North Node Medicine
I love this recent photo taken by my friend Elizabeth Schwalbe on her trip
to Northern India and Nepal. The resting
Buddha looks so peaceful and serene,
and when I thought of this unusual stance of a reclining holy one I wondered what it is that we all need to rest
blissfully, especially when we are
not feeling well and too busy in our ego-active lives. It's not an easy task to truly rest or to be still when life is edgy, too full, or when we are feeling ill.
Astrologically, there is a powerful medicine for our psyches and Souls that can help us at all times. I call it North Node Medicine. Essentially it is a deep understanding of ourselves and the imaginative potential of our lives. The birth chart has layers and layers of meaning and depth which can be plumbed for insight, healing, and discovery...and of all the points on the astrological mandala, the North Node is perhaps the finest medicine for whatever ails our Souls.
These North Node posts on this blog are a simple beginning to understanding the process of discovering what your North and South Node axis is about---the North Node refers to the direction your Soul yearns to go towards, and the South Node is the default direction it has taken in the past. The North Node is like your personal North Star, and the simplicity of the North Node posts on this site only give a taste of what these points can offer you.
North Node medicine needs to take into account the whole chart, and specifically the house placement in which the Nodes fall. A deeper understanding of your chart also takes into account the aspects to the Nodes and the Rulers of the Nodes. What it gives you in the final analysis is a "past life parable" of the psycho-spiritual journey you are on...and particularly what character traits are best left behind, and what character traits and talents are best developed and promoted.
I will continue to post the North Node Signs and then talk about house placements and the significance of the aspects, the rulers, and also how your Sun sign figures prominently into all this. It's a bit like a puzzle, and all wrapped in mystery.....and it's a fine challenge to decipher the meanings of our personal mandala....our chart. And, I believe, that when we are in repose like this Buddha, we can "intuit" much of this without an astrological chart. But then it might not be so much fun---sometimes its quite delightful for someone to verify what we already deeply know about ourself!
If you are interested in reading more about the North and South Nodes, there's an article on them on my site: http://www.elizabethspring.com/ If you'd like to find your North Node sign and don't know it, you can also email me through that site, and I will send you your North Node sign and house placement for free, however you will need to give me your birth time, place, and date for me to bring up your chart to do this. Or as always, you can inquire about a reading focusing on the Nodes. I have recently finished an apprenticeship program with Steven Forrest which focused specifically on the Nodal story, and am eager to share this information with anyone who is interested. ~elizabeth spring



4 comments:
As a matter of interest, the reclining Buddha image is generally supposed to depict the Buddha shortly before his death. If you read it metaphorically, and death as transformation rather than loss, then it is the repose on the verge of a sublime transformation. In some ways, very in keeping with NN medicine, as you put it.
Thanks. I'll be reading more.
Hi Hitchhiker72~
Yes, isn't that interesting?! Reading it metaphorically as the 'repose on the verge of a sublime transformation'....and North Node Medicine is truly Soul Medicine which enables the "repose" as we are all somewhere in that space before our death. So thanks for droppping by--- I also checked out your site on Mercury Retrogrades-- very thoughtful! ~elizabeth
This photo is a detail of the wall paintings in the shrine room of the Sakya Nun's Institute in Manduwalla, India. The paintings depict a series of events in the life of the Buddha, and this one would indeed be just prior to his death. But I do love
Hitchhiker72's beautiful way of expressing this event as "repose of the verge of a sublime transformation".
---Elizabeth Schwalbe
Thanks for dropping by Elizabeth! And thanks again for the photo, and I invite you to send any more from your travels....yesterday I saw a statue that was for sale here that looked like that Buddha in repose....very interesting/unusual that I would see something like that, after pondering the photo....I actually wondering if the statue had been stolen at first, but then I realized that it looked too new...maybe it was a molded copy? ~elizabeth spring
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