{"id":75595,"date":"2016-03-20T21:32:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T21:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theinnerwheel.com\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2016-03-20T21:32:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T21:32:24","slug":"the-crucible-and-the-wheel-part-four-the-second-nodal-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astrologyblogger.com\/?p=75595","title":{"rendered":"The Crucible and the Wheel: Part Four, The Second Nodal Return"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dragon<\/p>\n

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I suddenly realized that I neglected to complete this series on the transiting nodes. There was a three part series on the transiting nodes and a description of the third nodal return in another article about aspects in our fifties. \u00a0And of course, the omission is the greatest one: \u00a0a description of that life-changer (or life-crisis), the second nodal return. \u00a0To paraphrase a song, if we can make it (over the threshold) here, we can make it anywhere.<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s that important. \u00a0Think about it. \u00a0At age 37, we’re at the height of our powers, a time when we are ripe for experience. \u00a0We have cleaned out our psycho-spiritual closets at the progressed lunar return (27-28), reoriented ourselves to reality at the Saturn return (29-30), and questioned our integrity when the progressed Sun makes its first aspect to natal Sun (30-31). \u00a0We get a short time to breathe and adjust the two halves of our brain before we get the balsamic year of our second Jupiter return, followed by the great three sequence of the third Jupiter return at age 36. \u00a0At the third Jupiter return, we step into our spiritual adulthood. \u00a0We take full responsibility for the development of the soul. \u00a0We grow into our wisdom. \u00a0The balsamic year, at age 35, is very much about changing directions, getting rid of what is not instinctively true to us. \u00a0At 36, we are asked to step into that truth.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we often feel rather naked without all those nice, secure falsities of the spirit to cling to. \u00a0With Jupiter’s bidding, we feel inspired, but we also know that we have a new cycle of spiritual development ahead of us. \u00a0Or rather, we feel it, more than know it. \u00a0Jupiter is very big on instinct. \u00a0With much trepidation, we step into our grown-up shoes. \u00a0As with all Jupiter returns, there is some letting go, but also some luck that usually steers us in the right direction. \u00a0The house in which Jupiter resides is emphasized.<\/p>\n

The minute that we start moving forward (if we are lucky) we hit a wall. \u00a0This is the wall of the nodal return, which comes to us all at about the age of 37 and three months. I once heard a doctor say that this is a threshold year for mental health–if you can make it past this year, you should survive anything else that gets thrown at you. \u00a0Just to emphasize the importance of this return, I believe the list of people who did not survive this nodal return is longer than the infamous list of the 27 Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What happens is this: \u00a0we know we can no longer avoid change, but we haven’t a clue what to change, or how. \u00a0Spiritually, we often become lost, victim to false starts and stops. \u00a0We feel vulnerable. \u00a0No longer able to hide under a shell, and no compass to show us the way forward. \u00a0We can see, off in some vague distance, the place we need to be, but it seems as though we have to walk over miles of thin, cracked ice to get there. \u00a0The old doesn’t work anymore–that’s what the last 10 years have taught us. \u00a0But if we haven’t moved in a new direction yet (and we have been given opportunities), now is the time. \u00a0We feel pressured, we feel broken, we feel failed. \u00a0Far from a confident new beginning, we are wracked with doubts. \u00a0Can I do this? \u00a0Can this really be happening? \u00a0Why do I feel this thing on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, spurring me on? \u00a0And of course–what of the old me can I legitimately retain?<\/p>\n

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is typical of this nodal return. \u00a0At least, for a start. \u00a0We are prone to chuck it all and begin something entirely new. \u00a0Sometimes that works, many times it does not. \u00a0The reason is that, at this time in particular, we are being coaxed to use our talents and abilities, our spiritual inheritance, to create something new. \u00a0We get pulled back. \u00a0If we’re actors or writers, we might dump our cherished novel or stop auditioning, only to be invited to teach, direct, or write something in another genre. \u00a0We might give up what we are already doing entirely, only to spend a few years exploring and come back to it anew. \u00a0Not that our nodal returns are all about what we do for a living, but they imply an integration of the Sun and Moon, North Node and South Node, that can manifest on the midheaven and the IC, no matter where your nodes are at birth. \u00a0This nodal return in particular has a lot to do with ‘who am I in the world?’ \u00a0And here is the rub–there shouldn’t be a conflict between who I am inside (IC) and who I am outside (MC). \u00a0This is only one of the questions this nodal return tries to solve.<\/p>\n

It was only after studying hundreds of\u00a0draconic charts that the crisis mode of nodal returns made sense to me. \u00a0The struggle of past to become future was not enough to cause the strife I saw on a daily basis. \u00a0After all, the past becomes the present becomes the future every second of our lives. In draconic charts, which is the natal chart looked at from the point of view of the nodes, all nodes are moved to NN 0 Aries and SN 0 Libra. \u00a0The measurement between the natal nodes and these nodes is added to every planet and point in the chart. \u00a0We end up with a chart that looks exactly like the natal chart (except for the nodes, of course) but the planets, angles and points are in different signs. \u00a0And this puzzled me for a while. \u00a0Not because it is a directed chart–this is an old astrology technique, moving everything by a certain measurement (such as Solar Arc charts). \u00a0But because of the emphasis on zero cardinal.<\/p>\n

Cardinal signs are about initiation. \u00a0This is where we begin. \u00a0This is where we are born from the cosmic soup. \u00a0This is why the angles matter–they initiate us into space and time. \u00a0They become the reference point for the soul. \u00a0Space and time are all about Saturn. \u00a0We move from the endless sea of potential to the specific. \u00a0The first ‘set’ of zero cardinal is Aries\/Libra. \u00a0There is a \u00a0power to zero Aries that is often ignored. \u00a0A special power of individuation. \u00a0Of being unique. \u00a0Of beginnings.<\/p>\n

In a draconic chart, the South node is at 0 Libra. \u00a0This is where we come from, according to the Nodes. \u00a0This is what we come into this world with. \u00a0What does that mean? \u00a0Whatever sign is on the SN in the natal chart, from a draconic point of view it is 0 Libra. \u00a0Now, zero Libra also has a power of its own. \u00a0It’s the power of integration, of the union of self and other, of the known and the shadow. \u00a0But if we are put into this world to individuate, and to balance the nodes, it seems like an odd place to start.<\/p>\n

Not if we take into consideration that we come into this world as a unique being, but we experience it in terms of duality. \u00a0I versus other. \u00a0Me in here versus you out there. \u00a0What is me and what is not me? \u00a0This has to do with Libra being represented by Venus, and \u00a0relating to the 7 (also to the 2, via Taurus). \u00a0First there is one (Aries) but the one cannot see itself unless it can be reflected (Libra). \u00a0And this is how we construct ourselves from birth; the idea of “I” is actually based on “not I.” \u00a0(There will be more of this in a short course on Sacred Number and aspect which I will be teaching next month.) \u00a0We are hollow at core.<\/p>\n

The North Node is so difficult to achieve precisely because we must get out of this way of defining Self. \u00a0The Libran South Node is how we relate, how we fit in, how we compromise our identity. \u00a0The North Node is asking us to get rid of all that and redefine ourselves and live our lives by what is genuinely within. \u00a0(No accident that the draconic NN ruler is always Mars and the draconic SN ruler always Venus. \u00a0No accident that the first two polarities of the zodiac are Mars\/Venus, Venus\/Mars). Who are we without our trappings–home, money, family, friends. \u00a0Who are we, really? \u00a0And how to we get to this place of authenticity? \u00a0The natal North Node is the path.<\/p>\n

I have heard astrologers say that 90 per cent of people never get near their North Nodes. \u00a0I don’t know if it’s quite that much, but it’s a high number. Authenticity is a bitch. \u00a0It often means going against the grain. \u00a0Being an outsider. \u00a0Taking our own road. \u00a0It’s a lonely place. \u00a0We stumble. \u00a0We fall. \u00a0No one helps us up. \u00a0To make matters worse, often the North Node ruler turns out to be a trickster, and can’t be relied upon to take us in the right direction. \u00a0Sometimes he takes us to the wrong place, deliberately. \u00a0He wants to test us, our worth, our integrity. \u00a0He will cause us to make mistakes so that we can cross that path off of our list. \u00a0If we have a problematic North Node ruler, full of conflict, getting to the North Node may take a long, long time. \u00a0So much easier to stay in the land of Venus.<\/p>\n

This authenticity is what the second nodal return is all about. \u00a0If we have complicated Nodes, planets on both the North and South Nodes, for example, we may be especially conflicted, and see saw back and forth between what is and what should be. \u00a0Not that we should delve into our North Nodes at the expense of the South Node–in that way lies solipsism, if not psychopathology. \u00a0No, the relational Libran South Node needs to be in balance with the authentic North Node. \u00a0If this happens, it automatically helps the essential problem of the MC\/IC with the ‘me in here’ vs ‘you out there’ issue. \u00a0We move on to be authentic, productive individuals. \u00a0And this is what the third nodal return, which happens in our mid-fifties, is all about.<\/p>\n

The recently announced second article on Jupiter will be appearing in next month’s edition of The Widening Gyre. \u00a0If you’d like to read it and the other original content, please subscribe.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I suddenly realized that I neglected to complete this series on the transiting nodes. There was a three part series on the transiting nodes and a description of the third nodal return in another article about aspects in our fifties.  And of course, the omission is the greatest one:  a description of that life-changer […]<\/p>\n

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