The Nodes of the Moon are mathematical points created from calculating the meeting points of the Ecliptic (celestial line along which the Sun moves) and the Lunar Orbit (the celestial line along which the Moon moves). They meet in two spots: one is called the South Node and the other, the North Node.
Awareness of where the Nodes are in the sky at any given time can be illuminating and guiding, especially when one knows where this position falls vis-a-vis one's own Birth Chart.
At present, the transiting North Node is in Taurus. It has been in Taurus for a little over six months now, and will remain there for almost another year. (The Nodes take about 1.5 years to go through a Sign.) North Node in Taurus is a call for all of us — the human Collective — to calm down (Taurus). And since the Planet Uranus (bringer of change) is also currently in Taurus, the more specific invitation is to calm down in new and unexpected ways (Uranus). (Further specifics are idiosyncratic to each one of us, depending on where Taurus falls in the Birth Chart and what Planet and/or Angle placements are there.)
When we consciously harness these transiting energies in a deliberate manner with mindful choices that we make on a daily basis, we are not only coming into better alignment within our own higher self, we are also contributing toward the evolution of humanity as a whole. And again — thanks to the North Node’s current conjunction with Uranus — perhaps even in quantum leaps!
Ever since the North Node first dipped into Taurus in November of 2021, I have really responded to the Nodal summons and shifted my daily life into a much more sanely-paced, calm state. Ahhh……… It’s proven enormously nourishing, feels much more in alignment with my innate predilections.
And then, summer hit!
I made a big trip from here in the Southwest up to the far reaches of the Northeast. Upon returning home, I had a continuous flowing stream of out-of-town visitors, week after week. Absolutely wonderful to be reunited, to spend precious time together in person with friends and family — in some cases, for the first time in years. That said, by the time the last goodbyes were said, I was pretty worn out, and I’ve spent the entire past week recovering from playing hostess so intensely.
Now that the “dust has settled,” I’m getting back to my Taurean (Rising Sign) self — ahhhhh. I’m settling back into my steady, well-paced daily routines, and there’s room for poetry again (about which my Cancerian 3rd House Sun and Piscean Moon sides are also very happy!).
The other day, this new one came out of me. The catalyst was a line in a poem by Kelli Russell Agodon (“Imagined Chapels”). I still marvel at how poems write other poems. And how writing —so totally — helps me make sense of life.
This piece is based on my recent experience bringing my mother and friends for a brief visit to the Bodhi Manda Zen Center in Jemez Springs, NM. It wasn’t until I re-read it several days later that I realized my poem could also serve as the perfect illustration of that North Node in Taurus tug…
Eye of the Storm
By Willamarie Moore
“I just want / to walk through the world where others / want to sit in silence with a painting”
-Kelli Russell Agodon
I sit seiza on the tatami mat floor for the first time
in years. Minutes ago a hush descended upon us as
the shoes came off and we stepped into the naturally
cool, darker space. We are immersed in a Japanese
Zen Buddhist Sutra Hall in the mountains of
Northern New Mexico. Cushions are lined up as
you would find in Japan but here upright chairs are
interspersed among them. Three older women pad pad pad
in their white-socked feet behind me. I stay put for many
minutes, sinking contentedly into a familiar groundedness while they
snap snap snap pics with cell phone cameras, suddenly now
with a sense of reverence more than the “Look, I was here!” urgency
otherwise the norm. There are days when stillness is okay, is accepted, is in fact — finally —
respected. There are days when the rush for “More-better-faster!” still
tries to run the world and you feel like a yellowed aspen leaf blown
in the autumn gales. I just want to live in a world where others
join me in seeing every day as a painting, when we know we are
the artists of our own lives, and it is understood in our bones that
great art is born of a certain discipline, and is best beheld
through the lens of calm contemplation. And when I laugh
because those ancient Japanese monks might never understand how
the sacred spaces they created would turn into the eye of a storm
in the middle of the Jemez Mountains, in the middle of a whirlwind family visit
in the middle of a chaotic mass of humanity trying its damnedest to return to
“how things used to be" pre-pandemic, in that go-go-go M.O. no
longer quite as governing as before. And maybe if I whisper, “There’s a
pink lotus flower in the pond," we will all look for it but find
only a white one and then remember that the most exquisite beauty emerges from the mud.
Listen to the poem HERE.