Fool's Gold; the Slippery Slope of the South Node











As I wrote in my first post below, I'm just beginning my second book, a sequel to "North Node Astrology; Redisovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose", and this new book, "South Node Astrology; How Love Sabotages and Saves Us" will focus on relationships and how the emotional memory contained in the South Node influences how we love, and don't love in this life. I know that "Sabotage" is a jolting word to use, and that "Love" itself doesn't sabotage, but the distortions and povery of love do. I will also be delving--in this blog and the new book--into what Venus and Neptune in your birth chart have to say about how you love, and how it's expressed in your life. So what is this South Node?

From the point of view of evolutionary astrology, the sign of your South Node describes your default pattern in life. It describes a way of being in the world which doesn't work well for you anymore. It represents something you are comfortable with, because earlier in this life or in a previous life (if you believe in reincarnation) it was your habitual pattern and where you failed to live up to all you could be. So now, the Soul longs to move away from this and towards the potential and possibilities of your North Node.


The South Node represents an easy way out for us---our addictive tendencies, our unresolved conflicts and negative personality traits, and the limitations and failures from the past which can interfere with our ability to be all we can be. In looking at the sign of the South Node, one needs to look at what the lower octave, or less pleasant side of the sign and house position is all about. Because the South Node represents what we didn't get right, or was troublesome either earlier in this life or in a former life, then we really understand quite a lot about ourselves if we can understand what this is all about.

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It’s important to remember the paradoxical nature of the signs and planets, and to keep reaching for the highest expression of them. All these signs can be played out in a higher, or wiser way, and a lower, or less conscious way. And although we don't want to keep falling back on what we know or what our default pattern is, it's helpful to remember that Carl Jung always said to watch for the "gold in the shadow." That shadow is the South Node!
We would be wise to think of the South Node territory as a potentially slippery slope. We need to be fully grounded before digging for the gold there--or what we may find could be just fool's gold. Illusion and disillusion dwell there, and it takes discernment to know what is real and what isn't real. Or, as the painting above depicts, we may be dealing with the illusory qualities of the mythological Neptune, God of the Sea. Inspiration and spirituality is the high road for Neptune--it's the true gold, but so often we get swept away by the illusion of what we want, rather than what is real. (c)~elizabeth spring Artwork: Kerstin Zettmar: Portrait of Neptune. http://www.elizabethspring.com/ and http://northnodeastrology.blogspot.com/

Comments

Red White and Blue Starfish said…
Yes, I completely agree with this. I think most of the time, this process is extremely painful. Everything from the S feels "so right", so comfortable, that you think it's right for you. But it's not; it is, as the article discusses, 'Fool's Gold,' a whisper from the past that can never live up to its promise. These relationships are too often unhealthy for you, not because the person is bad or evil, but because you need this person in a way that is not right for you now.

The hardest one to let go of here is usually the , because, it's my belief, this person was probably either your child or your mother or father in a previous existence, and the tie is extremely strong. You want to be with them, whether it's right for you or not. Giving this person up is letting go of a kind of love you fear you will never know again, and meeting up with them again in this lifetime... is devastating in a way that's hard to explain. The person feels the like s/he fits into you in a way that they simply do not. It's a memory of a kind of close bonding that you cannot expect from them this time around.

If you let go of them you find that you emerge from that remembered bond into the light of a new day, and the evolution of your own needs this time around. In the previous life, you gave to them; this time around, you must find someone who can give to you as well. Although the moon contact feels comfortable and safe, the more conscious you are of your own, evolutionary needs this time around, the more uncomfortable you begin to feel with this contact; you're searching for more, and this isn't it, and you know it, at first on a subconscious level.
August 19, 2009 at 10:21 PM
Elizabeth Spring said…
I bascially agree with you, and yet I find that it's extremely hard to discern which difficult relationships need to be completely released, which need to just be "loosened" and which need to be worked with to heal. Every relationship has "grace and grit" in it, and it's probably one of the hardest questions of our lives to figure out how to engage or disengage with difficult ones... that's why groupls like Al-anon can be so helpful in certain situations. In my experience, I tend to hang in there, or go back after time has passed and see what can be redeemed. Hey...thanks for reading...I like your thoughtfulness here...hope to hear more from you....
August 31, 2009 at 10:21 AM
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