The Nodes of the Moon

The Nodes of the Moon constitute the primary polarity in the psyche. The South Node represents a strongly emphasized, security-oriented area of the psyche, while the North Node represents a mostly unrealized area of learning and growth.

The South Node is, from the beginning, a place of familiarity and comfort in the psyche. The infant instinctively begins channeling energy to the South Node, developing its skills and orientation (as indicated by its sign and house placement). At first there is a balance between South and North nodes, but around age 2 the child begins to identify with and emphasize the South Node, at the expense of the North Node. The South Node plays a stablizing role in the developing psyche, a place of security. We are born an expert at our South Node.

It continues to serve this stablizing, security-generating function throughout childhood and young adulthood, but in our late twenties we reach a point of diminishing returns with South Node. You can continue to emphasize it and rely on it, and it will continue its role as a place of safety, but from then on it will also increasingly become a place of stuckness in your life. It's the same old thing, there's nothing new there.

The North Node is the opposite of everything I have said about South Node. I call it your "growing edge". This is where the learning is for you, the excitement. When you are doing your North Node you feel like you're on your path and moving forward. You are expanding your personal horizons as well as contributing to the collective evolution of our species. However, while you are born an expert at South Node, you are just a novice at North Node. You don't know what you're doing, not really. It's attractive, it keeps calling to you, but it's all new and there's no familiarity, no security. As soon as any anxiety arises in you, from whatever source, you automatically reach for the South Node, the old security blanket.

The movement to North Node is at best two steps forward and one and a half steps back to South. We learn to let go of the attachment to familiarity and security and embrace the new and exciting. I emphasize the Nodes of the Moon in my readings, as I fundamentally look at life as a learning and growth experience. I bring in all the rest of your chart in relation to this polarity, both the resources that support your growth movement as well as the anxiety-generating conflicts that must be resolved.

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