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.

Leo Full Moon Joy

Moon

The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.

It's as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge where
he carries his year-old son into the orchard
behind the cottage and turns the baby's face
to the sky to see for the first time
the earth's bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.
And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling
headwith the palm of your hand.
And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard and dark roses
wave against a stone wall, you can turn him
on your shoulder and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.

~ Billy Collins ~

Libra North Node; Aries South Node

North Node Libra

Libra North Node, South Node Aries

Achieving “serenity” is a soul aspiration for you in this lifetime, although the thrill of the hero’s journey and the grand quest is strong for you with these Nodes. Your South Node is ruled by the mythical hero, Mars, who embodies the ideal of the spiritual warrior and the one who breaks new ground. However, with your North Node in Libra, ruled by Venus, it is through the more feminine side of yourself that you come home to yourself. Venus compensates for the excesses of Mars, and yet she can be a demanding muse or irritation, depending on how you treat the masculine/feminine polarity within yourself.

With this Nodal axis it will be important for you to find ways to calm down, release tension, and allow all forms of beauty and harmony to heal you. Like a finely turned violin, you need to catch stress and pressure before it causes something to snap. There may have been something exhausting earlier in this life or in a previous life experience where you placed great emphasis on personal achievement, self-sacrifice and courageous action. Now it’s time to release the singular survival urge and ambitious mentality to develop your North Node’s Soul's yearning for deep serenity. For you, this suggests nurturing co-operative relationships and finding release from the mental/emotional “tension of the opposites.”

The symbol of your Venus ruled Libra North Node is the ancient image of Athena holding the Scales. This mental weighing and balancing of the ‘great opposites” in life is exhausting, yet the challenge of knowing what is “right and fair and true” is too delicious not to embrace. You delight in having had the courage (South Node Aries) to go where others have not, to endure, and to bring home the “golden fleece”. Yet it is ultimately about the learning of “right relationship” that is one of the main tasks for you in this life. It will require a relaxing of some old ways of thinking and being, as you create win/win situations with others and relax the urge to engage in victim-rescuer scenarios.

As your understanding of human nature grows, you acquire a tolerance for paradox and ambiguity and for the many different ways people perceive reality. As this increasing acceptance of the complexities of life and people grow you may find yourself in positions of peace-keeping or as a counselor or mediator.
You can excel in the Venusian fields of art, entertainment, and beauty, if you choose to develop this side of your nature. Home, heart, and hearth can take on increasing importance—one could say that these Venus ruled areas are good compensatory medicine for you. As you grow into a more balanced focus on inter-dependence rather than too much dependence or independence, you'll finally find a way to assert yourself with more confidence and without creating conflict. Your compassionate objectivity can bring a deep contentment into your life and into the lives of anyone you touch.

Earlier in this life, or in a previous life, chances are that you were engaged in “a serious battle” of some sort. It could have been a war, or it may be a vague emotional memory of trauma. However, those left-over default patterns, or shadow qualities of Mars—the feeling of needing to know, to be right, and in your place of power, only increase the dramatic, intense and overly emotional backdrop of your past life that your Soul longs to move away from. Your unconscious knows the horror of trauma and drama, yet you also know how to numb the effects of battle, and how to create the soothing rush of the adrenaline high with a new beginning. You can dare to slow down. The war is over; you’ve won.

As you move to redeem the “gold in the shadow of Aries” in mid-life you may need to become less self-centered to find the serenity and co-operation with others you desire—and how many and varied the ways you may consciously and unconsciously do this! No matter how accommodating you may see yourself, you may occasionally need to dip back into this gold in the shadow, and tap into that Martian/ Aries assertiveness again. Yes, Libra is about balance, justice and beauty, but without a good dose of the Martian courageousness and sense of adventure, Libra can be ineffective and indecisive. As you continue to learn to tolerate the complexities and paradoxes in life (an on-going Libran task!) you discover a new sense of equanimity, and you may notice that life comes to you, rather than you having to go to it. Allow yourself time to not rush into making decisions--you need to weigh and balance all the different ways you perceive and think about things.

In the latter part of your life you’re more likely to seek the comfort of love rather than the drama of love earned through effort and ambition. Where there is no war, there is also greater beauty.


Soul Purpose: To cultivate a willingness to see all sides of a question and be able to forgive. Release the addiction to passion, ambition, and anger as personal fuel, and replace it with the Venusian nurturing qualities inherent in all things beautiful—music, nature, and art are all healing for you.

Shadow: Having to be right and to righteously defend a cause while causing a lot of inner and outer disturbance. Too much emphasis on the powers of the ego and not enough on the Self, and/or Self in relationship to others.

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William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, dramatist, astrologer and occultist, was one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. Yeats had his North Node in Libra, South Node in Aries, and despite (or because of) his many literary accomplishments, he is often looked at curiously for his unusual love life and his passionate quest for a direct experience of Spirit. His many relationships with women were tumultuous, and the Venusian muse was particularly hard on him. He was refused in marriage multiple times by Maud Gonne, the love of his life, and again by his proposal of marriage to her daughter.

Yeats was in love with Maud Gonne for 28 years (a full Saturn cycle) and claimed to have a spiritual marriage with her—perhaps providing Yeats with the emotional suffering necessary for an alchemical breakdown to take place. It seems significant that Yeats’ life long desire to channel spirit information came to him, not by the excesses of his passion, but through his later life marriage to his wife, Georgie. One cannot know if he found the “serenity” that is the hallmark for Libra, but one could hope that in accepting the responsibility of their marriage and two children, Yeats may have turned the base metal of everyday human life into the gold he so yearned for in his spiritual quest.

As a member of the occult society of the Golden Dawn it became necessary for Yeats to grasp the unity of opposition over and over again, and the necessity of alchemical healing through suffering and purification. His magical name in that society: Demon Est Deus Inversus (the Devil is God inverted) underlines that opposition.

Yeats knew that in Vedic Indian astrology, his “head of the dragon, Rahu,” was in Libra, and the “tail of the dragon, Ketu,” was in Aries. C.G. Jung wrote in his book, Mysterium Coniunctionis.“ ...in the image of the uroboros (the serpent or dragon swallowing its own tail) lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process. The uroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e., of the shadow...”

It is interesting to note that the South Node shadow for Yeats was in Aries, with it’s polar opposite, in compensatory Venus ruled Libra, while the opposite is true for two other men who pioneered in the area of the unconscious—Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. They both had the opposite polarity of North Node being in Mars ruled Aries, and South Node in Libra. All three men shared the passionate Venus/Mars polarity with its intense interest/disinterest in sexuality, love, and the life of the spirit.

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~Elizabeth Spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/ Artwork by Kerstin Zettmar at Kerstin@zettmar.com

As you see, all North Node descriptions are similar to sun sign descriptions, without the South Node opposition. Any North Node Libras out there with more to add? As a Sun sign Libra I find I'm only indecisive on the big issues of life, and the little decisions are quickly done.....