we’ll have to make more of an effort to make deliberate choices and move away from mindless, habitual behaviour of the South Node.
Integrating the two Nodes into one’s being is the real aim, as they form a complementary axis. Life’s reoccurring cycles as an unfolding process along a timeline provide additional vantage points from which to examine the Nodes.
The year prior to each of these four nodal returns (19, 38, 57, and 76) is a sort of 12th House phase of the nodal cycle – a time in which one should attempt to sum up the meaning and activity of that entire cycle and prepare for the next. The age of 18 for example, is a time to sum up the experiences of one’s youth so that an individual may develop an objective foundation for the new departure into adulthood at 19…At the second nodal cycle at age 37-38, one should try to assess the degree of success (or failure) in his attempts to realize his ideal life-purpose through concrete activities…When the third nodal cycle ends at age 56-57, each person should assess the degree of personality fulfilment he has achieved, and the measure to which his creative work as a social individual has been successful…and a time of change in spiritual direction…The fourth nodal return occurs at age 75-76. At that time there should be an assessment of the personality’s spiritual realizations, and of the success of one’s efforts to conclude his life in a significant manner, leaving a seed to nourish future generations. Cycles of Becoming: The Planetary Pattern of Growth
