Nodal Contacts (Synastry)
Definition
A nodal synastry contact is an inter-aspect made to the lunar nodes — the two points where the Moon's orbit crosses the path the Sun appears to travel. The North Node (also called caput draconis, the ascending node) and South Node (cauda draconis, the descending node) sit exactly 180° apart and move backward through the zodiac at roughly 19° a year. You work nodal cross-contacts the same way as any other inter-aspect, but with tighter orbs — usually 3° — because the nodes are calculated points, not actual bodies.
In Tradition
In the modern Western evolutionary-astrology line, nodal cross-contacts are read as carrying a sense of where a person is meant to grow. The North Node reads as the direction of growth and unfamiliar ground, the South Node as patterns inherited or already well-worn; when one person's personal planets conjoin the other's nodes, those growth themes are switched on through the relationship. Outside this line many astrologers weigh nodal contacts more lightly, treating them as backup to the lights and personal planets.
In Practice
To work nodal contacts, you flag every conjunction of one person's planets to the other's nodal axis at a tight orb of 3° or less, and read the planet's condition in its own chart into the contact. Contacts to the nodes from the Sun, Moon, and Venus carry the most weight; outer-planet contacts to the nodes read as generational growth themes switched on by the relationship. You tally both directions. The two nodes always work as a pair on opposite sides of the wheel, so a conjunction to one is automatically an opposition to the other.
Historical Origin
The classical sources — Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, Dorotheus, Valens, and the Arabic and medieval Latin tradition — used the lunar nodes mainly for eclipse calculation and, in difficult configurations, as the dragon's nodes. Reading the nodes as a direction of growth in synastry is a 20th-century evolutionary-astrology development; its standard modern statements are in the writings of Steven Forrest and Jeffrey Wolf Green.
Etymology
Origin: Latin. Meaning: From nodus (knot) — the points where the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic.
Further Reading
- Steven Forrest, The Inner Sky
- Jeffrey Wolf Green, Pluto: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul
- Sue Tompkins, Aspects in Astrology