South Node; Don't Repeat What Doesn't Work

The South Node

From the point of view of evolutionary astrology, the sign of your South Node describes your default pattern in life. It describes a way of being in the world which doesn't work well for you anymore. It represents something you are comfortable with, because earlier in this life or in a previous life (if you believe in reincarnation) it was your habitual pattern and where you failed to live up to all you could be. So now, the Soul longs to move away from this and towards the potential and possibilities of your North Node.

The South Node represents an easy way out for us---our addictive tendencies, our unresolved conflicts and negative personality traits, and the limitations and failures from the past which can interfere with our ability to be all we can be.

In looking at the sign of the South Node, one needs to look at what the lower octave, or less pleasant side of the sign is all about. Because the South Node represents what we didn't get right, or was troublesome either earlier in this life or in a former life, then we really understand quite a lot about ourselves if we can understand what this is all about.

Of course the South Node is balanced and compensated by the good qualities of the North Node ,which point to where the Soul longs to go towards in this life. So understanding the positive aspects of the sign of your North Node gives you great insight into what qualitities are helpful for you to develop.

For those of you who want to delve a little deeper, and who understand the nature of aspects, we can find out more information by looking at any oppositions or squares to the Nodes. An opposition to the SN is the planet that conjuncts your NN, and it represents in its lower manifestation what hurt you or oppossed you in the past. Read it negatively. This is a good exercise in seeing both the high and low sides all the planetary archetypes....because the higher aspects or the good qualities of that same planet are what is going to help you in this life. All signs and planets are dualistic and contain a full range of possibilities.

Now a planet that is square to your Nodes represents what Steven Forrest and Jeff Greene call a "skipped step." So in order to fully actualize the potential in your North Node, you do need to understand what this blind spot, or skipped step is about. It ties in with what you didn't get right in the South Node, but offers suggestions as to what you need to bring into your life to reach the potential of your North Node.

The other piece to this puzzle is to look at what houses the North and South Nodes are in. The house that the South Node falls in further describes something of where you didn't get it right before, and the North Node house offers a different direction for you to focus on.

We can also look at the ruler of the planets of the Nodes and how they are aspected in the chart, but we are getting a lot of variables here, and it's easy to get lost. I find that looking at the sign of the Nodes, the houses, and the possible opposition or skipped step, (opposition or square) usually is enough for me. There's quite a story here--a parable really, of who we were and who we are becoming.

All this reminds us to look at the paradoxical nature of the signs and planets, and to keep reaching for the highest expression of them. And although we don't want to keep falling back on what we know or what our default pattern is, it's helpful to remember that Carl Jung always said to watch for the "gold in the shadow." We've learned something in our past, and we picked up skills and attitudes along the way....so it's true that we can look for the highest expression of these South Node qualities to act on, and we can use what we know. But think of the SN territory as potentially a slippery slope, and we need to be fully grounded before digging for the gold there--or what we might find is simply fool's gold.

The South Node represents qualities and habits we repeat endlessly, and it doesn't serve our evolutionary soul contract for this life. We are wise to very cautiously "mine the gold" in the shadow of the SN and to discipline ourselves to see the skipped step or obstruction; but don't linger in the shadows. Go for the North Node--reach for your personal North Star.

(c) elizabeth spring For more info: http://www.elizabethspring.com/

North Node Capricorn

North Node Capricorn, South Node Cancer

Integrity is the key to your life. By following your personal code of ethics and beliefs you have an inner compass for your life. As you develop self-control and self-care while approaching life in a goal oriented manner, you integrate the lessons of your past and bring your dreams into reality. In former lives, or earlier in this one, you were more concerned with the process of life rather than your goals and visions, and were overly immersed in your emotional life. At times you succumbed to moodiness and a dependence on others that was not healthy. Now you are learning to truly be the author of your life: the "author-ity" and are finding the satisfactions of independence.

By setting positive and reachable goals, and taking the steady steps to reach them, you release old fears of rejection and find that you have what it takes to be a leader and a person in authority. This may feel quite new, as you may have spent other lifetimes in which you were a householder and identified with your role in your family and clan. You may still have some difficult family karma to resolve, but you're willing and able to do what needs to be done. You are not one to be irresponsible and you are not naive either.

In this life you are called to be a builder, a creator, and a preserver of all that is valuable. You have a deep respect for the good part of traditions that have been handed down, and you may find yourself given the opportunity to succeed in the world in a surprising way. Others see your integrity, and trust that you can be the person of authority.

Because of your innate seriousness and strong work ethic you can sometimes feel isolated from others, so make it a point to find ways to lightly and creatively express yourself, as well as finding loyal friends to cheer and encourage you. You are more respected and loved than you realize.

As you pick up the gold in your Cancer South Node, you'll find that any left-over tendencies to control others by emotional over reactions and manipulations will fall away as you come into your own. You have a keen sense of intuition and yet you may feel at times as if you are blocked, or don't want to open up fully to all your emotions--sometimes it feels like dangerous territory. Trust your intuitions, and go at your own pace.

Soul Purpose: Building a life, a business or career, or some structure that is worthy of your ambition. You are “toughening” into becoming an Elder and a wise one, but you need to mature into it by wise use of solitude and a savvy attitude in the world. You are leaving behind a family oriented dependence and moving out into the public world. You could become a high achiever and successful in whatever field you choose, but remember to “be in the world, but not of it.”

Shadow: Not setting up appropriate boundaries between your self and family members or business partners. The goal is inter-dependence with others, and an outward looking perspective that still honors the integrity you deeply understand. Never forget the old Biblical saying: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but lose his immortal Soul?”
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Oprah Winfrey, television talk show host, wise woman, and possibly one of the world’s wealthiest and most influential woman, Oprah has this Nodal aspect. Born in rural Mississippi to a poor teenage single mother and later raised in an inner city Milwaukee neighborhood, Winfrey was raped at age 9, and at 14-years-old gave birth to a son, who died in infancy. She was sent to live with her father, who encouraged her education, and Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school. She began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Oprah is credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication, and by the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. She is generally admired for overcoming adversity and for becoming a benefactor to others—in 2006 she became an early supporter of Barack Obama, which may have helped him win the election.

Oprah shows the characteristics of deep integrity and goal orientation that are embodied in her North Node Capricorn. Her strong work ethic helped move her beyond the South Node “Cancerian immersion” in the drama of family life and she chose instead to focus her energy and goals towards the larger “family” of the world. Although Winfrey has a partner, she never married, and believes that the reason she never had children was because her students at her South Africa’s Academy for Girls were meant to be her daughters: "I never had children, never even thought I would have children. Now I have 152 daughters; expecting 75 more next year. I said to the mothers, the family members, the aunts, the grannies — because most of these girls have lost their families, their parents — I said: “Your daughters are now my daughters and I promise you I'm going to take care of your daughters. I promise you.”

Time magazine wrote about Oprah’s power to blend the public (Capricorn) and the private (Cancer): “Like a family member, it’s as if she sits down to meals with us and talks to us in the lonely afternoons. She makes people care because she cares. That is Winfrey's genius, and will be her legacy, as the changes she has wrought in her talk show continue to permeate our culture and shape our lives.”

Yet in 2009 Oprah has admitted that she has let her goals, ambitions and work become out of balance with her personal life and need for self-love. She admits that her life long battle with weight gain appears to be connected with a problem of self-nurturance and love, which has been a fluctuating theme in her life. This is the precarious balance of the Nodes here; balancing home, heart, and heart with the work that one is called to do. So far, it appears as if Oprah has done an amazing job of following her life direction and soul purpose.

Elizabeth Spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/

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Scorpio North Node, Taurus South Node

Scorpio North Node, South Node Taurus

The passionate Scorpio nature feels its way through life, sensing undercurrents and daring to look deeply to find the emotional bottom line. In order to move towards the heights of your Scorpio North Node you need to relax your concerns around money, security, and possessions as well as being willing to risk losing your current level of comfort to gain a higher state of power and vitality.


Can you leave behind tendencies to possessiveness and attachment and open up to the excitement of change? Will you dare to look deeply and bravely into the underworld, into 'the other side of the question' and into the places where the deepest level of truth resides? Superficial “people pleasing” is not for you. You are meant to look into the eyes of the murderer and find the frightened unloved child there. You are meant to know the whole story, and to travel the roads many of us declare unsafe.


The eagle, the phoenix, and the scorpion are the symbols of Scorpio, and like the eagle you were meant to fly high and be powerful, and like the phoenix, you are meant to risk dying and being reborn, knowing you are a survivor. As you dare to delve into the mysteries of life, you come up with deep treasure.


The third symbol of the scorpion hints at the shadow side of this sign which can see all aspects of truth, including that which is not always full of light and joy. The wisdom of the Scorpio nature evolves because it has dared to explore the dark, the taboo, the unspoken, and then takes this ability to see and embrace the dark and transform it. It's a high calling and that's why North Node Scorpios are often the best doctors, healers, investigators, and friends to have in times of crisis.


Scorpios are the truth-tellers of the zodiac. In the old storybook tale it was probably a Scorpio who told the emperor he had no clothes on. Because you are good at delving into the minds of others, you can be intense, yet your Soul yearns to deeply relate to others and benefits by working in partnership. Let yourself explore and experience what sex, money, God, and politics can teach you. Go where others have not, and let yourself experience it all. Be brave, for like the cat with many lives, you too have many lives to live.


When you come to a turning point in the Scorpio-Taurus path you're ready to retrieve the gold in the shadow of your Taurus South Node. You can now relax into enjoying the fruit of your passions. For example, turn the grist from the mill of your life into something creative and pleasing. Have you ever tried singing or songwriting? (Taurus rules the throat and singing.) Or writing a mystery novel or screenplay? Own your experiences by creatively giving birth to something that is uniquely you.


Soul Purpose: Integrating your instinctual goodness and vulnerability with a willingness to do the hard and often conflictual work of making both relationships and career “work” for you. You have to go deeper than you may be comfortable with, and learn to move beyond “goodness” into wholeness. This means having the ability to withdraw negative projections from others, and to see with compassion where you may have control issues, sexual hungers, and feelings that are sometimes less than nice. You are meant to make peace with you own “inner scorpion.” Doing this will give you a power and charisma that will make you successful in whatever areas of life you choose to dwell in.


Shadow: Trying to keep everything safe and predictable. You are called to the edge to look at the complexities of life and the moral ambivalence and paradoxes of life. Not an easy thing to do! Being lazy and going for the creature comforts only puts you back into old habits. Release any addiction to financial security as being the “bottom line.”


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Ellen DeGeneres, Emmy Award-winning stand-up comedienne, actress and host for the syndicated “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” has this Nodal combination. Although we can’t know the details of her personal experience in reaching for her phoenix-like Scorpio North Node, we can see her gutsy, hard working, truth telling nature in her public expression. We know that before becoming famous, Ellen worked as a waitress, house painter, bartender, and retail clerk. And we know that she came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.



DeGeneres received wide exposure on November 4, 2001, when she hosted the Emmy Awards-TV show. Presented after two cancellations due to network concerns that a ceremony following the September 11, 2001 attacks would appear insensitive, the show required a more somber tone that would also allow viewers to temporarily forget the tragedy. DeGeneres received several standing ovations for her performance that evening which included the line: "We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a homosexual woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?"



Ellen became formally married to Portia de Rossi in 2004, and they live together as Vegans with their three dogs and four cats. As a lover of animals, and as a savvy business woman, Ellen faced a dilemma in the 2007 writer’s strike when she crossed the picket line to do her television show. Although Degeneres verbally supported the strike she said that she could not break her contracts or risk her show losing its time slot. As a show of solidarity with the strikers, DeGeneres omitted her monologue during the strike, typically written by WGA writers. However, the Writer’s Guild condemned her, and said that she was "not welcome in NY" saying: “We find it sad that Ellen spent an entire week crying and fighting for a dog that she gave away, yet she couldn't even stand by writers for more than one day – writers who have helped make her extremely successful.”



This Taurus/Scorpio Nodal combination can sometimes put one into situations where we need to be true to ourself and our needs, as well as true to what we believe is correct. Whether we believe she was wrong or right in her decisions, I think Ellen showed courage in her stance of truth telling, both in her coming out in her sexuality/marriage, her humor-filled tactfulness after 9/11, and in her business needs—she is a good example of the complexities of choice and moral ambivalence contained in the Scorpio North Node. (c)~Elizabeth Spring www.elizabethspring.com
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Neith’s thoughts on the North Node in Scorpio

With a strong Scorpio influence in my chart – the Ascendant with Jupiter, Mars & Mercury in Scorpio – what Elizabeth is saying about the North Node in Scorpio rings true. It is one of the tougher Nodal positions to handle and I have seen few people with this Nodal axis express it well. Most will have moments where they experience the heights and depths inherent in Scorpio but admittedly it is a tough place to live, day in and day out. An astrologer friend of mine with this axis has done the best with this I have seen to date. She has slowly learned to find a balance with pushing herself to the limits, trimming her life style to the bone and yet learning to keep a few creature comforts to relax with.

If I look at the Scorpio/Taurus patterns in my life, I see years of being able to move quickly and easily because my possessions were few. In fact it wasn’t’ until I married at 44 yrs old, I owned anything of substance, i.e., land, vehicles, etc. I still live a very simple, frugal lifestyle with few frills. My computer and high-speed internet service are my main luxuries . . . that and buying books (well, I do have Libra!) Living in a rural area with a large yard and garden satisfy the Taurus need for simplicity and pleasure in being close to the Earth. Is this a key to living with the Taurus South Node? To live close the land while pursuing Scorpio North Node concerns?

Elizabeth describes Scorpio as the “truth tellers of the zodiac” and I very much agree with this too. May be why I learned to keep my thoughts to myself as a child because few want to hear the truth . . . I’m wondering if Scorpio discerns the truth behind the facades and Sagittarius blurts it out! We would love to hear the experiences of others living with this Nodal axis, if you can get past the Scorpio need for privacy and holding what you know close. ::grin::

Research on Node Reversal in Synastry

This is a guest post by Neith

Whenever I wish to do some astrological research I have my family birth data to draw upon going back a couple of generations. In this instance, I was curious to see what the patterns were within the family for Reversed Moon’s Nodes for couples and their children. My personal experience of relating to another person who has the opposite Nodes suggests proximity is an important factor. I have several cyber-friends with North Node in Sagittarius very close to my South Node in Sagittarius and there are no problems at all. It seems to take the day-to-day interchanges to up the irritation factor – like working with someone or living with them in a family setting.

What I found after looking up all my extended family’s birth dates was very interesting. Out of all the couples in both my parent’s generation and mine, only ONE had Reversed Nodes! In fact, only a few parent/children had Reversed Nodes and most of the time it was the mother, not the father, involved. These were children that left home at the first opportunity, usually going off to school halfway across the country.

It is my aunt and uncle who live closest to us who have the Reversed Nodes. They will have been married for 55 years this year and it has been a stressful relationship most of that time. My uncle is 10 yrs older than my aunt (my mother’s youngest sister) and they have 5 children, the oldest of whom is 9 years younger than I. I don’t have birth times for either person so I will just review the astrology using the shorthand method.

My aunt is an Aquarius Sun, Capricorn Moon and my uncle has a Taurus Sun and very likely an Aquarius Moon. If this is the case, the Luminaries form a trine and conjunction by sign – very compatible! Their Moons would be semi-sextile (Capricorn to Aquarius) and that does seem to fit. My aunt is extremely well organized and always had neatly written lists of chores for her kids posted about. =grin=

Their Mercury’s are trine too. Her Mercury is in Capricorn and his in Taurus and they are both practical sorts and can take care of business when they need to.

His Mars is in Libra trine her Venus in Aquarius and her Mars in Capricorn is trine his Venus in Taurus. However, with their Mars square by sign, they have a difficult time agreeing on how to work together. And their Venuses are square giving them very different ideas of enjoyment. Once their children were grown they quite attempting to vacation together at all and my uncle would go hunting with my dad (they have been friends since childhood) and my aunt would fly off to Europe by herself.

Saturn plays a role here too with Saturn/Venus intra-aspects, always a good indicator of durability. Plus his Mercury/Venus conjunction in Taurus are exactly conjunct her Chiron/North Node in Taurus. He has his Sun conjunct his South Node in Taurus and is quite comfortable living in home he was born in and grew up in . . .

I believe it is the combination of very compatible elements, the Saturn/Venus intra-aspect and the tidy synastry stellium in Taurus, noted for staying with the known quantity, which has contributed to them staying together. They are both Fixed sign types too and the Nodal axis here is Taurus/Scorpio, noted for tenacity. But I know first hand how bitter things are and how unhappy they have been for much of their married life. Based on my own experiences and this example, I have to say if I saw Reversed Nodes in a couple’s synastry, I would caution them to really consider carefully what type of relationship they wish to have.

A snip of this post appears on Neith on Synastry.