"Elizabeth, I've recently discovered your website and have been completely immersed. When I look at my own chart, my north node is in Gemini in the 7th house and opposes my Sagittarian Sun in the 1st house. I had been assuming that one of the tasks of fulfilling a chart was to "become" our sun, that the solar quest was the heroic quest. When the south node is conjunct the Sun, are we suppose to move away from our Sun? I've seen a number of charts that have the same set-up - Sun opposing the north node. Do you have any thoughts? Patty"
Thanks for your response, and because others have asked similar questions, I’d like to reply in this post. Yes, the heroic quest is a solar quest, but that's different from the Soul's quest; although so intertwined it's hard to pull apart. The Soul’s quest is more about the Nodal Journey, with the North Node being the guiding star. The Sun sign leads the Soul in the world, as the body holds the Soul, but I believe it’s in the coming together of the body and soul, the Sun and the North Node, that we truly find our way home.
Let’s look at it this way---if you think of your chart as a conference table with all the planetary personalities sitting around this table, then you could imagine your chart as a committee meeting, with your Sun as the Chairperson and organizing ego. It needs to center and focus this group of sometimes unruly archetypes that want to be heard all at once and with their own agenda. So the Sun, like a Solar Hero or Heroine, is an assertive organizing energy that is the “vehicle” that your Soul has chosen to use in this life. So yes, we do need to fulfill and honor our unique Sun sign mode of being in the world. With that in mind, you’ll want to look at the qualities of your Sun to use as one uses one’s ego strength to live in the world. In your case, with a Sagittarian Sun, you’re being called to see life as a grand quest, to actively expand your world through reading, travel, contact with “foreign ideas” and to speak your truth in a forthright manner.
However, if the Soul’s journey is reflected more by the Nodal axis than the Solar ego’s journey, then when your South Node is conjunct your Sun in the same sign, it’s implying that your default pattern of ego behavior is indeed Sagittarian, but it tends to move into the lower expression of it when you’re not being conscious. In the astrological lineage I come from, we read the South Node somewhat negatively, as holding those behaviors that we’re very comfortable with, but which don’t suit us anymore for this life.
The Sun conjuncting a South Node reminds me of an exclamation point here! It’s as if is saying: be careful! You’re being called to access the highest expression or octave of your Sag Sun and not its knee-jerk expression. I’m sure you already know how Sag in its lower expression can be played out. But one thing might be most important---and what is it? It’s the need to integrate the highest expression of its opposite sign, your North Node, Gemini. So, the negative default pattern of Sag is, in part, to already think it knows all the answers because it sees the “mountain-top” view, but it has missed the view from the valley or marketplace. So it needs to come down from a point of philosophic/spiritual surety and over self-confidence, and rub shoulders with the commoners in the valley to see the many ways that “street smarts” and differing points of view can open the heart and mind even farther. And for you, with N.Node in the 7th house, it is calling for you to do this in close one on one relationships, partnerships and with close friends.
We always need to access the highest octave of any sign involved in the Sun or Nodal axis, and to move away from its lower octave or expression. It's a lot about complementarity in the Jungian sense--of bringing in new qualities we need, and shaking out the subtlest meanings to find the balance. I'd need to see your whole chart in a reading to do this justice, but I hope this helps.
Elizabeth Spring http://www.elizabethspring@aol.com/
