The North Node: Eclipse Point and Your Life Path

What is the North Node?

The North Node is not an object but a calculated point. The Moon’s orbit is tilted about 5° to the ecliptic, so twice a month the Moon crosses the ecliptic: going north at the North Node (the ascending node) and going south at the South Node, directly opposite. These crossing points matter in astronomy: eclipses can only happen when a New or Full Moon falls near a node, which is why eclipses come in seasons about every six months. This page follows the true node, the node of the Moon’s actual orbit at each moment.

Where the North Node is in the sky

The ecliptic is the path the Sun appears to follow across our sky over a year, the plane of Earth’s orbit seen from Earth. Positions along it are measured in degrees, from 0° at the March equinox to 360°. The zodiac divides it into twelve equal 30° parts named after signs: Aries covers 0° to 30°, Taurus 30° to 60°, and so on. The signs are counted from the equinox, not from the star patterns they were named after; those constellations now sit about 24° further along, because Earth’s axis slowly wobbles (precession).

The Sun’s pull slowly turns the Moon’s tilted orbit, so the nodes slide backward around the ecliptic, once around in 18.6 years: about 18 months in each sign. The North Node therefore normally moves backward (retrograde); the true node wobbles and briefly moves forward at times. It has no distance, so the section on space above shows only its coordinates.

The North Node in astrology

In astrology the North Node marks your life path, the direction of growth: what you are learning to become. The South Node, always in the opposite sign, marks familiar habits and past strengths to build on but not hide in. In Vedic astrology the nodes are Rahu and Ketu.