By Len Wallick
It’s been a long time comin’ / It’s goin’ to be a long time gone.”
–David Crosby and friends
The ascending, or “North” lunar node finally begins a dance of a conjunction with Pluto and Charon in Capricorn today. It truly has been a long time coming.
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Breaking it down is entirely in order. The apparent path of the Sun across the constellations of the zodiac is in fact the path of the Earth around the Sun. The rotation and tilt of our planet and your position on the globe is factored in. If we were able to pull back and see the solar system from the outside, we would note that our orbit around the Sun consistently traces out a plane that is more or less the same year after year. It is also very close to the orbital plane of most of the major planets. The apparent path (our terrestrial point of view) and the orbital plane (the detached, imaginary point of view) are both referred to as the ecliptic.
The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not in the ecliptic. If it were, every New Moon would be a solar eclipse and every Full Moon would be a lunar eclipse. Instead, the lunar orbit is inclined to the ecliptic by about five degrees. There are two points of intersection. Where Luna rises above the ecliptic is the ascending node, also somewhat arbitrarily referred to as “North”. Ancient astrological texts from the western world use the term ‘dragon’s head’. The Vedic astrologers use the word ‘Rahu’.
But wait, there’s more. The Moon’s path exhibits a complex but predictable ‘wobble’. To get a feel for it, think ‘elastic’. Because of that wobble, there are actually two ascending nodes. The ‘true node’, where it is for a moment and the ‘mean node’ where the wobble is averaged out. Then, on top of that, the apparent motion of the nodes can appear to be either direct or retrograde. In the course of a month, they can oscillate back and forth a handful of times. Over time however, the net result is retrograde motion.
Combine the inclination to the ecliptic with the wobble and the to-and-fro and that makes any conjunction with any lunar node, be it ascending, descending, true or mean, one crazy dance. The ascending node entered Capricorn through the back door well over a year ago and has been doing the Ginger Rogers thing ever since. Pluto first entered Capricorn in 2008 and has been doing some dancing of its own.
Or perhaps dawdling would be a more accurate term. Pluto takes nearly two and a half centuries to orbit the Sun. Earth, by definition, does it in one year. The result of this extreme ratio is that Pluto appears to be in retrograde nearly half the time. It seems to take forever to move through any given sign although, over time the net result is direct motion.
Finally today, and functionally for the next several, the dancer and the dawdler get together for a spin around the floor. This is especially poignant when you consider that the next time the ascending node reaches Capricorn, nearly two decades from now, Pluto will have moved on to another sign.
So, now that we have finally gotten there (and taken an appropriate length of time explaining it), what are we to make of it? Certainly something so long in coming would merit an auspicious appellation. Assuredly an event destined to be so long gone would have some sort of legacy. Don’t know? Well, astrology is 20-20 hindsight. That still does not keep us from indulging ostensibly informed speculation. Put another nickel in the slot and let’s give it a whirl, starting with the lunar node.
Of all the objects in astrology, be they hypothetical or real, nothing speaks to the relationship between our planet and the two luminaries like the nodes do. Eclipses are of primal importance to our consciousness and the nodes are where they take place. Their period of precession around the zodiac is about midway between the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn, lending that cycle an interpersonal cachet. Their inevitable and eternal opposition defines that aspect just as signs of the same quality define square and signs of the same element example a trine.
The ascending node in particular is associated with the future. It is evocative of acting on opportunity with awareness, as if to create the world. As if to choose our consequences. Use “as if” as a term of invoking possibility rather than cynical resignation.
If astrology can be said to start with first the Sun and then the Moon, then the nodes are what allows us to make sense of the triad of which our planet is a part. They are the story, we and the luminaries are the characters.
Pluto in Capricorn has a similar role in the curious synchronicity of outer, epochal planets simultaneously assembling around and dawdling, back and forth over the first degrees of three of the four cardinal signs. It was the first planet into the cardinal office, turning on the lights and making the coffee. It will be the last planet to leave, shutting the server down and locking the doors so as to fix whatever pattern that will have transpired into place for a long, long time.
Pluto’s orbital period and its aspects will designate crucial points of departure that many of us will see only in hindsight. In the process, Pluto will be re-defined and separated from an identity hastily constructed the first eighty years we knew it existed. How tenuous is Pluto as an actuality? Have you ever seen it in real time with your own eyes? Do you know anybody who has?
Seeing Pluto requires an adequate telescope and proficient operator — a relatively rare combination which could conceivably become more so. Just as we currently do not have the wherewithal to land on the Moon and return, our ability to observe Pluto directly could also undergo a period of atrophy for any number of reasons. We can’t take things for granted. The systems that underlie and support the ability to locate and observe Pluto could be interrupted, resources re-directed or outright abandoned in the future. If it happened with travel to the Moon, it could happen with Pluto. It would serve various agendas if people lost visual contact with the night sky, and the cycles of the Sun and Moon. Indeed, this transitional time may, among many possible outcomes, herald an epoch during which future generations will be without the means to empirically verify Pluto’s existence at all, leaving only a tribal memory until we complete a long cycle of our own.
So, yeah, this is quite a waltz today and through the rest of the weekend. On the one hand Pluto, a binary dwarf planet that most of us will never see with our own eyes. On the other, a rubbery and erratic location in our abstracted imagination. And you, reading this, are living while it is happening. You are no mere witness to this singular event. You are a part of everything else going on. Your choices will effect the outcome. You have also been a long time coming. Consider how you can make the most of it. Your smallest action could make a huge difference in the life of someone you will never meet.
Offered In Service
ps: I have printed out the piece to read and re-read. I will make it my business to get this node-stuff!! argg with my own natal north node @ 4 cap it seems about time.
mm.
oh, my it is good to be here, to check in and read what loving and mindful folk “we” are 🙂 … I was planning on writing “you” and then I felt moved to be named as one of such a community. I’m sorry I don’t check in more often for I find that part of me that I love is tickled and coaxed into joining in.
Seems all too rare to find a place to search out and share emotional intelligence … may I take this moment to salute the few the brave! 🙂
mary
The crumbling is why “they” are holding on so tightly just now. (the “ignorant”) and we know the wall will crumble no matter how tightly it is held.
Yeti yes, the Canoe Skin is lovely, and dear-hide no doubt, blessed and shown gratitude.
Me thinks there is no “down-time” re power and internet. Take a breath, we are all One; there is no way to ‘lose touch.’
(Laughingly – I understand yr intent, shebear – what we currently perceive as tangible reality 🙂
– as for me I feel this all as a Breathe In moment.
As for the News, for the past weeks and forward my 1-item focus is the stock-market news (oh well, pretty big “1-item”)….the national and global economic trends/cues given during the course of straight-up money-on-the-table business news is enlightening and fascinating.
wandering yeti,
Exquisitely said; what a great blend of north node opportunity and Pluto the transformer combined with the degree symbolism. You are a sensitive soul as anyone can see and I had not thought of this canoe symbol before as being like a skin for the group. To protect and to sense as an entity what we have only been able to sense as individuals. . .up to now. Thank you for that visual and for reminding us what our priorities and our values must be from now on.
Thanks hypnotic, and shebear, I too have come to depend on the internet, especially the interactive feature here at PW. I went a few days with only direct, face-to-face communicating; you know. . .real people? I almost “lost it” but glad I got back in time to catch this thread of Len’s today, and all the comments. So I wish for your mas-marketed solar-powered laptops too.
With the Sun soon entering Sagittarius and a lunar eclipse in the last degrees of Sagg and Gemini next month, and with the nodes so close at that time to being on the “Aries” points, maybe we should plan a group visualization to include the pertinent ideas discussed here. Maybe on Dec 18-19 when the Sun conjuncts the Galactic Center and Uranus (square), Jupiter (square), Neptune (sextile), Chiron (sextile), Pallas (conjunct) and Juno (square) are also making contact, we could tune into the cosmos for consciousness, direction, wisdom, partnership and inspiration. Make it happen!
be
Every now and then I do get a sense of Pluto slowly, and ever so quietly, worming its way through the cracks of the institutions around us, that sadly still seem determined to choke the heart and soul out of us. We and THEY know their time has come and they will crumble. What Pluto transforms them into, we can only dream of, but we can assist the energy by focusing intently on coming up with viable alternatives.
The thing is, I live love and breath the internet, where I get to join in a crazy dance session like today’s posting with the fabulous comments that followed, and I wonder what’s our alternative as backup energy, for when our computers aren’t running because we have an energy crisis with no backup plan? I wish for something like mass market solar powered laptops to grace our stores asap. We can’t afford any lag time where we might lose touch with each other, for our astrology pep talks and source of encouragement.
So well put Be, that was lovely: “It’s a good thing to be here now. All of us, all at the same time.”
I’m all for canoe building, Yeti, and greening Gaia once again — count me in.
(Thing is who’s going to tell Michael that he can’t do his robot dancing in the boat though, or we’ll all get rather wet!)
His #1 fan huh, Hypnotic?
You and me both. Right on. Dancing, dancing, DANCING!
😉
Len: considering the sabian symbol of the degree I think it’s interesting you mentioned the fragility of our industrial society, that the machines we use to track Pluto may not function in the not too distant future. It’s obvious to anyone who stops and thinks about it for 5 minutes that our way of life simply can’t continue much longer. Dane Rudhyar says of that degree that it represents group effort and I see that canoe as cultivating sensitivity to our bodies cause that’s where the sensitivity to life comes through and the awareness that leads to, for example, asking a forest how we can best serve its health and well being before we go and kill it. Reforesting the planet ought to be the first and foremost priority of humans in this time and place. Pluto on the Dragon’s head gives power to visions of the future to take root, especially in Capricorn. Careful what you envision: let’s see a reforested Gaia, the return of the bees and salmon and songbirds killed by cell phones and dams. Let’s see the small steps in our local environs that serve that big vision. Plant a tree, learn to grow food, turn off the machine and go talk to people. That’s the canoe I see from the perch of the Dragon’s Head.
Right on Be! 🙂
Excellent call SheBear! (haha! Michael always my #1 crush)
Len, beautiful astrology, beautiful writing, beautiful thoughts
xo
(canoe is looking good…) 😉
Thank you Len, really clarified the nodes for me. Gave be a beautiful picture I can hold onto that augments understanding of them and beyond.
Just this morning my son and I talked about how nothing happens in only one place at one time, not so much the generic conversation of everything touches everything, but that what he is is not singular; he is a cog on a moving wheel.
Good stuff this.
Tracy, be and Karen: i treasure your praise and hold it in my heart.
yeti and shebear – thank you for expanding on the theme.
Last but not least, my thanks to Fe Bongolan for her help with the last three paragraphs. Also, thanks to Amanda Painter for her consultation.
Speaking of of the dancer and the dawdler on the dance floor; I’m thinking the ascendent node could be Michael Jackson in this video in a stellar dancing performance, really turning it on around the one minute mark. Pluto doing its “dawdling” back up dance is the rest of the brothers.
Here’s is Dancing Machine in an unfortunately grainy video.
Its centre star shines through no matter what though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD2OsUcgb00
Well said Len, VERY well said! Fact is, I can’t see you or any PWers anymore than I can see Pluto or the nodes. But I know you and believe in you and the effect you have on me, just as I know and believe in Pluto’s and the nodes’ effect. It’s a good thing to be here now. All of us, all at the same time.
Karen,
I see that treasures are not just found in the attic but in the basement too! That 12th house can be a scary place until you understand why it exists and that it is part of the “whole” you. Good luck with your music and thanks for sharing.
be
Capricorn 4: people building a canoe.
‘…acting on opportunity with awareness, as if to create the world. As if to choose our consequences. Use “as if” as a term of invoking possibility rather than cynical resignation.’
Forgot to say how much I love this line. I was only speaking yesterday to someone about the significance that, years ago, ‘acting as if’ had on me.
Love this, Len! It sent goosebumps down (or was it up?!) my spine. So aware that Pluto is transiting the last few degrees of my fifth house, an expansive mansion that covers three signs. This is particularly interesting timing today, given that I made a renewed and deeper commitment to my creative process earlier this morning. And I only recently discovered that my natal north node, in the 12th in Cancer, can signify creative process and especially music, which I am newly and deeply engaged with. There it was all these years, hidden away in the twelfth house!
It’s all very interesting…feels like a completion and a ‘making whole’ in order to give birth to my creativity in work form in the sixth house, along with a renewed sense of health (nearly wrote wealth!) and well being….
Totally impressed with your explanation of the technicalities of the nodes, Len.