A talk by Anita Doyle,

at the 1st Annual Conference
of the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR)
Big Sky Chapter, July 2004

[Click here for worksheet: Working with the Nodes]

Everywhere we look we are witness to the drive in living matter to complete itself.

Ponder the extraordinary, dynamic power of a germinated seed underground, as it pushes first through its shell casing, and then around buried stones and tree roots on its determined journey up and up into the world of light. And this is only the beginning. On the way to ever more fully manifested states, living things undergo continual transformations, as they actualize, bit by bit, the potential mysteriously encoded in their DNA. Do any of us now look like the zygote that we once were? Yet, everything that we are now – everything! – was implicit in that first cell of our being, just as this universe that we inhabit – vaster than we can ever comprehend, home to countless billions of galaxies – was fully implicit in the original fireball of the Big Bang.

Whatever the dynamic force that keeps the universe changing and evolving, that dynamism is in us, too – and for the post-zygotic infant human stepping into the world, the birth chart is both the picture of its nature and the blueprint of its optimal unfolding.

What I want to explore in this talk today is how the placement of the Nodes of the Moon in a natal chart can help us to understand and, as astrologers, to communicate an evolutionary process that may serve to maximize an individual’s inherent positive potential. This will go beyond the delineation of the South Node as that which we are leaving behind, and the North Node as that which we are moving toward. Here we’ll be looking at the opportunity for unique creative synthesis that lies latent in the Nodal Axis – as it does in all oppositions. What better way to research this than by looking at the natal charts of some human beings who have “got it right” in such exemplary fashion that their lives have had far-reaching positive impacts on the world community? And so we will. But first, let’s cover a bit of theoretical ground.

Past-Present-Future

Astrologers have long noted a connection between the familiar and well-trod paths in an individual’s life and the South Node of the Moon, and the less-familiar, relatively unexplored life terrain and the North Node of the Moon. The South Node, in a very real sense, represents the path of least resistance – what is easy for us, and so the repertoire of activity and of identity, really, that we have a tendency to rely upon and return to repeatedly. Evolutionary astrologers speak about the South Node as emblematic of issues and circumstances from a soul’s past (lives) in search of resolution in the present incarnation. The North Node, by contrast, describes new territory in some important way, and in this sense represents the path out of the past and into present and future.

It is not necessary to believe in reincarnation to benefit from this approach. I, myself, am not particularly a “believer” in reincarnation in a straight, linear sense. The processes of the universe strike me as far too intricately interwoven in space and time for that. Time, after all, is relative, as our brother Albert Einstein demonstrated, and, given the endlessly "nested" patterns of fractal geometry, it would not be outside the realm of possibility that what we imagine as a succession of lives are, in fact, simultaneously coexistent states, corresponding to different levels of consciousness or stages of awakening. In any event, within the framework of typical human experience, we recognize that people come into life with certain clear individual predispositions. As astrologers we can describe those predispositions with uncanny accuracy having never met a person. Whether we choose the metaphor of reincarnation or of the passing on of DNA within an ancestral line, what we are saying, in essence, is that human infants are not blank slates; that everyone comes in to life with a past: inherited strengths and challenges that will shape their approach to life. In fundamental ways, we find these described by the South and North Nodes.

Here Be Dragons

Ancient astrologers envisioned the nodal axis as a great and powerful dragon; the South Node they called the Dragon’s Tail, and the North Node they called the Dragon’s Head. This, as it turns out, is a really helpful image, so let’s go into it a bit more deeply.

I, myself, am a student of the Chinese Book of Changes or I Ching, an astonishingly relevant 5,000 year old body of wisdom teachings. In the I Ching, the dragon is the symbol of effective, embodied Creativity. A person who has developed in him or herself the positive character of a dragon is called a “partner of heaven”. It’s quite a beautiful image, isn’t it? It’s a way of speaking about the co-creative role that many spiritual traditions say humans are called to play with the Cosmos. So, we can think of the Dragon of the Nodal Axis as representing the way in which we creatively work out our destinies in partnership with the spiritual world.

Imagine, as the ancients did, that the line connecting the North Node with the South Node is the alimentary tract of the mythical dragon, and that what is taken in as nourishment at the mouth, or North Node, travels down this tract, being digested and absorbed along the way, until everything of value to the individual has been extracted. What remains as waste is released at the South Node, or what we euphemistically refer to as the dragon’s “tail.”

Now, here’s where it’s important to apply the observation of the great Oglala Sioux teacher, Black Elk, that: “The Power of the World always works in circles.” Otherwise, we run the risk of falling into the trap of regarding the South Node as bad and North node as good, as linear thinking would dictate. Instead, there’s something far more subtle and wonderful at work.

One of the most remarkable ways in which “the Power of the World works in circles” is the way in which nothing in the natural world is, in fact, wasted. Dead organic material undergoes Earth’s recycling alchemy to become pure, composted gold – a substrate for more life. This recycling is an absolutely fundamental and indivisible element of the process of life. Applied to our understanding of the Nodes of the Moon, it means that our South Node represents that which, in and of itself, no longer contains sufficient nutritive value for our continued, individual growth as spiritual beings, but which – enriched by the “food” taken in at the North Node – may undergo a transformation that allows it to become a potent fertilizer for the evolution of our Earth community.

Examination of Charts

So, with that background, let’s see what we can learn by examining the nodal axis in the charts of some exceptional beings.

Chart 1: Morihei Ueshiba [Dec. 14, 1883, Tanabe, Japan – unknown birthtime] view chart

Of the three people whose charts we’ll be examining here, Morihei Ueshiba is the only one not likely to elicit broad name recognition. He was the founder of the martial art of Aikido, the Way of the Peaceful Warrior. The reason that I particularly wanted to include this chart is that it was in stumbling upon Ueshiba’s biography and drawing up his solar chart that my thinking about the significance of the nodal axis was deepened and expanded. It also affirmed the usefulness of studying the charts of highly actualized humans in order to better understand what the gods may be trying to teach us through the language of astrology.

I want to hasten to draw your attention to the fact that, in this case only, we will be working with a chart with an unknown birth time, so please do your best to completely disregard the house placements and angles of the chart.

Morihei Ueshiba is referred to by practitioners of Aikido as “O Sensei”, or Great Teacher. He was one of history’s greatest martial artists. Even at the age of 80, and at under 5 ft. tall, he could disarm any number of attackers and pin an opponent with a single finger. Asked when Aikido was founded, Ueshiba replied: “The day I was born.” Astrologically speaking, a truer statement could not be made.

Ueshiba’s great-grandfather, Kichiemon, was said to be one of the greatest samurai of his day. Young Morihei was inspired by the many stories told of his ancestor, Kichiemon, and when his father was attacked by a gang of thugs, the young man resolved to become proficient in the martial arts himself. At the age of 19 he attempted to enlist in the Japanese army, but was initially rejected for failing to meet the minimum height requirement. So upset was he by this that he immediately went to the forest and swung from trees in order to stretch his body out! On his next attempt to enlist, he passed the examination. During his time in the army and especially afterwards, Ueshiba’s strength and skill became almost legendary. He became much sought after as a teacher of the martial arts. So, in these anecdotes we see the hallmarks of will, strength and identification with the warrior archetype that we can easily associate with Ueshiba’s South Node in Aries. Also, the fact of his great-grandfather having been a renowned samurai is interesting and potentially relevant, with respect to either the reincarnation or DNA perspectives.

During his early forties, around the time of his Uranus opposition and when transiting Neptune was conjunct his natal Mars (ruler of his South Node), Ueshiba had a succession of profound spiritual experiences that forever changed the direction of his life and his orientation to the martial arts. He realized that the true purpose of the warrior’s way was “love that cherishes and nourishes all beings.” (Note that natal Neptune, planet of spiritual imagination, aspects Venus and Mars, the rulers of his North and South Nodes.) From then on, he tirelessly applied himself to revolutionizing martial arts techniques, synthesizing them into a form that taught harmony rather than violence. He had awakened at the deepest levels to the recognition that violence merely breeds violence, and sought to bring into the world a way of handling aggression that fostered “fearlessness, wisdom, love and friendship. [He] proclaimed that the true … way of the warrior… was the path of peaceful reconciliation.”

It is worth noting that the nodal axis can be regarded as symbolically crystallizing the relationship of the individual’s Sun and Moon, and that Ueshiba was born with Sun and Moon in opposition. What better personal fodder in the quest for peaceful reconciliation? The inner pressure to reconcile these opposites within himself – the single-minded pursuit of truth and meaning of Sagittarius and the omnivorous gathering of ideas and perceptions of Gemini – is mediated by two planetary allies. Mars in Leo is trine/sextile the Sun-Moon opposition, providing relatively easy access to the will and courage to take up the reins of his destiny from an early age, and Uranus in Virgo squares Sun and Moon – activating at his Uranus opposition the capacity to revolutionize (Uranus) the techniques (Virgo) of his profession.

It was thrilling to discover– and I hope you are getting a hit of this, too – that the nodal axis can be such a profoundly apt indicator of what we may be called to create for the world as a “partner of heaven”. This is what so struck me when I looked at Ueshiba’s chart: in the living out of his enlightenment, Morihei Ueshiba did not leave his Aries South Node for the Libra North Node. He did not stop being a martial artist. Instead, he extended the mastery of warriorship implied in his Aries South Node and created a synthesis of the Aries/Libra polarity that resulted in the birth of something new into the world – a revolutionary way of resolving conflict and building peace that now has many thousands of worldwide practitioners. The archetypes of Aries and Libra are thus both made more whole by virtue of their creative merging and expression in the person of Morihei Ueshiba.

Chart 2: Nelson Mandela [July 18, 1918, 2:54pm, Umtata, South Africa] view chart

Now take a look at the chart of the great liberator of South Africa and international statesman, Nelson Mandela.

Naturally, because of what we’ve just been discussing, our eyes want to go immediately to the nodal axis. But before we go there, let’s pull back and take a few moments to understand something of the nature of this man, through a look at his primal triad of Sun, Moon and Ascendant.

He has an 8th house Cancer Sun trine Moon in Scorpio in the 12th - no dearth of sensitivity here! Here is someone whose identity and emotional intelligence are tuned to the feeling realm, to non-verbal sensing and intuition – his navigating antennae are long and exquisitely subtle. He is oriented toward nurturing, and to penetrating psychological and political insight.

Throw in the Sagittarian Ascendant – and you kind of have to laugh! Wow – what a challenge, in a way. Here’s this obviously very inwardly directed soul given the garb of an extrovert to wear in the world. A homebody instructed to seek adventure and wide exposure to foreign ideas. And the uneasy tension of this is symbolized by the Ascendant’s close quincunx to the Sun. He once said in an interview: “… wherever I travel, I immediately begin to miss the familiar … the color and smell that is uniquely South African, and, above all, the people. I do not like to be away for any length of time. For me, there is no place like home.”

Jupiter, the ruler of the Ascendant, is in Cancer, in cahoots with the watery Sun and Moon. So all this together lends a particular and, in a sense, unusual cast to the Sagittarian Ascendant. His depth of character and quiet dignity are not the least masked by his Sag rising; rather they are channeled through friendliness and communicate his apparently boundless faith that all will ultimately be well.

Has he had to face some powerful adversaries? Pluto in the house of Open Enemies in wide square to Mars in the house of Affiliations says it as clearly as his biography does. Is his Cancer Sun equipped for that? With an 8th house Sun we’re often dealing with an innately powerful personality. It could remain completely hidden from the world, operating from behind the scenes, as he was required to do when he went underground to organize, and later in prison. Unlike a 10th house Sun whose power typically resides in its being seen and legitimized by external authorities, the 8th House Sun nonetheless emanates an influence that powerfully impacts those with whom it comes into contact. At the same time, Jupiter conjunct Pluto could be said to describe formidable adversaries and formidable allies, as well as adversaries who later become staunch allies, both of which were the case in Mandela’s life.

Now let’s see what the nodes have to tell us about Mandela’s evolutionary trajectory.

South Node in Gemini, North Node in Sagittarius. One keyword or phrase we could use to describe the shared goal of these two signs is Right Knowledge. What’s the fundamental tension between them, given that they describe opposite paths to that goal? We just looked at this dichotomy in Ueshiba’s chart, with respect to his Sun and Moon. Gemini gathers information – compulsively, indiscriminately, lots of it! – while Sagittarius often cannot be bothered with facts. It’s after the proverbial pearl of great price, the Holy Grail - wisdom - and it doesn’t want to be distracted by a lot of extraneous information. Gemini says, “Well, how do you know what’s extraneous and what’s not until you look at it?” And Sag responds, maybe just a little bit imperiously, “I just know.” And sometimes, in fact, it does.

What about the 6th House/12th House polarity? We could say that the overarching theme involves those conditions that lead to Right Service. The 6th House provides opportunities for diligence and hard work, and the acceptance of unglamorous responsibility. It also, quite significantly I believe with respect to Mandela’s chart, is the house of apprenticeship and mentoring relationships, of aunts and uncles – those adults in traditional societies who still play a role in mentoring the young people in a family. There is an undercurrent of subservience in the 6th House, ideally in the form of a willing submission to learn from “the Master”, in some way. So, discipleship falls into the realm of the 6th house.

The 12th House, on the other hand, approaches Right Service through the mystical experience of Oneness with all-that-is, brought about through separation from ordinary society. Traditionally the House of Self-Undoing versus Self-Transcendence and the House of Confinement (be it in a monastery, prison, hospital or the like), it provides conditions which can facilitate confrontation with all the barriers that the ego sets up between itself and others. Successfully navigated, the 12th House leads to the Right Service that proceeds spontaneously from the recognition that “You and I are not two, but One.”

So, putting this together: South Node in Gemini in the 6th House. We’re looking at someone who is steeped in the path of apprenticeship. Someone who has spent a long time listening and learning from others more developed than he in the particular area relevant to his destiny. Throughout his life, including upon his release from prison, Mandela made it clear that he regarded himself as a “loyal and obedient servant” of the African National Congress (ANC), the liberation movement he headed before becoming South Africa’s first democratically elected president. He frequently expressed his love and gratitude to the beloved mentors that he had, such as veteran ANC leader Walter Sisulu, whose wisdom and compassion made him “practically a saint” in Mandela’s eyes.

Gemini brings communication powerfully to bear – the rapid exchange of information, busy, surface interchange with many others, talking, meetings, lots of activity. Venus is conjunct the South Node in Gemini. So, in this case, we would be imagining someone with a natural talent for charismatic communication, someone who speaks and/or writes beautifully, someone attuned to the nuances of attracting partners in the work, and potentially the financial means for carrying it out. Looking to the ruler of the South Node for more information, we find it [Mercury] in the 9th House of higher learning and cross-cultural experience, conjunct Saturn. Mercury conjunct Saturn in Leo suggests again the idea of the youthful apprentice in close relationship with an older, wiser father figure, and Leo suggests privilege, aristocracy. This conjunction trines and sextiles the Nodal Axis and Venus, opening doors for the naturally introspective Mandela. We know from his biography that he was the son of a respected tribal chief. In fact, he was the biological son of one chief, and when that chief died, he was adopted by and became the favorite son of the “paramount” chief, who arranged and paid for Mandela’s higher education. The theme of “favorite son” and humble apprentice plays out throughout Mandela’s life, in keeping with the notion that the point is not to abandon the South Node, but rather – through correct involvement with the North Node experiences that life provides – to really, in a certain sense, redeem it, to make it more whole. So his whole day-to-day involvement with the African National Congress and the beloved mentors that he had there, would also fit in with this South Node territory.

Looking to the North Node in Sagittarius for clues to the evolutionary broad jump required in this lifetime, we find it in the 12th House.

It’s a sobering realization that the experiences we require for our further evolution as partners of heaven can be thoroughly at odds with the sorts of experiences we might wish for ourselves. As the I Ching puts it: “Even good turns of fortune often come in a form that at first seems strange to us.” In Mandela’s life, doing his12th House North Node meant doing 27 years as a political prisoner of apartheid, many of those years at the notoriously cruel Robben Island Penitentiary in South Africa.

(Parenthetically, an interesting wrinkle is lent to the meaning of his nodal axis in that its placement also conjuncts the horizon. His north node is definitely in the 12th house, but it is also rising – an indicator of just how visible his confinement would be! He personified political imprisonment and the cause of dismantling apartheid for people all over the world. )

In keeping with the ruler of his North Node, Jupiter, which is conjunct Pluto, Mandela never let up in speaking truth to power during his incarceration, but also in keeping with Jupiter, he did so while maintaining an attitude of personal worth and dignity as well as faith in the possibility for spiritual growth in both his jailers and himself. He refused, for example, to wear the prison issue uniform he was originally handed, comprised of shorts and a shirt, because in South Africa at the time, shorts were only worn by little boys, and he recognized this as a way to rob prisoners of their self-respect. He resolved never to accept disrespectful treatment at the hands of his jailers, seeing such disrespect as spiritually destructive to both its victims and its perpetrators. Likewise, he did not regard his jailers as less human than himself, and the deep understanding that he developed about the power of passive resistance emerged through his daily interactions with them. Many of the guards eventually came to look upon Mandela as a holy man and a friend. Above all, Mandela viewed his nearly three decades in prison as the crucible for his own spiritual transformation as a human being and as a true leader for his people. He said: “I am grateful for the 27 years I spent in prison because it gave me the opportunity to meditate and think deeply… For all people who have found themselves in the position of being in jail and trying to transform society, forgiveness is natural because you have no time to be retaliative… You want to create an atmosphere where you can move everybody towards the goal you have set for yourself and the collective for which you work.”

Nelson Mandela insisted that he not be singled out as the architect of South Africa’s democracy and the collapse of apartheid, and he shouldn’t be – it was the result of a long and dedicated collective struggle. But if we remove Mandela from the equation, it’s impossible to imagine how it would have come about as smoothly as it ultimately did. His moral authority and colorblind sense of justice, his commitment to truth and reconciliation, and his intense compassion were key elements in South Africa’s unprecedented transformation.

From the point of view of the evolutionary synthesis hinted at by his nodal axis, Nelson Mandela came into life with an especially keen capacity to persuasively and even lovingly communicate with others, to effectively gather necessary facts and information, and to readily humble himself to learn from those wiser than he. His Moon in Scorpio and his 8th House Sun in Cancer further allowed him to be “wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove,” in the way that he put his leadership into action. There is the potential for remarkable political savvy with these placements. But in order for him to have been a partner of heaven in the creation on earth of a system of social organization that is more in keeping with the emergent Age of Aquarius, a new social system that is based on equality and justice, on truth and reconciliation, it was necessary for Nelson Mandela to greatly enlarge the scope of his daily life and understanding. It was necessary for him to be exposed to ideas that were new to him, and to a cosmic perspective that he could, perhaps, only acquire in the kind of enforced solitude and separation from society that his long years in jail provided him. Nevertheless, it was in his release from jail and his renewed engagement with the daily grind of politics and organizing that the final fulfillment of his destiny occurred. Remember that we nourish ourselves at the North Node in order to create fertilizer at the South Node. The spiritual world was able to use South Africa as a demonstration project for right revolution because Nelson Mandela threw himself completely and single-mindedly into the work of synthesis symbolized by his nodal axis. True to Sagittarius in the 12th House, he found spiritual freedom and wisdom in jail, and brought it back to enrich the soil of his daily 6th house work, becoming himself a “mentor” to the nation.

Chart 3: Mohandas Gandhi [Oct. 2, 1869, 7:12 a.m. Porbandar, India] view chart

Finally, let’s have a look at the Western style natal chart of another great spiritual and political figure, Mohandas Gandhi, known to all as Mahatma Gandhi. “Mahatma” means “great soul.”

By his own account, Gandhi was raised in a loving and supportive family. However, he describes himself as having been excruciatingly shy as a boy and utterly consumed with fears of ghosts and demons. No surprise! Fully half of his planetary energies are tied into a t-square involving Venus and Mars in Scorpio opposed Pluto and Jupiter, with Moon at the apex. His poor, little Mercury in Scorpio, unaspected as it is to other planets, had nothing to assist it in making sense of those vast, turbulent, emotional energies as a child. As James Hillman describes in his book, The Soul’s Code, the destiny of great souls seems sometimes to be sensed by them in childhood, but only as something terrifyingly enormous with which they are clearly unequipped to deal. (He points, for example, to the great orator and statesman Winston Churchill’s incapacitating stutter as a child.) In the evolutionary astrology models of both Steven Forrest and Jeffrey Green, a natal planet squaring the nodal axis represents an unresolved karmic dilemma with which the individual must successfully wrestle in order for his or her soul’s evolution to proceed. In Gandhi’s case, as you can see, this is the challenge presented by his first house Mercury in Scorpio.

There was nothing in Gandhi’s life as a young man to lead one to pick him out of a crowd. He was a mediocre student, and though he studied law at University College in London, he found himself with the unfortunate handicap of being unable to speak up in court - Mercury again. He tried in vain to start a law practice in India, and finally, out of the desperate need to provide for his family, made the fateful decision in 1893 to accept a one year contract as a legal advisor in South Africa. Fateful because this is where his lifepath reveals itself for the first time. And isn’t it remarkable – given Mandela’s achievements there some years later - how interested the spiritual world seems to be in South Africa’s potential as a social laboratory for right relations within the human family? South Africa – like his own India - was controlled by the British Empire. But the ugliness of the racism that Gandhi saw and experienced in South Africa under apartheid was unlike anything he had ever known. He was outraged. When he attempted to claim his rights as a British subject he was beaten and jailed. Gandhi was now 25, and his progressed Sun was conjunct his all-important Mercury.

Like Mandela who would follow him, it was during his imprisonment that Gandhi truly stepped into his destiny (Sun, ruler of his North Node, in Libra in the 12th.). He poured over the Bhagavad Gita, read the works of Tolstoy and Henry David Thoreau and the teachings of Jesus, and first began to formulate his ideas about strategic non-violent non-cooperation, or “passive resistance.” He developed a method of action based on principles of courage, non-violence and truth, which he called “satyagraha”, meaning truth-force. To make a long and fascinating story short, his supposed one year stay in South Africa stretched to twenty-one years, as he built a successful movement to secure the rights of Indians, enduring harsh treatment and many imprisonments along the way.

When Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he set to work addressing the similar predicament of his Motherland. He became widely revered as a saint and prophet of the people, and developed a huge body of followers who were committed to his methods of passive resistance. It was not his intention at the outset to seek Indian Independence from British rule – initially he merely sought to have the civil rights of Indians upheld. But when British troops opened fire and massacred innocent, peaceful protestors at a demonstration in 1920, Gandhi upped the stakes and began to work actively for Indian independence by instigating a nationwide campaign of non-cooperation with British laws and institutions. The long struggle paid off, and India was granted independence from Britain 1947. For this, Mahatma Gandhi is honored as the father of the nation of India.

Audience Participation

Let’s begin our investigation of Gandhi’s nodal “instructions”, by diving right into the nodes themselves. And let’s do it systematically, together. The strategy for analyzing the nodal axis that we will be applying here owes everything to the fathers of evolutionary astrology, Steven Forrest and Jeffrey Green. With minor additions to encourage attention to the creative synthesis that is the subject of this talk, this systematic approach to the nodes is that developed and taught by them in their respective schools.

1. What is the basic tension between the particular signs involved in the nodal axis? [Leo/Aquarius – desires of the individual versus future of the collective; individuality vs individuation, etc]

2. What is their shared goal? [ Self-definition; defining I-ness]

3. What are the strengths of the sign containing the South Node? [Aquarius: detached, dispassionate, willing to experiment - potential to see and respond creatively to the evolutionary requirements of society]

4. What are some of the pitfalls of the sign containing the South Node that might need balancing in this life? [Aquarius: psychological/traumatic dissociation; so eccentric or detached as to be useless to the whole]

5. What is the basic tension between the houses in which the nodes the nodes fall? [4th/10th – inner/private life versus outer/public life]

6. Now imagine the potential pitfalls of the south node sign in the south node house --- what could that look like? [Aquarius in the 4th: inner “spiritual” detachment so complete as to render one disinclined to get involved in the outer world.]

7. Is there a planet conjunct the south node? Consider that a prominent feature of the personality of the past. It's helpful to think of the south node as the person's Sun in the past; thus, a planet conjunct that is a powerful modifier of the past personality. [No planet conjunct either node in Gandhi’s case]

8. Anything conjunct the north node? A planet conjunct the north node would be an indicator of a person or circumstances that opposed or somehow blocked the person in the past (since it's opposed the south node). [Again, n/a in this case.]

9. What planet rules the sign of the south node? Where is that planet (by sign and house)? This gives more important information about the past personality and behavior. [Uranus in the 9th rules Gandhi’s south node in Aquarius, pointing to ‘unorthodox religious genius’]

10. Is there anything square the nodes? Remember to think of a planet squaring the nodes as a "skipped step" in the evolutionary process -- something the person will be forced to deal with in this life. It may represent a person or circumstance or ideology from the past that persists as an unresolved dilemma. [In G’s case, Ist house Mercury in Scorpio squares the nodal axis: the unresolved dilemma is developing the courage both to break taboos in speaking truth to power and to be a leader for others in that struggle.]

11. Where is the planet that rules the north node, by house and sign? This gives us information about how the north node should ideally express itself. What circumstances can you imagine would link the north node house and sign with the house and sign of the planet that rules the north node? [G’s north node (Leo) is ruled by the Sun. His Sun is in Libra in the 12th house, representing the identification with non-violence gained through seclusion/imprisonment. The circumstances that forced Gandhi’s removal from society (as distinct from the chosen seclusion of the monk or hermit), caused the reality of human suffering and injustice to penetrate his awareness and activate his will, thus allowing him to place his Self at the disposal of the spiritual world in the most visible, public ways – North Node Leo in the 10th - a situation that would otherwise be anathema to a traditional Hindu saint.]

Conclusion

Gandhi’s autobiography is called “Experiments with Truth”. With his South Node in Aquarius in the 4th house, we see his loyalty to truth and already developed capacity for experimentation at inner levels well symbolized. But it is through his willingness to take up the large (and we must assume terrifying) public destiny implied by his North Node in Leo in the 10th house that his Aquarian experiments with truth came to completion and bore fruit for the further evolution of humanity.

In the ultimately untellable mystery that is the inner/outer cosmos in which we live and move and have our being, we are ourselves universes as well as individual cells within the greater Whole. Martin Luther King, Jr., another great soul whose chart we might have looked at today, said: “The arc of the universe bends toward justice.” I believe it does, and that it arcs even more elementally toward that overflowing joy that gave birth to the exuberant, uncontainable outburst that we call the Big Bang. The journey symbolized by our nodes is ultimately a journey toward joy, and toward becoming partners of heaven in spreading that joy.

© Anita Doyle, 2004                       [Click here for worksheet: Tips on Working with the Nodes]

Anita Doyle has been a certified transpersonal counselor and educator since 1983. She has a fulltime practice in soul-centered, evolutionary astrology and dreamwork, and has been a student of meditation and the I Ching for over 30 years. Her writing has appeared in Tricycle:The Buddhist Review, Parabola, The Dream Network Journal, Northern Lights and other national publications. She completed graduate studies in medicine at the University of Colorado, and is a diplomate of the Steven Forrest program in evolutionary astrology. Anita also served as a founding member and director of the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center in Missoula, Montana. To inquire about personal consultations and tutorials, or for further info, visit her website: www.integralbeing.org or click on one of the links at the bottom of this page.

Birth data sources for this presentation:

Morihei Ueshiba - Birth date from multiple on-line biographies. Birth time unavailable from any source that I was able to access via international Aikido organizations and chat groups.

Nelson Mandela - Various biographers give birth time as 3:00pm. According to AstroDataBank, Noel Tyl "rectified the time...to 2:54pm," and astrologer Rod Suskin from South Africa provides a "veritable catalog" of supportive details for Tyl's rectification.

Mohandas Gandhi - AstroDataBank gives birthtime as 7:11:48 AM, but with a less than fully reliable "C" rating. However, virtually all birth times given for Gandhi range from 7:00 to 7:33AM LMT, which - in any event - keep the nodes in the 4th/10th polarity.

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