The Moon's Nodes Cycle

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THE MOON'S NODES CYCLE

Dane Rudhyar

The axis of the Moon's nodes has a retrograde motion in the zodiac; and retrograde motion, in geocentric astrology, means motion in a direction opposite to that which the Sun and the Moon always follow. As these two "Lights" symbolize essentially, in terms of any earthly organism, the bi-polar life-force, a retrograde motion is one that takes place in counterpoint to the life-force. In times when the worship of this life-force (cults of fertility, sex-oriented rituals, etc.) was the basic factor in tribal religions and agricultural societies, retrograde motion was usually given a more or less negative meaning. Today the situation is quite different. Any type of retrograde motion is seen rather to indicate an inward directed process. It is linked therefore to introversion. Such processes run against direct and spontaneous self-exteriorization in outward directed activity, but this certainly does not mean that they should be given a negative value in terms of the over-all development of an individual person.

These remarks apply especially to the retrograde phase of the planets' cycle. (1) - a phase resulting from the combination of the motions of the planets and the Earth as celestial bodies. Thus the time when Mercury is retrograde may not be the best time to start some definitely outward directed project; but it is during such a period that the mind of the individual may be able to separate itself from its natural or original bio-psychic subjection to the demands of life's survival and expansion, and thus to gain greater objectivity and independence from instinctual drives and gland-controlled emotions. The retrograde period of Venus may also be an excellent time to re-grasp and revalue the meaning of past emotional experiences or cultural achievements; and that of Mars, a time to reexamine and reassess one's characteristic type of behavior and motives for action.

In the case of the Moon's nodes, however, we do not deal with the combined motions of celestial bodies but with the relationship between two orbits. What happens is that the plane of the Moon's orbit has a sliding "backward" motion with reference to the plane of the Earth's orbit, the zodiac. This motion is continuous; the Moon's nodes never go "forward" in longitude. This fact can be related to the symbolical character of the Moon, for actually the Moon function of adaptation to everyday life is one that is based on past experiences, whether it be the past of the individual person or that of the human race. The Mother function itself is deeply rooted in the racial past and the unconsciousness of instincts. The contemporary trend, especially in America, to replace maternal instinctual behavior by a conscious type of book-knowledge - even if called "scientific" - is one of the tragic features of our actually disintegrating Western civilization.

The retrograde motion of the Moon's nodes, being an expression of the manner in which the essential character of the Moon affects the Earthbeing, deals therefore fundamentally with the past - which does not mean that it has to be given a negative or pejorative meaning! In a collective sense, it can be said to deal with what, in occultism and among esoteric Brotherhoods, is meant by "the Tradition." All religions and esoteric movements are founded upon some kind of "original Revelation," upon the appearance among men of great Beings who incarnated as well as distributed spiritual-cosmic knowledge and taught basically sound disciplines or techniques of living. Progress for the confused and untrained person may thus mean, in a sense, a "return to Source." We still see this operating in the "Great Books" concept and the so-called "Humanities," which imply learning from the past of the race and the great moments of history and culture.

If this process today arouses very little enthusiasm, to say the least, among many youths, it is because they deeply feel that our entire Western civilization has brought mankind to an impending catastrophe and that therefore its past is of little or no value; they long for either a totally new creative divine outpouring, or for a still more remote past whose Great Tradition by far antedates the beginnings of Western civilization in Greece and the Near East some 2500 years ago.

Be that as it may, the symbolism of the retrograde motion of the Moon's nodes refers to a process by means of which an individual can not only recapitulate his past in search of the deepest meaning of its outer experiences, but perhaps also reach deeper sources of knowledge in terms of his relationship to the events and the basic needs of the time in which he lives. This process has a definite rhythm which stresses the numbers 19 and 9. The north node regresses by some 3 minutes in the zodiac every day; it returns to its natal place in 18.6 years, and the nodal axis is reversed i.e., the north node reaches the place of the natal south node - in a little over 9 years.

This Moon nodes cycle is important in astronomy because it has a direct connection with the cyclic recurrence of solar and lunar eclipses. These eclipses occur when a New Moon or a Full Moon takes place in the vicinity of the zodiacal degrees occupied by the north and south nodes. These occurrences were carefully computed in Chaldea and two significant cycles were known. The Metanic cycle refers to the return of the New Moon to approximately the same zodiacal degree; some of these New Moons are solar eclipses, but not all. The Saros cycle lasts 18 years and 11&1/3 days, and refers to the recurrence of an eclipse in relation to its actual visibility on the Earth's surface. This period contains 223 lunar months and includes 70 eclipses; 41 are solar, and 29 lunar. Every 18 years and 11&1/3 days an eclipse belonging to a particular Saros series occurs, and it occurs (because of the 1/3 of a day, i.e., of the daily rotation of the Earth) 120 degrees of geographical longitude more to the West. Thus in three Saros cycles totaling 54 years one month and one day an eclipse occurs about the same terrestrial longitude, but not zodiacal longitude. However, if it is a solar eclipse, its track will be found several hundred miles farther north or south in terrestrial latitude.

From the archaic, strictly geocentric and vitalistic point of view, eclipses were obviously startling phenomena; and they still are spectacular when full, but they are important, astrologically speaking, mostly in terms of the lunation cycle. From the point of view of orbital astrology, they relate most significantly the Moon-factor not only to the Earth, but to the Sun, the main focus of the elliptical orbit of the Earth. If the Moon represents the "past," the Sun stands for the "present" simply because it provides the power to exist as a living organism here and now. In a solar eclipse the past tends to obscure the present; in a lunar eclipse the present tends to obliterate the past. This need not be considered catastrophic, and most of what archaic or classical astrology states about eclipses should be dismissed, if only for psychological reasons, as the fear of an eclipse over one's natal Sun or important planets may be highly detrimental. Great success has come to men when a solar eclipse fell on their birthday; but this success sometimes is not permanent. Strongly karmic factors may be involved and a sudden eruption of what Carl Jung called "contents of the Collective Unconscious."

From the point of view of the Moon's nodes cycles, what is basic is the periodic motion of the nodal axis around the chart. This retrograde motion usually reveals moments of great individual significance when the nodes touch the two Lights or some planetary groupings, and come to coincide with the natal horizon and meridian. The 19 year period is indeed well worth studying and I can vouch for its importance in my own life as I approach the age of 76 (four times 19) while writing these pages. I suggest that everyone should study how it, and the 9 year cycle (often used by numerologists, particularly by the great pioneer Azo Neith Cochran), relates to important turning points or achievements in his or her life. In some cases the exact nodal returns, in others the more abstract and numerological 19-year cycle, turns out to be the most revealing.

As the nodal cycle has a mean 18.6 years value it refers to both the numbers 18 and 19; and interestingly enough in the Tarot symbolism, 18 is symbolized by a "weeping Moon" and 19 by a radiant Sun. The "New Age" calendar inaugurated by the Persian Avatar, the Bab, contains 19 months of 19 days each plus four or five intercalary and festival days just preceding the spring equinox.(2) The Bab had 18 disciples, himself representing the number 19; and it is interesting to compare this with the Christ-situation with Jesus and his twelve disciples. The zodiacal number 12 is a solar number; 19 refers to the soli-lunar cycle.

To give examples of how the Moon's nodes cycles refers to important turning points in an individual life is rather futile, as what is involved is often very personal and does not refer to outer events, though sometimes it clearly does and we can see emerging a definite rhythm or destiny. I shall only mention the case of President Truman who assumed his office under particularly critical circumstances after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884 with the 17th degree of Libra rising, and the North Node at 21°48' of Libra. In this case the Nodal axis and the birth-horizon nearly coincide, which tends to show a life controlled by Fate or Destiny; that is, a life in which the present is directly a consequence of the past or against the present a life controlled by Karma - and let us not forget that there is a racial-national Karma as well as a personal one.

After Truman's birth, the North Node moved , 'backward', along the upper half of his natal chart - a half in which we find all planets except the Moon. This Moon, however, rules the whole chart as it is in the first House, and it rules the 10th House, while Venus (ruler of Libra rising) is in the lunar sign, Cancer. This made of Truman an opportunist with a remarkable capacity for adaptation to public situations - and most likely with a strong mother complex of one kind or another (and there are many kinds).

At the end of August, 1893, Harry Truman was in his tenth year and the Nodes had reversed their positions, the North Node being now where the South Node was at birth. Late in December 1902 and again in late in July 1921, the North Node returned to its natal place. We shall consider only the last mentioned return, for it is then, at the age of 37 that Truman's political life really began. He became a county judge in 1922 with the help of Tom Pendergast's political machine which ran Kansas City and the county; and in 1926 he was elected "presiding judge."

In the 1932 Elections (when F .D. Roosevelt rose to national power) Truman tried in vain to become governor of Missouri. The transiting North Node was now in the natal South Node hemisphere, the South Node passing through the natal North Node hemisphere and over Uranus (late April 1932). In 1934 at the request of Pendergast Truman ran for the U .S. Senate and was elected as the transiting South Node moved through his natal tenth House and was about to reach his natal Jupiter. He was "releasing" in his new public function the capacities he had built through the years of his judicial career, close to a political machine. He worked hard, followed consistently the New Deal line, and stood firm when the Pendergast machine was investigated and broken up. He was reelected in 1940; he was in his fifty-seventh year. The North Node had returned to its natal place in mid-March 1940. This new nodal cycle was to be the crucial one.

Then came the organization of a Senate special committee for the investigation of the national defense program. As its chairman, Harry Truman obtained national fame and prestige, and in the summer 1944 he was picked by the Democratic Party as its candidate for VicePresident. In view of Roosevelt's health condition this fourth term of his presented the probability of Truman becoming President of the United States. This happened all too soon (April 12, 1945), only less than three months after the new Administration was sworn in. The North Node was on that day at 13°23 Cancer, very close to Truman's Mid Heaven (Cancer 18°45') and to the midpoint of the arc between his natal Venus and Jupiter (Cancer 16°3').

He was reelected in 1948 in spite of many predictions he would not be. Interestingly enough the South Node was then on Truman's dominant natal Moon, and there had been a solar eclipse exactly on his natal Sun of the preceding May 9th, and another, near his natal Moon, came on November 1st - which shows that solar eclipses can mean an intensification of the natal planet they touch - for Truman's Moon rules his tenth House and his public status. The contact between the transiting South Node and this Moon released what had been built up while the North Node was moving through the North Node hemisphere of the chart, dynamizing most of the chart's planets - the last contacts being with the natal Neptune and Sun January-February 1948).Interestingly enough the North Node had moved over Truman's natal Moon in July-August 1939 - at the time of the Russo-German Treaty which set the stage for Hitler's invasion of Poland, the beginning of World War II. Actually, even if indirectly, it was World War II which brought Truman to the Presidency, and gave him the awesome responsibility of ordering the use of the atom bomb over Japan.

1) What is called "converse progressions" in astrology - Le., going backward in the ephemeris from the date of birth, one day per year of the life - also refers to the fateful results of the past of the Soul, i.e., to basic "Karmic" occurrences.

2) The 19th month is a period of fasting. Each month carries such a name as Splendor, Glory, Beauty, Grandeur, Light, Mercy, etc. ending with Dominion and Loftiness. The days in this calendar, officially adopted by the present Bahai Faith, begin at sunset. There are cycles of 19 years, and a period of 361 years.

Person Centered Astrology