The moon’s nodes are the points at which the path of the sun and the path of the moon intersect. They could be likened to the extreme points of a pendulum’s swing. These extremes are known as the north and south nodes. In astrology, the moon’s nodes represent prevailing cultural trends and attitudes. It takes eighteen and a half years for the nodes to progress through all twelve signs of the zodiac. Each sign of the zodiac represents unique characteristics of human behavior. Each sign has a positive and negative expression and is ruled by the sun, the moon, or a planet.
The moon rules Cancer – the Great Mother, the Mother of God. She rules the emotions, the irrational, the instincts, intuition, the night, and the unconscious. She is the synchronicities emanating from the collective unconscious. In fact, she is the collective unconscious.
Being feminine, she creates the atmosphere of co-operation, community and relatedness. In her positive expression, she is inclusive, nurturing and protective. In her negative expression, she is exclusive, ruthless, and vengeful. She is archetypal, and therefore, not gender exclusive. She is expressed through men as well as women.
When hospitals, police departments and insane asylums increase their staff during the full moon, they are preparing for the irrational frenzy that is her festival. They are preparing for an attack of lunacy. At these times, all manner of unconscious material mounts with great force into our conscious world. Then, despite our conscious intentions, this material can overwhelm us en masse and the psychic infection erupts into a riot.
Psychic infection is a malady that has been with us throughout history. Adolph Hitler was a genius in his ability to manipulate the masses. Hitler believed or understood that the masses were run by feminine instinct. By catering to the dark side of the feminine, he roused its fears and vengeful rage and unleashed a psychic plague that infected an entire nation and ultimately the whole world. As a master of mass hypnosis, he intentionally seduced the masses by making people feel comfortable with their prejudices. Then he would whip them up into an emotional frenzy. At the height of this mesmerization, he could implant the most bizarre suggestions into the unconscious and the individual isolated in the masses was virtually powerless to resist the tide of mob rule.
Mark Twain once said, “Insanity in individuals is something rare. In groups and nations, it is the norm.” Carl Jung, founder of analytic psychology, defined the insanity in groups and nations as a “cultural psychosis.” The dominant trait in any psychotic is the inability to recognize the validity of another’s right to be. When the collective value system of a culture does not recognize the validity of another’s right to exist, that culture is suffering from a collective psychosis. When that level of psychic infection prevails, intuition is reduced to paranoia and the instinct to protect becomes the psychosis of a mindless predator.
The moon’s south node represents past attitudes; the north node represents future trends. When a planet conjuncts either node, it pulls energy in that direction and flavors that node with the archetypal essence or the god/goddess that the planet represents. On September 11, 2001, Jupiter and Mars were in opposition and conjuncting both lunar nodes at the same time. Jupiter, the God of Philosophy and Religion, was conjuncting the north node in Cancer, The Great Mother. Mars, the God of War, was conjuncting the south node in Capricorn, The Father of Law and Order or The Law of Karma.
In the light of 9/11, this could be interpreted as a trend towards religious fanaticism and philosophical conflict resulting from obsolete law and past injustice. It would be nice to think that humanity has evolved beyond the need for Jihads and Crusades. But, alas, it seems that this is not the case. This psychic plague must run its course.
There is little an individual can do in the midst of lunacy other than remain true to one’s Self. Ultimately, individuals are responsible for their own actions. In order to be truly responsible for one’s action, it is necessary to differentiate the experience of Self from the collective attitudes and social scripts that dictate most of our behaviors.
In an individual’s astrological chart, the moon’s nodes can show the path that leads to an experience of the Self that is independent of social trends and collective attitudes. In the final analysis, the soul’s ultimate responsibility is to out-grow the dictates of mass psychology.
Bill J. Fleming
ShadowLight Consulting Services 