All About The Moon's Nodes
The moon's nodes represent the path of your soul - where you are going, and where you've been. The north node is kind of like your soul's evolutionary north star. We are learning many things in life, but what are they all sort of culminating toward? If we had to define in one idea what our purpose was in this incarnation what would it be? When we do our north node, we may feel like we are entering foreign territory, which can be unfamiliar and frightening, but exhilarating.
The south node is just the opposite; it's where we have already been. It represents our past, the behaviors that may have worked once for us but we now need to leave behind in order to achieve new goals and learn new lessons. It represents behaviors and beliefs that we can be too attached to; a set of assumptions that we have about ourselves and our place in the Universe. We must move away from the south node simply because this lifetime has new terms and new lessons, and we can't do it the old way this time. It can also hold information about karmic issues from past lives that you have come to work on.
Because the nodes are exactly opposite each other, there is always a feeling of being pulled between the tension of wanting to move forward yet feeling too comfortable with the past methods. The north node, being foreign territory, is likely something you are going to be working on 'getting' over your lifetime, and as you do, you can start to gravitate toward that idea.
While your entire chart is what you are learning and how you are developing yourself in this life, the nodes serve as kind of an umbrella, a point of reference as you grow.
Here's a small and imperfect nodes 'cookbook'. Find your north node sign and house for a snippet about your natal chart (the south node is always opposite the north node, so both are built-in to each paragraph). If you don't know where your north node is, you can create a free chart here and find out! Remember, anything taken out of context of the entire blend of your natal chart is like an ingredient in a dish without the other ingredients to add nuance and complexity. Digest these ingredients with a grain of salt, so to speak!
North Node in Aries
You need to move toward developing a style that is more courageous, a little more about fire and belief in yourself. Move toward the attitude that it’s ok to take some risks once in a while and trust your impulses. Let go of the old method of worrying first about what others will think or what others want you to do. You need to embrace the idea in this life that you can be in charge of your own life, and not only is it ok, but it’s your rightful role. Let go of your attachment to defer to others, hesitating when you should be stepping up and not waiting for the ‘go ahead.’
North Node in Taurus
You need to move toward developing a style that is calm, and grounded more in simplicity and patience. Taurus is the sign linked most to the five senses because it is through the senses that we can most easily learn to relax, and embrace the beauty of Mother Earth and her world around us. Let go of the old tendency to overreact or get involved in dramatic situations that drain your energy and get you worked up without purpose. You need to let go of your attachment to controlling through resistance to others or domination of others, and develop a more go with the flow attitude. This is in response to past experiences that have tired your soul through their intensity and overcomplexity, and you are here to learn to calm down and gain peace.
North Node in Gemini
You need to move toward developing a style that is open and curious, willing to learn and to question. Let go of the old method of assuming that you know before you ask, before you have gathered the facts. Let go of your attachment to proving your truth to others, which creates walls between you and others that you could learn from. Your style needs to grow to be more playful and light, willing to take in information from all sources, not just what fits in with your outgrown views of truth. Feed your mind, do not be afraid of what you have to learn!
North Node in Cancer
You need to move toward developing a style that is more empathetic and centered on your own feelings. Let go of the old method of stoically enduring without examining your feelings or giving yourself room to feel. You need to develop more respect for your own emotional processes and less of an attitude of making yourself just ‘get over it.’ In this life, it’s not about your method of achieving, but more about your method of self-exploration and inner work. Embrace a more nurturing attitude and less reserve; be more willing to show others you trust and love how you feel.
North Node in Leo
You need to move toward developing a style that is engaged with life, that is very self-expressive, maybe even boisterous (if the rest of your chart supports it). This life is about enthusiastically participating, not standing apart from others. Let go of the old method of distancing yourself from others in your effort to not have your sense of self compromised. That may have been necessary in the past, but it is an attitude that will no longer serve you. Embrace a more childlike style, revel in your life and simple activities of creativity like a child would.
North Node in Virgo
You need to move toward developing a style that is distinct and selfaccountable — a method that embraces structure and allows you to take a real hands on approach to creating and controlling your life. Let go of the old method of absorbing what’s around you and vaguely getting washed up in the confusion that you find yourself in. Leave behind the mentality that you are at the mercy of life, a small person in a big world; in this life a victim mentality will work even less for you than it usually does for anyone. Do not escape difficult situations, learn to direct them instead, by directing yourself.
North Node in Libra
You need to move toward developing a style that is based on an acknowledgement of the value others can bring to your life. Skills such as diplomacy and cooperation, creating win/win situations will help you. Let go of the old method of taking charge, running on ahead, and too much aggression without consideration of the effects on others around you. Embrace an attitude of willingness to look at another’s point of view, and a willingness to compromise for the greater good (including your greater good!).
North Node in Scorpio
You need to move toward developing a style that is very self-aware, aware of the complexities and internal motivations behind what you do. You need to develop an attitude of willingness to choose constructive change in your life and accepting the risks and vulnerability that go along with it. Changes that feed your heart, even if the material world thinks it’s madness. Let go of the old method of oversimplifying situations because you don’t want to look deeper, or simply an attitude of laziness. Leave behind attachment to the status quo and a ‘fixed’ mentality where no change or risks are taken, where you always ‘play it safe’, which will only leave you feeling stagnant and frustrated.
North Node in Sagittarius
You need to move toward developing a style that is intuition based. More risks, more ‘just do it’ mentality is needed. Let go of the old method of questioning yourself excessively and second guessing yourself. Let go of the attachment to facts and statistics over your own personal guts. You can get stuck in the feeling that you don’t know enough to act, but that is a bottomless pit, because in this life you need to find more faith — faith in life, faith in yourself, faith in the Universe. It’s about higher truth, not facts. It’s about trusting yourself, not getting the answers outside of yourself.
North Node in Capricorn
You need to move toward developing a style that is self-sufficient and independent. You are good at caring for others, but sometimes you can get stuck there, fostering too much dependence on someone (or their dependence on you) and not developing your own strengths and reaching your own goals. Embrace self-respect and personal boundaries. You are someone that will find much reward in solitude (if the rest of your chart supports this) so you can see your goals and future clearly. Let go of the old method of overreacting and falling into bouts of moodiness; the greater reward is in finding more sensible solutions to your problems to cultivate an attitude of selfrespect and maturity.
North Node in Aquarius
You need to move toward developing a style that allows for selfdevelopment by being able to see yourself clearly, and being able to develop your own unique style without worrying about what is ‘acceptable’ to the crowd. Let go of the old method of catering to others to gain approval. You know how to get others to accept you, but in this life, that may be too compromising; you can lose your sense of self and your individuality that way. Embrace an attitude of following your own path, even if it takes you somewhere others consider strange or ‘wrong for you.’ This will enable you to feel less threatened by others who are as unique as you, and you can form real friendships and unions that are not based on approval, but are more genuine.
North Node in Pisces
You need to move toward developing a style that is more ‘spiritual.’ That is bigger than you, that embraces compassion and healing, and acknowledging your connection to the Universe and to everyone else on the planet, to humanity. Let your boundaries blur, welcome fluctuation and change and flow. Embrace more of an attitude of surrender, where appropriate, perhaps surrender to a higher power or the greater process that is life, teaching you. Let go of the old method of needing to control and direct everything so much; there is much that can be taken care of if you stop fighting but relax into it; let go of all that worry.
North Node in 1st house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to feel that you simply have a right to exist, to take up space on this planet and in your life. In this life you need to be more autonomous, more in touch with what you want and who you are. You need to work on building your own identity, your own way of taking on the world. Let go of the habit of hiding your own needs inside a comforting cocoon of ‘us’ and ‘we,’ because while partnerships can be rewarding in your life, you need to take care that they don’t swallow your sense of self. Extreme self-focus and obsessive control over yourself is not the point, only that you need to define you and gain clarity about what’s you and what’s not you, but other people’s view of who you are.
North Node in 2nd house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to strengthen your own belief in yourself. Let go of habits that keep you believing you can’t survive on your own, that keep you attached or entangled with others too much. It’s not that you shouldn’t accept help when you need it, only that you need to take risks that allow you to prove yourself to yourself, because it is likely that you are far more capable than you think, but you won’t know that unless you prove it through hands on experience. Work on and develop your own personal resources, so you can gain true self-reliance, and confidence through the process.
North Node in 3rd house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to question your long standing beliefs, and your assumptions about the truths of the world. The truths you inherited may be too narrow to really feed you in this life. What you think is true is either no longer true or needs to have an infusion from a much bigger and complex picture. Let go of habits that force quick and simplistic understanding and don’t allow for contradictory information — not everything has to make sense or fit just perfectly right away. Ask questions, find out why, re-think what supposedly ‘everyone knows.’ Even ask the questions that you feel you’re not supposed to ask — why do some questions we ask carry offense at the question? Like a new child, you are here to learn, and some of that may involve unlearning things you thought ‘everybody already knew’.
North Node in 4th house
Learn to engage in activities that bring you closer to home and to your heart, that are motivated by feeling and less by duty and reputation. The home you are from and the home you create are the richest territory for you in this life, to examine, to embrace, and to understand. Move toward a fundamental knowledge of yourself, what’s in your own bones, where you come from, what you are based on. Let go of habits that encourage you to cater to what’s expected of you and ignore the needs of your heart. Focus more on what’s happening in your own heart and back yard rather than what you owe the world or what you’ve got going on externally.
North Node in 5th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to play, to relax, to enjoy the moments of your life. The future will happen, but today is where the action is. Learn to worry less about the future consequences of every single action at the expense of enjoying and living this moment fully. Engage in activities that spontaneously release creativity and joy. Let go of habits that encourage aloofness, hiding behind an exaggerated need to stand apart and not compromise your own individuality as an excuse for not engaging with others, not to show yourself, not to show your heart, but remaining dispassionate and out of place. Embrace a childlike approach to life, a more spontaneous heart place.
North Node in 6th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to take charge of your life. Let go of habits that encourage you to let go of personal responsibility and just drift, accepting whatever falls into your lap with no control or initiative. The universe wants to see what you can do now, what you’re made of. Make plans, pay attention to how your life is shaped, and how you spend your days. Don’t obsess about time but don’t lose track of your life, because your daily life turns into weeks, months, and years and pretty soon you’ve accomplished nothing if you don’t step up to the plate and get your hands dirty. Participate in your life. Hiding and losing yourself on a mountaintop will not work for you in this life this time, you need to engage, work, do.
North Node in 7th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to make a bridge to others in your life, to take other views and opinions into consideration. You are used to working with the container that is just your self. You need to learn to take in that shock of another person in your life, their views, the idiosyncrasies, all the weirdness that being involved with another person brings to your life, that is where your learning lies now. Partnership, equality, will bring surprisingly knowledge about yourself that you didn’t have before. Let go of habits that push others away or selfish behaviors that are one-sided.
North Node in 8th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to look at your own self, your own psychology deeply. There is much to learn that is below the surface of your own practical day to day life. Look deeper. One tremendous way that humans come face to face with their own ‘stuff’ is in deep relationship, relationship that goes beyond friendship, but enters into deep bonding and trust. We are really sharing with these few people in our lives, and in this deep bondedness we are vulnerable and, in a way, depending on each other for survival, sharing our burdens and lending our strengths. Let go of habits of extreme selfsufficiency at the expense of this vulnerability with another.
North Node in 9th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to seek and find meaning. You need to view your life as a quest, with your behaviors and activities always allowing you to broaden your horizons. Imagine the comparison between a comparative religion class and a technical writing class. In the former, the meaning behind the facts isn’t obvious, things can be discussed, uncovered, personalized — like finding one’s own truth. Let go of habits that lead to second-guessing and obsession with arguing the logic of something.
North Node in 10th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage you to find your place in the world. Let go of habits that keep you hidden away from the world. Avoid spending too much time swimming in yourself and your own stuff at the expense of getting on with your life and finding your own gifts, making and reaching your goals. You need to leave behind the tendency to withdraw, the tendency to claim ‘shyness’ when you don’t step up where you need to. You have a great work to achieve in this world and you need to move toward taking risks that may make you a little more publicly recognized. Risk being seen. Risk being noticed for who you are and what you believe in and what you do. What are you really meant to do with your life? What mark, what legacy are you leaving behind because of who you are? That is the territory you need to explore in this life, and you must not hide inside yourself or you will never find it.
North Node in 11th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage focus on the future and less on the present, that is to say, don’t sacrifice the future to embrace the present so much that you never make goals, never think ahead. It’s not about living in the future, you must live in the now, but you must shape your life’s activities with your future in mind, because each day soon makes up the story of your life. Let go of habits that keep you attached to momentary comforts and cause you to drift through life with no shape to your future manifesting, or that keep you attached to empty pleasures and addicted to quick highs but create an empty life.
North Node in 12th house
Learn to engage in activities that encourage a step outside of the daily grind, the world’s reality, the to do lists. Embrace meditative experiences, even if it’s not formal meditation, but activities that ‘take you to another place’ (could be fishing, could be a hike in the woods, could be yoga, etc.). Let go of habits that keep you too focused on the smaller picture. The day to day picture is necessary in all our lives, but for you, it can be a black hole if you let it. You need to get airborne, not stay tied to earth. In a way, ‘God’ is what you must seek, but we’re not talking what church to join here, or even a formal deity acknowledgement, just whatever you can do that allows you to sense the Universe, the ocean of collective consciousness, that enables you to feel kind of ‘not of this world.’ That is what is truly rewarding for you to learn.