Lunar nodes in the birth chart have gone from being an interesting side note to an integral part of chart readings. Yet, we still don’t seem to have gotten past the idea of “South Node bad, North Node good,” and there’s no consensus on what the nodes actually represent.

For those of you who are new to astrology, the lunar nodes are not planets but abstract points in space where the orbit of the Moon crosses the ecliptic (the path the Sun takes against the background of the stars). The North Node is the point where the Moon crosses to the north of the ecliptic, while the South Node is the point where it crosses to the south. The nodes determine when eclipses occur.

There are a couple of prominent theories among astrologers for interpreting the nodes in the natal chart (and these aren’t mutually exclusive). The first is that the South Node represents lessons mastered and experiences in your past life, while the North Node represents lessons to be learned in this incarnation. The second is that the South Node represents behaviors learned in childhood or ingrained patterns that keep you stuck and unfilled, whereas the North Node represents antidotes or new behaviors that will result in fulfillment. Some add that the North Node is about your destiny in life.

I don’t think there is too much argument that the nodes have something to do with time – specifically with past and future. But if we believe that the South Node informs us about past lives, is it a summary of all past lives, or just the previous one? And does that mean that the North Node represents all future lives? Or our future in this life? If so, it is never realized, because the future never arrives.

And what if time isn’t linear, then what?

These questions have gnawed away at me and made current thinking regarding the nodes not entirely satisfactory. Then I began reading Gevin Giorbran’s Everything Forever: Learning to See Timelessness. Two concepts in this amazing book struck me immediately as being applicable to the lunar nodes. And just as Giorbran’s ideas are radical in the scientific community, a theory of nodes based on his ideas may be just as radical.

The first is his theory about the end of time. Giorbran reasons that if time has a beginning, or Alpha (the Big Bang), then there must also be an Omega. The second is that Alpha and Omega are marked by two different kinds of order. Rather than moving from order to disorder, the Universe is moving from one kind of highly ordered state to a different kind of highly ordered state that is more balanced and stable, but that most humans don’t recognize as order at all. In this movement from Alpha to Omega, we have the phenomenon called “time.” He also has some interesting things to say about how our future inevitably affects our present.

Many astrologers pay lip service to the idea that the North Node represents the future, but then they go on to discuss what we should be doing to reach our North Node potential. If indeed the North Node represents the future, then there is no way we will ever get there. Moreover, the idea that we should abandon or reject our South Node in favor of the more desirable North Node is not only ill-advised, but impossible.

What we are really concerned with is the present – the meeting point of past and future. This means that where we are in this moment will always be an interplay between North Node and South Node. In other words, it’s all good.

I am often amazed, when doing consultations for clients, that they are incorporating North Node activities into their lives quite naturally, without worrying about whether they’re clinging to the past or stuck in unproductive behavior. It’s not as though it has to be some sort of self-improvement project.

Giorbran theorizes that we’re midway between Alpha and Omega right now, where we’re experiencing the greatest diversity. This also means that we’re experiencing a high degree of instability. If we transfer this concept to our own South Node “Alpha” and North Node “Omega,” then each of us individually is in a high level of flux.

I mentioned in a previous post that I felt “stuck” in South Node land, but the more I think about it, this isn’t entirely true. There is a wild back-and-forth going on. It’s dizzying and disorienting, sort of like learning to ride a bicycle.

As we move toward Omega and symmetry order, we might also look at all the various ways we’ve been separated and categorized and how we are integrating into a larger whole – a very Aquarian ideal, incidentally, so it’s interesting that we’re exploring this concept as we’re on the threshold of the Age of Aquarius.

Meanwhile, here we all are, in the convergence zone.