Existential Astrology (Part 3)

I believe it sometimes takes a heroic effort to create meaning and love out of a life that feels devoid of both. We need a sense of purpose to hold us in hard times---as author and Auschwitz-survivor Victor Frankl wrote: “Suffering minus meaning equals despair”. He felt that if one has a sense of responsibility towards someone or some work, he will never feel the urge to throw away his life. He felt that if one knows the “why” one can bear the “how.”

The Existentialists wrote passionately about this kind of struggle to wrest meaning out of meaninglessness, and like a scrawny kid developing muscles, they believed we all have the potential to create meaning and live an “authentic life.”

The existentialists were writing to motivate us to consciously develop our sense of meaning and purpose, whereas the psychologist Carl Jung felt that the issues lay more in the realm of the unconscious. He developed a theory of consciousness in which he expressed his feeling that all neurotic behavior after mid-life was due to lack of a spiritual focus. He saw that most people turn to “spirits” rather than to Spirit, and told Bill W., the founder of AA—that only an experience of Spirit can counteract the spirit of alcohol---or as he said in Latin: “Spiritus contra Spiritum.” But today we take Spirit literally in religion and drink, and then find that aggression--- whether jumping off a bridge, abusing a child, or going to war--- is often a last resort, done half-consciously. Jung offers us other possibilities to consider.

Conscious change has a better chance of happening when we dare to look at things through the eyes of ‘Spirit’ and when we understand what Spirit uniquely means for each of us. Existentialists remind us that we create our essence with each responsible choice, and that there are innumerable ways to be authentically present. Jungians would point to the center of the circle-mandala (which shows up in all cultures as a religious symbol) and explain that there are as many ways to the center of the Self as there are people alive. Astrologers would spend hours talking about the relation between character and fate; arguing that a change in character alters one’s fate. But nobody has said that any of it’s easy. Even so, I invite you to look at things differently as you read through these musings, and ponder how these three ‘ingredients’ might change your life in subtle but profound ways.


Do you remember reading about those “French Café sitters” who would earnestly debate existentialism for hours over coffee? Jean Paul Sartre was the unacknowledged sage of the group. But his strident atheism and fictional dips into the theatre of the absurd were not endearing to most of his friends. Rather it was Albert Camus, with his humanist agnosticism and compassionate sense of the importance of “responsibility” that gave existentialism a heart.

The existentialists believed that we live in a world devoid of innate meaning, but that our free-will choices and decisions really matter. By attempting to live a life based on our values and not just the cultural norm, they believed we create an authentic life and create meaning for ourselves and others. “Existence precedes essence”, they would say, and they believed that the life choices we make need to come out of a deep connection with our personal values. For them, to live an in-authentic life, based on bourgeois unreflective values, would create such a false existence that our lives would begin to crumble as we saw our shallowness reflected in other people’s eyes….thus Sartre’s comment in his play, "No Exit" that “Hell is other people.”

Camus was not a stranger to these ideas, but embraced them and became politically and socially active in the French Resistance Movement in World War II and espoused a softer and more humane response to the radical ideas of these times. As a rebel with heart, this author of “The Stranger” was an outsider at times, but also perhaps a precursor to the beat generation in the US that evolved slightly after his time.

Both of these men, and the Existentialists that came before and after them, felt the uniqueness and isolation of the individual living in a world that so often feels hostile or indifferent. For them it didn’t matter if God did or did not exist because ‘He’ seemed indifferent to the plight of their time--- living during and between the World Wars--- when their Judeo-Christian backgrounds didn’t hold up well to the level of evil they were seeing, nor to the level of alienation they witnessed in the techno-industrial working world. They passionately caught on to the idea that what could possibly carry us out of this meaninglessness is our courageous use of freedom of choice--

Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus challenged the religious assumptions of their time and crossed a threshold of thinking after which they were mocked as being pessimistic, pedantic, and weird. They hadn’t invented these ideas, but popularized them in their novels and in their “café conversations” that were heard and documented around the world. Yet there were other thinkers who went before them who led the way. The basic tenets of existentialism were first presented by Soren Kierkegaard in 1843 in his book Either Or and later developed by Martin Buber in 1923 in his book I and Thou and then again in 1927 by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time.

Today, one could say that existentialism is the philosophy that underlies all our academic, scientific, and psychological assumptions. In polite society, there are no metaphysical assumptions allowed anymore. Existentialism could be called the current religion of the modern world. One could make a case that existentialism is the philosophy that most people really believe, no matter what their ‘religion’ is. This is because whether it’s the old American dream of “from rags to riches”, or Napoleon Hill’s power of positive thinking, or the New Age creation of our own reality, there is a sense that we have an almost terrible freedom, and that we are more powerful and responsible than we would like to believe. It’s uncomfortable to believe this, and most of us find economic or personal dramas to excuse us of the responsibility of this freedom. But as uncomfortable as it is, if we dig deeply we’ll find gold.

The early existentialists were like lonely heroes. They proselytized action and encounter with life as coming before any innate meaning. They urged us to heroically force life to mean something---to choose values and act from those values again and again against a culture that unwittingly tries to disempower and hypnotize us all into a collective sleep. The existentialists were champions of creative people and those who sought freedom in which to make their choices. And they knew how hard it was---as Camus said:

“If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that is given to us fully created. Rather it is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.”

In that long and painful bringing forth there’s a tendency to lose a sense of meaning from time to time, and just as you must stop the bleeding when an artery is cut, you must also stop the bleeding away of meaning. Otherwise, we lose energy and creativity as depression and inertia steels over us. And when we look to the creative giants of our day, we see that even productivity itself isn’t a guarantee against loss of meaning---Van Gogh was an example of that.

In the next post we’ll look at the link between existentialism and astrology, and particularly in navigating one’s life direction and soul purpose. ~elizabeth spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/ elizabethspring@aol.com

Existential Astrology (Part 2)

I was born in 1947 and will be turning sixty this year. I was born towards the beginning of this generation of “boomers” and grew up in the 60’s when astrology was beginning to have a renaissance, and in the ‘70’s when books such as Gail Sheehy’s: Passages was making the best seller’s list. Many of us in this generation visited Paris and sat in the cafes where the existentialists such as Sartre and Camus debated existentialism, and where women philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir, and journalist, Anais Nin, sought to have a voice. We sat there, drinking our espressos for the first time, searching for our own words and true voices, and writing in our journals. We were often desperate in both our need for relationship and in our over-idealism about what relationships and life owed us. We wondered what would hold us spiritually in the years ahead, for many of us were just rational enough to have tossed off the religion of our fathers. Yet for so many baby boomers, we got off the flight from Paris and from existential freedom and got tossed right back into a less than heady stew here in the US. It was a lot less about philosophy and more about finding a job. But even back then, we thirsted for a guide for conscious living through the turbulent uncharted waters.

These posts are a beginning of a possible guide for living, and though some of it will be framed by the astrological language of mid-life transits, it will also be ‘informed’ as we like to say, by insights from the first guru of aging: Carl Jung, and by a few of the great existential writers and philosophers who have gone before us. You don’t need to believe in astrology, existentialism, or Jungian theory to ponder the theories presented here. But I offer them to you simply as mid-life experiments and I encourage you not to take them on face value but to test this new slant on these ideas in your own life. My hope is that you take what works for you and leave the rest.

We’ve all been exposed to the same kinds of current events and cultural trends, yet what I’d like to give you, the reader, is a way to see three of the large ideas of our time in simple terms, and to see how they are can be used in your life to nourish you. Perhaps I’m writing this---the book I’d like to read--- in hopes that it will make me think deeper and connect the dots of half-forgotten truths. The large dots—the concepts of existentialism, astrology, and Jungian psychology, can be broken down into some very essential and basic ideas that are useful and soul nourishing. And hopefully I can offer you, the reader, a new perspective as to how they are intimately connected and supportive of each other.

Because I am a professional astrologer, the astrological world-view will be a theme as it gives us a structural pattern for what to expect at the turning points on our mid-life journey. The existential world view provides another base with its motivating impulse for making meaning out of even our littlest actions, and the Jungian world view pulls it all together by drawing our attention to the numinous Self—what some would call God—and shows how what is unconscious must be made conscious, lest we act out our unacknowledged fears and compulsions.

Essentially, I’m challenging you to become a ‘meaning-maker’ by seeing how these particular ideas weave together into an invitation to create and live in a meaningful world. It’s likely that you have some “pre-judices” about these ideas---ie: that “woo-woo vibrations” from planets don’t effect us at all---you’re right! That those French philosophers were pedantic and a little arrogant---you’re right! And that Carl Jung was a rich man who slipped into womanizing and anti-Semitic thinking at times---you’re right! But there is a way to see each of these traditions differently, and to see how their gifts to us now far out-weigh misunderstandings and occasional human mis-behavior.

I believe we live in a time when one of the greatest dangers is not only global warming but global cooling; the idea that we are becoming numb and cool to the sweet vulnerability of human life. I fear that we are losing our ability to see the meaningfulness within and around us, and that this de-sensitization of ourselves and the demonizing of the “Other” is dangerous. Violent acts of entertainment and reactionary aggression threatens our ability to ‘grow our Souls’. The despair and polarization that we immerse ourselves in through entertainment and religious dogmatism is filtering down to our children, and causes despair. It flies in the face of the new paradigms we’ve been discussing. Let me tell you why I believe this to be true…

This spring, my friend Henry jumped off the city bridge. His suicide was a shock to our community as he was not only a well respected professional man, but a father of three, and someone who seemed to really enjoy his motorcycle, his guitar playing, and his friends. Henry was a good looking man and admired for his gentle and humorous ways. What some of us didn’t know was what lay below the surface of his life that erupted that particular day last spring when he took his life.

The minister at his Memorial service was wise enough to say that Henry didn’t take his life; his sickness took his life. True. Henry hid a lifetime of dealing with intense inner struggle and anger mixed with vulnerability---those qualities we label as anxiety and depression. Was his death simply a medical casualty based primarily on his biology? What other factors were happening?

If Henry had come to me as an astrologer, I would have said that he was in the particular life passage called the Second Saturn Return and would have talked to him about the challenges of this frequently ‘melancholy’ time. Yet because I see astrology as "the meaningful contemplation of change"--a phrase my friend and fellow astrologer Greg Bogart has used to describe astrology--well, I would have looked at Henry's birth chart, and looked for the highest expression of this Saturn Return in his life. And I would have looked at the evolutionary journey of his Soul in terms of not only his age, but what I call the “family karmic inheritance” and asked if he had considered his current anxiety in terms of his parental inheritance and expectations. I would have looked at the North and South Nodes on chart and attempted to describe the metaphorical parable of the gifts and challenges that he was bringing over from his past lives, and looked to see how this might have contributed to an “emotional hangover” from unresolved Soul-issues. Most of all, I hope that I would have stressed the temporary nature of this passage, and that no matter how hard it was for him to feel good right now, that there would be many more chances to make it right and feel better.

Henry’s situation was undoubtedly more complicated than I know, and I don’t think a few sessions with an astrologer/counselor would have made a huge difference. We don't know. I’m sure his friends tried to help him many times and in many ways. Yet still, if I had a chance for a time together with him, I would have encouraged him to read about the psychologist Carl Jung’s nervous breakdown and what Jung did to come out of it. We might have talked about how unconscious separation anxiety and rage can act out in destructive ways, and if there were any ways that following “doctor’s orders” sounded too close to following “father’s orders”? We might have talked about what Henry truly valued in his life and if there were ways he could make his ‘existence’ more meaningful by being more present both to himself and others. Did he feel responsible for anyone or anything? What would it take for him to be responsive to his deepest needs? These are the kinds of questions that would have woven together the astrological, the existential, and the Jungian language into a meaningful conversation. I never did have a chance to have this conversation with him.

However, no matter how well intentioned I might have been, the biological effect of accumulated stress and anxiety does not easily respond to ‘talk therapy’ of any kind unless it is consistent and accompanied by a change in life style and medication. Having experienced stress induced anxiety and depression myself, I have great empathy for Henry’s struggle, as well as the similar struggles of Vincent Van Gogh, William Styron, Hemingway, and many others. It doesn’t seem to matter if we are prolific and unseen in our creativity—such as Vincent Van Gogh, or prolific and acknowledged---like Hemingway. Perhaps what matters most is that we attempt, like the writer William Styron, to wrest meaning out of our experience, rather than grasping for quick and literal solutions to unconscious problems of meaning and psychological pain. For many of us, we simply use distraction, addiction and rage to make our way through hard times. We get divorced, start a fight, drive too fast, buy more ‘toys’ or worse. This writing is an exploration of other ways to approach all this. It is an attempt to entice people like Henry into “tasting” other ways of creating meaning, and reminding ourselves that we have innumerable chances to reach for meaning and joy in our lives. ~elizabeth spring www.elizabethspring.com

Existential Astrology

In the next few posts—maybe longer—I’m going to diverge a bit before moving deeper into the evolutionary Nodal story. What I’ll be writing about will circle back to the Nodes, but not before bringing in some other ideas.

Baby boomers---those born between 1946 and 1964---are attempting to do something that previous generations did not do the same way. We are trying to age well---that is, we’re attempting to do “conscious mid-life-ing.” It’s not just about staying healthy, looking good and staying connected. We’ve been told that it needs to be an ‘inside job’ as well, and yet we often feel at a disadvantage without the familiar grounding of traditional religion, unconflicted patriotism, and family rootedness that our elders had.

We still look to the trio of God, country and family to help us, but the assault of the evening news continually shocks us into a belief that we live in a meaningless world in which random acts of violence and catastrophe can happen daily.

At the same time, many of us are seeing something new and unusual happening. Some people call it “the New Paradigm” but it’s not just one theory or idea--- for there are many new paradigms, but what they all share is the willingness to look at things differently and to make connections between things that were previously seen as separate. In this paradigm that I’m inviting you to explore with me, it’s about saying yes to explore a mélange of ideas that strike at the heart of our creative and spiritual lives.

I’m challenging you to pause…. to look at the intuitive art of re-incarnational, or evolutionary astrology combined with the spiritual-symbolic psychology of Carl Jung, and the world view of some of the Existentialist philosophers. This Existential viewpoint, used by many creativity coaches today, seeks to inspire us to wrestle meaningfulness out of a world in which the presence or absence of a God doesn’t matter as much as the need to make authentic and creative choices.

The evolutionary time table of the Soul in evolutionary astrology can serve as a powerful guide as we move into aging through the deeper and deeper levels of individuation and authenticity as Elders. This paradigm stirs them all together in what looks like a heady stew with challenging chunks, but really is quite a tasty new recipe that I believe can nourish you in a surprising ways. It's not complicated or difficult to digest-- I have been circling around these ideas for a lifetime, and I love how the German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke put it when he said:

“I live my life in growing orbits

Which move out over the things of the world.

Perhaps I can never achieve the last,

But that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,

And I have been circling for a thousand years,

And I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm

Or a great song.”

In this case, the invitation is to circle around the musings of this new paradigm—of how three subtly interconnected world views—that of existentialism, Jungian psychology, and the astrological re-incarnational view of the Soul’s journey through time. It is more a poetic language of the Soul than a true synthesis or science. But perhaps that is what a language of the Soul must be---not a dogma but more a compelling metaphor---a suggestion! And if we become familiar with a language that speaks to our deepest needs and longings, I believe we will then have a guide to navigating the murky waters of meaninglessness that often accompany aging.

In astrology, we are star-gazing in the sense of being in awe of the patterns and scaffolding that frame a life and connects one to the larger cosmos. And there’s a hidden promise there that there’s something deep and mysterious that can hold us as we look into that ‘quantum’ area where physics meets metaphysics, where astronomy meets astrology, and into that luminous nebulae where the artists, philosophers, scientists and astrologers are subtly pointing us to...and it looks less like a black hole and more like a new space where the infinite cosmos meets the individual psyche. And it is at this point that something rather magical can happen....

...to be continued.....~elizabeth

Pisces North Node

Pisces North Node, South Node Virgo



Having been the one who was duty-bound and played according to the ‘Rules’ in a former life (or earlier in this one) you now have the chance to relax your linear mind and move towards your heart’s true desires. What is it you truly long for now? Is it love, beauty, imaginative creativity? Or is it simply the chance to relax your guard and take in the view from the mountaintop? In the past you may have felt that you were the person who always had to do the right thing. You were being observed, and you had high expectations of yourself and others did too. You may have been a doctor, priest, or skilled craftsperson in a previous life—someone who was expected to be precise and perfect.


But now you have the chance to relax, to not be perfect and to unite the impulses of your heart with those of your head. You can dare to be gentle with yourself now, and dare to make mistakes, to let some details go, and to be as compassionate and forgiving with yourself as you are with others. It’s a good idea to practice getting out of unpleasant situations gracefully rather than being duty-bound or judgmental. You don’t “have to be right” now or confrontational, and you can dare to use your intuition and take action even when you don’t have all the answers. You don’t have to over-analyze things any more. Part of your soul-yearning in this life is to learn to trust in the process of life and to surrender your anxieties to a higher power. You are more loved than you realize.


Pisces North Nodes often find that having two or more jobs or roles is more pleasurable than just one---you can be an artist as well as a parent, or an accountant by day and a musician by evening. And at times you will benefit from swimming against the prevailing social currents of your time and swimming upstream like the Piscean symbol of the two fishes. At times you may find yourself struggling with issues around fear and faith, spirituality vs. religion or independence vs. dependence or addiction. You will find that beauty in all its forms nurtures you and helps you to access your higher power. Like the salmon that make their way home against all odds, you have the inner strength and the homing radar that can lead you to your spiritual home.


As a Pisces North Node person, you are the compassionate visionaries who light the way for the rest of us. And no matter what career path you choose, it’s going to be your inner compassion and intuition that brings you success and satisfaction. As you reach for the gold in the shadow of your South Node Virgo you’ll still enjoy analyzing, yet you’ll be able to soften in your position—and sometimes just simply doing what needs to be done with an accepting attitude. There’s a purity of heart in the Virgo ways that is released by the hopes, yearnings, and struggles of your Pisces North Node…..and remember…. that which you are reaching for, is already deep in your Soul.

Soul Purpose: Transcending boundaries by bringing compassionate and imaginative awareness into everything you do. You are meant to become an explorer of the deep psyche; the unconscious in all its manifestations, and to know that you are loved unconditionally. Let go of the idea that life “is a struggle” and embrace the idea that a pleasurable life is a good life, and that you deserve the “magic of a creative life” in which your head and heart, body and soul, work as one. The phrase “Be good to yourself” is meant for you.

Shadow: Do you still feel yourself struggling, self-doubting, and stressing about the little things in life? Lack of self-confidence, and issues around duty, guilt and shame need to be released. You are your worst enemy at those times when you buy into self-limiting beliefs about yourself.



The “anti-guru Guru” J. Krishnamurti, had these Pisces/Virgo Nodes. He was raised by New Age Theosophists in the early 1900’s to become a great spiritual leader, and he had enormous expectations put on him to “be right and almost beyond human” in all he did. In fact, he was expected to move into the role of becoming a World Teacher, if not “the second coming of Christ.”


The pressured discipline inherent in his South Node Virgo played itself out in his early life, and ultimately brought him to a nervous breakdown/enlightenment in his late twenties. Taken out of India as a child, he was educated in England, and it wasn’t until he was past his first Saturn Return in his thirties that he truly came into his self-confidence in himself as a person. At a huge assembly in Belgium, Krishnamurti stood up in front of thousands of people and declared that he was not the Messiah they were hoping for. He released himself from expectations and roles, and insisted that the only thing he could teach was how to be free. However he spoke with so much charisma, and experience bred from his personal struggles, that he created followers even in his rebellion.


Krishnamurti insisted that the only thing he could teach was about the nature of the mind itself and the way to freedom—a way that was without dogma or guidelines. He distained spiritual gurus and religions of any kind, and essentially had the heart of a mystic which shines through in his poetry. Ironically he ended up becoming just what the Theosophists predicted—a great spiritual teacher, yet what he taught was radically different than expected.


Freedom is the foundation for the Pisces North Node. Krishnamurti suffered in order to be free from limiting expectations, and he is best known for his teachings around the philosophy that: “Truth is a pathless land.” The use of “spiritual imagination” is another cornerstone for Pisces, and Krishnamurti evolved into becoming a cognitive mystic who dialogued constantly about moving beyond the realms of duality that most of us live in. His teachings influenced millions of people, including metaphysicians such as David Bohm.


The Pisces North Node urges us to bring the head and the heart together, and to find ways to transcend traditional boundaries and even to flow into altered states of consciousness. Meditation, in all its forms, is one of the most time honored ways to do this, and Krishnamurti spoke endlessly about meditation —here are a few of his quotes on the subject:



"Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life-perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy-if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation."



“Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of meditation. These have been based on desire, will, and the urge for achievement, and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive. This conscious, deliberate striving is always within the limits of a conditioned mind, and in this there is no freedom. All effort to meditate is the denial of meditation. Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a different dimension which is beyond time.”


© Elizabeth Spring For more: http://www.elizabethspring.com/

North Node Leo

North Node Leo

It's time to take center stage! Have you been waiting for the support of friends or colleagues, or even for "more information" before stepping up to the plate in your life? Your Soul yearns to come forward now, to take chances, to see life as a game worth playing—simply because it's fun and a challenge. Somewhere in your past you may have lost a joyful sense of play and spontaneity and now it's time to recover your exuberant self-confidence again, and to share it.

Either earlier in this life or in a former life, you were living on the sidelines watching others interact on center stage. You felt exiled, even if you weren’t. Now its time to engage yourself actively--be creative with a paintbrush, your children, or simply how you live each day. Color outside the lines of your everyday life and rejoice at the results. “Follow your bliss” the mythologist Joseph Campbell was fond of saying, and as the Persian poet Rumi once said: “Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.” Following your passion and bliss is good North Node medicine for you. If you don’t know what it is, you are called to listen to yourself more—ask yourself: what makes you laugh, cry, rage?

When a person holds the energies of the rebel, the genius and the outsider, we see Aquarius strong in the chart—often with a South Node in Aquarius. There’s an unconscious soul conditioning to think differently, and therefore you may be aware of not being really heard. You may speak your Truth in a way that doesn’t understand how it’s being received—so learning to communicate well, and with empathic feeling is important for you. Aquarius can tend to be so objective, or so focused in one direction, that it loses touch with the feeling-based world it lives in.

Why is this? In re-incarnationally based evolutionary astrology. it could be said that you may have soul-memories of persecution or even torture, so there can be a tendency to dissociate at times—a reflex defense that “gets you away emotionally”. And why not, if you might have suffered as an exiled heretic before? Now, you are moving away from that lonely position of being the outsider to the savvy position of being effective in the world—and feeling connected to others. You are learning to love and to express yourself with others who might have burned you at the stake in a former life for the beliefs you held. Whew—evolutionary re-incarnational theory can get intense at times.
So… whether married or single, don't detach yourself from emotional situations, but engage yourself fully and find ways to keep all your relationships fresh and alive. But this is not a license for irresponsibility, in fact, you may be surprised by how upset people can get with you when you act carelessly around issues of trust or with changing plans--people can get quite attached to you and take your actions too personally. It is also through the interrelationship with others that you'll find the high energy and passion that feeds you.

In this life it's healing for you to leave behind an overly balanced sense of objectivity, seriousness, and perhaps aloofness as well. You are meant to open your generous heart to everyone this time around and to let your true light shine. Be real and unique, for you have the soul of a performer, the touch of the aristocrat, and the charm of a child. You've come into this life to be seen and accepted and to feel the joy of knowing love. Dare to give your talents and gifts to the world. Don't wait for others to ask you--take the initiative yourself.
As you turn on your path and retrieve the gold in the shadow of your South Node of Aquarius, you may find that you have a talent for discovering fresh ideas, new inventions, and innovative ways of being in the world. However be mindful of what groups and friends you choose to affiliate yourself with. There is a tendency for some N. Node Leos to get into groups they don't have a natural affinity with. When you act from your own passions, values, and priorities you'll naturally find the people who are right for you. Don't sacrifice who you really are for the appearance of popularity or for the sake of duty. Instead, keep your mind on your intuitive promptings and proceed step by step to making your dreams a reality...and in the process you'll find your true friends as well.

Soul Purpose: Loving connections with others healing the sense of being the outsider or the persecuted one. By leaving behind harsh judgments of self or others, the idea now is to “Come in from the cold and become one of us.” Join with the family of man, and make your presence felt. Be effective and compelling rather than “being right” and alone and different.

Shadow: A deeply entrenched unconscious fear can entice you to be controlling, inflexible or stubborn especially in the little things of life. Practice forgiveness and letting your funny bone out. You could be a good comedian! Humor acknowledges the dark side of life with a detached and ironic perspective, and a heartfelt humor that knows the pain of life yet accepts the full drama of it as well.
***
Folk/rock singer songwriter Joni Mitchell has this Nodal combination. Writer of songs such as “Woodstock” and “Both Sides Now” Joni has had great professional and personal success in her life. As a child, Joni moved around Canada quite a bit with her parents, but discovered her passion and joy at an early age: At the age of nine, Mitchell contracted polio during a Canadian epidemic, but she recovered after a stay in hospital. It was during this time that she first became interested in singing. She describes her first experience singing while in hospital during the winter in the following way: "They said I might not walk again, and that I would not be able to go home for Christmas. I wouldn't go for it. So I started to sing Christmas carols and I used to sing them real loud...The boy in the bed next to me, used to complain. And I discovered I was a ham." In later life, Joni was also able to happily reunite with her daughter whom she had given up for adoption earlier in life. Her early life feelings of social disconnection (past life?) could be described in an interview she gave to the The New York Times in which she said that her memoirs were "in the works", and that the first line would be "I was the only black man at the party"[

Elizabeth Spring (c) For more insight into the meanings of the nodes or to find out about a Nodal reading: http://www.elizabethspring.com/

Transitions, more thoughts on Uranus sq Uranus

Elizabeth graciously asked me to do a guest post for her blog and I decided to add more thoughts on the cyclical transit I'm undergoing of Uranus squaring my natal Uranus. As I am now in my early sixties, this will be the last Uranus to Uranus transit before my Uranus Return (if I live that long . . .) :-D

I don’t whether it’s the waxing transit of Uranus squaring my natal Uranus or Pluto having moved into Capricorn but I’m finding myself thinking about the aging process and what it means here recently. The USA is not the best place to be to grow old gracefully with the emphasis placed on youthfulness. We are deluged with advertisements for products designed to preserve an appearance of youth . . . and after we pass 60 that’s so not happening! I’m not entirely sure whether my first house Venus could resist having a little something “done” if I could afford it though I’d like to think so, after all I’ve spent most of my life bucking the current fashion trends. ::grin::

Having successfully negotiated my second Saturn Return a couple of years ago, this final Uranus sq Uranus transit marks the next step in the maturation cycle and it’s feeling like it will be liberating. All Uranus transits encourage us to express our uniqueness and this one is no exception. With my natal Uranus inconjunct Mars/Mercury/Ascendant my expression of individuality is going to be a very public one and most likely out of sync with my peer group as usual. The Uranus in Aries generation who are now in their seventies opted for what I call the “country club/golfer” look – short dyed hair, aggressively tanned with lots of plastic surgery if they could afford it. Yuck! No way!

Playing peek-a-boo with my granddaughter last weekend, I also realized the affinity of those in their first childhood with those of us moving into our second. We both have strong Uranus/Mercury aspects in our charts – her Mercury is conjunct Uranus & mine is inconjunct. We were both giggling like maniacs being happy sillies, playing on the living room floor. Uranus has no concern what so ever for what others think unlike Saturn. And my little Pisces sweetheart is completely oblivious to gramma’s wrinkles – just responds to my joy in her.

What I’m suggesting is why not be comfortable with the natural cycles and rhythms of life. Why push childbearing years past our thirties and compete with our daughters in the sex appeal department? There is great value in sharing experiential knowledge and allowing our bodies to rest in the crone phase instead of pushing hormones on it in pursuit of youth. Pluto is phasing into Capricorn now and providing an opportunity to gain understanding of what it means to be mature in the best sense. Pluto also rules Scorpio and the 8th House where we learn about death and re-birth and what happens when we attempt to fool Mother Nature. Seems to me there is a very good lesson to be learned from the rise in cancers and the use of HRT therapy . . .

As Uranus continues to encourage me to be my most individual self and embrace the present, enjoying what is rather than attempting to be something I’m not, I will also do my best to remember what it took to get here. Due have been paid.

Post by Neith

Aquarius North Node

Aquarius North Node, Leo South Node

Your soul yearns to dance to the rhythm of your own drumbeat, for in a former life or earlier in this life, you may have lived a life that had little connection to your true Self. In this life you may feel generally liked by your peers, as you have a charismatic “shine” about you, and others tend to project things on you which may or may not be true. They may even see you as being more lucky than you really are, or they may feel that you embody an ideal. However much others may project on you, your own true freedom and honest self-applause is more important now than the approval or praise from any group. You may have had previous lifetimes when you were on center-stage and had a fair amount of attention, and you may hold deep within you a feeling of being "special" but it may not have been a good fit for your Soul. Now there is a deep desire to be true to your self and not to follow the majority rule or herd instinct.

You care deeply about humanity and humanitarian ideas, and you need to risk disapproval from others to develop a more satisfying feeling of self approval. Because you are blessed with a keen intellect and the ability to see things differently, you have a lot to offer the world.

Aquarius North Node folks are visionaries and dreamers when they follow their North Node Soul Path. They are astutely aware of the importance of equality and fairness, and are usually brave enough to share their ideas with others--they're the ones who write the Letters to the Editor and organize the charity fund raising and peace rallies. Known as being non-conformists, romantics, exiles and brilliant thinkers, their challenge is to inform and balance their intellects with the sometimes irrational promptings of the heart.

Yet there's always a need for greater objectivity, and a need to leave behind making changes just to exercise authority. As you learn to relate to others apart from their roles, as equals, your desire for friendship will grow. You thrive best when you nurture yourself and others with your warmth and fresh ideas.

It will be important to leave behind any old melodramatic tendencies to insist on doing things your own way, and taking dramatic risks. When you ask God and the Universe for what you want and then let it go, you allow life to bring you exactly what you need with its own perfect timing. In this life, you can relax feelings that you need to be in control and be responsible for everything.

Because Aquarius NN folks were blessed with the ability to see things that others cannot, you are challenged to bring in new ideas especially in science, metaphysics, and human rights. As an idea-breaker and visionary forerunner for the rest of us, we look to you to see where we're going.
As you turn on your path and retrieve the gold in the shadow of Leo you may want to rekindle the warmth and openness of that generous heart of yours, and then to turn that warmth and non-judgmental quality on yourself. Expect the unexpected in life and keep dancing to that distant drumbeat---life will surprise you and delight you, when you least expect it.

Soul Purpose: Being a person who knows when to preserve what is good, when to reform what is in need, and when to overthrow what is corrupt. You are called to be visionaries and dreamers who are willing to do life differently. Avoiding the seductive undercurrents of other people’s expectations and projections on you is important—Aquarius is truly about freedom and authentic soul expression. Don’t settle for less.

Shadow: In wanting to share your generous heart, you can come across at times as being self-centered and seeking the spotlight just a little too often. There’s an awareness here of wanting to share your gift with the world, but unless you do it with a “warm touch” and pure intention it can come across at “first whiff” as being attention getting and self-serving, albeit in a rather subtle playful manner.

***

Marianne Williamson is a spiritual activist, author, lecturer and founder of The Peace Alliance, a grass roots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a United States Department of Peace. She has published nine books, including four New York Times #1 bestsellers.
A minister in the Unity Church, the driving force behind Williamson's philosophy is to offer a new thought approach to spirituality. She addresses both established Christianity and Judaism in statements such as "You've committed no sins, just mistakes." Her earliest fame came as a result of her talks in a Course in Miracles, a step-by-step method for choosing love over fear. She credits her breakthrough to Oprah Winfrey who invited her to the Oprah Winfrey show to discuss Williamson's first book A Return to Love, a book of which Oprah bought one thousand copies.

Marianne’s famous poem, "Our Deepest Fear," was wrongly accredited to Nelson Mandela, but its message is unique in expressing the Aquarius/Leo Nodal axis. In this poem she challenges all of us to dare to share our light in the world—this is a good example of bringing the “shine” of the Sun ruled sign of Leo out into the humnanitarian public world of Aquarius, and she does this by acknowledging the fear inherent in her own South Node of Leo.

"...Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

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

Moon's Node Reversal

At the time when the moon’s nodes are reversed, issues around life direction and soul purpose are up for examination and decision-making. It’s a time that holds great potential for crisis and transformation, and no matter what we do externally, on an inner level, we’ll want to balance the opposing tendencies within ourselves.

The transiting Nodes take a little over 18 years to make a full circuit around your chart. After 9 years they are at the opposite points from birth, so at the opposition point of 180 degrees your Natal North Node is conjuncted by your transiting South Node, and your Natal South Node is conjuncted by your transiting North Node. The opposites come together and this moment has the potential for a time of illumination—like a full moon.

I see this time primarily as one is which we are called to activate the highest potential or “octave” of both our North and South Nodes. It’s a time to release the negative qualities of each sign, and to manifest the highest qualities, or at least to truly see what these qualities are.

It’s also a time to reach for the “gold” in the shadow of the South Node. Carl Jung talked about this—he said that even in our repressed unconscious dark “shadow” self, we hold goodness and un-manifested potential there as well, similar to how the yin/yang symbol holds the germ of its opposite within each side.

As we access the highest octaves of both the North and South Node signs we release the negative qualities in each and reach for the gold in the shadow of the lower manifestations. It feels like this reversal is saying to us: "look at what's good here, take it, and release the rest.” Like all oppositions, it holds within itself a chance for an epiphany, a new depth of self-knowledge, and an illumination of where our Soul yearns to go towards. It illuminates what also needs to be released and surrendered.

Let’s look at an example. Say a man has North Node in Leo and South Node in Aquarius. He can choose to activate the gold in Aquarius South Node---which could be to courageously manifest a humanitarian project or a great life-work despite South Node Aquarius tendencies to think of himself as a genius exile who is both above and alienated from the rest of society. He could release me vs them thinking, and operate more from the level of the heart than the intellect. He could release being “eccentrically special” and simply be a conduit for the insights that want to come through him. And by acknowledging that his Soul longs to be a leader and a transformer of society, he chooses therefore to generously give of his heart, without fear and self-consciousness. His ego is diminished in light of the nobility of his work; his project, his life work.

These insights and awareness can come at anytime, but there are times in our lives—and the Nodes often point to these times—when self-awareness and the cosmic green light of the Heavens urge us to ‘move on’ like a loving mother. These are the times of openings in the curtain of fate, and the time to walk through old illusions and delusions. These are the times when we can see clearly, and when we are given renewed courage because we can now “take heart” because our unique life path opens before us.

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

Anyone else have research or insight about Node reversal?

North Node Virgo

North Node Virgo



Virgo North Node, South Node Pisces

Virgo is probably the least understood and most under-estimated sign of the zodiac. Whether it is your Sun sign or your North Node sign, you have a unique ability to visualize the ideal and the willingness to do what must be done to bring this ideal into reality. What a gift! However for you to do the high path of Virgo, you must use the tools of discrimination and discernment--which also means you need to "dot your i's and cross your t's." By carefully attending to the little details of life, and by analyzing what's really happening, you'll be able to make your dreams come true.



Earlier in this life, or in a former life, you've merged with the Divine in some way and yet you weren't savvy about how to live the mundane life on earth. Whether you merged with God, your Art, your lover, or your bottle of wine, you now need to relax the urge to merge and pay attention to the demands of reality. Some of you may have died, suffered, or been persecuted because of your beliefs, so now you need to regain your faith that life in the real world can be good. Many lifetimes may have been spent in the dissolution or sacrifice of ego or simply sacrificing your life for the sake of another person or ideal. Now it's time to develop a healthy ego and strong sense of Self that allows your Soul to feel safe.



As a North Node Virgo, you've been naturally drawn towards developing a vision of the "ideal" and you innately know how to bring that vision into reality. Don't allow yourself to get distracted, but get good at the mundane details of life and see how that process of focusing and becoming competent enables you to bring your dreams into reality.


Dare to take risks in spite of fears, and avoid addictive tendencies and escapism. The wisdom and sense of Oneness you earned in former lives can now support you in this world. Because you see the ideal and are willing to work for it, you often get what you want, as long as you don't let your perfectionism or self-criticism stop you from giving 100 percent in whatever you do. There is a need to plan and strategize in this life and follow through on your ideas.



You are likely to have skills in crafts, teaching and in the healing professions, but whatever you do, use skillful means to your ends, and empowerment will happen naturally. You have a psychic sensitivity, a great imagination and a uniquely creative way of seeing things. These attributes, plus an innate understanding of people helps you in countless ways.
As you turn on your path and retrieve the gold in the shadow of Pisces, remember your half-forgotten visions and sense of knowingness..."remember to remember" all that is good and beautiful and meaningful in life. Remember the magic you know in your heart.


Soul Purpose: to bring order, harmony, healing, and practical wisdom into your life and the lives of those you touch. By knowing what is truly good—since you’ve been doing the work of “separating the wheat from the chaff” and the real from the illusory, you preserve and maintain the best of what our culture and our mutual lives have to offer. Learn a skill and offer it to the world. When you become truly useful to others—when you are “in service” to others—you regain a lost sense of self and self-appreciation.


Shadow: A default tendency to see the world as a dream, and one in which you don’t have a strong sense of Self. You may have spent lifetimes dissolving the ego in unselfish tasks, or religious life, but that stance doesn’t serve you now. In a former life you may not have developed a strong enough ego that could have helped you thrive—you might not have been “mirrored well” as a child, or you may have lost your sense of sense in the collective (like in the military) or in addictions (communing with the bottle.) When you don’t look beyond your inner world to skillfully participating in life, you sink into a dull dream of life that’s bound by other people’s expectations, and you lose that cherished love that comes from serving and loving others. There’s a subtle difference here—basically, give your gift/service to the world, but do it your way!



***
Joseph Campbell had this Virgo/Pisces Nodal polarity. Campbell was a world famous mythologist, writer, and lecturer in comparative religion and mythology who also became popular to the American public due to the PBS television series, the” Power of Myth” with Bill Moyers. In this series, Americans remember him for his depth of sharing on the “myth of the hero” through all cultures, the Universality of certain spiritual “truths” and the necessity for “following one’s bliss” in life.



As a North Node Virgo, Campbell tackled the enormous job of chronicling, cataloging and synthesizing details of the world’s mythologies and religions. His painstaking analysis allowed us to see connections and parallels in man’s religious nature—the kind of work that Carl Jung had also done.



However Campbell began his studies in the time of the Great Depression, and when conventional graduate school wasn’t available to him he devised a plan of study as he was trying to figure out what to do with his life. He engaged in a period of intense and rigorous independent study which he discussed in The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. Campbell states that he "would divide the day into four four-hour periods, of which I would be reading in three of the four hour periods, and free one of them...I would get nine hours of sheer reading done a day. And this went on for five years straight." Now this is reaching for that skillful and disciplined North Node Virgo!



Campbell believed the religions of the world to be culturally influenced “masks” of the same fundamental, transcendent truths. All religions, including Christianity and Buddhism, can bring one to an elevated awareness above and beyond a dualistic conception of reality—that is, beyond the idea of “pairs of opposites,” such as being and non-being, or right and wrong. Indeed, he quotes in the preface of The Hero with a Thousand Faces "Truth is one, the sages speak of it by many names." In this line, we can hear the echo of his Pisces South Node: that place in him that could permeate beyond boundaries, masks, and linguistic or cultural divisions.



Campbell’s body of work was huge and even affected the world of screenwriting and film. George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to openly credit Campbell's influence. Lucas stated following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977 that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in The Hero With A Thousand Faces . Campbell’s life itself was like a film of one hero’s journey, and contains both the discipline and the imagination of the Virgo/Pisces axis.

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

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?”
***
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.”


***
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::