Nodes of the Moon
latin: caput draconis (North Node) / cauda draconis (South Node) · arabic: raʾs al-jawzahar (Head) / dhanab al-jawzahar (Tail)
Definition
The Nodes of the Moon are the two diametrically-opposed points at which the Moon's orbital plane intersects the ecliptic. The North Node (ascending node, Head of the Dragon) is where the Moon crosses the ecliptic moving northward; the South Node (descending node, Tail of the Dragon) is where it crosses moving southward. The two points lie 180° apart, regress through the zodiac at approximately 19° per year, and complete a full cycle in roughly 18.6 years. Eclipses occur when the New or Full Moon falls near a Node.
In Tradition
Across the Arabic-Persian tradition the Nodes are the Dragon-iconography pair — Head and Tail of the Dragon (caput draconis / cauda draconis) — treated as significators with per-house effects. Abu 'Ali al-Khayyat sets out the systematic 12-house treatment: Head-1st = domination and fortune; Tail-1st = tribulation and impediment, and so on. Modern Western evolutionary astrology reframes the same two points as carriers of soul-trajectory.
In Practice
Practitioners read the Nodes by sign-and-house position and by aspects to the natal planets, treating the axis as a single field of meaning with two complementary poles. In the Arabic-Persian tradition the per-house significations apply: Head + 4th house = increase of inheritance; Tail + 4th = diminution of inheritance; Head + 9th = strengthened faith and religious involvement; Tail + 9th = large changes of place and unstable faith. In modern evolutionary practice the same axis carries karmic-developmental meaning: the South-Node sign and house describe pre-existing patterns or talents pulling on the life from the past, while the North-Node sign and house describe the developmental direction toward which the life is oriented. Transits and progressions to the Nodes (especially eclipses falling near the axis) are read as activations of the axis's themes.
Historical Origin
The Head-and-Tail-of-the-Dragon iconography enters Western astrology through the Sassanian-Pahlavi transmission of Indian rāhu / ketu doctrine into Arabic; Dykes notes the Dragon nomenclature is not found in pre-Islamic Greek astrology. Abu 'Ali al-Khayyat's Ch. 48 (derived from Masha'allah's *Twelve Domiciles*) preserves the canonical 12-house treatment. The modern 'soul-direction' framing is a 20th-century evolutionary-astrology development.
Further Reading
- Benjamin N. Dykes, Persian Nativities Vol I
- Steven Forrest, The Book of the Moon
- Jan Spiller, Astrology for the Soul