The North Node in Astrology

Think of the thing that scares and draws you at the same time. The skill that does not come naturally but that you keep wanting to learn. The kind of life that feels unfamiliar and strangely right. That is the North Node in your chart: the direction you grow in when you leave the comfort of what you already know.

The North Node never works alone. Opposite it, always, is the South Node: what comes easily, what you fall back on. Together they form an axis, a road from the familiar to the new.

What the nodes are

The Moon's path around the Earth is tilted a few degrees against the Sun's path, the ecliptic. So twice a month the Moon crosses the Sun's path: once heading north, once heading south. Those two crossing points are the lunar nodes: the North Node where the Moon crosses going north, and the South Node where it crosses going south. They are always exactly opposite each other.

The nodes slowly move backwards through the zodiac, taking about 18 and a half years to go all the way round and spending about 18 months in each sign.

The dragon and the eclipses

Here is something most horoscope pages never mention. The nodes are where eclipses happen. An eclipse can only occur when a new Moon or full Moon falls close to one of the nodes, because only then are the Sun, Moon and Earth lined up in three dimensions. That is why eclipses come in seasons, about every six months, as the Sun passes each node.

Ancient sky-watchers imagined a dragon swallowing the Sun or Moon at an eclipse. Medieval Western astrology called the North Node the Dragon's Head and the South Node the Dragon's Tail. Indian astrology still calls them Rahu and Ketu, the head and the body of a serpent demon, and gives them great importance.

Where is this planet in your chart?

Its sign says how it works, its house says where. See both, with the aspects that shape it.

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