The Latitude Cycle

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THE LATITUDE CYCLE

Dane Rudhyar

This cycle of planetary or lunar motion in latitude is similar to the yearly cycle of apparent motion of the Sun in "declination" (i.e., north and south of the plane of the Earth's equator). For six months (winter and spring) the Sun "moves northward, " and sunrises and sunsets take place increasingly to the north of their position at Christmas time. The Sun's northward crossing of the equatorial plane (i.e., Spring equinox) corresponds to the north nodes of the planets and of the Moon. At the summer solstice (Cancer 0°) the Sun has is maximum north declination, and this is the point of maximum solar power and consciousness - corresponding to the planets' points of maximum north latitude. After that, the Sun begins to move southward in declination and the points of sunsets also gradually move to the south in the western horizon; until the Sun reaches declination 0° and crosses the equatorial plane in a southward direction. This is the Fall equinox, seed-time - which corresponds to the south node of the planets.

The analogy between the yearly cycle in declination of the Sun and the nodal cycles in latitude of the planets is, however, not to be taken too literally, in terms of the meanings of the cycles, because different factors are involved; yet it is quite revealing in that, in both cases, we deal with two hemicycles of motion, one northward and the other southward. In the case of the solar cycle, moving northward means reaching toward the pole of the earth-globe; while where the nodal cycles of planets are considered the north pole is the pole of the ecliptic. These two poles are separated by an arc of over twenty-three degrees and have distinct characteristics in astrological symbolism, yet both have the basic meaning of the symbol of "North." And North refers to spiritual power while South represents intensity of biological experiences and emotional behavior. At least, this is what these directions have meant for millennia in the northern hemisphere of the globe; and the reasons for such meanings are varied.

The question is, of course, whether, if very original and autonomous civilizations should develop in the southern hemisphere, the symbolism will not be reversed, just as the seasons of the year are reversed. Such a reversal would seem logical, but it is also possible to believe that the poles are periodically reversed - perhaps at the close of some large cycle - and that great cultures are always born in the northern hemisphere. If Brazil were to be the seat of a new civilization it might be only after such a reversal of the poles, or at least a complete change in the electro-magnetic polarities of the Earth-field. There may once have been a great continent where the Southern Pacific ocean is now found, and Australia and Indonesia may be remnants of it; but it was perhaps directly under what then was the north pole.

The north pole, wherever located, would thus always be the place of intake of spiritual-cosmic power; the south pole, a place of release. But release of what? It can be of two basically different types of substances. The cycle of yearly plants will provide us with at least a symbolical analogy; for while in springtime we witness a mysterious surge of life under the warming rays of the sun - as if the Earth had been absorbing and assimilating new energy - when the Fall equinox arrives, we are facing the disintegration of the vegetation and the fall of the leaves to the soil dampened by autumnal rains (at least in our mostly temperate climates). But it is not only disintegration! The leaves fall, but so do the seed; and the seed does not decay. It carries within its tough outside covering the promise of renascent life.

As already stated, the nodes in the cycle of latitude - whether of the planets or of the Moon - correspond to the equinoxes in the solar cycle of declination. Astrologers today begin the "natural year" at the spring equinox, and what occurs then is said to affect the succeeding twelve month period. The same type of reasoning provides the north node of a planet with part of its basic meaning, in that what happens when the planet is at its north node tends to characterize the entire period of the latitude cycle of the planet. But the basic difference is that in the solar year cycle we deal with the relationship between the Sun and the globe of the Earth, while in a nodal cycle we deal with the relationship between a planet - always including the Moon - and the orbit of the Earth; and the orbit itself is an expression of the relationship between the Earthglobe and the Sun.

One of the most significant ways of thinking of the nodes is to consider them as two "gates." When a planet is at its north node, its essential function and quality in the solar system is focused upon our Earth-space which is then most able to absorb and assimilate it. When the planet is at its south node what is released as "substantial" factors are the results of the relationship between the characteristic nature of the planet and whatever in the Earth-space has absorbed its power. If the relationship has been positive, then what has been absorbed has also been "assimilated" and integrated to the Earth-consciousness and has produced a new "seed," i.e., new experiences and values. If the relationship has proven negative, what is being released or exteriorized are disintegrating materials, or negative existential results.

As to the moments when the planet reaches the points of maximum latitude, these represent turning points or moments of inner decision.

As an illustration of this cyclic process, the latitude cycle of Uranus, which is particularly significant for the United States, should prove quite revealing.

In July, 1861, Uranus was crossing the ecliptic northward, thus at its north node and with latitude 00. This was early in the Civil War and probably very near the time of the Union's defeat at Bull Run. Uranus reached its point of maximum latitude north in March, 1883 (latitude north 0°49), and crossed the ecliptic southward in February, 1901. The point of maximum latitude south was touched during September, 1922; and the cycle ended on July 20, 1945, a few days after the atomic bomb explosion in New Mexico. The four "critical" years (or phases) of the cycle were thus: 1861, 1883, 1900-01, 1923 - and again 1945.

The sixties of last century, if the pattern is significant, should have been a period of "intake" of Uranian energies - and so should have been, an entire cycle before, the years following 1777; and at this present time, the years following 1945. The historical record is fairly clear on these points; except of course, that some people might wish, on purely historical grounds, to choose other dates as the most significant in this connection! Nevertheless, Uranus is the symbol of the transforming function in man and in society. Wherever some basic metamorphosis takes place, there we must consider Uranus essentially at work - even though a complete process of metamorphosis (social or personal) requires also the activity of the functions represented by Neptune and Pluto.

Surely basic world-transformations occurred during the periods 1776 to 1789 (American and French Revolutions, U.S. Constitution, the discovery of Uranus, etc.) and 1860 to 1870 (Civil War, Abolition of Slavery, Franco-German War and the world-ascendancy of U.S.A., imperial Germany and Japan, the Proclamation of Baha'u'llah beginning the first religious movement for a federal World-Order, etc.) Lastly, since the revelation of the possibility of use of atomic power for either destruction or complete economic world transformation, we find humanity facing an even more momentous opportunity for Uranian metamorphosis.

As in the case of the solar year, the increase of the power of the solar rays is being felt some weeks before the spring equinox, so, in the case of all nodal or latitude cycles, an increase in the radiation of the planet's characteristic attributes is felt gradually as this planet approaches latitude 00 and its "northward crossing" of the ecliptic. Uranus had maximum south latitude in 183949, and from then on the planet's revolutionary power transformed utterly our Western Society and all that this Society touched. The momentum of the Industrial Revolution was most definite around 1840; but it reached only its most concrete effects in the sixties. The post-Civil-War era, with its transcontinental routes firmly established and the spread of large business corporations, marked the definite building-up of the United States as a great power. Likewise, in the religious field, the Bahai Movement began in 1844 with the Revelation of the first Persian Prophet, the Bab; but it took form as a potential worldwide structure only after Baha'u'llah's Declaration in 1863, and when this latter Prophet established the fundamental principles of a truly World-Order on a religious basis. In the field of political communism, Marx's Manifesto appeared in 1848; but the "Bible" of modern communism which made world-history in half of the inhabited globe was published in 1867, and the first Communist Revolution occurred in France in 1871, the "Commune." In the field of science, German materialism and statism developed in the forties, but Darwinism gained power in the sixties, and together with it, the whole approach to biology and medicine symbolized by Pasteur.

Of course, the influence of Neptune has to be added to that of Uranus in analyzing the Victorian Era. Neptune was at its south node in 1839, and reached its north node in June-July 1920, at the time of the formation of the League of Nations its maximum latitude south (1°51') having been reached presumably in the fall of 1877 (Neptune in Taurus). It must have had maximum latitude north at the very close of the 18th century (beginning of the Napoleonic Era). Romanticism and the spread of German music, the socialism and humanitarianism of the eighteen-forties, American Spiritualism, the use of anaesthetics and, in industry, of oil, also large-scale nationalism and imperialism - these and other factors typical of the Victorian Era can be related to the Neptunian function releasing both its spiritual seeds and its negative glamour around its southward crossing the ecliptic. Finally, the more positive in-taking of Neptunian power began during the last decades of the 19th century and the new approach toward world-federalism and a global society grew in significance, culminating in the Wilsonian ideal of 1919-1920, and the victory of sea-controlling and oil-rich nations, with Neptune at its north node.

While the Victorian Era can thus be said to be characterized - in a very broad sense and according to our present point of view - by a combination of Neptune-south-node and Uranus-northnode "influences," the first half of the 20th century can be seen highlighted by a combination of Neptune-north-node and Pluto-north-node energies, developing during the passage of Uranus through its south latitude hemicycle (1901-1945) - i.e., the period between the announcement of the Quantum Theory (and, soon after, of Einstein's formula) and the final concrete demonstration of atomic power. The second half of our century, on the other hand, begins with and will be overshadowed by the north node position of Uranus July 1945). Pluto was at its north node in September 1930, beginning its cycle just after its discovery by human eyes and minds. Its preceding cycle had begun around the winter 1682, with the south-node-crossing in 1770 and the point of maximum south latitude (17°28') in the fall 1840.

We took the relatively large periods of these three planets to illustrate the general pattern of the latitude cycle but the rhythm of intake and release of the more rapidly moving planets is just as significant, provided one is able to isolate clearly the basic life-function to which each planet refers, and provided one does not mix planes of significance in the interpretation. The cyclic pattern gives also valid indication in the field of lunar activity, and provides means of dividing the lunar "month" from north node to north node. This nodal month is slightly shorter than the sidereal month (successive conjunctions with a fixed star), for during the latter period of 27,322 days the nodes have regressed nearly 1&1/2 degrees. It would seem logical to consider this period from north node to north node as that to which the "lunar mansions" should be referred, as Charles Jayne also once suggested; for this nodal month refers to the motion of the Moon on her own orbital plane, and thus should be said to represent the field of purely lunar activity - the field of the Moon-function.

The Moon's maximum of latitude north or south are 5°17', and they are reached when the Moon's positions in the zodiac are at 90° angle to the nodal axis. At these points the lunar function operates with a minimum degree of focalization in earth-nature and in all bio-psychic organisms. The Moon is as far withdrawn from the Earth as she can be; yet, at the same time, she is most active in her own sphere. What happens in that sphere during these moments of maximum latitude becomes focused and exteriorized during the days when the Moon, every month, is conjunct her nodes. These are therefore days during which all that the Moon represents in the fields of man's organic psychological and social activity is brought to focus in man's consciousness.

Because the Moon's orbit surrounds closely the Earth-globe it has been said to be like a womb enfolding the life-sphere of our planet. It is therefore the symbol of the Mother principle - first at the biological level, but also at the psychological and social levels - because it is the mother who surrounds the helpless infant with care, and sees to it that he is able to meet successfully the varied and ever-recurrent needs or problems of everyday life. In time, however, the child should develop his own faculty of adaptation to his total environment, and therefore the Moon in astrology stands for whatever refers to such a faculty in its many aspects - biological, emotional and mental.

Generally speaking, any person with a natal Moon near her nodes is likely to be strongly influenced by his or her mother, or by a substitute "Mother Image." A state of dependence upon the "Mother" (in whatever form or condition) tends to be established when the Moon is near the north node; also a tendency to repudiate the mother and her influence should be strong with the natal Moon at the south node. But a south node Moon may refer even more to a transformation of the actual mother-relationship into a transcendent psychic Image (which may lead to religious or inspirational experiences), or to a powerful yearning for being an actual mother and for exercising maternal authority over physical or intellectual children.

The results of both these nodal positions of the Moon can be either constructive (toward sanity) or destructive (toward insanity). A strong reliance upon the mother may be transformed, as the personality matures, into a valuable emphasis upon the ability to adjust to circumstances by means of a strongly developed capacity to "feel one's way" through life. This can mean sheer opportunism and behavior dictated by pure convenience, but also diplomacy and tact, the power of sympathy for and of understanding of other people and as a result the ability to give psychological help as well as to move adroitly through a disordered society. But if the personality cannot overcome the most obvious and instinctual or psychic types of attachment to the actual mother (largely, in most cases, because of this mother's attitude), then a condition of personal maturity may never be reached. On the other hand, a natal Moon conjunct the south node can mean a negative kind of "mother complex" based on a mixture of inner bondage and strong resentment, or a deep, innate and instinctive ability to act positively as a "mother" in various kinds of relationships - to adjust situations and problems for others.

When, in a chart, the Moon is in square to her nodal axis (maximum of latitude north or south) the tendency is for the mother-function, or the capacity to adjust to everyday life, to operate in a somewhat remote and subjective, rather than efficacious and objective, manner. Finally, the distinction between a natal Moon with north latitude (i.e., between the north node and the south node, in the normal order of zodiacal signs) and one with south latitude, can be of very real meaning astro-psychological analysis - just as it is important to know whether a person is born during the spring-summer, or during the fallwinter periods of the year.

When the Moon has north latitude one should be able to discover an underlying tendency toward paying great attention to a successful adjustment to the environment; and this can mean at the social level ambition, the strong desire to control the environment, and perhaps a yearning for personal fame or at least prestige. The individual makes an issue of his personal position.

On the other hand, when the Moon has south latitude one's attitude toward the environment, especially at the psychological and social levels, is not as much a personal issue. It is taken for granted in terms of some already established collective experience. There is a deep reliance upon a power within or without, which has, in a sense, already decided the issue.

These are subtle matters, but they may become clearer by the fact that President Johnson had the Moon in north latitude, while General Charles de Gaulle had it in south latitude, the former has shown an intensely personal and ambitious approach to his society, the latter always felt himself only the agent for a national super-personal purpose, i.e., as acting in terms of ancestral Images. Lenin and Bismarck were also Moon in south latitude types, while Stalin, Khrushshev and Hitler were Moon in north latitude types. The great yogis and carriers of the ancient traditions of India, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Aurobindo had their natal Moon's. in south latitude.

The distincton between the two types of lunar positions at birth should not be unduly stressed, and many other factors may radically affect the situation, but I believe that this latitude factor is worth taking in consideration. It is especially significant when the Moon's nodal axis, and the nodal axis of the larger planets are identical with the natal horizon or meridian - as we shall presently see.

Person-Centered Astrology