The Lunar Nodes
The lunar nodes aka ‘the destiny line’ are the points in space where the path of the Moon around the earth crosses the ecliptic.
The ecliptic is the path of the earth around the sun if you imagine it was a huge disk stretching out into infinity.
the Moon orbiting the earth takes 27 days, and during that time, it crosses the ecliptic in two places.
Once crossing when descending south of the ecliptic, the point that makes the degree of the south node or descending node, and once again when it crosses ascending north of the ecliptic, the point that makes the degree of the north node, or ascending node.
the descending or south node is written with the symbol ☋ and the ascending or north node written with the symbol ☊.
As the earth moves through its own journey around the Sun, the degrees of the lunar nodes also move. It takes the lunar nodes 18 years to complete a circle on the map of the zodiac, traveling roughly 1,5 years through each sign polarity (the sign on the north node and its opposite sign on the south node).
the south and north nodes of the moon are always exactly opposite one another in a chart, traveling clockwise in opposite direction to the rest of the chart. Below are the movement of the Lunar nodes in 2022, from 1.13° Gemini/Sagittarius to 11.44° Taurus Scorpio.
Solar and lunar eclipses follow the lunar nodes, and the transits from the lunar nodes to personal planets or points in the natal chart often correlates with events or people coming into the natives life that have a profound influence on the personal evolution.
To understand the meaning of the lunar nodes, the path or journey of the moon, let’s first look at the Moon.
The Moon is the ruler of our emotional body that is the Ego or in English:
The I
The Ego or I, is an emotional body formed in early childhood. In psychological terms "the formation of the Ego" or "the formative years".
Our sense of self is closely connected to how we feel, ruled by the Moon, our closest heavenly body, and ruler of development, childhood and the subconscious I. While the Earth and the other planets of our Solar System evolve around the Sun, the Moon evolves around the Earth. Our I places each of us as center of the universe.
The I was officially agreed to be real, and of great matter though not made of matter, through the work of Sigmund Freud who wrote in German and called it "Das Ich" (“the I”) which was translated into the Latin word for I; “Ego”, leading to some confusion for people who don’t speak Latin.
Interestingly, Freud himself had the Moon conjunct the collective north node of Uranus
The Moon rules the ego and the collective nodes of Uranus rules science that affect the collective.
Freud’s discoveries about the existence and function of the Ego or the I, have been groundbreaking and have since greatly influenced psychology and the way we see ourselves.
The eye of the night, the Moon, rules our emotional system that all the time by signals of comfort or discomfort lets us know our security needs. When ever we feel our security, whether emotional or physical, is threatened, we feel very uncomfortable. this alerts us of how we are. How we are is what motivates our actions. we act to get towards something that feels better, or to get away from something that feels worse (or both). How we act determines who we are. Thus how we are, by default determines who we are.
The emotional body that is the ego or I
is a collection of who we are and were, every moment through our life up to the current moment.
Even the parts we forget are still there. They are part of the totality that is the I. Our I is a mystery to us, though we have lived through every moment and emotion that has crystallized into this emotional body of ours with its habits and desires.
The Moon also rules needs, food, home, family, rest, regeneration, genes, the womb, and the mother. The mother is always crucial for the healthy development of our I. We emerge from her, and to us, she is the whole world as well as part of ourselves, until we have developed ourselves as separate I's. The position of, and aspects to, the moon in a chart, holds information of the ego or I, the mother, and the habitual emotional state.
When we then zoom out from the ego or I, to the developmental journey in a lifetime of that ego or I, that is when we begin to grasp the meaning of the lunar nodes.
In evolutionary astrology, Jeffrey Wolf Green named the Lunar Nodes ‘The Evolutionary Intention”, what the soul has intended to learn and develop through current incarnation. Mark Jones named them ‘The Destiny Line’. In Verdic astrology they are Rahu and Ketu, the dragons head and tail.
Some attribute the meaning of “good” or “bad” to either node. I caution against such thinking, as I not only find it incorrect, but that it is also making people feel bad for no good reason. Very important events or people who influence the evolution of an individual can be either a happy or painful event. The Lunar nodes speak of the importance, not the good or bad.
The south node of the Moon, the Moon, and the north node of the Moon are not three different mechanics, but three parts of one mechanic so to speak. similar to past, present and future being interchangeable parts of one whole journey.
Roughly, the south node relates to past or the origin and the north node to future or the new influences, though one should never be too linear when thinking past, present and future.
You in the present (Moon) might use a skill you have learned in the past (south node) and thereby attract a new opportunity (north node). Or you in the present (moon) may meet a new challenge (north node) that requires you to go back into the past (south node) to search for the key to solving the new challenge (north node).