Galactic Guidance, a Zodiac Advice Column: What does my “north node” tell me about myself?
When your horoscope app doesn’t have the answers, look to the stars for advice. And by that, we mean look to Gala Galactic, HelloGiggles’ resident zodiac advice columnist. If you’ve got zodiac questions, she’s got answers for Galactic Guidance: A Zodiac Advice Column. All you have to do is send your Qs to [email protected]. Happy stargazing!
Dear Gala,
I have a Scorpio north node and I’ve heard that has something to do with karmic destiny. I’m a Leo, so what does having a Scorpio north node mean for me?
— KarmicallyConfused
Dear KarmicallyConfused,
You’re right, your north node placement is indeed indicative of your karmic work in this life. In your natal chart, the nodal placements represent the points that the moon crossed the Earth’s orbit around the sun. These points symbolize south and north nodes—where you’re coming from and where you need to go. Or, more particularly, the values and talents you accumulated in your previous life and the work of your soul in this life.
Soul is the key word here, and it’s what differentiates your north node from your sun or rising sign, which are generally more associated with the qualities and expressions of your personality. You might spend your days arriving the way a Leo does, taking up space corporeally or energetically. You might be the emotional center of a pride of beloveds or you might be a lone lion who takes on leadership roles wherever you find yourself. These and other Leo qualities are part of what make you shine and what draws others to you. They are qualities that have been nurtured and developed by your perception of yourself and by the ways your community has responded to you throughout your conscious life.
The qualities that you’ve gained from your south node, on the other hand, come from a life before this one. Your south node will always be in the opposite sign and opposite house of your north node. So, if your north node is in Scorpio, your south node is in Taurus. Taurus is associated with value systems and possessions, the material and sensual self, and digging in one’s heels. If your south node is in Taurus, you’ve most likely entered this life with a strong ethos, a steadfast approach to your creative and romantic world, and a deep sense of refinement. You’re not someone who takes commitments lightly, and you crave integrity and definition in your social environment. These qualities, when used with intention, are your innate gifts. However, they are not the qualities that you are meant to develop in this life. On the contrary, your Taurus south node is the diving board you will continue to leap from as you face the depths of your Scorpio north node, your soul’s path and the power it means to experience in this lifetime.
So, what is Scorpio’s power? In one word: transformation. In an expansive sense, Taurus and Scorpio are not so different. Both mean to hook themselves deep into whatever they’ve set their sights on: a place, a person, or a vision. But, where Scorpio craves change, Taurus resists it. While Taurus digs her hook deeper into the fabric of what lies before her, adjusting it with slow and steady determination, Scorpio takes that hook and rips it through the fabric of what was, changing the shape and nature of that fabric entirely. Both signs are interested in birth and death, but while Taurus explores the nature of relation on the material plane, Scorpio investigates relation on the spiritual plane—our soul contracts and what we mean to each other outside notions of capital and confines of titles.
Scorpio is associated with the Death card in the Tarot, and the drive to burn one version of yourself down so that another version may rise will be a small fire inside you that gets hotter and hotter as you continue down your path. This drive will not always make your life painless but, the more you hold your Taurus south node innate sense of self with you, the more gracefully you’ll surrender to Scorpio’s call for transformation. The caterpillar knows deep down that it means to be a butterfly: she creates a container for her own death and liquefies, unafraid of the life she is promised, resolute in her mission to embody it.
— G
