South Node Tenth House, North Node Fourth House

"Reject the seductive impulse to encapsulate the mystery by reason." Jim Hollis, Jungian analyst

The movement from the outer-world orientation of the tenth house, to the fourth house of one's inner world of family and personal mythology, suggests the wisdom of not sacrificing your personal life in the pursuit of worldly ambition. It hints of a need to focus more on the process of doing things rather than the goal or end result. We also hear a suggestion implying that the personal subjective response to life is the right one for you--and that as Jim Hollis mentions in the above quote, it's best not to reduce the mystery and process of life to logic, reason, and anything that diminishes the depth of the inner response. Here the mystery can be felt, not analysed.

In former lives, or earlier in this life, you may have trained yourself to repress feelings, instincts, sensual enjoyment for the sake of what needed to be done. You may have achieved positions of authority or respect, but you may have been separated from a sweeter flow of family interactions and personal reflection. This life is now meant to create a better balance between accomplishing things and nourishing and supporting yourself and others.

Although you'll want to show empathy and validate your own feelings and those of others, and to work for emotional security, you would be wise to focus more on yourself than others, and not try to take charge without fully understanding the situation. Use your intuition! You don't need to feel overly responsible anymore. You also don't need to hide feelings and fears in intimate relationships or do just what is socially acceptable rather than totally honest. By understanding and accepting other's fluctuating moods without judgment, you can find that things get done anyway, and people's feelings are, at times, most important.

You are bringing gifts with you into this life that make you a natural leader and person of authority; use these 'default patterns' of behaving to stretch into the realms of emotion, mystery, and deep connection to Self. Inner work is as valid, or more valid, than outer work in the world in this life, so keep that soul-ful connection to your spiritual, meaning-making Self. And in loving yourself for that, you will love and honor others for their efforts to do the same. Be the mystery you see.....

elizabeth spring (c) For more information or to inquire about readings: www.elizabethspring.com

South Node Ninth House, Sagittarius, North Node Third House, Gemini

South Node Ninth House, Sagittarius, North Node Third House, Gemini

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.” Rumi

This saying by the Persian poet, Rumi, speaks to us on many levels. “You must ask for what you really want” reminds us that spiritual etiquette requires us to ask God/Universe for intervention when needed. Intention made in prayer or ritual holds more weight than thoughts and wishes spoken to a friend over coffee. And it also speaks to the communicative power that is latent in the 3rd/9th house nodal axis.

If your South Node is in the 9th house you may be familiar with “the doorsill where the two worlds touch” if not consciously, then in the deep recesses of your psyche. Having a Ninth house South Node implies that you sought after Truth in the past—either in former lives or this one—and told yourself a self-convincing story of how it all is. You may have been a mystic or religious leader, and “right” in your own way, but you caught the view from the mountain-top, and didn’t understand the view from the valley or marketplace.

So you are cautioned not to go back to sleep, (or into another state of consciousness). You do this by relaxing your ideas about freedom, aloneness and purity of thought, and give up needing to know all the answers. What you need now is to open up to new information and insights gained as you see the multiplicity of life and “truths” as revealed to you in the messiness of life in the “marketplace” or within family life, not the mountaintop.

You may have spent former lives in a religious organization or simply as one who distanced themselves from the clutter and clatter of human relationships. Now you can bring the innate spiritual wisdom you brought over from previous lives and use it in teaching, writing, speaking and communicating to others without prejudgment or aloofness. You are ready to listen and hear the paradoxes of life now, and your curiosity, tact, and ability to convey deep truths with compassion and fresh insight is a profound gift you have to share. Use it wisely; don’t go back to sleep.

Elizabeth Spring © For more information on the Nodes and readings go to www.elizabethspring.com

And how does one understand the North Node, and South Node; Life Direction and Soul Purpose

Understanding Your North Node, South Node:
Life Direction and Soul Purpose

It has got to sound outrageous that anyone can help another person discover their soul purpose and life direction! And especially from information gained through an astrology chart—but that is exactly what I do as an astrologer. I specialize in helping you understand the complex “soul directive” that is contained in your particular North and South Nodes.

It’s more complex than it appears at first. The sign of your North Node describes the experiences and lessons your Soul wants to move towards in this life, whereas the South Node sign describes what your Soul has already brought into this life and what it wants to move away from. It’s your default pattern when all the chips are down.

Besides the signs of your Nodes, the “houses” of your chart in which they are placed are crucial because they tell much more of the story---they describe in more detail the area or part of your life that needs emphasis, and needs de-emphasis.

And then it’s necessary to bring in the other “players”; the Sun, Moon, Saturn, Rising Sign, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, to see how they fit into the puzzle. The first four mentioned are probably the most crucial pieces of the story, but the art of astrology is to know how to take the exquisite mandala of the chart apart and then put it back together—to synthesize and prioritize what is truly meaningful and what is not. It’s not hard to read about your Nodes by sign and house on this blog, but quite honestly, you’re probably not going to get the whole picture unless you have the ability to be objective in weighing the relative value of each piece.

Another important consideration is this: the South Node reflects not only past life karma and traits, but also the patterns you are still getting stuck in! These are what the Jungian writer, Jim Hollis calls “the swamplands of the Soul.” The same issues keep coming around in more and more sophisticated ways, but we’re still dealing with the same South Node problems. It’s good to know what to call it; to name it.

To go deeper, you also need to consider the rulers of the Nodes, and the aspects to the Nodes. Many people have what is called a “skipped step” or a piece of unfinished business that is reflected by a square aspect to the Nodes. A trine aspect represents people and situations that enabled you to live out your “default pattern.”

And finally we look to planets that aspect the Nodes. These tell us how this energy is “echoed” in the chart and in your life, and gives us hints as to how to draw out more information and elaborate upon what the Soul is up against, and what the Soul is yearning for this time around. Look to other posts on this site to explain more.

Yes, it’s complicated, and simply a theory. But I wouldn’t want to not know how this plays out in my life—I take my own intuitive wisdom as first priority, but this certainly has helped me know things about myself that I wouldn’t have considered. I’m sure a couple of years of good therapy would have brought up the same things, but then again, I like the easiness of knowing. The hard part is what to do with it all, and how to live it out. Elizabeth Spring (C)http://www.elizabethspring.com/ Contact for a reading at: elizabethspring@aol.com

South Node 8th House Scorpio, North Node 2nd House Taurus

Away with the drama and trauma and melodrama! No more tragic love stories, no more battles for power, struggles for revenge, hidden agendas and all the stuff of great novels. Just peace. Serenity. That’s the movement away from the South Node in the 8th house to the North Node in the 2nd house. Your Soul needs a rest…

The 8th house South Node, ruled by Pluto, has struggled to transform and be re-born like the phoenix, and somewhere in all that struggling has come an exhaustion and weariness of the spirit. This life is now one where you are being called to rethink your values, your priorities, and put the Venus ruled 2nd house of Taurus back in its position of prominence. This is not the Venus of the struggle, but of gentle inquiry---the one that has the savvy to pick her own battles and chooses the “mutual fund” that agrees with her political and ecological consciousness. This is the Venus that soothes us, and reminds us of our roots in this good earth. She’d rather write a poem than put on the dress that makes her into the femme fatale. She finds the sacred in the commonplace, and makes it extraordinary.

The South Node here has great gold in its shadowy inheritance---it has a hard won wisdom and occult knowledge that can serve us well when used right. Certainly astrologers and those interested in astrology, have resources here in the 8th house. But as always with the South Node there is the defeat and despair of what we didn’t get right earlier in this life or in a former life. We paid too much attention to other people’s business rather than our own. We were the power behind the throne, or the one who “borrowed” another’s values, glory, money or husband. Our own yearning for these things seemed to make it acceptable, but we missed the basic course in ethics and compassion and fairness.

This new North Node in the 2nd house is deceptively easy---stay away from all that. Just be good and mind your own business. Enjoy yourself, don’t tell me you have to “work”---instead, take a picnic to the beach to watch that beautiful sunset. Easy….yes?!

Elizabeth Spring © www.elizabethspring.com