THE NODES OF THE MOON Part 5

by Brian Habit

August 3, 2003

In part 1 of this series, I described the South Node of the Moon as representing your past (whether in terms of genetics, reincarnation, or both), and I described the North Node as representing your future. Since then, I have interpreted the North Node in terms of several sign and house combinations: Taurus and the 1st house, Capricorn and the 2nd house, Sagittarius and the 6th house, and Aries and the 11th house. I also interpreted the South Node based on several combinations: Scorpio and the 7th house, Cancer and the 8th house, Gemini and the 12th house, and Libra and the 5th house.

This week, let's consider the significance of the South Node in Pisces in the 10th house and the North Node in Virgo in the 4th house. For purposes of illustration, let's assume that you have not only these nodal positions but also: the Sun in Sagittarius in the 7th house, the Moon in Virgo in the 5th house, Mercury in Sagittarius in the 6th house, Mars in Cancer in the 2nd house, Uranus in Leo in the 4th house, and Pluto in Virgo in the 4th house.

The South Node in Pisces in the 10th House

Before we get into the South Node itself, let's review what the 10th house represents.

The 10th house is the traditional House of Career. The most public and visible part of your chart, it represents your most high-profile pursuits and the highest to which you might aspire in life. It symbols your destiny, the public roles that correspond well to the person that you are when you go home each night, and the path that you might take en route to occupying such roles. The 10th house represents your reputation, how people honor you or vilify you. It’s your social status, as a single or divorced or married person, a working or retired person, or some other category or label. It’s the shorthand way that people know you when they know of you, but they don’t know of you personally—what you might write or check off on an application form that you fill out.

The 10th house also relates to the exercise of authority, both authority that you exercise and authority that someone else might exercise over you. As such, it represents past and present authority figures: parents, work supervisors and employers, and representatives of institutions such as business companies, the government, the law, and organized religion. We humans are social creatures, and we tend to have pecking orders or hierarchies of position in our societies. The 10th house describes our concern with status, how we acting on behalf of our community, and how we stand by some principle or ideal in public. It represents your job as a higher power might define it, whether it’s the same as the work that you get paid to do or not. 

OK, that’s the gist of what the 10th house represents. Now let's assume that your South Node lies in Pisces, in your 10th house. Whether because of heredity or karma, you are automatically, instinctively adept at acting in Piscean ways (expressing your gentleness, compassion and a willingness to adapt to others, escaping from life’s mundane reality by swimming in the rich waters of your imagination, and synthesizing information or perceptions into one great whole). You also have a natural orientation toward the affairs of the 10th house—ambitiously pursuing aspirations, assuming authority or interacting with those in positions of authority, and cultivating a reputation or name for yourself in your community. From the get-go, you take a Piscean approach to 10th-house matters. In the process, you weed out the development of behaviors that clash with such an approach. You prevent them from developing. For example, you naturally tend to take a visionary, romantic or altruistic approach rather than exhibiting a rationalistic, precise, or discriminating style in your most public pursuits.     

Your South Node (representing what you’ve already done) lies in Pisces, and your Sun (representing what you’re trying to achieve in this lifetime) lies in Sagittarius in the 7th house of intimacy. How well does what comes naturally prepare you for what you’re learning to do now?

Both Pisces and Sagittarius are mutable signs. As such, they’re more inclined to adapt to changing circumstances than to set new matters in motion or to stand firm under pressure from their environments. Pisces and Sag are also both intuitive, idealistic, visionary signs. Having your South Node in Pisces, then, provides some support for you as you go about the task of developing a Sagittarian identity. You don’t have to start from scratch in getting to know your natural Sagittarian strengths and learning how to act in Sagittarian ways. This can help you get a “jump start” on developing a strong, coherent sense of identity. In addition, you have Mercury in Sagittarius. This, too, will help you develop your Sagittarian Sun efficiently, insofar as your path involves broadening your horizons through making intuitive connections across time, or space, or various disciplines of thought.

On the other hand, you also have Mars in Cancer and both Pluto and the Moon in Virgo. Cancer and Virgo are very unlike impulsive, risk-taking Sagittarius in many ways. Cancer is cautious, self-protective, and reflective, while Virgo is practical, methodical, and precise. Therefore, in some respects, you may have to go down the same road and fall in the same "hole" repeatedly until you realize some important points. For example, it may take you a fair amount of effort to learn certain behaviors, such as making a leap of faith in starting or expanding a close relationship with someone else, whether it’s a relationship of a personal nature or a business nature. Cancer, Virgo, and Pisces can all be very reserved if not downright shy.

Now, if we don’t recognize our natural biases and stretch ourselves beyond them, then we get into a rut. We cover the same ground over and over and digging a hole for ourselves. We could take the easy way out and stick to South Node behaviors and pursuits. Based on experience, we know that if we act in certain ways, we’ll tend to get certain results pretty reliably. If we focus primarily on doing those things in our lives, we may seem successful because we’re such “naturals” at it. However, the victories that we win could feel very hollow. We might be successful in the world, but we also feel bored, unsatisfied, and empty. The work of the South Node is all work that we’ve finished already. It’s behind us, not ahead of us. We’ve done everything we can in that department of our lives, and it’s time to move on to new assignments. The South Node indicates which of the qualities indicated elsewhere in the chart we have developed through experience.

Let’s look at some examples of the sorts of problems that you could run into, if you focus on acting in South-Node kinds of ways.

One way you could get in trouble with your South Node in Pisces in the 10th house would be by playing into other people’s hands, especially people in positions of authority, and becoming their victim. Here we might find the child whose parents abuse her mentally or physically and the performer whose unscrupulous manager wields excessive control over his life. We might also find the citizen who loses his job or who’s forced to flee the country after violating the laws of a repressive regime, as well as the accessory to a crime who gets nailed with a substantial prison sentence even though he wasn’t the main culprit.

While playing the victim could get you into trouble here, victimizing others could also cause major problems. Suppose you want so much to get ahead in the world that you’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish it. As a child, you’ll wrap your grandmother around your little finger and get away with murder. When you’re older, your style might be more sophisticated, but your agenda hasn’t change. Climbing your way up the ladder of worldly success, you’ll act like a sycophant to a megalomaniacal leader if it helps you move up another rung. Then, once you achieve a certain amount of power, you treat others like dirt. You’re the boss who keeps her workers toiling away like slaves in appalling work conditions, or you’re the head of state who persecutes a particular segment of the population. Another possibility is that you get your comeuppance in a very public way. Your worldly status dissolves beneath your feet and before your very eyes. You find yourself overthrown, imprisoned, exiled, or otherwise sadly out of favor.

With your South Node in Pisces in the 10th house, you could demonstrate some other dark side of Pisces in a very public way. Maybe you make a spectacle of yourself, exhibiting an excessive penchant for the glamorous life. You’re like the ambitious kid who hits Hollywood with stars in his eyes and quickly wipes out in a fast life of gambling, drinking, and nonstop partying. Maybe you act self-destructively, for example, abusing alcohol even though you know full well that it aggravates some health condition that you have, or deliberately failing your exams and getting expelled from college by answering the questions flippantly. Overoptimism and inattention to detail can also trip up Pisces. You could try to implement a great idea (such as inventing and marketing a new product) without dotting the necessary i's and crossing the necessary t’s (such as getting a business license). Then the authorities shut you down. It might come as a surprise to you, but it shouldn’t. It’s the logical outcome of what you did and didn’t do. Pisces can also be shy or avoidant, or try to be perfect for someone else. In that case, you might develop a major case of stage fright or go into a professional field that doesn’t suit you, just to please your father.

Those are all examples of focusing on your South Node—going awry as you channel your imagination, sensitivity, or ambition into your public life or power relationships, and suffering for it.

Next, let’s look at the point opposite your South Node--the North Node.

The North Node in Virgo in the 4th House

The North Node represents the future to which we are drawn. It symbolizes the newest stage of our growth. Your North Node lies in Virgo, in the 4th house of roots. Before we go further into the node, let's review the symbolism of this house.

We all need home and hearth. We need both a physical and an emotional environment in which we can feel safe and act freely, without inhibition. Having a place to hang our hat is important. So is being connected to people who will be loyal to us and committed to us throughout our lives. Whether or not they are related to us by blood, we need family. We need roots. We need to be part of a clan. It’s a little like what the poet Robert Frost said (“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in”), except that, in a healthy situation, the people would take you in not out of necessity but out of love. The 4th house describes our attitudes toward our home, our private life, that haven that we create from the world and how we relate to people who sleep (or used to sleep) under the same roof, including our family of origin and the second family that we create for ourselves.

The 4th house also represents who we are at the deepest, most internal level. It describes the emotional underpinnings of our personality. It symbolizes both the most heroic images and the darkest images that we have of ourselves (“I’m an invincible superhero,” “I’m a dastardly villain”). Even though these images are caricatures of ourselves, they’re still important. They inspire us or scare us, and they help us understand what we really want. They tell us what we need to do to create balance between who we are (or are afraid of being) and the personality that we show the rest of the world. In order to absorb these self-images, we’ve got to have some peace and quiet, some time away from the hustle and bustle of life. That’s where having a safe haven in the world can come in handy.

The North Node indicates which of the qualities indicated elsewhere in the chart that you’re developing through conscious effort, starting almost from scratch. Your Node lies in Virgo, so you’re developing your Virgoan strengths: practicality, attention to detail, the ability to see yourself as you really are, and the ability to do the same with other people and the rest of the world. Your Pluto in Virgo in the 4th house helps pull you in that direction. In addition, your Moon in Virgo helps you cultivate Virgo resources and behaviors, and your Uranus in the 4th house gives you some motivation to address the issues associated with the 4th house.

If we let ourselves experience our North Node, then we leave ourselves open to newness. With newness comes both awkwardness and excitement. We feel fascinated and anxious at the same time. After all, there’s not nearly the certainty that comes with South Node behaviors based on experience. With the North Node, all we’ve got is the uncertain future.

When you have experiences of a 4th-house or Virgoan nature, they call into question your automatic assumptions about life. In other words, when situations call for you to focus on matters in your private life or on the home front, you might feel lost at first. The same thing could happen when situations call for you to face specific facts squarely and effectively. When you have such experiences, you may feel like you’re out of your element.  The unfamiliar can be scary, at least at first.

If we first learn to recognize our natural biases and, secondly, decide to go beyond them through an act of will, then we’re on our way to growth. If we’re going to grow in this life, though, we have to stretch ourselves toward our North Node. That way lie both stress and fulfillment. The North Node indicates what we need to become in this lifetime. We can’t know from looking at our charts whether we will become that. The answer to that question depends on us. 

With your North Node in Virgo in the 4th house, you may not appreciate how capable a craftsperson or technician you could be. You may sell yourself short when it comes to developing stable roots to sustain yourself and others. However, the more you stretch yourself in such directions, the more satisfying you’ll find it in the long run. The more you create a safe and sturdy haven in the world, the more satisfied you’ll be. The more you develop loyal, committed ties with others, the more satisfied you’ll be. By all means pursue whatever you dream through your career or other public pursuits. Improve your experience of life by developing higher levels of consciousness. Look at the big picture, the “forest.” Meditate. Consider what your intuition tells you. Follow your wanderlust wherever it takes you. Just don’t limit yourself to such behaviors.

How could you do this? One way you could do it would be by turning to your private life as a healthy refuge. That doesn’t mean routinely shrinking from encounters with authority figures or the glare of the public spotlight. It means withdrawing on an occasional, as-needed basis, to recharge and regroup when the hustle and bustle of life becomes draining. Take time to reflect on your experiences in relative quiet and stillness. Find low-key, sensible ways to comfort and pamper yourself. For example, if you experience something akin to stage fright in public situations, then strategize for how to deal with such circumstances before they arise. Come up with a very specific, workable plan for what you’ll do before you find yourself in the heat of the moment. Do what’s within your power to keep the experience as intimate and as manageable as possible.   

To stretch toward your North Node, you could also cultivate Virgoan earthiness or practicality, as well as a healthy attachment to physical and emotional roots. Maybe you develop your organizational ability and attention to detail, as a fashion designer or an entrepreneur who starts a construction company. You could use your Piscean South Node as a springboard toward developing your Virgoan North Node, like a an architect who first creates imaginative designs in her mind and then lays out the details on paper. Others find her designs so appealing and useful that they copy them and adapt them to their own purposes.

In your personal life, you might make decisions based not so much on what will score you points with the public or authority figures as what feels true to your heart and soul. Maybe you pair off with someone who doesn’t measure up to your parents’ expectations, even if you have to go into relative seclusion to develop your relationship in a protective, nurturing environment with each other. Perhaps your romantic partner’s suffered through unstable, wounding experiences along the way, and you bring some much-needed stability into his or her life. If you have a mechanical bent, you might literally build a nest for you and your loved ones. You share devotion, sympathy and maybe some gentle humor with those who are closest to you. Maybe you even received such gifts while you were growing up. For example, maybe you were surrounded by poverty or crime, but a strong sense of love and community spirit permeated the atmosphere. Or you demonstrated a knack for writing or some other gift at an early age, and a relative encouraged you to develop it further.

If need be, you might even make a major relocation, in order to develop the sort of physical and emotional roots that you need in order to thrive in this world. You could be like the actor who doesn’t really find success until he moves abroad, or the woman who becomes a devoted discipline of a swami after traveling to the other side of the globe. Those are relatively extreme examples, but you could also take healthy self-protective steps without moving at all. Maybe you realize that some hanger-on in your life is Bad News, so you distance yourself from him. By taking such a step, you save yourself aggravation and heartache down the road.  

The more you pursue such Virgoan/4th-house strategies, the more spiritually satisfied you’ll be. At first it can be like learning to bicycle, wobbly but exciting. Ride it out. Give yourself time to master such techniques. You’ll be amazed how far they can take you in the long run.

Looking Ahead

Next time around, I’ll take up the North Node in Leo in the 9th house and the South Node in Aquarius in the 3rd house.

And What About Your Nodes?

Do you want me to interpret your North and South Node, and other key parts of your birth chart? Then order your very own birth chart interpretation. Click here to learn more. 

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