On November 6 Karma is calling! That’s because the Lunar Nodes switch sings, more exactly the North Node moves into Cancer, and the South Node moves into Capricorn. The lunar nodes will stay in Cancer and Capricorn for 18 months, until May 5, 2020.
What The Nodes Are All About, And Why They Are Important
The Nodes always move backward - in fact, they are the only ‘planets’ that move backward. A good way to think about them is to think about a retrograde planet, with the distinction that a planet goes retrograde only a fraction of the time, while the Nodes are always retrograde.
That’s why the Lunar Nodes are associated with past lives and karma (the backward movement symbolizes going back in time).
But that’s not the only reason. The Nodes are where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the apparent path the Sun makes around the earth. The Nodes thus where the divine design (the Sun) and material reality (Moon) meet.
The Lunar Nodes create the eclipses. We have two eclipse seasons every year and that’s when the world goes crazy. This is when events tend to happen on a large scale: kings and queens are born (or die), scientific breakthroughs or discoveries are made (or great natural disasters occur), wars end (or start).
Eclipses are ‘regulating’ our collective karma. Eclipses also ‘regulate’ our individual karma, especially when they align with sensitive points in our charts. This is when people like you and me have a strong pull to take action, to make a decision, to sort themselves out.
Year after year, with mathematical precision, at the eclipse season I get 5 times more messages than in any other time of the year. Why? Because people feel in their soul the call of destiny. And astrology speaks the language of the destiny, that’s why people feel drawn to it more than ever.
North Node vs. South Node
We have two lunar nodes, the North Node, and the South Node. Although both nodes are connected to karma, it is only the South Node that is connected to past lives and past karma.
The North Node instead is connected to our future karma and with the possibility for us to alter our karma. The North Node is our possibility to change the script of our destiny.
Why is the South Node connected to past karma? The South Node is also called the Descending Node because it is literally descending, going down. The South Node represents our unresolved karma, what we need to ‘sort out’ in this lifetime.
The South Node represents chances you haven’t taken, the opportunities you’ve missed, things you haven’t quite manifested in your past lives.
Let’s say you were a talented dancer in a past life. If you haven’t engaged with this talent, this talent will get passed on to your next lifetime, so that this time you will make good use of it. That’s why you were born with it in this lifetime. To finally make it work, to manifest it.
The question is, how to make it work? The answer is, through the North Node.
The North Node is the opposite of the South Node. If the South Node is familiar, the North Node is completely unfamiliar. The North Node is a skill you don’t master, that thing you stumble upon. Yet, your North Node is exactly what you need to master.
When you focus on the North Node, everything flows in perfect alignment with the universe. If I have to choose only one advice to give to my clients and students, that would be to focus on their North Node.
When people focus on their North Node, all their problems get solved. It’s as simple as that, yet it may not be that easy to follow this North Node, because at least at the beginning, you don't know where you should start from.
But that's what astrology is for, to show you something that you wouldn't know otherwise.
Does that mean we should dismiss the South Node and completely focus on the North Node? No, not at all. Your South Node is, in fact, a gift. But it is a stagnant gift, a gift that needs to be taken in a different direction.
That direction is the North Node. The South Node gift becomes a problem when we get stuck in it and refuse to change. When we do the same things over and over again. The solution to the South Node problem is always the North Node.
The paradox is that once you solved the South Node problem with the North Node, the outcome is not the North Node, but the South Node. The South Node is the ripening karma, for good and for bad.
The Lunar Nodes equation:
Problem (South Node) → Solution (North Node) → Outcome (South Node)
Cancer and Capricorn - The Mother and the Father
Now that the North Node moves into Cancer and the South Node moves into Capricorn, you may wonder what it means. In traditional astrology, Cancer (and the ruling planet, the Moon) is the mother, and Capricorn (or the ruling planet, Saturn) is the father.
But it’s much more to these symbols.
Cancer is what makes us feel nurtured, safe, and protected (just like our mother’s womb fed and protected us). Cancer comes from Latin “crab” and the crab is protected by its shell. In the same way, Cancer represents our need to feel safe, to have a home.
Capricorn is the highest point in our chart, where the Sun shines at its brightest, and represents what we aim for. The highest point in a chart is also the point of greatest visibility, so Capricorn is also where we feel exposed. In the past, the women stayed in the cave to protect the weak (Cancer) while men went outside, got exposed, and fought against nature for survival. Capricorn rules hierarchies.
Both Cancer and Capricorn are about survival, but while Cancer meets this need in the inside, by creating a safe ‘home’ and inner resilience, Capricorn meets this need on the outside, by gaining status, respect, and by playing an important role in the hierarchy. The most primal needs of people are the needs of security (Cancer) and status (Capricorn).
What Does It Mean To Have North Node in Cancer And South Node in Capricorn?
As we said, the ‘problem’ is the South Node. A South Node in Capricorn is all about fighting to fit in, to gain status, to climb hierarchies, to meet goals, to have a career. But this comes at a price. When you put all your energy in the outside yourself, you neglect the inner world.
It is important to realize you cannot only work, work, work, work, work. The mountain goat might reach the top of the mountain, but it’s pretty lonely up there. When you’re always focusing on the next goal, on the next achievement, you forget who you are.
The solution? North Node in Cancer, i.e. building a strong inner foundation, nurturing yourself, doing what’s safe and comfortable.
The outcome? South Node in Capricorn, i.e. true progress, true achievements that come from a space of comfort and self-confidence. When you really know who you are, when you’re strong on the inside (North Node in Cancer) there is nothing that you can’t achieve (South Node in Capricorn).
Example: if you don’t get the promotion you are hoping for, the solution is not working harder. The solution is taking a holiday. Spending time with your family. Taking care of yourself. And the paradox is that when you do that, the promotion (or another achievement that is more aligned with who you are) always comes.
North Node In Cancer And South Node In Capricorn Key Dates
- South Node conjunct Pluto (April 2019)
- South Node conjunct Saturn (May-October 2019)
- South Node conjunct Jupiter (January 2020)
- North Node and South Node square Chiron (March 2020)
The North Node in Cancer and the South Node in Capricorn will bring us the following eclipses:
- Solar Eclipse in Capricorn (South Node Eclipse) on January 5th, 2019 at 15° Capricorn
- Solar Eclipse in Cancer (North Node Eclipse) on July 2nd, 2019 at 10° Cancer
- Lunar Eclipse in Capricorn (South Node Eclipse) on July 16th, 2019 at 24° Capricorn
- Solar Eclipse in Capricorn (South Node Eclipse) on December 25th, 2019 at 4° Capricorn
- Lunar Eclipse in Cancer (North Node Eclipse) on January 10th, 2020 at 19° Cancer
- Solar Eclipse in Cancer (North Node Eclipse) on June 20th, 2020 at 0° Cancer
- Lunar Eclipse in Capricorn (South Node Eclipse) on July 4th, 2020 at 13° Capricorn
If your birthday is around one of these dates or if you have personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) or angles (Ascendant, Descendant, MC, IC) around the degrees of the eclipse, you will be especially affected by North Node in Cancer and South Node in Capricorn in 2018-2020.
The Nodes come back in the same place every 18 years. The last times we had the Nodes in Cancer-Capricorn was:
- April 10, 2000 - October 31, 2001
- September 25, 1981 - March 16, 1983
- December 24, 1962 - August 25, 1964.
What happened in your life back then?
