How the Nodes move
The Sun, Moon and planets travel the wheel counterclockwise. The Nodes do the opposite: they move backwards, clockwise. Their motion is actually a little unsteady, like one step forward and two steps back, but overall they keep retreating around the wheel in step with precession, the same slow movement that underlies the great global cycles.
That's why the Nodes are connected to the great cycles in a way the Sun and Earth are not. The Sun marks the moment; the Nodes mark the long direction of movement.
The numbers:
- 18.6 years is how long the Nodes take to go around the whole wheel.
- 9.3 years later the same axis comes back reversed: the gate that held the North Node now holds the South Node.
- About three months (sometimes up to three and a half) is how long the Nodes stay in one gate.
For comparison, the Sun passes through a gate in about six days. So the nodal theme isn't the mood of the week but the background of a whole season.
A background theme for everyone
Each time the Nodes move into new gates, it's as if the river takes a turn in its bend, and everyone flows along with it. The transiting Nodes set a shared stage for all of humanity, just as the Nodes in a chart set the stage for one person.
It's most noticeable when the Nodes point everyone toward looking at the world in the same way. For example, when the Nodes are in gates 13 and 7, the whole planet is tuned to one and the same way of seeing. And that isn't what we're here for: everyone is born with a view of their own.
When the transit forms a channel
Some pairs of opposite gates together form a whole channel: for example, 23–43 or 37–40. When the Nodes pass through such an axis, that channel is defined for everyone for a few months.
Here's how it looks in life. When the Nodes spent several months in the channel 23–43, which connects the Ajna and the Throat, people kept saying "I know, I know." A crowded café was filled with a solid hum of voices. And at the moment the transit changed, the room went completely silent for a second or a second and a half: most people had lost the connection between mind and Throat that the Nodes had been giving them. When the talking came back, it sounded different.
How the nodal transit touches your chart
The transiting Nodes work like any other transit: they activate gates. If your chart has one gate of a channel and the Nodes are in the other, the channel closes for those months, and you live with its energy as if it were your own.
This is felt especially strongly when the transiting Nodes are in role gates such as 7 and 13 and complete a channel with your gates. Then the theme of those months can become very personal.
One more practical point concerns relationships. If two people meet exactly when the Nodes complete a channel between their charts, the connection can feel like a strong mutual pull. But it's just a transit. A few months later the Nodes move on, and it's worth seeing what remains without them.
The cycles of the Nodes
Every 18.6 years the Nodes return to the gates they were in at the moment of your birth. It's worth taking this return as a new turn of the spiral: a familiar theme comes back, but you meet it with different experience.
A separate, even longer rhythm is set by Uranus: the midpoint of its cycle, somewhere between 38 and 44, is when, in your own chart, the South Node gives way to the North Node. Don't mix up these two rhythms: the first is about the sky for everyone, the second about the two halves of your own life.
The nodal transit is a shared stage, not your role. It shows what the whole world is looking at, but it doesn't decide what you should look at.
How to live with it
- Watch the program. Notice which themes suddenly show up in conversations, the news and the people around you. The better you see the general background, the easier it is to tell your own from it.
- Don't make decisions because of the background. "Everyone's talking about it right now" is no reason to act. Decisions are made by your strategy and authority.
- Remember your right to be different. The transit tunes everyone to look the same way. Your own view is in your Nodes, not in the sky.
Where the Nodes are today and which channels they complete with your chart you can see on the transit now page.
A question for yourself
What theme has been hanging around me for a few months now, and is it mine, or is that just the weather for everyone at the moment?