Lunar Nodes (North Node and South Node)

The two points where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic, treated in astrology as karmic indicators of life direction (North Node) and inherited patterns (South Node).

The lunar nodes are the two points in the sky where the Moon's orbit intersects the ecliptic — one going northward (the North Node, sometimes called Rahu in Vedic astrology) and one going southward (the South Node, or Ketu). They are not bodies; they are mathematical intersection points. Eclipses can only happen when the Sun and Moon are near a node, which is the astronomical reason they are tracked at all.

In modern Western astrology, the nodes are interpreted as karmic markers. The South Node represents inherited material — patterns, talents, comforts, and karmic residue carried in from earlier life experience or earlier lifetimes (depending on the astrologer's framework). The North Node represents the direction of growth — the unfamiliar, the developmentally challenging, the place a person is meant to move toward over the course of life.

The nodes move in retrograde motion against the zodiac, completing one full cycle in about 18.6 years. This is why the North Node ingressing into a new sign is a generational marker rather than a personal one — everyone alive shares the current nodal sign for about 18 months at a time. In a personal chart, what matters is which house the natal nodes fall in, which sign they are in, and which planets they aspect.

Transits to the natal nodes — and especially the nodal return at age 18.6 and 37 and 55 — are often felt as turning points around the life-direction themes. Eclipse seasons, which always involve the nodes, are also felt as nodal activations.