Sorry to say that the course on the asteroids and BML, The Dark Goddess, is now full.  I’ve had to turn a number of people away, so I will most likely be running this course again in the autumn/winter.  If you would like to be put on the waiting list for the later class, please email me.

Ceres, Juno, Vesta, Pallas…and the point, the Black Moon Lilith…are the focus of the upcoming course on The Dark Goddess.

Part One of the course, “The Dark Goddess: Life, Death and the Embodiment of Spirit”  (or “Sex, Death and the Whole Damn Thing) is scheduling now.  I’m delighted on the one hand but also sorry to say that there has been a lot of interest and  the class is almost full.  However, there are a handful of spaces left, so if you are interested please get in touch with me (alcuin9@gmail.com) asap.

It has become clear over the course of the past couple of decades that the four major asteroids, plus BML (Black Moon Lilith) are providing crucially important information in the natal chart, particularly in the way that we relate  to the material world.  Whether we are male or female, the asteroids provide us with an overview of the journey to maturity, and the difficulties we may encounter along the road to wisdom.  They inform us about the use of power and describe the abuses we may suffer regarding our sense of power in the world.  Through them, we learn to embrace feminine wisdom– the wisdom and power which comes from accepting and embracing life.  These goddesses reign over life and death, sex and creativity, joy and rage;  if we respect them and focus on what they are trying to teach us, they show us how to to remake the world according to our own vision.   Whether we feel creatively empowered or abandoned in maturity depends on our understanding of these asteroids and their role in the chart.  Through them, we discover our own magic, and the magic inherent in the world.

Part One of the course consists of five lessons.  In each one we will discuss an aspect of the Dark Goddess and relate it to the study of the relevant asteroid. In addition to exploring the meaning of the asteroids in the chart, we will touch on the topics of the Matriarchy and the Patriarchy (and what may follow), the fear and repression of the feminine and the integration of the masculine and feminine halves of the psyche.  We will see through chart illustrations how the asteroids play a crucial part in this integration. While the asteroids are central to psychological wholeness, by transit and progression they also reveal a ruthlessness in getting their agenda across which can leave us breathless.  Far from always being the benign and wise goddesses, the asteroids can cause us to face both the beauty and the horror of life.  The classes will be taught in the following order, though they may be subject to change.

Lesson One:

An Overview on the Role of the Asteroids

Cutting through Materialistic Determinism:  Pallas and the Creative Intellect

Lesson Two:

Vesta:  Driven Toward the Sacred

Lesson Three:

Ceres:  The Scythe and the The Torch, The Threshold Between Birth and Death

Lesson Four:

Juno:  Oh, Grow Up!  (And Find ‘Other’ Within)

Lesson Five:

The Black Moon Lilith:  Sex, Madness, Destruction, and Rage–Or the Seat of Power?

We will begin scheduling classes beginning next week. Part one of the class will
run five sessions, until mid-May.  Part one is a pre-requisite for part two, but
it isn’t required to take part two.

Part Two will also consist of five classes, and these will be exclusively a
discussion of the asteroids and BML in synastry.

For Part One of the course, the classes will run about an hour and fifteen minutes.  The
fee for the five classes is $225.

Part Two will take more complicated analysis: the classes will run longer and
will be $275 for the five.  The fee for Part One of the course will confirm your place in the class.

As each part consists of only five classes, I would appreciate it if you
could pay the full fee for each part at once, but if you can’t, $125 will be due
on signing for Part One and $100 will be due before lesson three.  (We’ll deal
with Part Two when we come to it.)  As usual, fees are payable via Paypal.com to
this email address.

Like all of my classes, these classes will be taught one to one over the phone.  The lessons will be recorded and an mp3 will be sent to you right after the session.  If you live outside of the U.S. or Canada, you will need to use Skype or have the number of a landline you can use for the sessions.  We will use both our own natal charts and other charts I will provide.

As I said earlier, I only have a few slots still available, so if you are sure you are interested please let me know right away.  I look forward to exploring this new territory with you.

Yours,

Dawn

I’m happy to announce a new course, “The Dark Goddess:  Life, Death and the Embodiment of Spirit”

In this course we will examine the role of the four major asteroids and the Black Moon Lilith in both natal charts and in synastry.   The first class will be devoted to an overview of the asteroids and their role in modern astrology.   They are generally known to represent aspects of  mature feminine wisdom but in practice they have revealed an uncompromising ruthlessness in terms of urging individual spiritual growth.  They can exhibit a raw power and a take-no-prisoners attitude that can wreck havoc in the chart if we are unprepared for them and the expansion of consciousness they require.

Details of the course will be up soon.  Part One of the course will involve one lesson on each of the major asteroids and Black Moon Lilith (the point, not the asteroid; why she is included here will be covered in the course).  There will also be an overview of the role of the asteroids in modern astrology and necessity of acknowledging the dark goddess.  Part Two of the course will deal with the effects of the dark goddess in synastry and composite charts.

We will begin scheduling classes in early April.  The classes for Part One will run one lesson per week for five weeks, then we will take a slight break and Part Two will continue in May.  We will use example charts I will send to you and also your own charts.  Personal charts will be saved for the end of each lesson.  Like all my classes, these classes will be conducted one on one over the phone or Skype.  They will be recorded and an mp3 sent to you immediately afterward.   Classes for Part One will run the usual hour and 15 minutes.  Classes for Part Two, the Dark Goddess in Synastry, will run slightly longer.  Part One is a prerequisite to Part Two, as we will be dealing with new definitions and patterns of the asteroids.  I may pull progressed charts for illustrations, but you do not need to know how to read a progressed chart for this course.

If you have discussed the course with me previously and already know you want to sign up, please let me know.   Lesson details and the fees and payment schedule for the course will be up later this week.

I’m betting a lot of us here are over the age of eighteen.  I’m betting, too, that a lot of us are beginning to forget what we felt like then, what formed us, what made us feel good about ourselves, what mattered at the core of our being.  I’m also betting that, for a lot of us, it had a great deal to do with the sign and house of the South Node.

Of the three walloping main nodal returns, the first is the most confusing.  The nodal cycle is 18.6 years, so the first time the Nodes really hit us we are about 18 years and 7 months old.  To understand this particular nodal crisis we must learn what came before it.  We begin at birth.

The first 18.6 year cycle of life, (we will call it 19 for convenience) from birth, is associated with the North Node.  The North Node is created when the Moon crosses the ecliptic of the Sun (the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth) from South (of the ecliptic) to the North.  We are launched in a northerly direction.  The Moon, representing the culmination of the past, is breaking into new territory.  It travels north of the ecliptic for half its daily journey, plunging Southward at the halfway point.

If you note the charts of children, you will see that they have an easier time of presenting both Nodes during this first cycle.  They aren’t quite in balance, but the influence of both nodes is clearly present.   (The Sun can express itself in a very pure way when we are children. ) It’s more of a seesaw effect.  We can see the child bounce from one Node to the other.  If a child has a Gemini South Node in the 9th, it will, most likely be very verbal, adore reading and possibly grow up in a dual-language, dual-culture or religious home.  However, the third house North Node in Sag will cause this child to also show independence and a sense of adventure, and he or she may become famous in the family for saying whatever is on his or her mind.

It seems that we are not so locked in to the nodal opposition in our early years, unless we have planets at either end of the Nodes pulling us in a particular direction.  If we are locked in to one end or the other, it can be because the ruler of that particular Node is prominent in the chart.  If both nodal rulers are prominent, it will be more of the seesawing effect.  But still, we have a kind of access to both Nodes that we can lose over the years, and particular during this first, untried nodal orbit.  We may not embrace the North Node during these early years, but we understand it as a part of us unless the bias for the South Node is very strong.

What happens during the first 19 years that swings us towards the South Node?  Firstly, I have to say here that the South Node is always more familiar than the North Node, but there are charts which favour the North Node so strongly that the North Node is not a question of discovery, but of refinement, understanding, and balance.  I have seen a number of charts where the emphasis has been on a need to re-think and re-direct the North Node, which has been developed before this lifetime but not fully enough–it has a few kinks in it, most likely due to the misdirection and misuse of the nodal ruler.  But on the whole, without undue natal planetary influence, there will be an inclination to lean on the South Node.

We hide behind what is familiar, and the South Node is familiar.   During times of stress, the retreat may become exaggerated.  The stresses for the Nodes will come at the ‘crosses’ and the ‘flops.’  We will have our first nodal square just before the age of 5 (ever wonder why going to kindergarten is such a trauma for some children?).  We have our first ‘flop’ a couple of months after we hit 9.  Another ‘cross’, this time a closing one, just before age 15—adding an enormous amount of stress to the already over-the-top hand in hand progression/transit at age 14 of the progressed Moon opposing itself (in a full Moon phase to itself) and transiting Saturn opposing itself for the first time.  (Frankly, with all going on plus the nodal cross, I think it’s a miracle we make it from 13 to 15 and we should all pat ourselves on the back for getting across that threshold.  Those of you who have teenagers, try to sympathize.)  And then, at 19, we come to the return.  We’ve made it over the first hurdle.

But where are we going?  It’s important to remember that the Nodes move backwards in the chart—at least, in relation to the direction of the angles and planets.  The North Node is hurtling forward in a clockwise direction, while the planets are moving counter-clockwise.   In an odd way, it’s like those sci-fi films where the ship goes straight into the oncoming meteors, or meanies.   The Nodes are in direct confrontation with the planetary line-up.  They meet one another head on.  The first Nodal return indicates the first complete circle of the nodal confrontation with the planetary line-up at birth.  What this cycle does is teach us about our natural reactions to confrontation and growth.

So when we arrive at 19, we are heady with our instinctive being.  We have defined ourselves by our confrontation with the circumstances of our lives.  More than likely, this has caused us to shore up in the South Node because the South Node is where we come from at this young age, it’s how we define and react to the world.  We can’t really grow into who we need to be until we discover who we are, and this first return is all about us defining and discovering our attitudes about life in general and our beliefs about the way the world operates.  It also teaches us about the latent talents we may possess—the South Node by sign and house may have as much to say about this as the second house does.  (Like a gift someone may have tucked away in our luggage before our journey into this current life.)  We depend on the South Node and its ruler at this point, we rely on it for comfort and familiarity.  (The exceptions are those who have very strong planets on the North Node—they may hurtle themselves forward instead of bothering about what is already known, only to find they need to catch up on self-knowledge later on.)  The South Node is where we shore up against all the difficulties of breaking through to some kind of maturity at this time.  Whether we are feeling our way through the maze of higher education or are working to provide an independent life for ourselves, our first question is always ‘who am I’ and the second, ‘where do I need to go?’  The second question is the contribution of the North Node at this time, but it doesn’t have as strong a voice as the South Node with its more lunar influence.

We can display the South Node very strongly at this time.  South Node in Leo in the fifth may declare itself an artist; South Node in Gemini in the 9th an academic.  South Node in the first house, no matter what sign on the cusp, will feel itself to be a unique force that spurns compromise.  A fourth house South Node may be reluctant to join the parade to the outside world and work that is required of this time.  A seventh house South Node would rather get involved in a relationship than confront the self-development that is crucial for growth.  All of these patterns may be ‘fall back’ patterns that we may repeat again and again throughout our lives.  Astrology can be a particularly useful tool at this time, because it can teach us to recognize when we are retreating.  Not that there is anything wrong with that—sometimes we need to retreat to gather reinforcements.

The main ‘work’ of the first nodal Return is to understand the South Node (and its ruler) in terms of our habits, patterns and assumed world view.  Because it is associated with our past, it is more concerned with our Moon than our Sun.  And while it may describe patterns and behaviors that need to go out the window, it is also a treasure trove of gifts and strength–ways to sustain ourselves in difficult circumstances.  There is a tendency in astrology to pronounce ‘South Node bad, North Node good.’  Anyone who works with the Nodes will see right away that this is silly—how can we throw out the past, all that we have been until now?  If we try to work on the North Node without incorporating the gifts of the South Node and the Moon, we won’t get very far.  One of the challenges of the first nodal return is to discover our gifts and begin to use them, particularly in ways indicated by the North Node.  The North Node during this first nodal return may not be very active.  It may be just a nagging feeling or an urgent whisper in the ear in the middle of the night that tells us we need to be someone or somewhere else.

When the natal Nodes are influenced by planets conjunct  either end or squaring it, all nodal returns will come as some kind of crisis.  The Nodes tend us towards extreme behavior.  If Saturn is conjunct the North Node and Jupiter or Neptune conjunct the South, our guilt over not working hard enough on the North Node whisperings may lead us to substance abuse.  If Mars is square the Nodes and difficult in the natal chart, we might turn to violence against ourselves or others.  Again, this first return is particularly fraught, due to our inexperience.  The nodal returns always remind us that the world is not what we expected it to be; alternately, we may seem strangers to ourselves, feeling the push of the Sun.  The difficulty in expression between the Moon and the Sun may be evident now—my Leo Moon wants to be an actress, but my Virgo Sun is telling me to be reasonable and study harder.    My Pisces Moon wants to dream and drift but my Aries Sun wants me to achieve something big.  My Sag Moon wants to explore the world on an extended road trip, but my Taurus Sun tells me to stay put and get a better summer job.

During this nodal return, we first get the inkling that being the best of ourselves is not enough—there is greater growth, and change, to be achieved.  The North Node may come to us like a vision in the distance, a beloved and impossible dream.   “How can I possibly get there from here?” is something we may ask ourselves.  This sets up a tension that carries us forward, through the squares and oppositions of the Node to itself and to our next return—where we will see that we have, indeed, the potential to achieve the vision, but still may have no clue how.  And along the way, the nodal cycle may have unearthed problems, limitations and blockages that we have yet to understand and confront.

But we have another 19 years to get there…

If, in some bizarre existence, in some alternate reality, I would be limited to looking at only one thing in the chart and still hope to give some profound advice on the soul’s growth, I would look at the Nodes.  The Nodes provide us not only with the guide for where we are going, but are the key to understanding where we have been and why we act the way we do.  As they describe the interaction of the Sun and the Moon, they are the core and the crossroads of our being.  And as they rip through time and space via transit, they cut a swathe between who we have been and who we are becoming.

They do this, in particular, at very specific times when the growth energy of the Nodes reaches its maximum potency.  This happens at the crossroads of the Nodal cycle, when the transiting Nodes square, oppose and conjunct the natal Nodes.  There is no more opportunity for change in the chart than at these times.

The Crossroads

The Nodal Return

The return of the North Node to its own place in the chart:  Roughly a 19+ year cycle.  Of the three major returns at age 19, 37 and 56, the second return at age 37 is usually the most fraught.

All returns are wobbly, charged, insecure and uneven.  We have just ended a cycle and are beginning another without knowing anything about it.  Returns are shaky and dynamic at the same time, and though we can chart them to see something of what the next cycle will bring, the energy of the return itself will never feel stable.  We may know what we need to do and where we need to go, but we are lost and we don’t know how to get there.  Even if we are given the tools of understanding (positive transits and progressions, etc.) we may not know how to use them.  The Nodal returns are periods of confusion and possibly retreat, when the old world doesn’t work but the new one remains a mystery.  If we sense that there is something missing in our lives, we will often go overboard and overcompensate when we hit our returns (our neediness and emotional impulses often prevail). We often feel that we are inadequate to the task, and give up the fight before we begin.  Or we may take our first faltering steps, face defeat, and swear we will not go this way again.  We are often torn with insecurity and blinded by the way we have been conditioned to think of ourselves.  At best, Nodal returns are used to break from the past and make new beginnings that remove us from our conditioned responses to life.  They can also bring us well deserved rewards for work well done.

The Nodal Crosses

The Nodal Squares—or, as I usually call them, the Crosses– are always crisis points, where we are given the choice to forge ahead bravely or retreat into our comfort zones.  We will be impelled to answer the call but the impetus to the new may not be strong enough, or the call of the past is too demanding.  We may fight and win or the new Self may die in the struggle, but cyclical squares always feel as though a battle is going on; with the waxing square (the North Node making the first square to itself since the return) we may feel fresh and feisty, but a waning square may make us feel as though we are fighting in an ancient war that has gone on far too long.  Waning squares impel us to put something concrete into place and show real development in our Nodal progress.   The Nodal squares are always ‘do or die’ crossroads where some new aspect of our being and understanding must be initiated.  We may be forced to relinquish something cherished that is no longer serving our spiritual purpose.

The Nodal ‘Flops’

Or, as they are usually referred to, Nodal oppositions, can be an opportunity for new understanding and integration.  We are reminded that we are not being asked to desert the South Node (which also houses our gifts and abilities) in favour of the North, but to overcome the drawbacks of the South Node (all those inborn difficulties and liabilities we inherit from it) and use the South Node gifts in aiding the North Node to the best of our ability.  At the time of these Nodal ‘flops’ we may discover new opportunities for integration and growth.  The challenge is to remain in the strength of the South Node without letting it drown the newly emerging sensibility.  (Aspects between the Nodal rulers will be of tremendous help at these times, even the more difficult aspects.)  At these times of integration of the Nodes, it is not uncommon to find partners and others who can help us along the way—this is true of the returns and the squares as well, but partnering is often more prominent at the opposition.  Given that we are attempting to integrate the Sun and the Moon within the Nodal pattern, this is not a surprise.  Any transiting opposition is likely to draw someone into our lives who will illustrate that opposition for us, and the Nodes are, in a sense, the opposition to beat all oppositions.

Next time I will focus on the three major nodal returns.

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of comments that offer lists of synastry aspects between the commentator and her beloved, with a request for help.  While in a perfect world I would have the time to sit with each one of you and sort things out–I truly sympathize, we’ve all been there–there isn’t room for this kind of personal counseling on the blog.  I am perfectly happy to answer questions specific to the topic raised; please try to formulate your questions into something that will provide a learning experience  for us all.  “Aspect list”  comments will no longer be published.

Thanks for understanding.

Dawn

It’s worth reviewing why the Nodes themselves are so important—and so effective by transit, both in describing  the developmental growth within the natal chart and in terms of external ‘events.’    The Nodes represent the point where the Moon, representing the entire repository of our past experience in the material world (in many lifetimes, if belief accepts it) crosses the ecliptic, or path, of the Sun in relation to the earth.  It is, in essence, the conjoining of two pathways, the material (represented by the Moon) and the spiritual (represented by the Sun).  The Nodes represent where the experience of life crosses with the infinite potential of the life path.

As this occurs in orbital movement, the conjoining happens at opposite ends of a circle.  The South Node of the Moon represents where we have been, and, across the circle, the North Node represents where we are going.  The South Node is the more lunar end; it defines a familiar way of behavior, a familiar way of defining and reacting to the world.  In most cases we are naturally oriented towards our South Node, particularly during our early years.  It represents our comfortable and typical behavior, the way we relate to our life experience.   We approach the world through the lens of that South Node, and it is difficult for us to put it down.  When we move away from the realm of the South Node, the world is not what we thought it was, or what we have assumed it would be.   Development of the North Node causes us to be removed, sometimes harshly, from this familiar version of reality.

In analyzing the Nodes within a natal chart, there is a tendency for students to rush to the North Node to see where we’re going next.  I suppose this is understandable, but, in spiritual terms, we can’t know where you’re going until we see where we have been, and the condition of the South Node, including house, sign, Nodal ruler (and it’s house, sign and position to other planets) needs to be understood before we know what we are moving away from.   Also, it’s very important to remember that many people don’t move into their North Node, if they do so at all, until they have crossed the great chasm of growth that begins at age 36 and ends in the mid-forties, leading on to age 50 and the Chiron return.  Someone with the South Node heavily emphasized will have a difficult time drawing the balancing energies of the North Node.   If you have Sag on the South Node, and Jupiter is either the chart ruler or the dispositor of the Sun, or is angular and attached to personal planets,  there will be a great deal of resistance to the shift to Mercury and Gemini.  The perspective and detachment that the Gemini North Node calls for may be difficult to come by, unless Mercury is also prominently placed.    Planets on the South Node will always reinforce South Node behavior.  In some cases, they represent talents, abilities and behavior which we can use in this life to integrate our Nodes.  In other cases, they may represent behavior that is deeply engrained and which must be revisited, repaired or restructured in some way.  If the aspects to these planets are challenging (or the dispositors of these planets are having a difficult time of it) we know that something in the psyche needs alteration. Our relational patterns need changing.

All magnetic pull to the North Node via the planets will cause us to go through a crisis of the new and unfamiliar.  If, in a previous life, we have already been attempting the integration of the North Node, we may have planets conjunct our North Node to assist us.   Often these planets are helpful, but they also represent energies that are getting in the way of our fully accepting the North Node perspective.    Saturn, for example, can cause us to be fearful of the new, but also give us the relentless drive to move forward.  Jupiter can make us lazy, but also insists that we garner the wisdom of our experiences.  With Mars, we may have been too hotheaded and insistent, which caused us to attempt to fly before we could leap.  In any case, in this lifetime, we must learn to use planets conjunct the North Node in their best and most balanced way, so that they are the shining example of their energy within their sign, lit behind by the creative force of the Sun.

The North Node is the more solar of the two, and asks us to use its creative juices to learn to be more and truly ourselves, and not a product of past conditioning.  The North Node wants us to act from the pure center of our being, where we are not influenced by the fears and constrictions of the material world.  To say that the North Node is ‘good’ and the South Node ‘bad’ is simply wrong, however, because we need the strength and the wisdom of our material experience in order fully act out the solar, North Node tasks.  In this way our new solar perspective sheds light on the past, and liberates us from it.  The South Node uses this liberating energy in a more creative way;  released from old patterns, it finds new ways to express itself and finds an expanding perspective to experiment with.  This allows us, in the pattern of a widening spire, to create new experiences via the North Node which will advance our evolutionary growth.    One of the most common experiences of intense Nodal development is the sense that we have been ‘kicked up the ladder’ a few rungs on our spiritual understanding , and while it may feel precarious to be all the way up there it also can be intensely inspiring.

The balancing of the Nodes is our ultimate goal, and we must learn to use each end of the Nodal axis in its best expression.   We often call the angles the ‘spine’ of the chart, the energetic tent pole on which the rest of our existence depends.  However, in spiritual terms, in terms of our evolution and the soul’s awareness, the Nodes, representing the interaction and integration of the Sun and the Moon, are the spiritual spine.   The Nodal movement (both by transit and progression) indicates our own particular crisis of becoming.

In Part Two we will begin discussing the movement of the Nodal axis in relation to itself.

We talk about transits a lot in the astrological world.  We blame the planets for a lot of things, mostly tongue-in-cheek but sometimes not so much, especially where the outer planets are concerned.  Those of us who are more psychologically oriented are always saying that the planets are within us, but then you come to those times, like our recent Pluto/Uranus square, where a transit seems to affect every person in a real way in real life, according to its placement in the chart.  I don’t know anyone who has come out of the past year and a half unscathed by painful and profound change in some area. The planets/archetypes are both within us and without us, the outside reflected within, affecting all sentient beings.

I have to admit to not buying into transits, let alone progressions, in the very beginning of my studies.  This is back when I was a kid of 14 or so.  My third house Scorpio Saturn was always testing received knowledge.  I could understand how we carry the stamp of the universe at birth, but had real doubts that the moving universe could keep tweaking us along the way, like a fussy valet always brushing our shoulders, straightening our tie and polishing our shoes (sorry, too much Downton Abbey lately).

But of course, the concept of the wheel within the wheel makes sense—we move forward in space and time, and astrology acts as a wheel within a wheel, the moving universe reflecting the unfolding potential of the natal chart as it evolves.  It’s a very short step from transits to progressions, where the natal chart is moved forward on its own personal journey from the day of birth, each day after birth reflecting one year, one spin of the earth around the Sun; it reflects our own, personal relationship with the universe as we sculpt out the trials and triumphs of our evolutionary journey.

I also admit to finding progressions more revealing than transits.  A transit will tell you what is going on but the progressed chart, if you know how to read it properly, will tell you why and why now.  The progressed chart shows how the movement of the universe relates to your personal growth, whereas transits hit your natal chart in a cyclical but arbitrary way, not taking into consideration what you have been through in your life and/or how you have grown.   (And make no mistake, transits to a progressed chart are hotter than transits to the natal, except for the natal angles or the Sun or Moon.)  But it is my work with progressions, and timing within the progressed chart, that brought me face to face with the most powerful heavenly movement that occurs—one that doesn’t get talked about much.  I’m talking about transits and progressions to and by the lunar Nodes.

It was shocking to me, at the beginning of my studies, how powerful the transiting  Nodes are, both in the natal and progressed charts.  A good astrologer can time the major events in a person’s life just by looking at exact aspects to the natal and progressed Nodes.   Students in my Progressions One class have been amazed and humbled, over and over again, by the beauty of the universal timing in just this one factor.

I have explored elsewhere in this blog what the Nodes are, what they represent, and how they work within a natal chart.  (The entire series begins here with an introduction and follows on in five parts.) But the true magic and poetry of the Nodes is revealed in movement.  Stephen Arroyo has famously said that the Progressed Sun is the hour hand the the Progressed Moon the minute hand on the clock face of our lives.  I would add, without doubt or hesitation, that the transiting Nodes are the second hand.

We will be exploring the transiting Nodes as they move around our charts and unveil our potential.  In particular, we will be focusing on the Nodal Axis in relation to itself by transit—the conjunction (the famous Nodal returns), the opposition to itself (which I like to call a flop) and the Nodes square themselves, which usually brings a major turning point in life.

In Part One, next time, we will discuss the Nodal cycle.

It is no accident that human beings seek security.  It goes beyond the primal survival needs to something very basic.  The Aries point at the Ascendant represents our entry into time and space—otherwise known as the ‘material world.’  It is representative of ‘the One’, the birth of a unique consciousness from that mass soup of universal mind.  However, ‘the One,’ if it were complete within itself, would not move forward, would not seek out.  It is the separative aspect of the human condition on the material plane that makes us seek out our mirror selves in Libra.  We operate, in our lifetimes, within a duality and with a dualistic mind—there is ‘Self,’ and there is ‘Other.’  There is ‘me in here’ and ‘you out there.’  The seeking of ‘Other’ is in fact the urge towards growth, to unite with what we have (apparently) been split away from via our material birth.  What we are actually seeking is our lost “Self,” our divine ‘Other half,’ the thing that will replace this perpetual ache of feeling trapped alone in this prison of a material universe.  It is, of course, a myth and an illusion that we can be completed by something outside ourselves, because we are divine within ourselves.  (Dorothy has the ability to click her ruby slippers and go ‘home’ all the while.) We forget that, however, once we are born into this dog eat dog world that is our initial perception of everyday reality.

In seeking our lost divinity, and the divinity of the material world itself, it is no surprise that we turn our potential partners into gods.  The search for transcendence and the search for true partnership have only a soupcon of difference between them.  The bursting of the illusions surrounding partnership, or our notions of partnership in this culture at this time, provide the first steps of spiritual seeking for many, the grist for the mill towards an awakened consciousness.  When we find that the partner who promised to be the divine entity, the symbol of wholeness and perfection, the great healer of our psychic wound, turns out to be just an ordinary shlub with feet of clay, we can see for the first time that there is a plan for us beyond fulfilling the desires of the ego.  If we pursue our spiritual path further, we begin to discover that the entire universe may be within us.

The Chiron myth is the story of one who sacrificed his ‘lesser’ life (the mortal existence) for a greater one (his immortality).  However, that version of the story is a bit twisted, because Chiron didn’t actually know that he would become immortal and join his pals on Olympus.  He was half god/half man, but he still didn’t have a clue what would happen.  He simply threw himself into the fray with all good intentions.  Chiron is where we throw ourselves into the fire without ever knowing what will come of it.  This is particularly true of Chiron in relationships, where the discovery of our own immortality is a long and painful process, in spite of our best intent.  This is particularly true of Chiron/Moon, where the sense of belonging and security is fractured and we are eventually forced to vanquish our cherished notion that belonging and intimacy will save us.

When Chiron/Moon is within a chart, the hunger for divinity is strong and there is a longing to make up for the emotional deprivations of early years.  When Chiron touches the Moon the hunger for partnership can be almost physical.  Imagine what happens when Chiron/Moon is between charts, when either party can take the role of divinity and neither party knows what’s coming.  The Moon is always hungry, and Chiron is always primed to provide the lessons the Moon hungers for.

With Moon/Chiron between charts, both people need healing, though both may not be aware of it.  Chiron may be pulled to use its healing powers on the Moon, who may be needy in many ways (whose Moon isn’t wounded in some way?).  Chiron may long to heal the Moon’s hard relationship to an outer planet, or a retrograde Saturn.  Chiron will respond to the Moon’s inner child and sense all that it needs.  This urge to heal ‘other’ is, of course, reflective of Chiron’s need to heal itself and its own longing.  The Moon person may be assuaged at first, and may be thrilled at having its deepest needs met.  Chiron/Moon contacts bring out the “I can’t believe it, I’ve never felt this way before…” element in relationships.  To the Moon person, the Chiron person seems like the Wise One, his Cave the refuge and safety they’ve never had.  Someone finally ‘gets’ them, because Chiron ‘gets’ everything.  However, the first seeds of suspicion are often sown when the Moon person feels as if Chiron is stifling its growth.  Contrary to popular belief, the Moon is not always happy staying in a Cancerian pool of safety.  The initiating, cardinal-mode power of the Moon is towards manifestation; it wants to give birth, wants to reproduce itself and its experiences of life.  It wants to replicate its interior life in the exterior world.  How can it do that if Chiron is taking charge, and handing it everything before the Moon even knows it needs it?

Chiron, on the other hand, may not feel it is worthy of this profound love.  Chiron will give itself completely, without caring for the consequences, because it is after a kind of sacrifice of the lower self, and when Chiron/Moon contacts are profound it will do this via relationship.  It is a bit like Mars/Moon contacts, with the lure being not pure sex, but healing.  All Chiron contacts between charts can lead to otherworldly experiences via sexual contact/desire and it is usually the Chiron person who will have the transcendent experiences due to the profound nature of their love.  The love of other can literally take them out of their bodies to experience this love on other levels and planes of existence.  This can be where the Chiron person goes wrong by declaring the other person an immortal god, not realizing its own immortality.  The intense connection that we feel in Chiron relationships is the connection with the divine via the other, not by the other.

On the other hand, Chiron/Moon between charts can be highly erotic.  Chiron itself is very sexual, but in a tantric way.  It understands that spirit is what makes the motion in the ocean.  Chiron is directly concerned with the distribution of kundalini throughout the body via the chakra system.  Chiron/Moon sex is never casual—even in the briefest encounter, it will affect the body with its transforming and connecting energy.  The lure of a Chiron/Moon contact is in its promise of completion via this energy: it will connect the masculine and feminine halves of the whole.

Chiron, always the outsider, is always looking for a place to belong.  When Chiron meets the Moon, that sense of ‘home’ in ‘other’ can be overwhelming.  The Moon person can be seen as a refuge for all of Chiron’s pain and inadequacy.  The Moon is made to feel secure by Chiron’s wounded state—they may not be consciously aware of it, but the inner script is, “This person is so crippled he/she will never leave me.”  This is often wonderful at first.  And then, depending on the amount of freedom the chart requires, things will change.

This can be quite tragic, because both are clinging for the wrong reasons, and both are preventing the other’s growth.  It can be quite difficult to encourage growth with Chiron/Moon, because the familiarity of the pain is what keeps them together.  Actual healing may not actually be wanted.

The other thing that goes wrong in Chiron/Moon relationships is that the Chiron person often takes the lead and becomes the teacher and leader.   There can be a tremendous amount of co-dependence in a Chiron/Moon relationship, as the Chiron person may always know best, (or seem to) and tries to lead the relationship in a particular way, even without knowing it.  The Moon person begins to resent the ‘teacher/student’ relationship; and the once-revered guru/healer may turn into an oppressor.    Eventually, the Chiron person causes the Moon person to feel unmoored and lose the sense of inner ‘home’ that causes us to feel confident and independent.  At some point the Moon person leaves, or confronts Chiron with its behavior.  The Chiron person may often focus on the relationship as a substitute for facing its own fears and being responsible for its own growth.  It is particularly prone to relationship dramas that get it off the ‘hook’ of self-examination, preferring to get caught in the drama of self-sacrifice and immolation rather than take a cold, concrete look at what is holding it back.  Intimacy can be a hypnotic lure, but is a poor substitute for the courage it takes to turn an immature Chiron into a mature one.  With Chiron/Moon, there is a particular danger that the physical part of the relationship becomes a drug whereby we intoxicate one another without really learning anything.

As happens with all Chiron contacts in synastry, but particularly with Chiron/Moon, there is a tendency for the Chiron person to choose a partner who is not an equal in terms of spiritual evolution and understanding. Chiron does this because he or she is not yet aware of his or her own divine power and spiritual perspective.  Or the spirituality may be considered peripheral, and not central to daily life.  When we choose partners who are not on our spiritual level, we are always unhappy and restless, something is not quite right.  We may begin to feel that our partners are beneath us in some way, or lacking in awareness and/or perception.  Circumstances will intervene where we begin to understand that this partner is not the right partner, that we have moved on in some way and need to find more appropriate partners who will appreciate us for who we are, not who we were, a product of past wounding.  We may choose to sacrifice ourselves for the relationship, but this impulse does not often last. Chiron can waste a lot of time worshipping at the wrong altar, and suffer the heartbreak and delusion of having its eyes opened too late.  That heady feeling of mutual belonging in the beginning can dwindle to ‘what was I thinking?’ very quickly once the observation is made.  The problem with Chiron is that it may stay—Chiron bonds, once created, are notoriously difficult to extricate ourselves from.  Chiron is tempted to squeeze out every last drop of wisdom before the ties are cut.

The odd thing about Chiron contacts in synastry, and especially Chiron/Moon, is that the trines and sextiles are often no better than the squares and oppositions, except for the fact that the two people move into the relationship faster and are quicker to learn the lessons involved, thereby releasing themselves more easily.  When Chiron is in hard aspect, there seems to be more compulsion involved, more tension, and a more extreme relationship experience.  Healing is available in all aspects, but with the hard aspects there is a higher price to pay.

The best part about Chiron/Moon is the ability to heal even the deepest psychological, sexual and sometimes physical, wounds.  The Moon person may instinctively know how to help Chiron understand its talents and bring them out into the world.  Chiron needs, above all, to understand that it is a vessel through which divinity pours, and the Moon instinctively has the trust that allows this to happen.  Chiron stops sacrificing itself, and begins to use its talents in new ways.  The Moon is enlightened by the relationship, reminded that divinity resides in the smallest crumb of life.  Both can be rescued from the compulsive drive to ‘other’ and be made to understand, through observation, mutual respect, that we are within ourselves complete.  At best, Chiron/Moon feeds the god within.