The Moon’s Nodes in Action

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Contents

Preface iii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Astronomy and Symbolism 5
Chapter 2: Case Study 1 23
Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein” and a Sheep called Dolly
Chapter 3: Case Study 2 81
Marc: a Life through the Nodal Lens
Chapter 4: Case Study 3 123
Four “Nodal Moments”
Conclusion 149
Index of Charts 159
Bibliography 161

Introduction to the 2015 edition

THE MOON’S NODES IN ACTION

“Never say never!” How true this is. I thought I’d never be
able to resurrect the whole text of ‘The Moon’s Nodes in
Action’ from its cyber-grave of apparently un-openable files
going back to the 1990s. As we all know, that decade is
literally prehistoric in Internet terms.

However, I reckoned without the ingenuity of my colleague,

Willie Miller of co-occurrence, whose company has thus
far published three elegant e-versions of my books. It has
just done the same for the e-book you are about to read: a
research study I wrote to complete my three-year Diploma
from the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London,
awarded in November 1998.

At that time, the Centre’s Director Dr Liz Greene described

‘The Moon’s Nodes in Action’ as “…a superb thesis…” I was
of course, delighted to have my work described in those
terms. But life moved on, other projects beckoned. The
thesis gathered dust, the files slowly became antiquated. But
I never lost my interest in the Moon’s Nodes…

Many people – myself included – find the Moon’s Nodes

fascinating. What you will shortly read is a comprehensive,
original piece of research, born from my curiosity and
interest over many years. As fellow writer and astrologer
Paul F Newman says in his generous preface:

i
“… this book is about…. Nodal Returns, Nodal synastries,
Nodal ‘trawls’ and Nodal moments. A knowledge-gathering
journey through the lives and charts of the famous and not so
famous – yet with the excitement of a personal quest and the
inestimable benefit of coming through the pen of a gifted writer.
Herein are facts – not theories – that you can use to enrich your
own astrological interpretations and personal understanding of
the Moon’s Nodes in Action….”

I have decided to offer out this research as a free gift to

any student or teacher of astrology who wishes to add to
their existing knowledge of the Moon’s Nodes, not from a
theoretical basis, but as they actually operate in the lives of
people both famous and ‘ordinary’.

Please note that the study was written in 1998 and I have
chosen not to update it, but simply to present the research
as it was completed at the time. Being aware that other
astrologers have published their own research since then, I
am happy to make my small contribution, albeit somewhat
retrospectively!

The Nodal Return cycle is 18.6 years. When I wrote the

study, the North Node was in the sign of Virgo. I have just
realised that it returns there in November 2015, the year my
research is finally published in its entirety, eighteen years
after I first began to write it in the autumn of 1997

ii
Preface

THE MOON’S NODES IN ACTION

Introduction
By Paul F. Newman

The Moon’s Nodes, so we are taught, are an essential

component of any horoscope. Flip through any astrological
magazine and you will be hard-pressed to find a chart
without them. Traditional, experiential, psychological,
mundane - you name it - the Nodes are always there. But
what exactly do they mean?

In Vedic astrology this is quite clear cut. The Moon’s Nodes

refer to karma, and their importance is immense. But then
every Vedic astrologer believes in karma and reincarnation
as a cultural doctrine anyway, which is not necessarily the
case with all Western astrologers and their clients. Astrology
- pure astrology - does not operate through belief alone.
That is, you do not have to ‘believe’ in anything you can
not prove because astrology works anyway. As Anne found
when researching the powerful effect of the Nodes for her
Diploma in Psychological Astrology which has later become
this book, there was a dearth of text-book certainty about the
meaning of the Nodes - once you removed the reincarnation
angle. Her dissatisfaction sprang from the fact that the
available literature was mostly theoretical. People knew
about Nodal returns and Nodal transits but had little idea
of what to expect in the real world when they loomed.
Few studies, if any, had employed a ‘Charles Carter’ type
approach of dispassionately observing and tabulating what

iii
actually happened to people when the Lunar Nodes were
activated or were natally strong. Astrologers generally
agreed that the Nodal axis was some kind of developmental
path but would usually shy away from interpreting it in the
more concrete terms afforded to the planets. The Nodes,
after all, were only abstract things. You couldn’t see them in
the sky. You couldn’t even visualise the mechanics of how
these invisible circles were crossing each other above our
heads in their regular cosmic sweeps unless you were an
unusually scientifically minded astrologer (or astronomer).
Yet, other abstract points in astrology (even the Part of
Fortune) did not command the same universal respect as
the Moon’s Nodes, so wasn’t it about time we gave their
effects more study?

And that is what this book is about. Nodal Returns,

Nodal synastries, Nodal ‘trawls’ and Nodal moments. A
knowledge-gathering journey through the lives and charts
of the famous and not so famous - yet with the excitement
of a personal quest and the inestimable benefit of coming
through the pen of a gifted writer. Herein are facts - not
theories – that you can use to enrich your own astrological
interpretations and personal understanding of the Moon’s
Nodes in Action.

Paul F. Newman
Dorset, England. August 2001

iv
Introduction

It’s an important antidote to the potential inflation of

astrologers to realise that 99.9% of the population manages
to get through life without the help of astrology.

Similarly, large numbers of astrologers no doubt do good

sound work without paying too much attention to the
Moon’s Nodes. As far as I can gather, the attribution of
significance ranges widely: from astrologers who start their
readings with the Nodes, and who see the axis as powerfully
illustrative of the developmental path of the individual’s
soul through successive lifetimes, to those who are aware
of what the axis means in general terms but don’t actually
bring it into their work much.

So - how significant is the Nodal axis? Are astrologers

missing something really important by not delineating it
in their readings, both natally and in terms of its transiting
cycle? Does it say something specific? Or does it act as a
reinforcer for information about a person’s life pattern
which can be derived from other chart factors? These were
the key questions I had in mind as I began writing.

This book is called The Moon’s Nodes in Action. Why?

Because I find myself unsatisfied with a lot of the material

I have read on the Nodes, interesting though some of
it is. The main reason for my dissatisfaction is that the
literature is mostly theoretical. There is very little specific
examination of the ‘Nodal effect’ at work in people’s actual

1
lives, with the exception of Pamela Crane’s book1 which is
thoroughly rooted in case material. However, its value is
limited for me by my own scepticism (in the open minded
sense of the word) regarding the question of reincarnation.2

I realise that what I want to do in the book is not to

spend a lot of time regurgitating theory already available.
Summarising its core is sufficient for my main purpose,
which is to test out the theory in the actual practice of
real people’s lives and see whether it holds up. This is
something I can do which hasn’t been done to a detailed
degree to date.3 In the research process I may even come
up with some new angles on the Nodes! These are my aims
and aspirations as I settle down to the task in hand.

In framing the case material I decided that it would be more

1 Draconic Astrology by Pamela A. F. Crane, Aquarian Press, 1987

2 Note: I am interested in the approach to the Nodes which involves belief
in reincarnation, being attracted to the idea that we live successive lives; it has
certain logic to it. The notion that the great cycles of birth, growth, decay, death
and endless return should not apply to the human spirit and its development,
that we should get only one crack at the slow, complex business of realising
our potential, seems inconsistent. I have had a few very peculiar and striking
experiences in my own life, for which the hypothesis that I have had other lives
is the only one that makes any kind of sense. Being a Romantic in spirit, I like
the idea of this life being just one stage in an “awfully big adventure”.
However, I am also a pragmatist, taking the view that I can only effectively
write about things which are within the knowledge and experience I have had
to date, limited though I am happy to admit that certainly is. It may be true that
the Nodes have profound symbolic clarification to offer re previous lives, and
our connections with key other people in those lives - but I cannot offer any
empirical observations on this topic.
3 Note : as yet I haven’t read either Melanie Reinhardt’s Incarnation, the Four
Angles and the Moon’s Nodes ( Volume 8, CPA Press, 1997 ), or Direction and
Destiny in the Birth Chart by Howard Sasportas ( Volume 10, CPA Press, 1998
) for what I think are fairly obvious reasons! I don’t want to be intimidated by
their work, and at present it’s too close to home since I’m a CPA student. If I
discover later that Melanie and Howard, too, have done detailed work on Nodal
case material, at least mine will be different, and I will have added something
more to the testing out of Nodal theory in practice.

2
effective from a research point of view to offer different
‘takes’ on the Nodes in each case study, than simply to use
the same ‘take’ for each one. I was intrigued by a comment
made by Robin Heath in the letters pages of a recent issue
of The Mountain Astrologer:

“….. astrology appears more and more to behave like a

hologram. You can perform almost any technique with the
data, turn the chart inside out or slice it up, and still the
symbolic pictures remain.”4

Since a large part of the impact of his statement lay in its

confirming in cold print a suspicion which has been swirling
around in my own mind for some time now, I was particularly
interested to see whether any ‘hologram’ effect relating to each
subject’s natal Nodal pattern might be detectable at the core of
all the case studies, on completing them.

In Case Study One, I have written about Mary Shelley from

the perspective of her authorship of Frankenstein, and set
the boundary of her first Nodal Return. She conceived the
book in 1816, the summer of her 19th year and her first
Nodal Return; wrote it over the following autumn, winter
and spring; saw it published on the first day of 1818 - just
after her 20th birthday. I have looked at the Nodal synastries
between her chart and those of five key people whom I
consider to have been potent catalysts for her authorship.
I have analysed the Nodal relationship between her natal
chart and several key events germane to the writing of
Frankenstein. I have also tracked some resonances from

4 The Mountain Astrologer, Issue 78, April/May 1998, Letters p 11

3
the modern myth Mary Shelley created in Frankenstein,
over nearly two centuries to its undoubted current relevance
as contemporary science moves faster and faster into the
realms of science fiction. This case study therefore contains
the first ever synastry between a dead person and a live
sheep!

In Case Study Two, I have adopted a different approach,

doing a Nodal ‘trawl’ first of all through my subject Marc’s
whole life to the age of 50. Secondly, I have analysed the key
turning points of his life - identified by Marc, not by me -
and examined how they link in with his natal Nodal pattern.

In Case Study Three, I thought it would be interesting to

analyse four Nodal Moments from the lives of two famous
people, and two ‘ordinary’ ones. These are moments which
the two people known to me, Anna and Andrew, knew
without doubts at the time were major and life-changing.
I decided that two famous people’s moments also fell into
the same category; the first, the announcement in January
1998 that former astronaut John Glenn was due to return to
space at the age of 76. And the second, the car crash which
ended the life of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Note on confidentiality:

Marc, Anne and Andrew are not the real names of my subjects. All three read

and approved the final version of their life stories prior to my submitting the

thesis for assessment. They also gave full permission for their stories to be

included in any subsequent publication.

4
Chapter one

Astronomy and Symbolism

The aim here is to summarise and provide some discussion

of the core astronomical and theoretical basis from which
the case studies are written. The information provided is
derived from reading, and from impressions gained from
observation of the Nodes in action in my personal and
professional life before testing it out in practice through
the research done for the case material. I have left out
observations on all kinds of interesting facets of the Nodal
picture, eg the Saros eclipse cycles, which were not directly
relevant. General sources will be found in the Bibliography;
specific quotes are footnoted.

The Moon’s Nodes

The Moon’s north and south Nodes “…are not planets

but are the two points at which the Moon’s monthly path
crosses the Sun’s annual path (ecliptic) around the Earth.
These are abstract points, but astrology accords them the
power and effective status of planets…” ( definition from
The Practical Astrologer by Nicholas Campion,Times
Mirror Books 1987, p12.)

The eclipses

There are thirteen lunations or New Moons each year,

in which the Sun and Moon share the same zodiacal
longitude. At least two of them are solar eclipses, and occur
during the twice yearly eclipse seasons, each being a period

5
of 37 days when the Sun in its orbit crosses the Nodes,
applying for 18.5 days/degrees then separating for the same
measure.

At solar eclipse times the Sun, Moon, Earth and Nodes are
aligned in the same plane, so that the Moon blocks the Sun
totally or partially from the Earth’s view. A total solar eclipse
occurs when the Node and luminaries occupy the same
zodiacal longitude up to an orb of +/- 9 degrees 55 minutes.
A partial eclipse occurs from an orb of +/-11 degrees 15
minutes up to an orb of +/-18 degrees 31 minutes.( Annular,
partial or total solar eclipses can occur from an orb of +/- 9
degrees 55 minutes to +/-11 degrees 15 minutes.)

Lunar eclipses occur in the same eclipse seasons - again a

minimum of twice a year. At these times the Sun, Moon,
Earth and Nodes are aligned differently, with the Moon
opposite the Sun in zodiacal longitude. In this case, the
Moon moves opposite the Sun through the shadow of the
Earth often taking on a reddish/coppery tone which is very
dramatic to watch. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the
Node and luminaries have an orb of up to +/ 3 degrees 34
minutes. A partial lunar eclipse occurs from an orb of +/- 6
degrees.

There is a regular rhythm to the alternation of solar and

lunar eclipses first with one Node, then the opposite one,
six months apart. The Nodes themselves regress at 1.5
degrees a year through the zodiac, following the regular
pattern of the eclipses as they thread their way through
time and space. The North Node returns to its own place,
having completed a 360 degree cycle through the entire

6
zodiac, every 18.6 years. The eclipses, like the New Moons,
also have their return cycles, the most striking being the
Metonic returns in which an eclipse recurs on the same day
and the same degree as it did 19 years previously.

Nodal symbolism - summary

In symbolic terms, the Nodes offer insights not so much

into an individual’s personality as into their life pattern, and
with this the developing and unfolding of their relationship
with issues of direction and of meaning.

Thus the natal Nodes, their location by signs and houses,

and their links with planets and angles, sketch out a map
of what the person’s route may be, some of the conditions
which might be encountered, and the main paths s/he is
likely to be inclined to explore.

As life unfolds, the transiting Nodal axis, transiting planets to

the natal Nodes, and progressed planets/Angles triggering off
the natal Nodes, show important points of challenge and the
potential to take a step further along the road of actualising
full potential. The eclipses are of critical importance in
highlighting transitional points which have an especially
powerful feel to them. Alexander Ruperti puts this really well:

“Eclipses simply measure intense confrontations with all those

things in human nature which hinder spiritual progress by keeping
one in a rut, albeit a comfortable and happy rut. They are
opportunities to use the past and the present - all that one has
previously acquired, as well as where he stands at a given moment
- in order to build a more creative future. Since they always

7
challenge an individual to discard all limiting influences and to
start something new, they may be stressful times.”
(my emphasis)1

The soli/lunar relationship

The Nodal axis is a reflection of the soli/lunar relationship.

The Sun moves very slowly indeed compared to the Moon
- one degree a day, when the Moon moves thirteen to
fourteen degrees. If we transpose this astronomical fact
into the symbolism of the unfolding of the progressed
horoscope throughout a lifetime, we can see that by the age
of 60, the Sun in an individual’s life will have progressed
around only one sixth of the zodiac. The Moon, however,
will have completed two whole journeys round the entire
zodiac, and the first quarter of a third one.

Thus we have two very different types of energy, and

relationship with time. The Moon seems much busier
and more active than the Sun, much more driven towards
ranging over a spectrum of different types of experience,
and experiencing faster change. Despite all this activity,
it nevertheless goes through the same cyclic routine
month after month, year after year, century after century,
millennium after millennium, albeit changing its starting
and ending points very gradually as it moves through the
heavens. The Sun seems much more inclined to take its
time, to process and make sense out of experience.

Liz Greene in The Luminaries clearly illustrates this point:

1 Cycles of Becoming by Alexander Ruperti, (USA) CRCS Publications 1978, p

72

8
“So the Moon, our antenna for life’s perennially changing
drama, goes out and soaks up a little taste of experience, and
then comes back to offer its responses to the Sun for processing.
Then the Moon ventures forth again, and another chunk of life
is absorbed and brought back home. Lunar encounters with
life, as the Moon progresses through the twelve houses of the
horoscope, eventually build up a reservoir of experience which
the Sun can gradually transform into “my” vision of life, “my”
worldview, and “my” identity .....Without the Moon, there
would be no connection with life or other people.”2

In the Sun - Earth - Moon system, the Moon represents

the container which makes ordinary life on Earth possible,
keeps its rhythms going. But both Earth and Moon are
subordinate to the life-giving Sun; must turn towards it,
honour it. Without the Sun, neither Moon nor Earth could
exist. There could be no life, in the terms in which we
understand it.

There is something in us, culturally, nationally, and

personally, which is inimical to change of any kind; which is
purely instinctive and irrational in response to life, needs to
feel connected to the patterns and rhythms of time, nature,
local and family custom, and habit. This part of us likes to
know and work from what we can do and can comprehend.
It seeks safety.

There is nothing wrong with this fundamentally lunar

approach. We need it. But stagnation would result if there
were nothing in life to present a challenge to this way of

2 The Luminaries by Liz Greene & Howard Sasportas (USA) Samuel Weiser,
Inc 1992, p 206.

9
being. The contrasting solar impetus is to get out there,
risk, learn and grow, expand our vision to encompass more
than the purely material - find out why it is that we are alive
at all, ask questions regarding what life might mean.
There is a beautiful passage from Genesis, the first chapter
of the Christian Old Testament, which runs thus:
“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters.

And God said, ‘Let there be light’: and there was light.”

This Christian imagery vividly conveys the contrasting

life principles illustrated in astrological symbolism by the
Moon, and the Sun.

The archetypal relationship between fundamentally

contrasting and complementary principles is at the heart
of existence at every level - without that there could be no
collective or individual life at all.

Another way of imaging the Soli/Lunar link is through

mythology. In Greek myths, the Sun god Apollo is often
seen pitting his solar power against that of the female, lunar
goddesses whose realm concerns the limits imposed by
time, the body and mortality, and fate - the very limits which
Apollo seeks to defy.

The Sun symbolises our drive towards individuation, the

pursuit of our personal destiny, shadowy and chimeric
though it may often seem, if indeed it is ever even
glimpsed. The Moon symbolises our rooting in the Earth

10
plane which gave us our life, to which we are subject
through our physicality, where we must live out our span as
dictated by the limits imposed by our mortality.

North and south - spirit and matter

If the dialectic as just imaged and described is held at the

core of the soli / lunar relationship, what ‘take’, slant, or
angle on that dialectic is provided by the North and South
Nodes as distinct, for example, from what is provided by
contemplation of either the New or the Full Moon? As
Alexander Ruperti eloquently puts it:

“.....as the Ecliptic (geocentrically considered) reveals the

relationship of the Earth to the Sun, and the Moon’s orbit
reveals the relationship of the Earth to the Moon, and since the
nodal axis is the link between the planes of these two orbits, the
nodes may be said to symbolise the relationship of the Earth to
the two ‘Lights’ - the Sun and Moon.”3

Thus the Nodes can be interpreted as revealing particular

points of dynamic tension between the contrasting drives
of Sun and Moon, points where the product of the struggle
between the two must be earthed, and take some definite
form in a way which has a profound influence on the
life pattern of the person (event, organisation, nation)
concerned.

As the Moon moves in its monthly orbit, its checkpoint

for crossing the Ecliptic is the North Node, latitude zero,

3 Cycles of Becoming by Alexander Ruperti, (USA) CRCS Publications 1978,

p55

11
the beginning of two weeks’ travel in Northern latitude. At
the end of this phase, the checkpoint of the South Node is
reached, also latitude zero - the start of two weeks’ travel in
Southern latitude.
At the North Node gateway, the Moon can be viewed as
orienting itself toward the pull of the Sun, an orientation
lasting for the whole period in which it is travelling in
Northern latitude. Traditionally, as Ruperti puts it, the North
Node connotes “.....a point of divine protection or providence
or of success through the use of the spiritual will......”4 In the
natal chart, a planet or planets closely square the Nodal
axis on the northern side falls on the northern bendings5,
emphasising that planet’s role in driving the future
development of the individual concerned. The transiting
Nodal axis with a transiting planet squaring it at the
northern bendings, eg the recent transit of the Nodes/Pluto
which arrived at exactitude in mid-May 1998 at 7 degrees
Virgo/Pisces/Sagittarius, challenges the individual/nation/
collective concerned to face and take on the challenges of
the future in relation to the radix planets/axes picked up by
the transiting pattern.

On arriving at the South Node gate, the Moon symbolically

turns its back on the challenge to grow, become all it can
be, through exercise of maximum awareness aided by the
strength of spiritual will, and moves into the fiefdom of
matter and the concerns of the material world. This period
lasts for the duration of the journey in Southern latitude,
and represents a time of taking whatever perspective has

4 Cycles of Becoming by Alexander Ruperti, (USA) CRCS Publication 1978,

p55
5 The Structure of Cycles by Joseph Crane, pp 73-4 from The Mountain
Astrologer Issue 77 Feb/March 1998

12
been gained in the Northern journey, and perhaps, at best,
integrating it with that part of life which will always have to
be lived in the material and physical dimensions. Transiting
planets at the southern bendings6 partake of this tone. Natal
ones at that point emphasise inherited challenges which
tend to hold the person back, and really need to be grappled
with if he/she is to move on.

Again, as Ruperti puts it, “....this alternating orientation first

toward spirit and then toward matter is the key to the meaning
of the nodal cycle....”7 I think that it also offers us Earthlings
a very profound piece of cosmic advice, especially to
those inclined to think that the spiritual dimensions are
innately superior to merely earthbound concerns. For the
last two thousand years, the Christian West has had great
trouble with the relationship between spirit and matter.
The summits of our achievements and the nadirs of our
destructiveness are connected to the imbalance which exists
within our culture between those two great poles. The
tension between them has been the fuel which has driven
us, for good and for ill.

But the body is the carrier of the soul. We should strive

to value them both equally. There are many metaphors
to be derived from this essence. One is that the quest for
meaning and significance, represented by the Sun, has to
have a home base, represented by the Moon, from which
to start the journey, to which to return at the end of it. The
Odyssey could never have been written without Ithaca......

6 The Structure of Cycles by Joseph Crane, pp 73-4 from The Mountain

Astrologer Issue 77 Feb/March 1998
7 Cycles of Becoming by Alexander Ruperti, (USA) CRCS Publications 1978, p
55

13
So it is important not to forget, whilst contemplating
the different emphases given by the North Node and its
Southern opposite that the whole axis needs to be taken into
account if one is to appreciate the full depth of symbolism
on offer. At core, the challenge is that of finding a way to
reconcile spirit with matter in finding as effective a way as
possible to live on the Earth to which we are bound. The
Nodal axis speaks not only about the thrust to reach as
full as possible actualisation, but also about valuing and
appreciating, and if possible integrating, the gifts which
were ours as we embarked from the starting point.
Both individually and collectively, the more prominently
placed the Nodal axis in the Horoscope, the more vivid the
dialectic as described above within the life of that individual,
nation, and event.

Both North and South points have their own seductions.

The challenge to move on, explore, become all you can
be offered by the North, is exhilarating, exciting - but also
frightening, and hard work! It’s easier to stay in bed than
get yourself sitting in front of the word processor, excited at
what you may achieve.... but fearful of where you may fail.

Staying South is very tempting - it’s the comfort zone, it’s

the family base and its past history, the place of safety where
we know who and where we are, what our talents are, and
what we can comfortably cope with - but staying there
cannot reveal “ ....what we may be....”8

8 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, Act iv,

Scene v, “ Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be “ from The
Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 1955

14
Thus the natal Nodal Axis symbolises a lifelong struggle.

Identifying with the South Node position too strongly

means leading a life which depends on using the abilities
we already have to keep us safe from risk, challenge and
therefore growth; whose main priority is comfort; whose
mode is a habitual and largely automatic response to life.

Taking up the challenge of the North Node, on the other

hand, brings with it a life which feels meaningful and
open to new experience; which takes opportunities to
develop innate talents and new insights and skills through
responding positively to the impetus for change; whose
mode is of acceptance of conflict and discomfort as a
necessary part of developing as a person.

At the heart of the fullest, most creative expression of

the struggle both collectively and individually lays a deep
paradox - to move on as human beings we must individuate,
follow the path of the North Node, and leave the South
Node behind. But we must also make the return journey, to
honour that which we ideally do not leave behind at all, but
incorporate in our movement towards our own destiny.

The unfolding picture

When I refer to nodal moments in the case material, I mean

points where the transiting Nodal axis is triggering the
natal chart; and/or when Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus,
Neptune and Pluto are transiting the radix Nodes; and/or
when there are significant progressions to the Nodal axis.

15
My own favourite indicator is the transiting Nodal axis
itself, which has a return cycle of 18.6 years. I think it is
useful to see challenges towards growth occurring with
transits and progressions as being enfolded within the
developmental pattern shown through this cycle.

I have found (as one might expect!) that the more

emphasised the radix Nodal axis is, the more important
are the milestones that the Nodal returns, and transits/
progressions to the natal Nodes, bring.

It is possible in the natal chart to describe both ends of

the Nodal polarity and make a clear distinction between
them, as has already been demonstrated. But the whole
axis and its planetary links need to be taken into account in
assessing the key features of what the life pattern demands
of its owner. You miss half the picture if you only focus on
one end.

This point becomes clearer, for example, when attempting

to assess the impact of the transiting Nodal cycle on an
individual’s chart. The first step is to identify which pair
of houses the axis is emphasising; this reveals those
dimensions of life which are up for challenge and change.
Between mid-March 1997 and mid-March 1998 the Nodes
regressed from 29 degrees to 10.5 degrees Virgo. During
this time period there were three eclipse seasons in March,
September, and February/March. The eclipses ran thus:
9.3.97 Solar eclipse to South Node, 24.3.97 Lunar eclipse
to North Node, 1.9.97 Solar eclipse to North Node, 16.9.97
Lunar eclipse to South Node, 26.2.98 Solar eclipse to South
Node, 13.3.98 Lunar eclipse to North Node.

16
It can be seen that during the year in question both ends
of the Nodal axis were triggered in an alternating pattern
by both Solar and Lunar eclipses, strongly potentising the
relevant spheres of life. The outcome would depend on
what natal planets/angles were also being triggered. I doubt
if it’s possible, even by spending an enormous amount
of time tracking very subtle factors, to show the specific
internal and external manifestations, from month to month
or year to year, of the alternating movement from focus on
spirit (North) to focus on matter(South) and back again as
life unfolds.
It is the overall impact which activity by conjunction to North
and South Nodes, or square to the whole axis, has on the
unfolding life pattern that matters during a particular period of
time.

Levels of manifestation

I have noted over the years both from my own life, the lives
of friends and family, students and clients with whom I
have worked, how often the Nodes are prominent at births,
deaths and marriages - the three major defining points in
anyone’s life, regardless of their levels of awareness or how
assiduously they either pursue or avoid questions of what
life’s deeper significance may be.

The Nodes have been persistently linked with the workings

of Fate since the very beginning of Astrology as a body of
knowledge: many modern astrologers tend to gloss over
this issue, perhaps because we have culturally subscribed
to a world view since the Age of Reason which is deeply
offended by the notion that there is anything on Earth

17
that human beings can’t control. However it is becoming
all too clear as we approach the end of the century, the
millennium, and the Piscean world age, that even our
ability to comprehend, much less control, the sheer
complexity of life is much less than we thought.

Life by its very nature is always changing; but the changes

mirrored in patterns involving the Nodes, particularly when
the axis or related planets or angles are being activated
by eclipses, seem to have a particular quality about them
where the struggle towards individuation from the grip
of the personal - and often the family - past is powerfully
highlighted.

The interface between Fate (literally, “it has been written”)

and Free Will appears, to our very limited knowledge, to
be indeterminate, shifting. At Nodal times it is as though
the atmosphere of that interface thickens, becomes highly
charged with significance: events occurring and paths
chosen seem to have a particularly potent feel to them.
These can be viewed as times of crisis when, in Robert
Hand’s vivid phrase, “the past has minimum hold upon
the present, but the present has a maximum hold on the
future.”9 There can also be a profound sense in the moment
that something ‘other’ is at work, impelling one’s actions,
one’s choices.

9 Saturn, Action & Career Crises by Robert Hand, p 116, from The Astrology
of Crisis, edited by Noel Tyl, ( USA ) Llewellyn Publications, 1993

18
Retrograde/direct nodes by transit

In contemplating the symbolism attached to the frequent

movement of the Nodal points between direct and retrograde
motion, it appears to me to mirror a generally recognised
truism about how life proceeds, ie three steps forward, two
steps back or (very occasionally!) five steps forward, one step
back, or one step forward, four steps back. The preceding
assessments are made by most of us, either on the forward or
the backward scale depending on how good, bad, indifferent or
traumatised we feel about any given day, week, month, or year.

I think this accurately reflects the long, slow process of

reaching out, assimilating, developing insight, and moving
on we all go through with varying degrees of success and
failure throughout our lives - with all the mistakes, stupidities,
unconscious compulsive reactions, poor judgements, and
retreats woven into the process along the way.

The alternating retro/direct movement of the Nodes is
contained within the larger movement of the axis as it
moves backwards through the Zodiac, returning to its
starting point in an individual’s life every 18.6 years. What
could this mean? Isn’t evolution meant to be a forward
moving process according to conventional wisdom?

There is much truth in the adage that life has to be lived

forwards, but understood backwards. There is a quality
of mystery about the Nodes in action. My feeling is that,
similarily to those great milestones in life symbolised by
progressed New and Full Moons, what is offered in terms

19
of more effective defining of the level on which life can
be lived, simply cannot be grasped clearly at the time.
Perhaps one of the meanings which can be derived from
contemplating the retrograde motion of the Nodal axis, is
that only by looking back when some time has passed, can
the true nature of the opportunity which was on offer at a
critical Nodal point be understood.......

There is also a deeper perspective from which the

retrograde Nodal motion can be viewed. It occurs to me that
it could be a metaphor for the process of entropy, i.e. the
progressive running down of all systems towards decay and
dissolution, which as far as we know scientifically, governs
the entire cosmos. In relative terms to Earth and Moon,
the Sun is immortal - the body lives out its span, decays
and dies - but the soul goes on in its everlasting journey,
perhaps through successive lifetimes, purifying its essence
as it goes. But even the Sun, we now know, will one day die,
as will our solar system and the galaxy to which it belongs.

Like anyone else with any imagination and sense of wonder,

I have been stunned by the magnificent images brought
back in the last couple of years from the depths of space by
the Hubble telescope. One image in particular stands out -
it looks like a huge eye staring out from space. It is, in fact,
an image of a black hole, circling round the outer fringes of
our galaxy, fuelling its journey by consuming the exploded
matter of decayed stars. It’s the most powerful image of
entropy that I can envisage..... 10

10 The Sunday Times, 31.12.1995

20
And where does everything go at the end of time and space?
As far as we can envisage, all journeys end with the trip
home..... back to the Source. We cannot know with our
limited intelligence who, what or where that may be. But
all religious traditions carry at their core the notion that all
things emanate from the One, or the Source, and are bound
to return there in due season.

Perhaps the retrograde motion of the Nodal axis, acting as it

does as a focus for the Sun - Earth - Moon system on which
our lives primarily depend, is a potent reminder of that.

21
22
Chapter 2: case study 1

Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein” and a sheep called Dolly

Introduction

Mary Shelley was born on 30 August 1797 as aberrant

storms swept Europe, the tides of political passion
generated by the French and American Revolutions still
ran high, and the Romantic1 movement in literature was at
its height. Her life profoundly, dazzlingly and poignantly
reflected her time.

I have chosen her for several reasons. The first is purely

subjective. From the moment I first set eyes on her
horoscope it has compelled and fascinated me. As an
astrology teacher, I have used it in most of my interpretation
classes since the late Eighties. The second reason also arose
some years ago, when I realised that she had conceived
the plot of Frankenstein the summer before her 19th
birthday, and finished writing it before she was twenty. For
me, this highlighted the 18.6 year Nodal return cycle, the
significance of which I had by then begun to observe.

Then looking more closely at the 12th house placement of

the North Node in her chart, and how it linked so strongly
with Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto, set me reflecting upon how
and why she as such a young woman had been chosen
to offer us a warning via Frankenstein, her masterpiece,
of what the consequences of humans stepping over

1 Romanticism (the Romantic Movement) - c/f “The Oxford Companion to

English Literature” Editor M. Drabble, Oxford University Press 1995, pp 853-4.

23
Fig 1

24
moral limits in the pursuit of scientific discovery might
be. This warning has resonated down the decades since
Frankenstein was published in 1818; it is more relevant
than ever as we approach the millennium, and the pace
of technology-led progress leads us fast into dangerously
uncharted physical, emotional, ethical and spiritual
territory.

I was watching a TV programme on the development of

the horror movie genre not long ago2, in which there was a
dramatic re-enactment of the famous night of the 16 June
1816 in Geneva in which the poet Byron proposed that he,
their friend Polidori, Mary’s husband Shelley, and Mary
all write a ghost story. The TV programme followed with
an enactment of the early hours of 22 June 1816 - Europe
was being ravaged by terrible storms, repeating the theme
present at Mary’s birth, when Mary had a ghastly waking
dream in which the core plot of Frankenstein came to her.
I thought that the chart of this dream should have powerful
Nodal links with Mary’s chart. It did - even more so than I
could have hoped. Thus my case study began to come into
focus.

There is a great deal to say about Mary Shelley. But I will be

exploring her life only until the start of her second Nodal
cycle, keeping my focus on relationships and events which
led to her authorship of Frankenstein.

2 The series was entitled “Nightmare - the Birth of Horror” (BBC2) presented
by Christopher Frayling. This particular episode - Frankenstein - was
transmitted on 17.12.1996.

25
Mary Shelley’s Horoscope: the Nodes and their natal
links

The North Node falls in Gemini, the South in Sagittarius.

To me this denotes a life path centred round the
conceptualising and disseminating of information and
ideas. Sagittarius on the South Node shows philosophy,
education and learning, and the developing of an ethical
base for life as well as a desire to proselytise from that base,
as a fundament to Mary’s life. Love of learning, a restless,
questing, travel-oriented spirit, and an appreciation of
the perspective which comes from exposure to different
languages, cultures, and a broad knowledge base, all
characterised her inherited gifts and the cultured context
from which her journey through life began.

It also suggests, taking the wide conjunction to the
Moon to back this up, a longing from the beginning for
a “grand”, adventurous life - for a life infused with vision
and the possessing of a big canvas upon which to paint
a vivid picture. Her political and artistic context was the
aftermath of the French and American revolutions and the
impact they would have on the fabric of her time - and the
Romantic movement in art and literature into which her
nature fitted so well.

Also indicated in this linking of South Node and Moon is a

distaste for the restrictions of the ordinary and mundane,
and the potential for arrogance through conviction of one’s
own rightness. Blake’s famous line “the road of excess leads

26
to the palace of wisdom”3 also comes to mind. Playing Big
Momma Benefactress to a bunch of gifted but feckless,
frequently penurious fellow writers seemed to take up an
extraordinary amount of her time and resources throughout
her life - one can see her penchant for this role in South
Node in Sagittarius conjunct the Moon in the 6th House!

The North Node in Gemini conjures up the image of a

thrust towards taking the gifts she was given and putting
the inspiration provided therefrom into words, getting her
ideas out into the world. It also denotes frequent changes
of environment whilst attending to this core task - and
sibling issues playing an important part in the whole
scenario, as indeed they did with her step-sister Jane/Clare/
Claire Clairmont (who liked changing her name!) dogging
Mary’s footsteps for much of her life. Restless movement
and frequent change were very much part of Mary’s
and Shelley’s life - perhaps the North Node in Gemini
demanded this as a way of shaking free her ideas.

When contemplating the location of the North Node, in
the 12th house in one of the Gauquelin plus zones4, the
image of the big picture comes in again, from a different
perspective. Here is someone the thrust of whose life path
demands an offering of her ideas in such a way as to reflect
the hidden, unconscious currents running beneath the
surface of her time - and perhaps a sending out of images
which would be borne on those currents to provide insights
to generations as yet unborn.

3 from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” by William Blake. “Proverbs of Hell’
- Plate 7, from Collins Dictionary of Quotations, editors N. Jeffares & M. Gray,
HarperCollins 1995.
4 Gauquelin Plus zones re the 12th house - c/f Written in the Stars by Michel
Gauquelin, Aquarian Press 1988 p120.

27
The location of the South Node and Moon in Sagittarius in
the 6th House, opposite the North Node in Gemini in the
12th, conjures up a picture of the visionary writer, in touch
with the currents of the collective unconscious of her time
through the 12th house Node, having to struggle to extract
her vision from the mire of the mundane which was forever
besetting her, as the contradictory 6th house location of the
glamorous South Node conjunct Moon in Sagittarius shows
all too clearly.

The nuts and bolts of ordinariness - of the body, of routines,

of maintenance tasks which keep the main thrust of life
running smoothly, strike me as a major provenance of the
6th House. Mary had trouble with ordinariness all her days
- until he died Shelley protected her from the sharpest edges
of their constant financial troubles. She regularly moved her
goods and chattels, relatives, friends and children around.
Her health was always delicate, childbirth drained her,
and the deaths of three of her children made it impossible
for periods of time to dredge up any inspiration to offer
through the 12th house North Node.

Looking at the planets aspecting the Nodal axis offers

further sharp images of the nature of her life’s path and her
struggle to actualise it. Mary had a strong masculine side
which her horoscope clearly portrays. Jupiter is retrograde
in Aries in the 11th House, exactly trine the South Node,
sextile North Node. A quote from E.W. Sunstein sums this
up:

“Aspiration, enthusiasm, challenge, active mind and spirit, and

optimism were among her cardinal qualities.......... it was her

28
incapacity for resignation to cold reality that eventually wore her
down.”5

The location of Jupiter, ruler of the Moon and South Node,

in Aries in 11th shows how group associations, frequently
involving famous men, usually encountered at home,
shaped her life’s path. Jupiter’s falling on the southern side
of the Nodal axis, trining/sextiling the Nodes, indicates
gifts from the past which could be used productively by
Mary in actualising her full potential - as indeed they were.
There was her father the renowned social philosopher
Godwin and his salon, which brought Mary in contact in
her youth with eg Coleridge. Hearing him reading from
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner had a profound impact
on her which came out much later in some of the imagery
in Frankenstein6. She met her husband Shelley through
Godwin when Shelley was a young acolyte. She met Byron
through Shelley. It was in the company of Byron and others
that she was challenged to write the ghost story which
became Frankenstein.

Perhaps Jupiter in Aries - retrograde - shows an early

leap to fame (with transiting Jupiter conjunct her Moon
when Frankenstein was published) which was never to be
replicated, although she remained in the public eye as a
writer, editor and critic. I think it also shows the arrogant
and unrealistic side of her optimism. For example, by
eloping with the still-married Shelley in her teens in the
early 19th century, and having an illegitimate child, she
flouted convention to such a shocking degree that she was

5 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality p 402.

6 Muriel Spark Mary Shelley, p159.

29
never ever accepted back into the mainstream of society,
despite her expectation that this would eventually happen.
This social ostracism caused her great pain all her life
although she eventually learned to live with it.

Uranus (ruling MC and dispositing Pluto) in the fourth

house in Virgo, squaring the Nodal axis, is the most vivid
significator for her unorthodox inheritance, her own
defiance of convention, her connection with Shelley, and
her authorship of Frankenstein which assured her place in
literary history. The significator is strengthened if we extend
it to include the Uranus /Mercury midpoint, Sun/Venus
midpoint, and Mercury/Sun midpoint - all square the Nodes
between 18 and 20 degrees of Virgo. This major T-square,
as we will see as the case study unfolds, is powerfully linked
with key individuals in her life who challenged her to grow,
and with events critical to the unfolding of her destiny.

Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus is the full title

of Mary Shelley’s first and most famous book. In the myth
of Prometheus lie core images of Mary’s own origins; the
times in which she lived; the essential nature of Percy
Bysshe Shelley born like her with Sun conjunct Uranus;
the way in which she defied convention; the price she paid -
and, most of all, in the central theme of her masterpiece.

Like a number of modern astrologers I am inclined

to associate the planet Uranus, mythologically, with
Prometheus. I am particularly in debt to Richard Tarnas for
his fine essay “Prometheus the Awakener”7 which argues a
persuasive case for this association.

7 Richard Tarnas “Prometheus the Awakener” - Auriel Press, Oxford, 1993

30
In essence, Prometheus in Greek mythology was a Titan
who stole some of the fire of knowledge from the gods and
gave it to humanity to help them in their development. For
this hubristic act the gods punished Prometheus savagely.
He was chained to a rock, and during the day an eagle came
and pecked out his liver, which grew again during the night
so that he could be subjected to the same pain the next day,
ad infinitum.

The myth of Prometheus speaks most vividly, dynamically

and poignantly of the human condition. We seem driven
by an unceasing restless quest to push back the frontiers
of knowledge, thereby defying our limits as mortal human
beings chained to the programmed lifespan of the body and
the inexorable cycle of birth, growth, flowering, decline and
death which governs everything in existence.

I perceive the struggle to be what we can most fully be,

through being forced to confront our limits, or choosing
consciously to wrestle with them, to be at the heart of the
soli/lunar dialectic which the Nodal axis seems to focus.
Combining Uranus with the Nodal axis conjures up a
particular dynamic:

“It was as if each Uranus aspect reflected the ‘liberation’ of
a specific archetypal impulse - Prometheus liberating the
Mercury impulse of ideas and language and communication,
for example, or liberating the Venus impulse of art and beauty
and love......... Each natal aspect between Uranus and another
planet seemed to represent a distinct mutual activation of the
corresponding archetypes.”8

8 Richard Tarnas “Prometheus the Awakener” - p39.

31
This quote applies very clearly to Mary Shelley’s
horoscope, with its powerful Nodal/ Uranian/ Mercurial /
Venusian emphasis through the dominant T-square and
corresponding midpoints.

To appreciate the full challenging, mould-breaking power

of Mary Shelley’s vision and its expression in her writing,
imaged symbolically in the above T-square, it is important
to look at the overall context in which the planetary/Nodal
pattern is set.

The T-square’s mutability shows the ceaseless reaching

out into the realm of ideas and their expression which
so characterised Mary Shelley’s life, and the state of
restlessness and dissatisfaction which was typical of much
of it. The Gemini/Sagittarius combination has already been
discussed - Gemini, Sagittarius and dominant mutability,
without anything to ground them and give them substance,
could have produced a life with a lot of hot air being
generated with no great end result.

But Virgo in the fourth house demands of mutability, of

Gemini and Sagittarius, that they earth, take shape, serve
in some way - that they base themselves somewhere, take
root. Planting in carefully tilled soil, tending and growing,
then harvesting, are all images conjured up by Virgo. Mary
Shelley had to produce something unusual, something
startling, from the carefully prepared and planted
intellectual and political soil of her early nurturing. That
something, shown by the Sun conjunct Uranus in Virgo
and its attendant pattern would need to break through the
bounds of convention regarding the social mores of her
time.

32
We can see through her biography (C/F Appendix i) how
fully she lived out the Promethean imperative symbolised in
her horoscope, in her personal life - and the price she paid
for that.

In the story of Frankenstein, the issue of the rupturing

of the integrity of the body is central to the whole plot.
Frankenstein creates a unique and uniquely repugnant
body, from the stolen parts of corpses. In this he is striving
for a form of physical perfection which is unique - he
is going where no man has gone before, and creating
life itself, thus taking on the role of the Creator. The
punishment of the gods for Frankenstein’s spectacular piece
of hubris which goes horribly wrong makes for reading
which still chills one to the bone.

Nature brings its rhythms, its cycles, its seasons - and we

are firmly rooted in the physical. Virgo tells us this clearly.
So the body itself, and the seasons and cycles of human
life, and what happens when that is artificially ruptured in
the name of progress and change, are centrally important
factors in the themes of Mary Shelley’s writing.

Uranus in Virgo and the attendant midpoints closely square

the Nodal axis from the northern side. To me this speaks
of Mary Shelley’s path involving an invocation, through
her presentation of Frankenstein to the world, of the future
impact of scientific advance on the very smallest, most
intricately detailed threads weaving the tapestry of physical
life - our DNA and our genes.

It is useful to contemplate the wider symbolic influence

of the Uranus/Pluto cycle, in trying to create a context for

33
Mary Shelley’s vision which stretches from just before her
birth to our own time. She was born five years after the
Uranus/Pluto opposition in Leo/Aquarius. This opposition
was exact at 21 degrees Leo/Aquarius - closely sextile and
trine her Nodal axis, close to her MC/IC axis - in 1792, the
year of the foundation of the first French Republic, three
years after the French Revolution. Revolution was in the air
of these times - political, social and scientific as befits Pluto
in Aquarius. The old order was inexorably being challenged,
breaking down, changing.

When Uranus and Pluto then met in Virgo during the

1960s, we had a unique decade of social, political and
scientific revolution: the French student riots of 1968,
protests in USA which led to the end of the Vietnam War,
and the micro-technology revolution leading to our current
computer dominated, internet facilitated global village.

With Pluto’s entry into Sagittarius in 1995 and Uranus’s

entry into Aquarius the same year, we had the first sextile
from the 1960s conjunction, and the fruiting of the micro-
technology revolution accelerated. Amongst many stunning
developments since then of a scientific and technological
nature, we have had the rise and spread of the internet,
and a major acceleration in the pace of the human genome
project to map all our genes, which has led to increasing
knowledge of how to manipulate the fundamental
structures of both human and animal life.

The presentation to the world of Dolly the Sheep on 26

February 1997 was a major event in the boldly going
juggernaut of contemporary science. It has also generated

34
tremendous public unease and disquiet as we see nature
being manipulated, often grotesquely, on a regular basis.
“Frankenstein” as an adjective is often to be heard these
days – “Frankenstein food” for example. Furthermore, the
initial choice of name for the famous sheep was Mary - after
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.9

Examination of the symbolism of Uranus’ dynamic

placement in Mary Shelley’s horoscope, then tracking the
Uranus/Pluto cycle to the present day, shows the powerful
thrust to use her inherited gifts not just to create an
image of the Promethean changes which were occurring
in the pursuit of scientific progress in her own time. The
12th house location of the Gemini North Node, and the
northern location of Uranus, powerfully evokes the capacity
that visionary artists - painters, musicians, writers - have
always had : to offer up images of the far future. The myth
which Mary Shelley created in writing Frankenstein is
still full of vibrant life nearly two hundred years later. I
will be discussing the striking links between Mary’s and
Dolly’s charts later in this case study, as well as offering
some comments on the reasons for the myth’s continuing
potency.

The pre-natal eclipses and Mary Shelley’s horoscope

As discussed in Chapter One, the role of the eclipses, as

galvanisers for the energy shifts that push individuals
to become what they can most fully be, is central to the
Nodal story. Mary Shelley’s pre-natal total solar eclipse at
3.5 degrees Cancer (9.6.1797) runs through her whole life

9 from Peter Clarke’s Diary, Sunday Times, 30.11.97.

35
as a key point of significance, in terms of connections to
the most important people and events in her life which
shaped her destiny. It appears in the first house of her natal
chart, within one degree of exact conjunction with her 2.5
degrees Cancer Ascendant conjunct Saturn (Descendant
ruler). It exactly squares Venus (12th House ruler), which
conjuncts Chiron in the 5th House. It also squares Mercury
(12th House Node ruler) in the 4th House, and opposes the
Sagittarian Moon (Chart ruler) in the sixth House.

This solar eclipse is therefore an extraordinarily potent

force, driving Mary forward to give creative form and
meaning, through her writing and her powerful links with
the collective unconscious, to very painful experiences of
separation and loss in relationships, involving children,
partner and mother. The driving power of her own painful,
bleak feelings of emotional insecurity and woundedness
can be felt almost palpably from the planetary symbols.

The pre-natal total lunar eclipse at 19 degrees Sagittarius

(24.6.1797) is just as clear in the thread it runs through the
weave of her whole life, key people, and significant events.
It appears as the exact South Node degree in her natal chart,
widely conjunct the Sagittarian Moon chart ruler, exactly
trine Jupiter her South Node ruler in the eleventh House.
This pattern, and the powerful Nodal T Square involving
Uranus the MC ruler and its links, has already been
discussed. I think the lunar eclipse casts a bright light on
her inherited gifts from the past, but the strongly northern
emphasis which the Uranus/Mercury midpoint brings to
the Nodal axis means that the lunar eclipse’s energy is also
enlisted in the service of the future. There is a strong pull

36
towards the past and a retreat from her destiny indicated
by the South Node conjunct Moon potentised by a lunar
eclipse - but Uranus won’t allow it, nor will Sagittarius
which is a future-oriented energy. What this strong conflict
evokes for me is a poignant sense of Mary’s
“having to struggle to extract her vision from the mire of the
mundane which was forever besetting her, as the contradictory
6th house location of the glamorous South Node conjunct Moon
in Sagittarius shows all too clearly.........Her health was always
delicate, childbirth drained her, and the deaths of three of her
children made it impossible for periods of time to dredge up any
inspiration to offer through the 12th house North Node.”

I will track some of the most obvious pre-natal eclipse links
with key people and events at the end of each following
section. There are also other striking eclipse links,
apart from the pre-natal ones, which I think are worth
mentioning.

Key relationships and Nodal Links

It is rather difficult, perhaps presumptuous, to attempt

to state who have been the most important people in
anyone’s life. But from the perspective I am offering on
the Nodes, I would assess her parents William Godwin,
Mary Wollestonecroft, and her husband Shelley as the key
enablers over time in the expression of Mary Shelley’s gifts.
I would also add two others, as vital catalysts in Mary’s
capacity to conceive of and give birth to Frankenstein.
Firstly her baby daughter Mary, her first, illegitimate child:
born on 22 February 1815, died 5 March 1815. And secondly,
Byron.

37
The Synastries - 1
Fig 2

Fig 3

38
Fig 4

Despite her child’s very short life and tragic death, I believe
that without such brutal experience so young she would
have lacked the emotional depth, plumbed by experience,
to portray with such a moving sense of desolation and
loneliness the plight of the abandoned Monster in
Frankenstein. By the time she conceived Frankenstein on
22 June 1816, whilst still only eighteen, and sat down to
write it on 7 October that year, she had experienced one
child’s birth and death, and her second child’s birth on 24
Jan 1816. Two days after starting to write Frankenstein, her
half-sister Fanny committed suicide. Shelley’s wife took
her own life on 15 December. She and Shelley married on
30th December - and some time in December she must
have conceived Clara Everina. By the 13 May 1817, the day

39
she finished Frankenstein, she was five months pregnant
with her third child. I cannot recall any writer having such
a devastating personal context, so young, within which a
classic of world literature was conceived and came to birth.
Mary had very mixed feelings about Byron, as had everyone
who ever met him. His combination of beauty, charisma,
predatory, powerful and amoral sexuality, linguistic and
artistic brilliance, moral equivocation, aristocratic origins
and the wealth and power which went with it, all repelled
and drew her in equal measure. There is no doubt that his
presence in her and Shelley’s lives acted as a major catalyst
on the conception of Frankenstein. Indeed, it was Byron’s
glamour which drew the Shelleys and their family to join
him in Geneva in the summer of 1816.

It was in Byron’s residence at Villa Diodati, where Milton

had once stayed, after a night of reading chilling tales,
that he issued the famous challenge to Mary, Shelley, their
friend and physician Polidori and himself that each should
write a ghost story. Less than a week later, in the middle of
a violent storm, the sleepless Mary had a waking nightmare
or hallucination in which she saw the scientist she would
later call Victor Frankenstein overseeing “the hideous
phantasm of a man”10 which he had created from corpses.

Given the significance of all those mentioned to the

fashioning of Mary’s destiny, one would expect to see
powerful Nodal links between her chart and theirs.

10 from the Author’s Introduction to the Standard Novels Edition, 1831, p 9.

40
Mary and Wollestonecraft, Godwin, Shelley, baby Mary,
and Byron: the Charts.

There are many powerful and moving links between Mary’s

overall chart and the charts of each person appearing in
this section, and indeed in the various synastries. But apart
from the occasional other link which is too striking to resist
mentioning, I am confining my comments to Nodal links.
Primarily, how the charts tie in with Mary’s Nodal axis;
secondarily, how individual’s Nodes link in with Mary’s
own Horoscope. So immediately visually striking are these
Nodal links that a commentary is scarcely required!

Mary and her mother, Mary Wollestonecraft

In Mary Wollestonecraft’s chart, Pluto at 25 Sagittarius in

the 5th house squares Uranus in Pisces in the 8th - the
waxing square of the Uranus Pluto conjunction which
charged up the industrial revolution. This links with Mary’s
South Node conjunct Moon at 19 and 27 Sagittarius in the
6th house and squares her North Node ruler Mercury at
28 Virgo in the 4th. The midpoint of her mother’s Saturn
conjunct Uranus, 21 Pisces, squares Mary’s Nodal axis and
opposes her 20 degrees Virgo Mercury/Uranus and Sun/
Venus midpoints.

What an inheritance for her daughter! The overall feel

of this is of Wollestonecraft handing on the baton of her
creative power of expression as fuel for her daughter’s
need to propel her ideas and concepts out into the wider
world. Saturn, Uranus and Pluto in the mother’s chart are
picked up by the Nodes in her daughter’s. These disruptive

41
The Synastries - 2

Fig 5

Fig 6

42
Fig 7

Fig 8

43
energies would emerge and be given worldly form in
her daughter’s scandalous, defiant, unconventional life,
expressed through her 10th house as her writing and her
all-too-public life with Shelley.

This inheritance also gives Mary the task of giving form

to images of the turbulent and powerful disruption which
modern science was to bring to the very core values of
life itself. Through Frankenstein, Mary warned us of the
dangers to which the hubris of modern science, with its
disregard for the ancient rhythms and patterns governing
all levels of earthly existence, would expose us all. As I write
this (17 November 1997) there have just been recent reports
in the papers that, in the move towards human cloning,
one eventual outcome - of growing headless human bodies
for use as spare parts for surgery - is being thought of as a
possibility.......

At a more personal level, there is such poignancy in seeing

Wollestonecraft’s South Node at 8 Capricorn/North Node at
8 Cancer being picked up by Mary’s Saturn rising in the first
house at 9 Cancer. The legacy of maternal deprivation and the
loneliness welling up from it which was to colour Mary’s whole
personal life with its dreadful losses, and play an important
part in shaping her writing, is starkly pictured here. The Moon-
ruled North Node in Cancer in the 11th house also speaks
of Wollestonecraft’s commitment to her fellow women - an
example which her daughter would live out in her own life in
her defiance of traditional restrictions on the role of women in
society, and pay for by social isolation.

44
Mary and her father, William Godwin

Godwin’s chart and Mary’s Nodes have equally powerful

links. Godwin’s Nodal axis widely crosses Mary’s at 11 Virgo/
Pisces to her 19 Gemini/Sagittarius. What Mary and her
father did NOT share was emotional intimacy; what they did
share was a restless and questing intellectuality and need
to study, learn, share ideas, and work to bring their ideas
to fruition. The most striking link is shown in Godwin’s
Mercury/Uranus midpoint in Pisces in the 10th house,
exactly opposite Mary’s Mercury/Uranus and Sun/Venus
midpoints at 20 Virgo, forming a close Grand Cross with
Mary’s Nodal axis.

In this one can see clearly how Godwin’s revolutionary ideas

sparked a bright fire in Mary’s developing political and
intellectual life from an early age. He was her main teacher
(she was never formally educated) and she was an eager,
avid, and very hard-working pupil. This habit of study and
learning continued in the company of Shelley. No matter
what turbulence they were going through, reading, writing
and discussion of serious literature took up hours daily for
all their years together.

One can also see through the Sun/Venus/Uranus/Mercury

links between their charts what a catalyst Godwin was for
linking her with unconventional, revolutionary male writers
who would play such an important part in the unfolding of
her life’s path. Growing up, her home had some of the most
famous men of the age come visiting. She heard Coleridge
read from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” when she was

45
still a child.11 She met Shelley through her father. And she
met Byron through Shelley.

It is quite stunning to note how Node, Sun, Uranus and

Mercury are in almost the same alignment, though in
different signs, in both father and daughter’s chart. How
could she do other than marry a Sun/Uranus man?

Mary and Percy Shelley

As indeed she did.....I would urge the reader to read Emily

Sunstein’s account of Mary and Shelley’s life together. The
story bowls along at a merry and turbulent pace, leaving
the reader exhausted and marvelling. Only the blithe
energy and naiveté of youth saved the pair of them from
going completely round the bend.....and many of their
contemporaries probably thought that they already were!

Their Nodes form a grand cross, with Shelley’s North

Node in Virgo, just as Godwin’s was. Shelley’s Nodal axis
at 25 Virgo/Pisces thus picks up Mary’s 20 Virgo Mercury/
Uranus and Sun/Venus midpoints, again bringing a similar
tone to the links between Mary and her father. So there
is the same atmosphere of sharing “a restless and questing
intellectuality and need to study, learn, share ideas, and work to
bring their ideas to fruition” which I commented on in Mary’s
relationship with Godwin.

What is strikingly different is brought out in the symbolism
of Shelley’s Moon/South Node midpoint in Pisces in the
12th house - falling in Mary’s 10th house, square her 12th
house North Node. I would take from this strong image
11 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality p40.

46
of a deep “soul bond” between the couple, and of Shelley’s
powerful empathy for his wife’s links to the collective
unconscious, hers for his, and the undercurrents running
beneath the times in which they both lived. Shelley was a
great supporter and enabler of his wife’s work, as she was
of his: he wrote the first preface for Frankenstein for her12
and after his death she edited and put together an acclaimed
version of his collected works.13 But the feeling I get from
looking at those mutual 12th house/Pisces Moon/Nodal
links is that they were not really of this world, either of
them. They belonged to the realms of the unconscious, of
the imagination, of dreams and prescience....the universal
sea to which Shelley returned very literally before he was
even thirty.

There was an unworldly unrealism about them both,

which can be seen in the frequent periods of chaos in their
domestic life and their frequent immersion in tides of debts
and pursuing creditors - Shelley’s Moon/S Node midpoint
opposite Mary’s Mercury/Uranus Midpoint, square her
North Node in Gemini in the 12th House/South Node
in Sagittarius in the 6th, offers a stark picture of the less
rarefied and more worldly manifestations of their mutual
Nodal links. They were great writers and visionaries, but
pretty hopeless at managing the affairs of ordinary life.

Mary and baby Mary

The strong Nodal links here tell a poignant story. The child’s

12 Preface to Frankenstein written by Shelley 14 May 1817.

13 Publishing of Shelley’s complete works by Mary Shelley. Decision to
publish in July 1838 - first volume appeared late January 1839. Source: Emily W.
Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality pp 340-346.

47
MC conjunct Neptune at 19 41 Sagittarius, square Mercury
conjunct Pluto at 20 degrees Pisces, plugs in exactly to
Mary’s nodal axis T- square with the Uranus Mercury
midpoint at 20 degrees Virgo. At a human level one can
imagine breathing difficulties leading to death (the child
was found dead in her cot on the morning of 6 March but
may well have died the night before) - and on Mary’s side,
the shock and horror with which this discovery was greeted.

At a more spiritual level, the two charts’ combined pattern

of Neptune/Pluto/Uranus/ Mercury with her 12th house
Node in Gemini evokes a feeling of darkly visionary
capacities of expression being kick-started by such a
traumatic and early experience of loss.

We see also that baby Mary’s North Node in Cancer square

Jupiter square Mars/South Node picks up her mother’s
Saturn rising in Cancer - a powerful set of significators
for blocked growth, and reinforcement of Mary’s primary
wound, ie maternal loss. She lost her mother when she
was a baby, and now had given birth to a child who would
shortly be lost to her. In this pattern we can also see the
motherless, desolate Monster of the book - longing for the
expansive potential of human relationship and forever cut
off from it, tormented by his own loneliness, grief - and
ultimately, anger.

Mary and Byron

The first thing which hits the eye is that Mary and Byron
have virtually the same angles, with Byron’s Saturn falling
with Mary’s Pluto on their mutual Aquarian Midheaven.

48
Surely a relationship fated to send powerful images of the
shadow side of scientific progress out into the world......
The Nodal axes are linked, with Byron’s North Node
in 25 Sagittarius, Part of Fortune at 27, and conjunct
Mary’s Moon at 28 Sagittarius and her South Node at 20
Sagittarius. Shelley’s North Node is 25 Virgo, and Godwin’s
Moon/ North Node midpoint is with his Mercury at 25
Pisces. So one has a potent image of all these influences
stimulating her restless, questing, writer’s spirit to make
something on a large and visionary scale come into being -
which it did, in 1816 the year of her first Nodal return.

Continuing with Byron and Mary’s Nodal links, his 12th

house Jupiter/South Node in Gemini falls on her 12th
house Gemini North Node; his Venus/Pluto in Aquarius
midpoint in the 9th house trines those links, and
quincunxes her Mercury/Uranus midpoint in Virgo in her
4th house. The picture conjured up by those combined
energies is of the relationship with Byron, and the challenge
he threw down that fateful night at Villa Diodati, acting as
a potent catalyst for the release of her creative potential as
a writer. It also suggests the birth of something dark and
fated from their connection, which would ripple out into
the collective from their time to the future, via the dark
underground currents of the 12th house.

Mary Shelley’s pre-natal eclipses and the synastries

As can be seen from the discussion in this section already,

the bold threads of Mary’s pre-natal solar eclipse at 3.5
Cancer, and pre-natal lunar eclipse at 19 Sagittarius,
both weave their way through all the synastries with

49
unmistakeable colour and impact. The solar picks up
Godwin’s 12th House rising Mars exactly, with his
Ascendant - Chiron - Moon conjunct Venus T square. It
then draws in Wollestonecraft’s Nodal axis, Shelley’s MC/
IC axis, Byron’s Ascendant/Descendant axis and his first
House rising Mars. Baby Mary’s Mars is exactly opposite
her mother’s pre-natal solar eclipse, which further weaves
in with the child’s Nodal axis - Mars - Jupiter T square.
Because Mary Shelley’s pre-natal lunar eclipse is her South
Node degree, one can see its impact running through all
the comments made on the links between Mary’s Nodal T
square and the key people discussed.

Both those eclipses occurring over two months before her

birth are powerfully configured in the structure of Mary’s
horoscope. Contemplating them, their symbolism in
Mary’s birth chart, and their strong links with the charts
of Godwin, Wollestonecraft, Shelley, Byron and baby Mary,
leaves me with a real sense of a life whose purpose was
already sketched out before her birth: those key people
would be catalysts for the unfolding of her destiny.

Key events and Nodal Links

1. Mary and Percy’s declaration of love

and their elopement

Mary first met Shelley when she was fifteen, on 11th

November 1812. In the spring of 1814 she met him again,
and their relationship began to develop. At this point he
was unhappily married with small children. On Sunday
June 26, “in the evening at sunset”, at the site of her mother’s

50
The Events - 1
Fig 9

Fig 10

51
Fig 11

grave where Mary often went for solace and reflection, they
declared their love for each other Sunstein describes this as
“the evening....that decided her destiny.”14

In this chart the elements we can be sure of are Pluto at 21

Pisces, falling in Mary’s 10th house, opposite her Uranus/
Mercury midpoint at 20 Virgo in the 4th house, creating
a grand cross with her natal Nodes at 19 degrees Gemini/
Sagittarius. This gives a strong feel of an event occurring
which was heavily fated, destined to alter profoundly her
direction in life thereafter. The restless travelling writers’
life which they were to lead is also evoked. Pluto/Uranus/

14 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality p 74.

52
Mercury carries a strong charge of defiance of the power of
the prevailing social order- and the price.

Neptune in Sagittarius falls in Mary’s 6th house, conjunct

South Node, square Pluto in Pisces in her 10th.I think
this shows how her act of commitment to Shelley opens
her up as a channel for the archetypal forces of power and
imaginative vision which would result in her creation of
Frankenstein. It poignantly speaks of a longing for worldly,
bodily connection with her soulmate.

If the speculative time is accurate, then we see the Part of
Fortune at 20 Virgo completing a T Square with Neptune
and Pluto, emphasising the Grand Cross formed by the
two charts. The elopement chart has an exact time. This
venture involved secret flight to the continent, thereby
taking an inexorable step in the eyes of the world, especially
Godwin’s. He was appalled. To make matters worse they
took Mary’s step-sister Jane (Clare/Claire) Claremont with
them. Godwin didn’t speak to Mary for nearly three years
until the couple married after Shelley’s wife’s suicide. (But
it didn’t stop him continually borrowing money off Shelley
who continued to provide it!)

In this chart the Neptune/Pluto square is once again

present, with the Moon joining Neptune at 19 Sagittarius
conjunct Mary’s North Node in the sixth, square the Part of
Fortune again, at 15 Pisces conjunct Pluto in Mary’s tenth.
This pattern shows similar issues to the Declaration chart,
but Moon/Neptune in Sagittarius shows action in the
world (Mary’s 6th house) generated by romantic love and
longing, ill-judged and planned and ending in penniless

53
return on Sept 13th. A flight over water (the English
Channel) is also indicated in this chart.

2. Dreaming Frankenstein.....and getting it published.

“... out of that vampire-laden fug of gruesomeness known as

the English Gothic Romance, only the forbidding acrid name
Frankenstein remains in general usage.....”15

Muriel Spark’s evocative phrase sums up Mary Shelley’s

singular achievement. Perhaps Frankenstein alone survives
because it is unique. As Muriel Spark puts it:
“Frankenstein then was a best-seller ; it occurred at the
propitious moment when it was necessary for works of fiction to
produce, not only repellent if vicarious sensations in the pit of
the stomach, but (my emphasis) speculation in the mind.”

Mary Shelley went further than anyone else in her

“speculation in the mind”. She was writing during the
Romantic period in English literature when the “fusion of the
ways of thought of two epochs” was generating creative conflict
in the artistic, scientific, religious and political life of the
time. Those two epochs were the era of eighteenth century
scientific rationalism represented in her childhood by her
father, the social philosopher Godwin, and the nineteenth
century’s Romantic response, represented as a contrasting
childhood influence by the Romantic poet Coleridge. She
listened to many conversations between these two men as
she grew up.

15 Muriel Spark Mary Shelley p 153.

54
The Events - 2
Fig 12

Fig 13

55
Mingling in Mary were two contrasting streams of
thought and feeling, the scientific and the Romantic - an
appropriate reflection of her own temperament, which was
predominantly earth/air on the one hand, and strongly
fire/water on the other - and of the detached scientist
Frankenstein and his turbulently emotional creation, the
Monster.

“This fusion of the ways of thought of two epochs occurred,

then, in Frankenstein, and gave rise to the first important
example of that fictional genre which was later endorsed by HG
Wells.......”16

In Frankenstein we can see the Promethean march forward
of human scientific endeavour which takes the view, largely,
that if it can be done, it should be done - in the name of
scientific “progress”. This view doesn’t see ceaseless moral
and ethical questioning along the way as any part of the
scientific project.

“...Perhaps a corpse could be re-animated; galvanism17 had given

token of such things; perhaps the component parts of a creature
might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital
warmth.”18

We can also see throughout the book the horror and

revulsion of the Romantic temperament’s response to
the notion that the fundamental mystery and grandeur

16 Muriel Spark Mary Shelley p 159.

17 Luigi Galvani - for definition of galvanism c/f Encyclopaedia Britannica
Micropaedia Ready Reference Book 5 (Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 15th
Edition 1995) pp 98/9.
18 from the Author’s Introduction to the Standard Novels Edition, 1831, p4.

56
of human experience and endeavour could be reduced to
a pitifully hubristic attempt at playing God, by cobbling
together bits of corpses and attempting to animate the
frightful travesty thus engendered.

The backdrop to the night when Mary Shelley dreamed

Frankenstein was singular. Europe was again being ravaged
by terrible storms which had last been seen in the year of
her birth in 1797. The cultural cross-currents of scientific
rationalism, and the Romantic Movement in art and
literature, were creating a turbulent stream in the collective
unconscious of the time.

Foreground energies were provided by the alchemy of

Byron, Shelley, Mary and their friend Polidori and their
reading and discussion, late into the night while storms
and rain lashed their villa, of “volumes of ghost stories
translated from the German to the French”19 The latest
scientific ideas of the day were also discussed, and taken as
far as their imaginations, fuelled by the gruesomeness of
their reading material, could stretch.

Within Mary herself, concentrated in a young but
passionately, painfully and dramatically lived life, was a
deep well of experience, intense feeling, and the drive
to express herself. The qualities of the time, and her
immediate surroundings, functioned like electrical charges
which galvanised her own depths, connected as they were
through her 12th house Node to the collective pool.

19 from the Author’s Introduction to the Standard Novels Edition, 1831, p2.

57
“When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could
I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and
guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind
with vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw -
with shut eyes, but acute mental vision - I saw the pale student
of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.
I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then,
on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life.......
Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect
of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of
the Creator of the world.“20

The horoscope for the dream is stunning. Aries rises,

conjunct Mary’s Jupiter, indicating the fame the book
would bring her. The Asc/Desc axis of Aries/Libra is
supremely appropriate for a tale which concerns the
relationship between Frankenstein, the pioneering creator
of life, and his creature the Monster, whose alienation
from the warmth of relationship with his master and the
rest of the world drives him to vengeful murder. The chart
significators paint this vividly - Venus, Descendant ruler,
trine Saturn square Pluto conjunct Chiron. Venus is 19
Gemini in this chart, closely conjunct Mary’s North Node.
The first house Taurus Moon, ruling the IC, falls exactly on
Mary’s 12th House cusp - a potent image of an imaginative
response to the currents of the collective unconscious
requiring to be given concrete form. Mary’s radix Saturn
rising falls on the 1C of this chart. At the core of the story
was her own frustrated longing for maternal nurturing,
and the pain of her own motherhood already at nineteen

20 from the Author’s Introduction to the Standard Novels Edition, 1831, p5.

58
deeply scored by the death of her first child. But she gives
form and structure to her pain, using her imaginative gifts,
by sending the work out as a lesson and a warning to the
collective through an inspired work of literature - the Dream
chart’s IC conjunct Mercury in Cancer, MC Capricorn, ruler
Saturn in Aquarius in 11th, sextile Neptune in Sagittarius
in the 9th House - all these are highly appropriate
significators.

The Nodal links are striking. The 3rd/9th House cusps of

the Dream chart exactly conjunct Mary’s Nodal axis. Both
Nodal axes are conjunct - and part of a very powerful T
Square involving the outer planets: Neptune conjuncts the
South Node in both Horoscopes, falling on the 9th cusp of
the Dream Chart. Neptune squares Chiron Pluto which falls
in the 12th House of the dream chart, and Mary Shelley’s
tenth. The Dream chart’s T- square falls on Mary’s radix
T-Square.

The overall “feel” of these potent links is of Mary, through

her story, being able to connect to, and give form to, some
of the archetypal threads running through the weave of the
time in which she lived. With her 12th/6th House North
Node falling on the 3rd/9th cusps of the Dream Chart, and
Pluto/Chiron in the Dream chart’s 12th house, square its
own 3rd / 9th cusps and Mary’s Nodes, there is a feeling of
prescience, of foresight concerning wounds to come in the
human collective, generated by the combination of these
two charts.

The Publication chart is also graphic, but in a more cerebral

way as befits the nature of the occasion. In the Dream

59
chart Uranus was approaching conjunction with Neptune,
which was exactly on Mary’s South Node. In this one, 17.5
degrees Aquarius rises, trine Mary’s North Node sextile
Jupiter. Uranus rules the chart, and is placed in Sagittarius
(conjunct MC in Sagittarius) conjunct Venus, Neptune and
Jupiter, in the tenth house - this stellium is draped round
Mary’s South Node conjunct Moon, with the Venus/Uranus
midpoint exactly conjunct Mary’s South Node. The shocking
and scary nature of the book, as well as its visionary
message, is well conveyed through these significators
with the addition of the Chiron/Pluto midpoint exactly
square Venus/Uranus - exactly plugging into Mary’s Nodal
T-square.

I think the indications of the book’s enormous success are

well conveyed in the chart’s Jupiter Neptune conjunction
in the 10th House, conjunct Mary’s Moon South Node
conjunction in her 6th House - as well as Mary’s Jupiter
sextile the chart’s Ascendant.

There is a strongly Promethean tone to the Publication

chart, echoing Mary’s own. Mary in publishing Frankenstein
breaks through the bounds of convention again, regarding
what was thought fit for a woman to do in the time in
which she lived. She also challenged expectations of what a
youthful person could produce - it was hard to believe that a
nineteen year old woman had written this book - and there
were many who erroneously believed for some time that it
was the work of her husband, Shelley.21

21 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality p 156.

60
In the spring of 1818 the Shelleys and their entourage set
off for Europe again. By June, now living Italy up in the
Apennines in Bagni di Lucca, Mary had “learned from letters
and reviews that her novel was a sensation. Along with the
expected denunciations for impiety and extravagant wildness,
critics lauded the book’s “highly terrific” power....”22

In the Publication chart and its links with Mary Shelley’s, one
can see the striking foreground dominance of the outer planets
in relation to Mary’s 12th House North Node in Gemini. She
hadn’t just written a book - she had distilled from the collective
undercurrents of her time the most powerful dilemma of the
age, a Promethean one. Is it right for humankind to strive to
transcend the limits of our physical bodies and the cycle of
time which demands decay and death as the price of life, just
because science gives us the power to do so? Frankenstein’s
profound impact on public consciousness, from its own time
and down the generations that followed right up until the
present day, can be seen especially in the many and varied
cinematographic versions of the book from the first American
film adaptation of 1910 onwards. As Emily Sunstein puts it:

“In 1931 Boris Karloff became the monster for millions, and the rest
is history.”23
3. Enter Dolly….

“Dr Frankenstein wore a wool sweater and a baggy parka......

Dr Ian Wilmot, the first man to conceive fully formed life from
adult body parts since Mary Shelley’s fictional mad scientist.
Wilmot may not look the part of Frankenstein, or God the

22 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality p 155.

23 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality - p 398.

61
Father - but he played it.” (my emphasis)

I believe that the reason for the continuing potency of the

book’s effect is that the dilemma Mary Shelley so graphically
portrayed is with us still, and still unresolved, as the above
quotation shows. It is absolutely contemporary - from the
Science (Biology) Section of Time Magazine’s 1997 The
Year in Review.24

On 26 February 1997, shortly after the Jupiter Uranus

conjunction and its attendant 5 degree pattern linking
Saturn, Mars, Pluto, Jupiter and Uranus in a unique
planetary alignment on 15 -16 February 1997, Dolly the
Sheep was presented to the world.

Andrew Marr, Editor of the Independent, offered the

following front page headline:
“In the past few days, we have lived through a change in
the human condition as momentous as the Copernican
revolution or the splitting of the atom”25

This dramatic statement introduced the news that a team of

Scottish scientists had successfully produced a sheep cloned
from one cell of her genetically identical mother’s udder.
President Clinton was so concerned by this development
that he asked a national ethics board to review the moral
implications, and present their report within ninety days.

For weeks afterwards, the papers were full of intense

24 from the Science (Biology) Section of Time Magazine’s Time Annual 1997
The Year in Review (Time Books 1998), p116.
25 The Independent Wednesday 26 February 1997.

62
The Events - 3
Fig 14

Fig 15

63
debate. As the New Scientist put it on 1 March 1997, under
the headline .....one giant leap into the unknown....

“Extraordinary”, “stupendous”, “mind-boggling” and

“frightening” were the words on everyone’s lips. They said it
couldn’t happen before 2050, but now that an adult sheep
has been cloned, there seems to be no technical reason why
we should not do the same with people...”

President Clinton’s ethics committee reported back on

7 June 1997.The conclusion was that cloning of human
beings is morally wrong, and should be banned...

When I first read about how Dolly the sheep had been
cloned, ie that an electrical charge was run through the
genetically altered egg to vitiate the cloning process, I recall
being rooted to my chair, feeling chilled, as a vivid cinema
image of Frankenstein’s Monster vitiated by the lightning
bolt came to me. What had Mary Shelley foreseen? Her
biography shows clearly that she had a streak of prescience
with regard to upcoming events in her personal life. The
Node position in Gemini in the 12th, square Uranus,
sextile Jupiter, suggests sensitivity to collective events as yet
unformed.......

In my monthly Study Group which I run for ongoing

students as a forum to present charts, I sometimes
introduce world event charts, and certainly could not resist
producing Scotland’s chart in March 1997. Scotland’s Asc/
Desc axis is 6.5 degrees Leo Asc /Aquarius Desc, and there
is 7 degrees Aries/Libra MC/IC - so it is strongly “plugged
in” to the unique planetary line-up just mentioned. During
the tutorial I told the students about my powerful “flash”

64
of Mary Shelley/Frankenstein when reading about how
Dolly had been created. Having just that week obtained
Dolly’s chart, I had the idea of putting Mary Shelley’s chart
positions round the acetate of Dolly’s chart, in red pen. I
put this very hurried piece of work up on the OHP. I won’t
forget the quality of the silence which fell in the room as the
students looked at the synastry.

One could write a whole case study on this synastry alone.

But the first comments the students made were on the
powerful Nodal links.

Once again there is a significant tie-up with Mary’s Nodal

T- Square: Dolly’s Venus Mars conjunction in Gemini in the
eighth, square her Pisces Moon in the fifth, falls on Mary’s
twelfth House North Node, with the Moon placed in her
tenth house. Dolly’s square provides a striking image of the
artificial separation of the growth and incarnation process
shown by the Moon, life’s container, from the sexual
meeting of male and female shown by the eighth House
Venus Mars conjunction. Mary’s first House rising Saturn
in Cancer squares Dolly’s Saturn/Nodes Chiron/Sun/
Fortuna/Mercury opposite Jupiter grand cross.

These cross link-ups are potent and poignant. They carry all
the personal and collective themes I have been presenting
throughout this case study. There is even an un-mothered
sheep - not carried in a womb, birthed and gently nudged
onto her feet and into her life by her own mother - but an
artificial creation from, of all parts of the maternal body, the
udder.

65
There are many other Nodal links, too numerous to chart
them all in detail. Here are a few examples: Percy Shelley
and Dolly have the same Moon to one degree of exactitude,
squaring Mary’s North Node. Dolly’s Nodal grand cross
“plugs in” to the Asc/Desc of the Dream chart. Dolly’s Asc/
Desc axis runs through the Publication chart’s Nodal axis
- the Sun of the Publication chart links closely with Dolly’s
Nodal grand cross, the two Suns in fact opposite each other.
Furthermore, the Moon/Venus Mars square in Dolly’s
chart picks up the MC/IC axis and attendant Uranus/Mars/
Chiron T square in the Publication chart.

Very significantly too, in terms of the resonance over time,

is the fact that Dolly’s 0 Sag Pluto is in waning square to
Mary Shelley’s Pluto, which is at 29 Aquarius conjunct her
MC at 27 Aquarius. (Dolly’s IC is 23 Aquarius.......) It is very
apt that Dolly should appear under this waning square,
as a potent symbol of a major concrete outworking of the
revolutionary social, political and scientific ideas current
under the Uranus Pluto opposition immediately preceding
Mary’s birth.26 Furthermore, when Dolly was announced

26 NOTE The Jupiter Uranus year of 1997 is probably the most overtly
Promethean year humanity has lived through, the central event of a Promethean
nature being the first ever cloning of a mammal, making the cloning of human
beings a frightening but not unlikely next step. (cf my own study From erotic
bathing to star gazing - the Jupiter Uranus Year for a presentation of some of
the collective and individual effects of this conjunction).
At the point of exact conjunction in February 1997, Jupiter disposited the
current position of Pluto in Sagittarius, and Uranus disposited Mary Shelley’s
Pluto; the conjunction and its attendant pattern “plugged in” exactly to
Mary Shelley’s ninth house cusp at 5 Aquarius. It is an interesting piece of
synchronicity that 1997, the conjunction year, is the bicentenary of her birth,
and there has been something of a Mary Shelley revival. There was an exhibition
in Rome in August, her birth month. (The Times, 28.8.97, p15) The National
Portrait Gallery mounted a major exhibition on Mary Shelley and her mother’s
lives and work, “Hyenas in Petticoats”, in London over the winter........and on
November10th, a front page headline in The Times reported that a children’s
story by Mary Shelley, lost for 170 years, had just turned up in a trunk in a villa
in Italy. As already mentioned in ref xiv, Mary, after Mary Shelley, was the first

66
to the world, Uranus was making its first sextile from the
Uranus Pluto conjunction of the 1960s.

Mary Shelley’s pre-natal eclipses and the event charts

Once again, one sees the pre-natal eclipses as stunning

foreground images in all the event charts. The links
between the 19 Sagittarius pre-natal lunar eclipse and
Mary’s chart have already been covered by the discussion of
the Nodal links between Mary’s chart and key events, since
19 Sagittarius is her South Node degree.

3.5 degrees of Cancer, the pre-natal solar eclipse, is conjunct

the Sun in the 6th House of the Declaration chart, opposite
the Neptune/South Node midpoint in the 12th House.
This strongly resonates with the nature of the event: the
declaration in the world of a longing for profound union of
body and spirit. It falls in the 12th House of the elopement
chart (very apt for a clandestine event under cover of
darkness!); closely square the Aries MC/Libra IC. The
Dream chart finds it in the 3rd House, conjunct the Sun
and probably the IC. In the Publication chart it falls most
appropriately in the 5th House, opposite an 11th House
Sun and Sun/Jupiter midpoint, square the Mercury/Mars
midpoint in the 1st House. This offers a clear picture of a
challenging piece of writing, destined to bring fame to its
creator, being offered up to the wider community from a
visionary creative source.

I find the links between the pre-natal solar eclipse and

choice of name for the famous sheep, who was in the end named after Dolly
Parton.

67
Dolly’s chart particularly striking, plugging in as it does
to Dolly’s 8th House Mercury/Fortuna/9th House Sun
conjunction, completing a grand cross with the Nodes,
Chiron, Saturn and Jupiter.

Dreaming and Publishing Frankenstein: eclipse seasons

Mary Shelley dreamed Frankenstein on June 22 1816. The

transiting North Node had recently returned to its natal
position at 19 Gemini, and was still retrograding through
the 12th House. On 27 May 1816 there was a solar eclipse
which fell in Mary’s 12th House, at 5.5 degrees Gemini,
triggering her Sun/Mars, Neptune/Ascendant, Uranus/MC,
and Uranus/Pluto midpoints. On 10 June there was a total
lunar eclipse - on the South Node, at 19 degrees Sagittarius;
her pre- natal lunar eclipse. The new moon on June 25,
three days after the dream, fell on 3 degrees 47 minutes
Cancer - her precise pre-natal solar eclipse degree, just out
of the 18 degree orb limit required to produce an eclipse.......

The eclipse season within which Frankenstein was

published on 1 January 1818 saw the North Node
retrograding through the middle degrees of Taurus. The
total solar eclipse of 9th November 1817 fell on 16 degrees
20 minutes Taurus, almost exactly conjunct Mary Shelley’s
12th House cusp, triggering her Mercury /Ascendant
midpoint in the 3rd House, and Moon/Venus midpoint in
the 6th. Furthermore, this eclipse degree appears as the
exact South Node degree in the Publication chart, the Nodes
making a grand cross with its Asc/Desc axis at 17 degrees
Aquarius/Leo. This axis falls in Mary’s 9th/3rd House,
sextile her Jupiter and trine/sextile her Nodal axis - quite

68
a symbolic recipe for literary success within an innovative
field of work!

The lunar eclipse of 23rd November at 1 degree 13 minutes

Gemini closely echoed the pre-Dream solar eclipse at 5.5
Gemini, and fell again in Mary’s 12th House, squaring her
powerful Pluto/MC/Mars/IC line-up, conjunct her Mars/
Pluto and Sun/MC midpoints. The eclipse degree becomes
the Part of Fortune degree in the 10th House of the
Publication chart, opposite a 3rd House Mars in Gemini,
square a 1st House Saturn in Pisces.

Enter Dolly: eclipse seasons 1997/8

Dolly was presented to the world on 26 February 1997. The

transiting North Node was at 28 degrees 44 minutes Virgo,
exactly conjunct Mary Shelley’s North Node ruler, Mercury,
to the minute, and squares her Moon at 28 degrees
Sagittarius, on that day. The total solar eclipse at 18.5 Pisces
on 9 March fell in her 10th House, square the Natal Nodal
axis, and Mary’s pre-natal lunar eclipse at 19 Sagittarius.
The following lunar eclipse on 24 March at 3.5 degrees
Libra fell on her Venus Chiron conjunction at 3.5/5.5
degrees Libra, square her Asc/Desc axis at 2.5 Cancer/
Capricorn; square her pre-natal solar eclipse at 3.5 Cancer.

In the autumn, as the controversy raised by Dolly raged on,

the total solar eclipse of 1st September 1997 at 9.5 Virgo fell
on Mary’s Sun Uranus conjunction. The following lunar
eclipse on 16 September at 24 Pisces squared once again
Mary Shelley’s Nodal axis / pre-natal lunar eclipse degrees.

69
The transiting Nodal axis by then was exactly forming a
grand cross with Mary’s natal Nodes.

The cloning/genetic engineering debate continued. The

following spring was notable for an American doctor
announcing that he was going to go ahead with attempting
to clone a human being, despite the findings of President
Clinton’s ethics committee the previous June. Suspicions
were being voiced in the press that the race towards cloning
the first human was probably on, being conducted behind
the scenes. The feeling now is that human cloning is just a
matter of time.

And the eclipses? The total solar eclipse of 26 February 1998

at 8 degrees Pisces opposed Mary’s Sun Uranus conjunction
from the 10th House. The following lunar eclipse on 13
March at 22.5 Virgo once again made a grand cross with
her natal Nodes. The prevailing pattern in the heavens that
spring involved Pluto/Nodes/Jupiter in the first decanate of
the mutables, picking up Mary Shelley’s Mars/Sun/Uranus
conjunction from 1 to 12 degrees of Virgo.

When I made all these correspondences, spanning nearly

200 years of time, I felt awestruck. My overwhelming
impression, once again, was of a life moving inexorably
towards its destiny, with the Nodes, and their agents the
eclipses, providing both the route maps and the galvanising
energy. The Nodal and eclipse patterns of Mary Shelley’s
natal horoscope stand out as symbolic images of the
threads weaving the individual herself, the modern myth
she created, and this time and place when the myth is
powerfully potent in collective consciousness, into the
tapestry of history.

70
4. And finally......

I had occasion recently to look out the horoscope of the

20th century, set for London. This is an extraordinary
horoscope. Images leap out: of the century’s restless hunger
for challenging the frontiers of knowledge at every level,
of its turbulence, violence and revolutionary spirit, of the
breakdown of conventional and traditional life patterns -
and the price paid for all that change.

I looked at the chart - and looked again. There was

something about it which strongly reminded me of another
chart. Intuitively I went for Mary Shelley’s - and was riveted.

Mary’s Nodal axis is exactly conjunct the 20th century

one, her 12th House North Node in Gemini falling on the
century’s South Node. Both land on the century’s Neptune
Pluto conjunction midpoint, in the ninth house, exactly
square Mary’s Mercury/Uranus and Sun/Venus midpoints.
Her Sagittarian Moon, widely conjunct the South Node,
falls on the century’s Saturn almost to the minute. Both are
conjunct the Galactic Centre. Her Sun/Uranus midpoint
falls in the 11th house of the century’s chart, exactly square
its Uranus in Sagittarius in the 3rd house. The century’s
exact Chiron Mercury conjunction in the 3rd house falls on
Mary’s South Node within a degree of exactitude.

Other links are equally stunning. Mary’s Saturn rising in

Cancer falls exactly within 20 minutes of the century’s
Midheaven, its Sun Mars conjunction on the IC falling
opposite Mary’s Saturn. The century’s Moon on the
Capricorn IC is exactly conjunct Mary’s Desc.

71
The pain and alienation of people’s increasing separation
this century from ties of kin, tradition and nation, and
the ancient rhythms of Nature itself, in the wake of fast,
unprecedented, technology-led global change, and Mary’s
prescient capacity to evoke this, I think lie at the heart of the
astounding synastry between the two charts.

This has been a century like no other. There have been

huge leaps forward in improvements in standard of living
and vastly expanded ranges of potential through which
those lucky enough to live in the “developed” world can
experience life. There is also a heavy price to be paid - and,
increasingly, we are now paying it. In her portrayal of the
questing, brilliant, restless, hubristic Dr Frankenstein
prepared to take on the role of Creator in his ruthless
pursuit of scientific progress unfettered by moral concerns
or even self-doubt, and in her portrayal of the intelligent,
sensitive, lonely, alienated and ultimately destructive
Monster, she is offering through her famous novel a
warning for the future - and presenting us with an essential
duality of the century in which we live.

“With extraordinary clairvoyance and integrity Mary Shelley

recognised that what her father trusted as the promise
of mankind...... was also its gravest threat. It is perhaps
her greatest and most characteristic accomplishment
in Frankenstein that the issue remains unresolved and
unresolvable.“ 27

27 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality p132.

72
Appendix i: biography in summary

I am indebted to Emily W Sunstein for her immaculately

researched, detailed, scholarly and extraordinarily vivid
MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality, which brought
Mary Shelley’s life and times marvellously alive. I also
greatly appreciated the tart clarity of Muriel Spark’s
appraisal of Mary Shelley as a writer and critic.28

Mary Shelley’s life, as indeed her husband Percy Shelley’s,

has been subject to many interpretations over the years. The
basic facts are as follows:29

Her mother was the progressive feminist writer Mary

Wollestonecraft, her father the equally progressive
philosopher and writer William Godwin. Mary was born
on 30 August 1797, and her mother died on 10 September,
in her late 30s.This early loss left a painful emotional void
in Mary. Her father re-married in 1801 when Mary was 4,
bringing her a stepmother whom she always hated, and
two step-siblings Charles and Jane. She grew up in a highly
intellectual household with distinguished literary visitors
eg the writers Samuel Coleridge and Leigh Hunt. Her
precocious intellectual development was nurtured by her
father.

28 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - published 1792 – “the feminist

social study cum manifesto that first made women’s rights into a cause” Emily
W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality (John Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore 1989) p 13.
29 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality (John Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore 1989). Muriel Spark Mary Shelley (Constable &
Company, London, 1988) Part ii Critical pp 149 to 235 , especially Chapter 11
on Frankenstein. I have taken the facts for the biographical summary from
Sunstein’s book.

73
She first glimpsed Lord Byron in 1811, and briefly met
Shelley on 11 November 1812. In the spring of 1814 she
met Shelley again. On Sunday June 26, at her mother’s
graveside, they declared their love - an evening that decided
her destiny. They eloped to Europe (Shelley was married)
on 28 July and returned to London on 13 September to set
up home together. On 22 Feb 1815 their daughter Mary was
born prematurely. She died on 5th March. On Jan 24 1816
their son William was born.

On May 2 1816, having previously met Byron, they sailed

to Italy with Mary’s step sister Jane, newly pregnant by
Byron, and their son William. On May 27 they had their
first meeting with Byron in Geneva. On the night of 16 June
Byron proposed that they all write a ghost story. In the early
hours of June 22, Mary had the dream/nightmare in which
the plot of Frankenstein came to her.

On 29 August 1816, the party minus Byron returned to

England and settled in Bath. On October 7, Mary began
to write Frankenstein. On 9 October, Fanny, Mary’s elder
half-sister, committed suicide. On December 15, Mary and
Shelley had news of Shelley’s wife Harriet’s suicide. Mary
and Shelley married on December 30th, witnessed by her
stepmother and father William Godwin, who had disowned
Mary since her elopement whilst still continuing to borrow
money from Shelley.

On the 13 May 1817 Mary finished writing Frankenstein,
and on the 14th Shelley, who had supported and encouraged
her throughout the whole process, wrote the preface. It was
eleven months after her dream. In late August the book

74
was accepted for publication; on the last day of 1817 she
received her first bound copy of the 3 volumes. The official
publication date was 11 March 1818, in London, although
the book was actually published on 1st January 1818.30 On
the 12 March 1818 the Shelleys and their entourage left
England for Italy, where Mary was to remain until July 1823.
By the summer of 1818 she knew from letters and reviews
that her novel was a sensation. By the time she returned to
England the novel had “soared beyond literary success into
the domain of a classic…”31

On 2nd September their second daughter, Clara Everina,

was born in London. On September 24, she died in Italy,
in Venice. Their 3 year old son, William, died in Rome on
7 June 1819. On 12 November 1819 she had Percy, the only
child to survive of the four who were born. She never fully
recovered her physical health or emotional resilience after
these terrible losses. In her depression following William’s
death she withdrew from everyone, even her beloved
Shelley, for long periods.

But her worst loss was yet to come. She and Shelley were
sharing Casa Magni, a large converted boathouse on the
Gulf of Spezia with various friends in the summer of 1822.
In the spring her half-sister Claire’s daughter Allegra by
Byron, died of typhus in her convent school. On 16 June
Mary miscarried at 3.5 months and nearly bled to death.
She, Shelley and their friend Jane Williams had bloody
nightmares and frightening visions and premonitions that
month. On 1st July Shelley left, Mary begging him not to go,

30 from Sally Davis of Data Plus UK. Her source: Times 1 January 1818, p 4.
31 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality p 252.

75
to sail to Genoa with Edward Williams to meet other friends
there.

On the 19th July, their friend Trelawny told Mary and Jane
that he had seen their husbands’ bodies washed up on the
shore near via Reggio. They had apparently drowned in
a storm on July 8th. Over 15/16 August 1822, Trelawney,
watched by friends Hunt and Byron, performed the grisly
task of exhuming and cremating Shelley’s and Edward
Williamson’s bodies on the beach where they had been
washed ashore. Quarantine regulations prevented the
bodies from being buried.

In 1823, on 25 July, just before the ninth anniversary of

her elopement with Shelley on 28 July 1814, Mary Shelley
returned home to England with her half-sister and her one
surviving child. She was never to live abroad again.

Since this case study concerns her life up until she wrote
Frankenstein, I shall be very brief in giving a summary of
the rest of her life until she died of a brain tumour at the
age of 53 on Feb 1 1851, attended by her devoted son Percy
and his equally devoted wife Jane. Emily W Sunstein’s
conclusion to her book puts forward the essence of Mary
Shelley’s life very clearly:

“Mary Shelley was an important Romantic who survived

into the Victorian age. Her private life, career and works
are a rich resource for that historical evolution, a broader
mine than those of her great associates, Shelley and
Byron, whom kind death saved from erosion. Far from
being subjected to romantic turbulence, she chose it.

76
Aspiration, enthusiasm, challenge, active mind and spirit,
and optimism were among her cardinal qualities, contrary
to the impression that she was temperamentally cool,
quiet and pessimistic......her creative and scholarly works
establish her as a major literary figure of the first half of the
nineteenth century. She belongs among the great editors
for her editions of Shelley’s works.....Perhaps she will be
best remembered for her perception in Frankenstein and
The Last Man, that the Promethean drive is at the heart of
human progress and yet a bringer of new ills if not focused
on ethical means and ends; and even so, if Nature shrugs
we perish. In that ambiguity she may be said to have
heralded the consciousness that distinguishes the Post-
Modern from the Modern Age.”32

32 Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality pp 402-3.

77
THE CHARTS: THEIR PROVENANCE
I have used the True Node for all the charts throughout
the thesis. This is because the True Node gives the actual
position on the day, whereas the Mean Node gives a position
based on average motion, which sometimes overlaps with
the True position, but can be as much as 2 degrees different
depending upon the time of year. I prefer to use the True
position.

Page 38 Mary Wollestonecraft Godwin Shelley, 30 Aug 1797,

London, England. Time: 23.20 local time. Source: Paul
Wright, Astrology in Action, Anodyne Publishing 1988,
quoted by her father, present at her birth.
Page 38 William Godwin, 03 March 1756, Wisbech,
England. Time unknown. Source: Astrological Association
Data Bank - from Sally Davis.
Page 39 Mary Wollestonecraft, 27 April 1759, London,
England. Time unknown. Source: Life and Death of Mary
Wollestonecraft by Claire Tomalin, Penguin 1977, p 13.

NB: I do not have times for Wollestonecraft or Godwin,

and have used Noon charts for them for two main reasons.
They were both public figures, destined to lead a public life,
and lived long enough for their contribution to be made and
seen, despite in Wollestonecraft’s case her premature death.

Page 42 Percy Bysshe Shelley, 04 Aug 1792, Horsham,

England. Time: 22.00 local time. Source: American Book
of Charts by Lois Rodden, Astro Computing Services,
1980, quoting “father’s and grandfather’s statements in his
biography “.

78
Page 42 Lord Byron, 22 Jan 1788, London, England. Time:
14.00 local time. Source: American Book of Charts by Lois
Rodden, Astro Computing Services, 1980, quoting “family
records in British Museum”.
Page 43 Baby Mary Shelley, 22 Feb 1815, London, England.
Time unknown. Source: Emily W. Sunstein MARY
SHELLEY Romance and Reality p 97.
NOTE I have no time for baby Mary and have used a
Sunrise chart for her. This is because her life dawned,
but never came to fruition because she lived for only
eleven days; so a sunrise chart seemed more symbolically
appropriate.

Page 51 Mary Wollestonecraft Godwin/Percy Shelley:

Declaration of love: 26 June 1814, London, England. Time:
‘in the evening at sunset’ I have set the chart for 9 pm -
sunset approx. Source: Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY
Romance and Reality p74.
Page 51 Mary Wollestonecraft Godwin/Percy Shelley:
Elopement: 28 July 1814, London, England. Time: 04.00
local time. Source: Emily W. Sunstein MARY SHELLEY
Romance and Reality p75.
Page 55 Mary Wollestonecraft Godwin: Dreaming
“Frankenstein”: 22 June 1816, Geneva, Switzerland. Time:
“even the witching hour had gone by before we retired
to rest. When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not
sleep.....My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided
me.....”

Source: Author’s Introduction to the Standard Novels
Edition of Frankenstein (1831) pp 8-9.

79
NB: I decided to set the chart at 12.40 am local time. This
would give her time to get upstairs, get ready for bed, and
settle down for sleep. The ‘dream’ came before she went to
sleep. So this can only be an approximate time - but I was
intrigued to note that the Ascendant of the chart, 19 Aries,
is Mary’s natal horoscope’s Jupiter degree!
Page 55 Frankenstein, Publication day: 01 Jan 1818, London
(Hatchard’s bookshop, Piccadilly), England, Time: 10.00
local time. Source: Times 01 Jan 1818, p4 - from Sally Davis,
DataPlus UK who also suggested the time as “a reasonable
time when the book would have been available to be
bought”.
Page 63 Dolly the cloned Sheep: 05 July 1996, Rosslyn
Institute, nr Edinburgh, Scotland. Time: 16.00 hours local
time. Source: Caroline Gerard.
Page 63 Chart of the Twentieth Century: 01 Jan 1900,
London, England. Time: midnight local time. Source:
Melanie Reinhart, CPA seminar on Psychosynthesis,
London 17 September 1995. NOTE: I decided to leave this
chart set for London, since in 1900, London was the key city
of the British Empire which was still the dominant world
force.

80
Chapter 3: case study 2

Marc: A life through the nodal lens

Introduction

I chose Marc (51) as my second case study for several

reasons. Firstly, since the book concerns the soli/lunar
relationship it was particularly important that the sexes
were balanced, and that I wrote about a man next. Secondly,
having written about a famous dead person, I wanted to
write about a living person whom I knew personally and
with whom I had worked.

I had been wondering who my subject could be - then

whilst looking through my 1997 astrology case file, Marc’s
chart caught my attention. He has almost identical Nodes to
Mary Shelley’s. His are 20 degrees 44 r Gemini/Sagittarius;
hers are 19 degrees 22 r Gemini/Sagittarius. Although
located in different houses, Marc’s are in the 11th/5th as
distinct from Mary’s 12th/6th, there is a strong link with
Uranus. Marc’s Uranus is in the 10th House conjunct an
11th House North Node. Mary’s Uranus squares the Nodal
axis. There are further links. Mary’s r Jupiter at 19 Aries
sextiles her North Node: Marc’s r Jupiter at 17 Libra trines
his North Node! Marc’s Sun/Venus midpoint is conjunct
his North Node. Mary’s Sun/Venus midpoint squares her
North Node. His 9th House Aries Moon sextile Node also
resonates with Mary’s Sagittarian Moon widely conjunct
Node.1

1 Note: at the time of this selection the transiting North Node was at 19 Virgo,
conjunct first house Urania in my chart, squaring Marc’s Nodal axis - and Mary
Shelley’s!

81
Fig 16

82
I thought it would be most apt to choose a male “partner”
for Mary Shelley with clear Nodal connections between her
chart and his. I leave the Reader to note the strong echoes
which I think there are between Mary and what drove her,
and Marc and what drives him.....

I have known Marc now for about ten years; initially as a

counselling client when his marriage was breaking up, then
as an astrology client, then as an astrology student - Marc
studied with me for about a year and has maintained an
interest in the subject. I now see him every year or two for
astrological “taking stock” sessions.

Approach

I have chosen to approach the Nodes from a different

perspective in this case study. For Mary Shelley, I took the
first Nodal return and used that as my boundary point.
For Marc, on the other hand, I have ranged over his life to
date. I have been very fortunate in having the assistance of
a subject who is so articulate. (See Appendix ii for detail re
method adopted and questionnaires used.)

Marc’s horoscope: the Nodes and their natal links

The North Node falls in Gemini, the South in Sagittarius.

As with Mary Shelley, this denotes a life path centred round
the conceptualising and disseminating of information and
ideas. Sagittarius on the South Node shows strong roots
in philosophical enquiry as a first approach to life, as well
as a love of learning. “What is it for?” may well have been a

83
frequent question of his when he was growing up, as well
as “What does it mean?” A strong emphasis in his home
environment on the value of a good education seems very
likely. If not directly exposed in his young life to other
languages and the ways of other cultures, the South Node
in Sagittarius suggests a wandering masculine spirit as
part of the family inheritance. Perhaps he had close male
relatives who told him stories of their travels when he was
a boy, which inspired his adult love of travel - mentally and
spiritually, more than actual physical travel, in his case.

It also suggests, taking the strong fire/air emphasis of

Marc’s chart to back this up as well as Jupiter sextile South
Node in Sagittarius, a longing from the beginning for a
“grand”, adventurous life - for a life inspired by his vision,
or by values which he could admire and aspire towards.
Also indicated in this linking of SNode and a predominantly
fire/air chart with no earth is a distaste for the restrictions
of the ordinary and mundane, and the potential for
arrogance through conviction of one’s own rightness. The
Sagittarius/Gemini Nodal axis, backed up with three planets
in Gemini, indicate a man inclined to proselytise. This is
fine if the soapbox and the audience is big enough, but
could be wearying in a narrower, more personal context.....

The North Node in Gemini’s location in the 11th House,

South Node in Sagittarius in the 5th, once again brings up
the fire/air nature of Marc’s horoscope, and emphasises the
restless, creative streak in his nature. In the fifth house one
identifies what one’s creative gifts are: in the eleventh they
are offered to the human group.

84
The natural ruler of the eleventh, Uranus, in Gemini in
the 10th House conjunct NNode in the 11th, has a strongly
political, humanitarian, idealistic “feel” to it. Adding the
trine from Jupiter in Libra in the 3rd House to the NNode/
Uranus combination in the 1Oth/11th, one gets a very
strong feeling of a man who gains great pleasure and
a sense of purpose from sharing ideas with others in a
political context - commitment to a political party through
NNode/Uranus in the 10th/11th, and beliefs/ideals which
influence his career direction, through Uranus’ 10th House
location backed up by a Mercury/Sun conjunction also in
the 10th.

Ebertin in COSI has this to say with reference to Jupiter/

Uranus/Node: the ability to show oneself cheerful, gay and
hopeful in the presence of others - the ability to share joy
together with others, to strive together with others for a
common purpose.2

One gets the feeling from looking at Marc’s chart from a

Nodal perspective that his drive to offer his creative gifts
to the group focuses more on intellectual, political and
idealistic objectives than on, for example, the very physical
and personal goal of having children as an expression of
his creative drives. He has no earth in his chart as well as
its being strongly fire/air. His rising Mars in Leo in the 12th
House, sextile both Jupiter in the 3rd and Uranus in the
10th, suggests again energy being directed more to group
idealistic and spiritual outlets than physical, personal ones.

2 Reinhold Ebertin ‘Combination of Stellar Influences’ (AFA Inc., 1972) p 173.

85
Marc doesn’t have children and from my many discussions
with him, it appears clear that he never wanted them - and
has chosen two key female partners who felt the same.
He has been very much influenced and inspired by close
women friends and helpers, more so than one might expect
from a man of his generation; the NNode’s position on the
midpoint of the Asc and a ninth house Aries Moon vividly
illustrates the quality of his connection with the feminine
principle in general and key women in particular. Forceful,
fiery women have had quite an impact on his life!

All this optimistic, fiery, outgoing energy coupled with

considerable intellectual gifts, ease and fluency of
expression and a wide ranging mind, all linked in with the
11th House N Node, suggest someone who is a doer and an
achiever, as indeed Marc is. He has been an urban planner
for approaching 30 years. In recent times, his team has
gained public recognition for award-winning work.

But the Chiron Jupiter conjunction in the 3rd House, sextile

Mars, trine the NNode/Uranus conjunction and opposite
the 9th House Aries Moon, suggests not only gifts and
achievement. Marc was born on a balsamic Moon; running
below the surface of his entire life, there has always been an
undertow of world-weariness; of what does it matter anyway,
of strong potential for painful disillusion as a counterpoint
to the brightness of the gifts with which he came into this
world.

Thus Chiron linked in to the Node and its attendant

planetary pattern speaks powerfully in Marc’s life. It tells of
a life full of bright gifts underpinned by a powerful, painful,
instinctive understanding of the fundamental loneliness

86
of us all, especially through Saturn in Cancer in the 11th s
T-squaring of the Ninth House Aries Moon’s opposition to
Chiron conjunct Jupiter in the third. Saturn also connects to
the North Node by semi-sextile, thereby forming an integral
part of the complex Chiron Node pattern.

The wound in Mark stems from his gut awareness, which

many people can avoid but he cannot, of the isolation
into which we are all born; from which intimacy may
temporarily insulate us, but which can never be gainsaid.
No amount of love offered is enough to assuage this wound
fully - and the pattern challenges Marc to a struggle to make
peace with his inner bleakness by journeying within, and to
the realisation that no human partner can provide fully the
salve that is required.

However, one can also see from the more positive facets of
the pattern, flowing from the Chiron Jupiter conjunction
in the 3rd house, that Marc’s struggle to make sense of the
wounds he has received has deepened and enriched him as
a person over the last decade. It has also brought him into
contact with rich sources of knowledge, and with individual
people who have helped him gradually towards a broader
and deeper experience of life than would have been possible
had he remained identified purely with the strongly
political, intellectual and rationalist sides of himself. He is
much more aware, and respectful, now of the enormously
powerful, sensitive, bleak and easily wounded feminine side
of his own nature. He is still striving to bring this side into
balance with the restless, endlessly curious, inspiration-
seeking, rationalist masculine spirit which has driven him
all his life.

87
I see the North Node as a primary significator for revealing
the direction an individual’s life must follow, if he or she
is to arrive at as full an expression of the soul’s blueprint
as is possible during this particular lifetime. The planetary
links to the Nodal axis, I believe, encode symbolically the
terms of reference of the struggle towards entelechy3, and
also convey something of the nature of that struggle. We
are all challenged to a greater or lesser extent to integrate
the masculine with the feminine dimensions of our own
being. Marc’s Nodal pattern shows with great vividness how
central for him is an honest response to that challenge, in
translating his life’s considerable potential into positive
outcomes of both an outer and an inner nature.

Marc was 49 when Pluto entered Jupiter’s sign in

1995, beginning a long opposition to the Mercury Sun
conjunction (Mercury rules his North Node, Jupiter his
South Node, the Sun rules his Ascendant in 21 Leo which
sextiles the North Node). Since then he has been grappling
with core issues, the outcome of which will determine
the shape of the next phase of his life. As Saturn has been
transiting the 9th house, and during 1997 triggering the
powerful pattern described in the paragraphs above, the
inner struggle has become more focused.
Do I see my career through to its Saturn Return or do I take early
retirement? How do I deal with my political disillusion, now that
Scotland looks as though it will indeed get its own Parliament,
when I don’t believe this is anything more than an offering

3 A Classical Greek word, έντελέχεια (entelecheia), meaning “that which

gives form or perfection to anything” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1978
Edition). I have used it in the sense of that which a person is at best able to
become.

88
of token power? (Marc has been a member of the Scottish
Nationalist party for 30 years) What are the core components
going to be to the next stage of my life? In what form will I next
be offering my creative energy to the human collective? What
does my life mean, what are my spiritual values?

But there we must leave Marc’s future as it gradually takes

shape in its own time, and turn now to surveying his life to
date.

Marc’s horoscope: the Nodes and the unfolding picture

Introduction

As can be seen from Appendix ii, before drafting the

case study I did a considerable amount of preparatory
groundwork with Marc’s assistance. I went through the
information related to the various Nodal periods as detailed
in Appendix ii, finding that for every year of his life (1946
- 1996) except 1949, 1963, 1969 - 1970, and 1975 - 1976
there was significant Nodal activity by both transit and/
or progression. I looked up the above “missing” years
and in each case found significant Nodal activity. The
questionnaires out of necessity had had to be selective - in
the apparently “missing” years there was Nodal activity
relating to significators I had left out, eg in 1976 the NNode
transited over the IC. I had not included Nodal activity
involving the Angles in my questionnaires - just planets and
the Nodal axis itself via transits and progressions.

I had never done a “Nodal trawl” through an individual’s

whole life before, and the result gave quite a clear message.

89
The Nodes are present in one combination or another,
bearing witness to the developing process of an individual’s
life, every year.

I did a much quicker “trawl” through my own and a couple

of family members’ lives via their charts, and found much
the same thing. Although more “trawls” of this type need
to be done for comparison, it seems pretty likely that one
would find the same kind of overall picture in anyone’s life,
given the fairly rapid movement of the Nodes through the
zodiac, although the precise combinations from person to
person would of course be unique.

There is such a literal quality, also, to the Nodal pictures

which emerged in Marc’s life. Out of many possible
examples, here are one or two. From August 1953 until
Spring 54, Jupiter transited back and fore over Marc’s
NNode in Gemini in the 11th. There were two major
biographical points: first, the period described his first year
at a new primary school to which he transferred when his
parents moved area. Second, the newly crowned Queen
visited his town, and “we were all trooped out to wave to
her”. To offer another example, Chiron transiting his North
Node in Gemini from September 1986 to June 1987, joined
by an opposition from transiting Saturn conjunct South
Node in Sagittarius from March to November 1987, earned
the following trenchant piece of description from Marc:
“Misery.” then “More misery.”
Having found that Nodal activity was woven into the
planetary tapestry of every year, it then became important
to find out whether particular patterns involving the Nodes
stood out at times which were recognised by Marc, either

90
at the time or in retrospect, as “turning points”. After some
reflection on how to approach this stage, it dawned on me
that lying in one of my files was just the right material.
Last January (1998), a couple of weeks after reading my
painstaking first eighteen page draft, incorporating his
biography and the full significators for the Nodal periods on
which I had asked for feedback, Marc sent me the following
summary which I have incorporated here in full.

Marc’s subjective perception of the pattern of his own life

“The following is my own view of the pattern of my life, driven
solely by my own memories and perceptions, not by the need
to respond to a framework which has been offered to me, and
which may therefore to some extent distort my true feelings. It
might be interesting to see how this compares with the other
version”

May 46 to August 57

Essentially happy childhood, with no more than the average

number of scares and alarums. Clouded towards the end - 53 to
56 - by unhappy events in my father’s family. But perhaps not
enough to dent the onward momentum of my life at the time.
After all, passing my quali4 in spring 57 was a major triumph -
for me and for my family.

4 ‘passing the quali’ a Scottish expression whose equivalent in English is

“passing the eleven plus” - the examination which before comprehensive,
non-streaming secondary education was introduced under the British Labour
Government of 1964 -1979, had to be taken at the end of primary education to
determine whether the pupil proceeded to a technically or academically oriented
secondary school.

91
Fig 17
Turning point 1

Fig 18
Turning point 2

92
August 57: TURNING POINT 1

Transfer from primary school to J…. Academy [senior

secondary].

August 57 to April 66

I now think it was the transfer to the Academy - NOT

my father’s problems - that was the actual trigger for a
downturn in my life. (...from Marc’s biographical notes...” I
was barely 11 in August 57 when I started, and emotionally
younger than that. In retrospect, the decision to send
me early to the Academy was definitely a mistake - I was
intellectually - but not emotionally - ready “...) The Academy
destroyed my self- esteem. That made strong parental
back-up especially important, and perhaps it was more
damaging to me than it might otherwise have been that my
dad had his own problems at this time. My dad’s problems
would doubtless have impacted on me in some more or less
challenging way, but on reflection I think the actual positive
damage was done by my too-early transfer to secondary
school.

The end of this period - 64 - 66 - saw my first faltering - and

unsuccessful - steps towards the opposite sex.

April 66 - TURNING POINT 2

Started going out with Beatrice. Wonderful from the first.

Literally like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
After my previous difficulties with other girls, it was easy
and natural with her. Positive explosion of self-esteem as a

93
result. In those days, I used to write my name on the sleeves
of the records I bought. Up till early 66, the signatures tend
to very small. After that, the writing is huge and scrawly. It
tells a story.

In actual fact, the whole year of 1966 deserves mention as

an ‘annus mirabilis’ in my life. It started badly and ended
sadly, but in the course of it, I started going out with my
future wife, and had my first foreign holiday, and saw
‘Doctor Zhivago’ for the first time.5 Like 1973 - see below -
1966 was a year of ‘coming into my own’. It is almost as if I
‘came into my own’ in two instalments - 66 and 73.

April 66 to May 73

Rising graph. A time not without its ongoing troubles.

I hated my University course, but forced myself to go
through with it because I thought my life would be wrecked
if I didn’t get a degree. My dad’s troubles didn’t resolve
themselves till March 67, and the preceding Xmas, when he
was suddenly taken off into mental hospital, was in a real
sense the nadir of my life. But the simple fact is that, after
Beatrice, the tide was running for me not against me - I
couldn’t be stopped.

May 73 - TURNING POINT 3

Finished my post-graduate course and finally finished with

‘school’. Great sense of release. Happily married, plenty of

5 Quote from Marc’s biographical notes: “26th Nov 66. Saw ‘Doctor Zhivago’
for first time. MAJOR LIFE EVENT. Very strong resonance with themes of
personal freedom dealt with in the film.” (He saw this film 3 times!)

94
 money. This is the moment of finally and fully ‘coming into
my own’. See previous comments re 1966.

May 73 to May 79

The high plateau of life. Happily married, well off, active in

SNP, empowered, full of a sense that life had meaning and
purpose. Ominous signs during last year – May 78 to May
79.

Fig 19
Turning point 3

95
May 79 - TURNING POINT 4

Thatcher. Life plan derailed in one day. Nothing has ever

been the same since. (my emphasis)

May 79 to January 86

Material aspects of life still as favourable as before, but

increasingly grim struggle to recapture some sense of
meaning. Change of job - disastrous. Death of father
-December 84 - was the moment I finally lost my grip, but
full implications didn’t come home to roost until….

January 86 - TURNING POINT 5

Sudden collapse of intimacy with my wife.6

January 86 to January 88

Pure, unadulterated misery

6 Note: In response to my identifying 24.1.86. as a key date on which tr

Uranus was exactly conjunct his SNode at 20 degrees 44 minutes Sagittarius,
Marc responded thus: “24/1/86 - can you pick a date, or what?? My 16th
wedding anniversary and the effective end of my marriage. Beatrice’s affair
had begun the previous summer. I was unaware of this, but I had been aware
of increasing awkwardness in our relationship, and tensions were building.
On 24/1/86, I made a sexual approach to Beatrice, which seemed reasonable
to me on our anniversary, and was rebuffed with some abruptness. Something
exploded in my head. I experienced a split second of blinding fury which I
quickly controlled, only to discover that it had been replaced in my heart by an
icy coldness. I fell out of love with Beatrice in that instant - after 20 years of
closeness and affection.”

96
Fig 20
Turning point 4

Turning point 5

Fig 21
Turning point 5

97
Fig 22
Turning point 6

January 88 - TURNING POINT 6

Caitlin (his current partner)

January 88 to Present

“Upward track again, but with many wobbles. Domestic

happiness restored, but the rediscovery of a sense of
purpose in life has proved elusive.”

98
Marc’s turning points - an examination of the Nodal
patterns

It struck me on re-reading Marc’s own summary of his life

pattern, and his identification of turning points, that this
provided an excellent opportunity to analyse the Nodal,
planetary and eclipse pictures on each occasion and see if
there was anything about them suggesting they were out of
the ordinary.

TURNING POINT 1: EARLY TRANSFER TO SECONDARY

SCHOOL: SPRING/SUMMER ‘57

Marc passed his qualifying examination for a place at senior

secondary school in the spring of 1957, and began attending
J….. Academy in August 1957. The transiting NNode was at
22 Scorpio in the 4th House in March 1957, squaring his
Asc/Desc, then 12th House Mars in July 1957. That year,
the progressed MC/IC axis was at 16 degrees 56 minutes
of Taurus/Scorpio, square the Mars/Ascendant midpoint
at 16 degrees 18 minutes Leo in the 12th House. The North
Node triggered this powerful, fateful pattern in July 1957,
then the Mars/Pluto midpoint in late August, and Pluto in
October. The Nodes crossed his IC/MC at 6 Scorpio/ Taurus
in January 1958. Furthermore, transiting Saturn crossed his
5th House SNode in December 1957, just at the end of his
first term, and was active at that point until the Xmas of his
second year, with a final exact transit over the summer of
1958.

The one total solar eclipse of the season, at 18 Gemini, fell

on 8 June 1956 exactly conjunct his Uranus/Node midpoint

99
on his 11th house cusp, close to the progressed Sun at 16
degrees Gemini. There were two total lunar eclipses, one on
18 November 1956 at 26 Taurus, the other on 13 May 1957
at 23 Scorpio, both closely squaring Marc’s Asc/Desc axis as
the Nodal axis crossed it.

This conjures up pictures of a core struggle in a very

young person to hold on to some sense of personal
identity and worth whilst being severely buffeted by the
dark, impersonal, destructive and transformative power of
Pluto. Uranus/Node in Gemini being triggered suggests
the premature pitching into a higher level of intellectual
challenge than he could cope with. The feeling of struggling
just to survive comes through very clearly from the
above patterns. There is also a poignant feeling of loss
of innocence, and having to face too soon the fact that
the world is a brutal, competitive place in which a bright
intellect is insufficient for protection.

TURNING POINT 2: APRIL ‘66: GOING OUT WITH
BEATRICE

Interestingly, although Marc gives 29.04.66 as the day he

asked Beatrice out, he also gives the date of 23.03.66 as the
day he saw her at a wedding and “conceived the idea that
I would like to go out with her.” Although the Nodal and
outer planet aspects are roughly the same, they are closer
for the date in March, than the date in April - suggesting
that the conception point is more potent than the birth
moment! On 23.3 the key difference is that transiting
Jupiter at 23 Gemini was conjunct his NNode for the second
time (the first time was when he and his school mates saw

100
the new Queen!) whereas it had passed on by April. The
transiting Node in the 10th House, opposite its position
in TP 1, is at 26 Taurus, again squaring the Asc/Desc axis,
conjunct progressed MC at nearly 26 Taurus, and picking
up the total lunar eclipse degree of 18.11.56 featured in TP
1. Transiting Saturn at 21.5 Pisces in the 8th House squares
the Nodal axis and its TP1 position. Opposite Saturn are the
big heavies Uranus and Pluto, conjunct in the 2nd House
at 17 Virgo - in all, a grand cross with the natal Nodes.
Transiting Neptune also features, at 22 degrees of Scorpio
in the 4th House, quincunx the radix NNode and transiting
Jupiter, conjunct the South Node.

The overall feeling is of a powerful, fated encounter - Pluto

once again strongly emphasised - which will lead him to
redefine both where he is coming from and where he is
headed, centred on the sphere of relationship. Neptune’s
presence in the 4th in Scorpio emphasises his longing for
connection both at a body and soul level - and the Nodes’s
10th House location emphasises the shared path in life
through their politics which he and Beatrice were to have
powerfully in common.

The most significant eclipses of the season also bring

echoes of TP 1. The total solar eclipse of 30.5.65 falls at
9 Gemini, widely conjunct the Sun/Uranus midpoint
in the 10th House; in TP 1 the total solar eclipse fell on
the Uranus/Node midpoint. The annular solar eclipse
of 20.5.66 fell at 29 Taurus in the 10th House, conjunct
Marc’s MC/Node midpoint. The last (annular) lunar eclipse
of the season falls on the 29.10.66 at 5.5 Taurus, within half
a degree of Marc’s Midheaven. The progressed Moon at

101
10.5 Capricorn picks up Marc’s pre-natal solar eclipse at 12.5
Capricorn.

There were nine years, half a Nodal transiting cycle,

between TP1 and TP2, hence the Nodal and eclipse
resonances.
TURNING POINT 3: MAY ‘73: THE END OF FORMAL
EDUCATION

Marc completed his post-grad course and his higher

education with a “great sense of release”.

The first point of Nodal significance to record is that

he was by then 27 and this was the year of the NNode’s
return to the South Node position in the 5th House in
Sagittarius. There is immediately a strong link with TP 1,
also concerning his education; this was the position Saturn
had reached at the end of 1957, the end of the first term
of secondary schooling featured in TP 1. Furthermore,
Saturn by transit exactly conjuncted the Uranus NNode
conjunction in May 73, opposite its own position during the
TP 1 period, and square its TP 2 position. 18 Gemini was
the critical solar eclipse degree for TP 1 - another potent
connection between two educational turning points.

Transiting Uranus in Libra conjuncted natal Chiron and

Jupiter in the 3rd House, opposite the Moon, making an
exact trine to the Uranus/Node conjunction semisextile
Saturn in May 73 - the whole natal Nodal pattern being
triggered by transiting Uranus trine Saturn!

I find this a bright set of images for a combination of

102
achievement through hard work rewarded, and a joyous
sense of liberation. Uranus’ foreground presence as the
dominant outer planet is very appropriate for this particular
turning point.

There were two total eclipses that season. The first fell on
10 .8.72 at 18.5 Cancer in the 11th House, picking up the
Moon/Jupiter, Mars/Uranus, Mars/Node and Uranus/
Asc midpoints. The second, on the 30.6.73, fell at 8.5
Cancer in the 11th House conjunct Venus, triggering the
Mercury/Mars, and Sun/Pluto midpoints. Interestingly
and appropriately at the time of Marc’s entry into the
structured world of work as an urban planner, both eclipses
picked up Marc’s pre-natal solar eclipse at 13 Capricorn.
The progressed Asc at 10.5 Virgo trined that eclipse; the
progressed Moon at 11.5 Aries squared it. The overall
pattern speaks of dynamic creative intellectual achievement
and the start to offering that creativity to the collective as the
Nodal axis transits the 5th/11th Houses.

TURNING POINT 4: 3 MAY ‘79: THATCHER

In the biographical profile he sent me, Marc described

November 1973, when the Scottish Nationalists won a
famous election victory in Govan, as the start of his serious
political involvement. He was still 27, and that November
the 5th House NNode crossed 29 Sagittarius, South Node
29 Gemini in the 11th - his critical Asc/Mc midpoint! This
point describes the coming together of who he is with
what he aspires to offer the collective through his life path.
Finding a focus for his political drives as the North Node
crossed this axis I find wonderfully appropriate.

103
By 1979 he had become prominent in the Scottish National
Party, as a socialist within it.

That summer, he described his life thus: “the outward

flavour of this date is - utter and total immersion in, and
commitment to, an external cause that was on the verge of
achieving revolutionary change and thereby giving shape,
validity and meaning to my life.”

In this summer of hope and expectation for him, and for
Scotland, Jupiter was (for the third time) exactly conjunct
Uranus NNode - and Neptune, on the South Node, was
exactly opposite.

His own words vividly express the astrological symbolism;

poignantly so, in view of the shattering of his dreams which
would shortly occur... Marc’s words to describe TP 4 are far
more eloquent than mine could be: “I realised on 3.5.79 that
life as I had known it was over.”

The astrology is at its most eloquent and powerful here.
The transiting N Node in the 2nd House in Virgo has just
squared its own position at 20 Gemini in the 11th House,
and squares Uranus exactly, forming a Nodal grand cross
worth Uranus as the focal planet. Transiting Uranus in the
4th House at 19 Scorpio quincunxes NNode. Transiting
Neptune retrograde is once again exactly on the South
Node. Transiting Pluto at 17 Libra in the 2nd House has
just crossed Chiron, and is exactly on Jupiter, in the same
position as Uranus was during TP 3, triggering once again
the whole structure of the natal Nodal pattern. As if that
wasn’t sufficient, Mars on the day is at 20.5 Aries, opposite

104
transiting Pluto, conjunct the natal Moon and further
setting off the whole Nodal pattern.

The only total solar eclipse of this season, on the 26.2.79,

falls at 7.5 Pisces, exactly opposite Saturn’s future position
at 7 Virgo, just about to turn retrograde, on election day,
squaring Marc’s 10th House Mercury/Uranus midpoint, his
Sun at 5.5 Gemini, and exactly hitting his Neptune/Pluto
in Virgo first house midpoint. Adding in progressed Mars
at 5 Virgo with the progressed MC/IC axis at 8 Gemini/
Sagittarius creates a mutable grand cross potentised by a
Pisces solar eclipse. The sudden shocking death of a hard
worked - for dream leaps out of this symbolic pattern.

The first total lunar eclipse of the season, at 4 Libra on

24.3.78, falls on Marc’s Neptune. The second one, at 23.45
Pisces on 16.9.78, squares the natal Nodes from the 8th
House. The last (partial) lunar eclipse of the season, at 23
Virgo on 13.3.79, puts in place the last leg of a Nodal grand
cross - shortly to be followed by the crucifixion and death of
Marc’s hopes and dreams for his country.

TURNING POINT 5: JANUARY 24 1986: END OF

MARRIAGE

I have put the full text of Marc’s feedback re the end of his
marriage under note (vi). The essence is that, on 24.01.86,
in “a split second of blinding fury... replaced in my heart by an
icy coldness... I fell out of love with Beatrice - after 20 years of
closeness and affection.”

On 24.1.86 transiting Uranus was at 20 degrees 44 minutes

105
Sagittarius, conjunct his South Node at 20 degrees 44
minutes Sagittarius - absolutely exact. The progressed MC/
IC axis is at 18 degrees 41 minutes Virgo/Pisces; exactly
square Marc’s Uranus/N Node midpoint. Marc’s description
aptly sums up the way Uranus works in its most extreme
manifestation - sudden, unexpected, cold, separative, and
absolute. The rest of the astrology is just as final. Transiting
Pluto at 7 degrees Scorpio is about to retrograde over his
IC, following the transiting SNode at 5 Scorpio, opposed
by the North Node travelling at 5 Taurus conjunct the MC
on the 9th House side. This echoes the NNode’s position
conjunct the IC in TP 1 (January 1958) Also in TP1, the last
(annular) lunar eclipse of that season fell on the 29.10.66 at
5.5 Taurus, within half a degree of Marc’s Midheaven.

Saturn’s position at this turning point is at 7 Sagittarius,

exactly square its position at TP 4 in 1979, evoking the
grand cross solar eclipse pattern present at ß that turning
point.

The two key lunar eclipses of the 85/86 season carry the
same sense of finality and the same eerie resonances
with TP 1. The total lunar eclipse of 28.10. 85 at 5 Taurus
falls on Marc’s MC, opposite transiting NNode/Pluto; on
the 24.3.86, at 4 Scorpio, conjunct the IC, and transiting
SNode/Pluto. The (partial) solar eclipse of 19.5.85 falls at 29
Taurus, conjunct Marc’s 10th House MC/NNode midpoint.
This echoes TP 3, the start of the relationship, when the
annular solar eclipse of 20.5.66 fell on the same point. The
last (partial) solar eclipse of the 85/6 season, eloquently,
at 17 Aries, conjuncts Marc’s ninth house Moon, thereby
sextiling the North Node and triggering the whole natal
Nodal picture.

106
In the symbolic Sunrise chart for 24.1.86 the transiting
Moon is at 14.5 Cancer, conjunct progressed Sun at 13.5
Cancer, opposite Marc’s fifth House pre-natal solar eclipse
degree at 12.5 Capricorn. I find this striking piece of soli/
lunar symbolism very affecting... as though the Fates were
that day busily engaged in re-aligning the male/female
principles in his life. “Come in, Marc and Beatrice... your time
is up!...”

A final ironic touch, signifying that this ending was part of

Marc’s being pushed out into a deeper and wider experience
of life in general and relationship in particular, is offered
through the placement of transiting Jupiter on 24.1.1986.
It is at 23 Aquarius, conjunct Marc’s Desc, trine the NNode
Uranus. And Jupiter’s position in TP 3 when he began with
Beatrice? 23 Gemini, conjunct NNode/Uranus, exactly trine
its future position when the relationship was to end......

TURNING POINT 6: CHRISTMAS 1987: CAITLIN

After 2 years of miserable realisation that his marriage was

over, Marc did “the typical male thing, and proposition (ed)
Caitlin at the Xmas 1987 office party” They then began their
affair in January 1988, and are still very much together.
Although there are some Nodal significators for that
time, as with Beatrice the most vivid ones appear at the
‘conception’ time of the relationship; I decided to use the
conception month as the Turning Point for that reason. In
his biographical notes Marc reports going in to a city office
to hand in a job application in October 1983 (no date given),
and seeing Caitlin there. “I didn’t speak to her, but I did notice
her, and asked a friend.... who she was.” He got the job and
from then on, he and Caitlin were colleagues.

107
The transits given are for 1 October 1983.The North Node
has just made its second Return and at 18 Gemini is exactly
on the Node/Uranus midpoint, retrograding into the 11th
House, with the South Node on the 5th House cusp; very
appropriate for a love affair which began in a group context!

This links closely with TP1 when the total solar eclipse of
the 1956/7 season fell on 18 Gemini. 18 Sagittarius, too,
represents the position of Saturn in the winter of 1957
which features in TP1. At that stage in his life the 5th/11th
pairing of Houses expressed itself at a different level,
reflecting him taking his creative energy and struggling to
set it in the wider group context of his first senior school.
Furthermore, there are also echoes of TP2, the start of his
relationship with Beatrice in March 1966, when Saturn was
in the 8th House at 21.5 Pisces, squaring the TP1 position.
TP 3’s Nodal axis, at the end of his formal education in May
1973, has the North Node meeting the South Node, at 20
Sagittarius.

Saturn at that point was crossing the NNode/Uranus
conjunction, highlighting 18 Gemini yet again.

In TP 4, Thatcher’s election victory on 3 May 1979, the

North Node is at 20 Virgo, making a grand cross with the
natal Nodes. Jupiter is at 18 Gemini, the NNode/Uranus
midpoint, and Neptune is exactly on the NNode; Uranus
by transit quincunxes it from 19 Scorpio. Two of the lunar
eclipses of the TP 4 season of 1978/79, at 24 Pisces then 23
Virgo, weave in with all the other links. In TP 5, the end of
his marriage on 24.1.96, Uranus the major significator falls
exactly conjunct the South Node at 20 degrees 44 minutes
Sagittarius.

108
Continuing with the significators for TP 6, the ‘conception’
month of his relationship with Caitlin, we find other clear
Nodal links. Transiting Pluto at 28.5 Libra in the third
house, approaching his IC, quincunxes the Node/MC
midpoint in the 10th House, the same midpoint triggered
by the solar eclipse of May 66 which featured in TP 2, the
start of the relationship with Beatrice. Transiting Neptune
in the 5th House, very appropriate for romance, is at 26.5
Sagittarius, in a separating conjunction with his SNode,
exactly opposite the Venus/NNode midpoint in the 11th
House.

The progressed Asc/Desc at 17 Virgo/Pisces is within a

degree of exactly squaring the NNode/Uranus midpoint,
as it approaches a grand cross to the radix Nodal axis;
progressed Venus at 18 Leo in the12th House has just
crossed radix Mars, and sextiles the North Node Uranus
thereby triggering the whole Nodal pattern. Could he have
been heading for a clandestine new relationship which
would shake up the status quo, one wonders?!

The eclipse season of 1982/3 offers some striking

emphases. The partial solar eclipse of 15.12. 82 falls at 23
Sagittarius, conjunct the 5th House SNode, opposite the
Pluto/MC midpoint in the 11th House. The following total
solar eclipse on 11.6.83 at 20 Gemini exactly triggers the
NNode and its attendant natal pattern, also resonating
back through all the previous TP s. The lunar eclipses have
a literal flavour: the first on 30.12. 82 at 8.5 Cancer in the
11 House is conjunct Marc’s Venus/Fortuna conjunction,
opposite his pre-natal solar eclipse degree of 13 Capricorn.
The second, on 25 .6.83, falls at 3 Capricorn, exactly
opposite Venus/Fortuna.

109
There is the Nodal clustering effect present in this turning
point, just as the others. But there is a strongly Venusian
and Neptunian “feel”, denoting the beginning of romantic
love; foreground Uranus here emphasises the buzzy
excitement of the brighter face of Uranus. Pluto is not
such a threatening, dominant figure as in previous turning
points. Altogether, one gets the feeling that the relationship
with Caitlin, although sure to bring the usual afogs7, is
more about sensual pleasure and good companionship than
about gut-wrenching life changes in the future.

In addition to analysing in detail the six Turning Points

identified by Marc, I thought it might also be useful to list
in Appendix ii, along/with their astrological significators,
his maternal grandfather’s death, his brother’s birth, the
family’s relocation when Marc was 6, his father’s death,
and the moment he described as “the Nadir of my life” as
further illustration of the kind of Nodal pictures which form
at undeniably potent points in life.

The fact that every single Turning Point reported by Marc

plugs in closely to the Natal Nodal axis and its links, is quite
stunning and thought-provoking. I will have more to say
about what I think the research on Marc’s life reveals in the
Conclusion to the book.

7 from Anne Whitaker’s Second Year CPA Portfolio “another fucking

opportunity for growth” - quote from one of my counselling supervisees on a
bad day!

110
Appendix ii: Marc’s life:

nodal periods outline

It would have taken up too much space to include Marc’s

14 pages of biographical notes in this Appendix, and also
revealed more personal detail, albeit anonymously, than
would have been comfortable. But I have quoted from these
notes at several points during the case study. The outline
below consists of the key periods of Marc’s life with the
main transits and progressions listed, in response to three
separate sheets I sent out, asking first for responses to the
transiting Nodal Cycle, secondly to transits of planets over
natal Nodes, then progressions of planets to natal Nodes.
These were then synthesised.

I have left in one or two sentences here and there which

I thought might be of interest. I have also included
in this section the other significant events apart from
Marc’s chosen Turning Points, which are illustrative of
the way Nodal ‘clusters’ form, especially with Pluto to the
foreground, on such key occasions.

These are: maternal grandfather’s death January 1951;

brother Russell’s birth October 7 1952; family move to
district outwith Glasgow November 1952; Nadir of life 7
February 1967; father’s death 8 December 1984.

NOTE:
TYPE 1 = Transiting Nodal Cycle
TYPE 2 = Transits of Planets over Natal Nodes
TYPE 3 = Progressions of Planets to Natal Nodes

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EARLY LIFE 1946 - 1951

Period 1: 8/8/46 to 24/5/47: Type 2 Transiting Uranus conj

NNode/Gemini/11th H
Period 2: 28/1/48 to 17/9/48: Type 2 Transiting Jupiter conj
SNode /Sag/05th H
Period 3: 1/3/50 to 1/11/50: Type 2 Transiting Chiron conj
SNode /Sag/05th H
Period 4: Early Autumn 50: Type 3 Progressed Moon’s first
crossing of NNode
Period 5: 31/8/50: Type 2 Transitting Saturn/Virgo/2nd H/
square Nodes

Maternal Grandfather’s death? Jan 1951. Transiting NNode/

Pisces/8th/first square Nodes + Transiting Neptune/
Libra/3rd conj Chiron Jupiter trine NNode + transiting
Pluto/Leo/12th/ conj MarsAsc midpoint sextile NNode

PRIMARY SCHOOL YEARS 1952-1957

Brother’s birth October 1952 Transiting NNode conj Desc in

Aquarius, trine NNode radix + transitting Neptune/Libra/3rd
H conj Chiron Jupiter sextile NNode radix + transiting Pluto ex
conj Asc sextile NNode + transiting Neptune/Libra/3rd H conj
Chiron Jupiter trine NNode + transiting Uranus/Cancer/11th H
semisextile Uranus NNode midpoint

Move to district outwith Glasgow November 1952 Transiting
NNode/Aquarius/6th H trine NNode Uranus midpoint opp
Mars Ascendant midpoint + transiting Pluto ex conj Asc sextile
NNode + transiting Neptune /Libra/3rd H conj Chiron Jupiter

112
trine NNode + transiting Uranus/Cancer/11th H semisextile
Uranus NNode midpoint

Period 6: 13/8/53 to 4/4/54: Type 2 Transiting Jupiter’s first

crossing of NNode/Gemini/11th H

Period 7: Summer 55: Type 3 Progressed Mercury conj

NNode/Gemini/11th H

Period 8: Early April 55 to Mid March 56: Type 1 Transiting

NNode’s first crossing of SNode/Sag/5th H

Period 9: Jan/ Feb 57: Type 3 Progressed Moon/Virgo/2nd

first square of Nodal axis

SECONDARY SCHOOL YEARS 1957 - SUMMER 1964

Period 10: 12/1/58 to 8/10/58: Type 2 Transiting Saturn in

Sag conj SNode in 5th H

Period 11: January 60 to December 61: Type 3 Progressed

MC/Taurus/10th H semisextile NNode 11th H/Gemini

Period 11 Most Potent Point: December 60

Period 12: January 61 to December 62: Type 3 Progressed

Sun conj NNode/Gemini/11th

Period 13: Summer 64: Type 3 Progressed Moon’s first

passage over SNode/Sag/5th

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UNIVERSITY YEARS: AUTUMN 1964 - SUMMER 1973

Period 14: Age 18; late August 64 to mid August 65: Type1
First Nodal Return to radix NNode/Gemini/11th

Period 15: 1/4/65 to 1/3/66: Type 2 Transiting Chiron/

Pisces/8th H square Nodes

Period 16: 23/7/65 to 15/2/66: Type 2 Transiting Jupiter’s

second passage over NNode/Gemini/11th
Period 14 Particular Focus: Third week Feb 65 to Third
week March 65.

Period 17: 17/3/66: Type 2 Transiting Saturn/Pisces/8th

H square Nodes (+ just after transiting Jupiter’s second
passage over NNode/Gemini/11th)
Period 18: 24/9/66 to 30/6/67: Type 2

Period 19: 21/9/67 to 17/7/68: Type 2 Transiting Uranus
(ruler Desc, placed 10th H) conjunct Pluto (ruler IC,
placed12th H) Virgo/2nd House square Nodal axis,
operative for this whole time

21st Dec 66. Dad taken suddenly off to mental hospital for
drug treatment for depression. VERY dismal moment in
life. (Note: this was two days before Pluto went retrograde
23/12/66 - 20.5 Virgo - exactly square natal Nodes)

7th Feb 67. NADIR MOMENT. Family dog had to be put

down. Vet visited house and administered poison. Mum
and I then had to watch dog take about an hour to slide
downhill and die. This while Dad still in hospital. Almost
certainly the nadir of my entire life. (note: transiting

114
NNode/Taurus/10th square radix Pluto [IC ruler] /12th
House, + transiting Pluto/Virgo/2ndH square radix Nodal axis
at this point.... a Pluto/Node ‘double whammy’!) Not in terms
of intensity of grief - but in terms of a generalised feeling of
abject misery/pointlessness. Afterwards, I had to take dog
out into garden and bury it.

Period 19: 21/9/67 to 17/7/68: Type 2

Period 20: Autumn 71: Type 3 Progressed Moon/Pisces/8th H

2nd square to Nodal axis. ALSO Transiting Saturn/Taurus/10th
semisextile NNode June 1970 to April 1971 AND transiting
NNode/Aquarius/6th H opp radix Pluto conj Mars square radix
MC/IC axis (June 1971 - Jan 1972)

Period 21: 2/10/72 to 19/5/73: Type 2 Transiting Saturn

conjunct NNode

EARLY MARRIAGE, BUILDING A CAREER, POLITICAL

LIFE: 1973-9

Period 22: Age 27; end October 73 to end October 74: Type
1 Transiting NNode’s second passage over SNode/Sag/5th H

Period 22 Particular Focus: Third week April 74 to Third

week Aug 74 Transiting NNode’s second passage over
SNode/Sag/5th H, followed by opposition to radix Uranus/
Gemini/10th

Period 23: 5/7/77: Type 2 Transiting Jupiter’s third passage

over NNode/Gemini/11th
Period 24: Jan/Feb 78: Type 3 Progressed Moon’s second
passage over NNode/Gemini/11th

115
POST-THATCHER POLITICS, CAREER CHANGE, FIRST
MEETING WITH CAITLIN 1979 - END 1985.

Period 25: end 1978 to end 1980: Type 2 transiting
Neptune conjunct SNode/Sag/5th AND transiting Saturn/
Virgo/2nd’s second square to Nodal axis (Oct 79 to June 80)

Neptune retro 23/3/79: About 3 weeks after the 1979
Referendum. (Scotland)

Period 27: Age 36; late March 83 to mid March 84: Type
1 Second transiting NNodal Return to radix NNode/
Gemini/11th H

Period 27 Particular Focus: Mid Sept 83 to 3rd week Oct 83:

Advert for job in GCPD spotted and application lodged Oct
83.

Period 28: Summer 84: Type 3 Progressed Moon/Virgo/2nd

H’s third square to radix Nodal axis.
note: Marc’s father died on 8.12. 84 “I lost my grip on life
the day my father died.” Transiting Saturn in Scorpio/4rh
quincunx NNode/Gemini/11th, + transiting NNode separating
conjunct radix Sun/mercury conjunction/Gemini/ioth applying
square Asc, + transiting Moon conj NNode, + transiting
Uranus/Sun conjunct SNode opposite Uranus conjunct NNode
+ transiting Neptune opposite Venus + transiting Pluto conjunct
IC.

116
END OF MARRIAGE - ADAPTING TO SEPARATE LIVES
1986 - 88:

Period 29: 24/1/86 to 14/11/86: Type 2 Transiting Uranus

conjunct SNode /Sag/5th H

24/1/86 - can you pick a date, or what?? My 16th wedding

anniversary and the effective end of my marriage.

Period 30: 8/3/87 to 21/11/87: Type 2 Transiting Saturn

conjunct SNode/Sag/5th

Misery.

Period 31: (1.9.86) to 1/6/87: Type 2 Transitting Chiron

conjunct NNode/Gemini/11th

More misery.

And my brother emigrates to Canada July 87.

A NEW RELATIONSHIP STARTS, AND SELF-

DEVELOPMENT WORK, 1988 -1995:

Period 32: January 88 to January 90: Type 3 Progressed Asc/

Virgo/2nd H square Nodal axis

Period 32 Most Potent Point: January 89: 88/89: my first

Xmas/New Year as a ‘single’ man. Perhaps the decision to
take Caitlin to Ottawa (to meet his brother). Or was that
December 88?

117
Period 33: 18/6/89: Type 2 Fourth transit of Jupiter conjunct
NNode/Gemini 11th

Period 34: Autumn 91: Type 3 Progressed Moon’s second

crossing of S Node/Sag/5th H

Period 35: January 92 to January 94: Type 3 Progressed MC

conjunct NNode/Gemini/11th

Period 36: 12/6/92 to 15/9/92: Type 2 Transiting Pluto /

Scorpio/4th H quincunx NNode/Gemini/11th H

Period 35 Most Potent Point: January 93. Perhaps the period

of deepest depression about prospects of selling my flat,
and about prospects of getting all 6 flat owners to pay their
share of fixing city centre flat’s leaking roof.

Period 36: Age 45; early August 92 to late July 93: Type 1
transiting NNode’s third conjunct ion with SNode/Sag/5th

Period 37 Particular Focus: Last week Jan 93 to 2nd week

March 93 transiting NNode’s third conjunction with
SNode/Sag/5th (exact)

Period 38: June 93 to June 94: Type 3 Progressed Sun

semisext. NNode/Gemini/11th H

Sept 93 - sold Caitlin’s flat - she moves into mine. We

become a proper couple.

Period 38 Most Potent Point: December 93 Progressed Sun

semisextile Node/Gemini/11th (exact)

118
Period 39: Mid October 94 to Mid July 95: Type 2 Transiting
Chiron/Virgo/2nd second square Nodal axis

Period 40: 24/4/95 to 18/1/96: Type 2 Transiting Saturn/

Pisces/8th square Nodal axis

Period 41: June 94 to June 95: Type 3 Progressed Sun conj

Saturn semisextile NNode/Gemini/11th H

Period 41 Most Potent Point: December 94 Progressed Sun

conj Saturn semisextile NNode/Gemini/11th H exact

Period 42: 23/11/95 (exact): Type 2 Transiting Jupiter conj

SNode/Sag/5th

Nervous time because of approach of Reorganisation

(31/3/96).

NOTE Strathclyde Region ceased to exist on 31/3/96.

119
THE CHARTS: THEIR PROVENANCE

I have used the same format for all the Turning Points
charts : a triwheel with Marc’s natal chart in the centre; his
progressed chart for the year(and month/date) in question
in the middle wheel; and on the outer wheel, a sunrise chart
for the relevant date or start of the relevant month. I have
specific dates for three of the six Turning Points charts. For
the others, I have used the first day of the month relating to
the relevant Turning Point. Not having any specific times,
I have used sunrise charts as a symbolic time measure. To
give consistency, I then calculated the progressed charts
using the GMT times which came up for the sunrise
charts.

Sources :
The source for all the charts was initially Marc’s 14 page
biographical summary to which I have already referred
in the References and Notes section, and in Appendix ii.
Secondarily, Marc sent me his own “subjective perception of
the pattern of his own life” which is reproduced in the text
of the case study. The same information re-appeared there,
framed as Turning Points.

C i ) Turning Point 1 : J ......... Academy Marc identified

August 1957 as Turning Point 1, but described “ passing my
quali in Spring 57 “ as “a major triumph.” I discuss the
period Spring - end of 1957 in the text, highlighting August.
The relevant charts were set for 1 March 1957, taking the
month of the passing of the exam as the ‘conception’ date
for this Turning Point.
C ii) Turning Point 2 : Beatrice - start Marc described

120
the start of Turning Point 2 as April 1966. But in his
biographical notes he mentioned that he saw Beatrice on 23
March and decided then that he would like to go out with
her. I noticed that the Nodal picture was somewhat more
powerful for the ‘conception’ date of March 23, so decided to
set the charts for that date.
C iii) Turning Point 3 : Education - end. Marc gives May
1973 as the point he “finally finished with school” so I set
the charts for the symbolic date of 1st May 1973.
C iv) Turning Point 4 : Thatcher. In his biographical notes
Marc gives the General Election date of 3.5.1979, saying “
life plan derailed in one day.”
C v) Turning Point 5 : Marriage - end. This Turning Point
is highly specific to a split-second occurrence on 24.1 86.
A detailed quote from Marc’s biographical notes is given
under References & Notes (vi.)
C vi ) Turning Point 6 : Caitlin - start. In Marc’s” subjective
perception of the pattern of his own life “ included in the
text, Marc gives this Turning Point as … January 1988,
and the Nodal links are certainly striking then. However,
sticking with the impression I was forming that in these
Turning Points the ‘conception’ date seemed to yield the
more vivid symbolism, I again used Marc’s biographical
notes to find this point which goes back to October 1983
as the month in which he first saw Caitlin. (see text for
further detail). Lacking a specific date, I set the chart for
the symbolic one of 1 October 1983. Once again, the Nodal
picture was more striking for that date than for January
1988......
Cvii) Marc X - natal data withheld for reasons of
confidentiality. Source : Birth Certificate.

121
122
Chapter 4: case study 3

Four nodal moments

Introduction

Having completed two lengthy case studies, each offering

a different “take” on the significance of the Nodal axis, I
thought it would be interesting finally to look at the Nodes
from yet another perspective. For this chapter I have chosen
four different people’s lives: two men, and two women; two
well known, two not. From those lives I have chosen key
defining moments, points at which one would expect to see
strong Nodal signatures.

1. John Glenn

The extraordinary Jupiter Uranus year of 1997 saw space

exploration of an especially boldly going kind being a very
high profile human activity. The renovation of the Hubble
telescope in mid-February enabled the most fantastic
pictures of the outer boundaries of our galaxy and beyond to
be sent to earth thereafter. The Voyager space craft landed
on Mars in early July. The Saturn space probe was launched
in mid-October.

Then, in mid-January 1998, former astronaut John Glenn

hit the news again around the world. As Scotland on
Sunday1 said in its Newsweek (World) section for Friday
January 16th:

1 Scotland on Sunday, 18 January 1998.

123
 “John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, is
to return to space at the age of 76, NASA announced. A long-
serving US senator, Glenn will be part of the crew of the next
space shuttle mission having offered himself as a human guinea
pig for scientific work on the ageing process as it operates in
zero gravity. NASA agreed to Glenn’s request for a place on the
shuttle because of his experience and the fact that he remains
super-fit.”

The first thing to strike me was the chronology - 36 years

separate the current announcement from Glenn’s first trip
into space: two whole Nodal cycles. The charts relevant to
this announcement tell a most vivid story, with the Nodes
very much in evidence. Firstly, Glenn’s natal chart.

Nodal Moments 1
Fig 23

124
Fig 24

Fig 25

125
The NNode is placed in Libra, in the 11th House, suggesting
a team player, a man whose path involves entering into co-
operative relationships with others for the common good,
operating from a creative base. Venus the NNode ruler
in the 7th House in Gemini, holds a prominent position
square the MC/IC axis, reinforcing the links with others as
an important part of his direction in life. What turns him
on, drives him, is pioneering risk-taking. His 5th House
ruler is Mars which is conj the 9th House ruler, the Sun,
in the 8th House in Cancer, square the Nodal axis. This all
suggests a pioneering, creative, adventurous voyager with
a strong sense of connection to national pride (USA is a
Cancer/Sagittarius nation) - who also needs to put himself
in crisis situations which make him feel at his most vital
and alive. Being blasted off in a rocket to become the first
US citizen to orbit the earth would seem to fit the Nodal
picture rather well!

He has what I call the “public service axis” - Virgo/Pisces -

on his MC/IC, with Jupiter in the Ninth conj Saturn in the
10th - the Jupiter/Saturn midpoint being the MC degree.
This is very contradictory - one the one hand we have an
ambitious, perfectionistic man very much at home with
bureaucracy and the fine details of administrative work. On
the other, these fine details and formal structures - perhaps
in the realm of public health if we take the sextiles to a
strong Cancerian/8th House emphasis into account, have
to be in the service of the big picture, the grand scheme.
Jupiter in the 9th rules the chart, after all..... Jupiter is also
in the Gauquelin plus sector2, conjunct the Midheaven

2 Michel Gauquelin, Written in the Stars, Aquarian Press, 1988, pp 72-5.

126
- the placement for politicians and actors. Despite the
innate modesty and pragmatism of Virgo which is not a
sign known for inflation, this man needs to perform, to
prosyletise - not for the hell of it, but in the service of others.
Saturn is also in a Gauquelin plus zone3 - the culminating
position for prominent scientists or doctors.

Both planets are opposite Uranus in 3rd House and square

Venus, ruler of NNode, 11th and 6th Houses, in the 7th
House. This is a rich set of images - of a man who can
knuckle down to the demands of ambition and structure,
but also needs to challenge the established order and/or
people’s view of him. After orbitting the Earth, he went on
to be an executive with Coca-Cola, then into politics. There
is a maverick feel to the pattern - a man whose path is very
much connected to working with others on common goals,
but who also needs to dance to his own tune. The strong
Uranian oppositions and square also conjure up an image
of someone who will challenge the limits set regarding
what Man and man can and should do, those set by ageing
and mortality being one of them.

How appropriate, then, that the Nodal axis and eclipse

seasons potentising his 10th/4th, MC/IC and then 9th/3rd
Houses from the Spring of 1997 to the Spring of 1998
should bring him to the world’s attention again - offering
his services to the human community as part of the crew
of the next space shuttle mission ........ as a human guinea
pig for scientific work on the ageing process as it operates in
zero gravity. NASA agreed to Glenn’s request for a place on the

3 ibid, pp 75-7

127
shuttle because of his experience and the fact that he remains
super-fit.” (my emphasis)4

I have chosen the day the announcement was made as

Glenn’s “Nodal Moment” - with the February 1962 day
that he first orbitted the Earth, as a parallel one. Looking
at Glenn’s progressions and transits for the January 1998
day is very interesting indeed. The Nodal axis by transit
is crossing the angular T-square discussed above, and
transiting Pluto (which crossed Glenn’s natal Asc in 1995-
7) squares the transiting Nodal axis and will soon involve
transiting Jupiter which moved into Pisces on 2nd February
98. The total solar eclipse at 7 degrees 55 mins Pisces on 26
February, falling on his Sun/NNode midpoint, charges up
his natal T-square and transiting Nodes, Pluto and Jupiter.
The Virgo moon occupies 3 degrees at midnight on the day
of the announcement, thereby crossing the above pattern
during the course of announcement day.

The only progressions of note are striking: Venus (NNode

ruler and Mars (SNode ruler) conjunct at 8 Virgo, conjunct
the Sun/NNode midpoint and the solar eclipse degree
- further emphasising the great dynamism building up
around his natal T- square. Perhaps he is proving himself to
a woman in his life, who one might suspect would be much
younger?5

There’s an overall feeling of a grand, defiant, perhaps final

4 Scotland on Sunday, 18 January 1998. Quoted from Newsweek (World)

section for Friday 16 January.
5 Note: the overall cast of this chart suggests a problem in common with
JFK and Clinton, to name a couple of rather well-known role models whose
combination of Libran charm, Aries machismo and liking for risk-taking, and
Cancerian/8th connection to the dark ­waters of feminine sexuality and the
pursuit of power, seemed to have caused them allegedly to need to remove their
trousers in risky situations on a more frequent basis than most!

128
assertion of personal potency in the face of death, whilst
taking on a challenge which should also benefit the human
community by advancing the sum of our knowledge,
suggested by the natal planets, transits and progressions.
This is the ultimate taking-on of the Nodal challenge to be
all you can be. “Yes - and how grand if I die in the attempt!”
one imagines Glenn saying. “What a way to go!”

Finally - looking back at the chart for the actual day in

1962 when Glenn orbitted the Earth, we find striking links
to the transiting and progressed positions for the Return
announcement. The Moon is in nearly the same position,
approaching 6 degrees Virgo, conjunct Pluto at 9 degrees
Virgo, opposite the Sun, Chiron, Venus and the Part of
Fortune between1 and 10 degrees of Pisces. The North Node
transits Glenn’s 9th House, as in the current picture.

Looking at the eclipse season for 1961-62, the charging-up

period prior to the orbit in February 1962, is compelling.
The total solar eclipse at 26.5 Aquarius on 15 February 1961
appears as Mars conjunct Jupiter in the Return to Space
chart of 1998. The Lunar eclipse on 2nd March 1961 is 11
degrees Virgo - this becomes the exact North Node degree of
the Return chart. On 11 August 1961 the solar eclipse is 18.5
Leo - John Glenn’s Mars/Jupiter midpoint (9th House) and
the Ascendant of the Return chart, square Chiron. The total
solar eclipse on 5 February 1962, immediately preceding the
orbit, is 16 Aquarius: conjunct the Mars/Uranus midpoint,
square Chiron, of the Return chart, opposite John Glenn’s
Venus/Node midpoint. The subsequent lunar eclipse on 19
February 1962, at 0 Virgo, is exactly opposite the 0 Pisces
Sun of the Orbit chart… ”Return to Space, Mr Glenn - your
time is up!”…

129
2. Princess Diana

Princess Diana’s premature death on 31.08.97 shook the

world. One would expect the natal Nodes, for someone who
became so famous and died so tragically, to be prominent
and connected to planets suggesting the turbulent nature of
her life and the brutal, sudden manner of her end.

I can clearly recall my first sight of Diana’s chart (Civ) in

1984.6 The natal T Square leapt out at me, the eighth house
NNode linked with Uranus, Mars and Pluto. Apparently I
remarked to a student of mine “I bet she’ll be the first heir to
the throne’s wife to be divorced!”, a remark I had completely
forgotten until the student reminded me of it when I ran
into her ten years later. I also recall thinking that the chart
suggested someone who would live fast and die young.
But I kept that thought to myself. I’m pretty sure many
astrologers had similar reactions to mine, not voiced in the
public realm for very obvious reasons.

In the 1993 annus horribilis of the House of Windsor, the

NNode was transiting through Sagittarius across Diana’s
Ascendant, moving into the 12th House, and squaring her
natal Nodal T square right through until the summer of
1994, by which time the world knew that her marriage to
Prince Charles was over.

In the spring and summer of 1997, as her landmines

campaign gained momentum and popular press interest
in her connection with the `Al Fayeds in general and Dodi

6 I first came across it in Synastry by Penny Thornton, p 140, Aquarian Press,

1982.

130
Nodal Moments 2
Fig 26

Fig 27

131
Fig 28

in particular began to mount, the NNode was in the late

degrees of Virgo, moving to make its final square to her
Asc/Desc axis prior to her second Nodal Return in late
autumn 1998.

On 31.8.97 the fatal crash occurred - the night before a total
solar eclipse. I have chosen this as the “Nodal Moment”.
The chart for the time of the accident shows a powerful,
fated-feeling Nodal alignment: Diana’s natal Asc/Desc is
18 Sagittarius/Gemini, the Asc/Desc of the crash is 17.5
Gemini/Sagittarius, the transiting Nodal axis is 19.5 NNode
Virgo/SNode Pisces, about to cross the 8th House cusp on
its way home to its natal position. The transiting Moon is
in the 8th House at 15 Leo, heading across Uranus and the
North Node on its way to rendezvous with the Sun, about to
be eclipsed on Pluto.

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The 1st September 1997 eclipse at 9.5 Virgo potentised
the natal Nodal T Square. The eclipse also semi-squared
her MC, and triggered the Sun/Neptune and Saturn /MC
midpoints - very apt significators for ending her life against
a concrete wall, the centre of the world’s attention - and
for the stories of intrigue, drug abuse (Dodi) and alcohol
abuse (the car driver) surrounding the whole tragic event.
Interestingly, transiting Saturn at 19 Aries retrograding
from her IC was exactly quincunx the transiting NNode,
thereby repeating the natal alignment between Saturn and
the North Node. In her progressed chart, the most notable
significator for a fated encounter with the dark forces in the
world is the progressed MC at 29 Scorpio, square her North
Node/Mars midpoint the year she died.

Diana’s pre-natal eclipses are starkly woven into the picture

of her death. The pre-natal lunar eclipse is 3.5 Libra, square
Mercury, 7th House ruler in the 7th House - conjunct
progressed Venus at 3 Cancer, square the lunar eclipse
degree when she died - such a powerful significator for her
profound need to find emotional security in relationship as
a major factor in her death. Diana’s pre-natal (total) solar
eclipse is even more stark. It falls at 18.5 Pisces, conjunct
her 3rd House cusp, and becomes her South Node degree
square her Ascendant and that of the accident chart at the
time of her death.7

The Virgo/Pisces axis is the axis of the Christian era - the

cross its most potent symbol. Having a Gemini/Sag/Virgo/
7 Note: there are many profound links between Diana’s chart and the 1801
UK chart. For me, the most striking is that Diana’s pre-natal lunar eclipse at 3.5
Libra is conjunct the UK’s Asc/Uranus midpoint - what a significator both for
a powerful, graceful female presence who would shake up the nation’s image of
itself, and bring the UK one of its most devastating shocks.....

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Pisces/Nodal cross at the moment of Diana’s fatal crash, configured
with her pre-natal lunar eclipse degree, has a powerfully fated feel to
it, which seems appropriate to the spirit of our particular time and
what Diana in her life and the manner of her death seems to have
represented for many people. Here I quote from my own work:8

....”On 31 August, Princess Diana, the new revolutionary international

‘queen of hearts’ was killed, and the whole world went into shock and
mourning. Modern global technology ensured that her death made
instant world headlines - and her funeral on 7 September attracted an
audience of at least half the population of the globe: the biggest mass
media event in human history.

The shocking challenge of this event to British tradition and its now
tottering monarchy has been profound. The vast outpouring of collective
pain in response to this death goes far beyond grief for a person, who is
more of a symbol than a real individual to most of those who mourned
her. It has shown us how deep is our collective longing for a person, or
some way of living which can heal the woundedness of spirit as a human
community which we seem to be feeling.

A male sacrificial victim/Redeemer in the person of Christ, who for the

whole of the Christian era has had the longings of millions for a personal
Redeemer and healer of common human suffering projected onto him,
began this millennium and its tempestuous history. Perhaps our collective
projections onto Diana, this time a female sacrificial victim/Redeemer,
are a powerful symbol of its ending?”

8 from Anne Whitaker Jupiter Uranus Newsflash 1997: draft Part 2: Summer/autumn
1997.

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 3. Andrew X.

In this example, Andrew’s “Nodal Moment” is so closely

bound up with family fate issues that it is important to set a
biographical context before exploring the astrology.

Andrew was born in January 1963 into a small seafaring

community, the only son of parents in their forties. His
two sisters were 15 and 8. He was the late compensation for
what had become a deeply unhappy marriage. His father
had left his mother when their first daughter was only 3,
but had returned because of the child’s distress. He was a
colourful Jupiterian character who combined being a senior
local government officer with being a renowned poacher. A
heavy drinker, he was sometimes violent towards Andrew’s

Nodal Moments 3 Fig 29

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mother. She was a sensitive, but emotionally immature and
unstable woman who acted out the victim to the bully in her
husband, whilst at the same time having highly developed
emotional blackmail skills and an unbreakable survival
capacity.

Much of his childhood was spent preparing to live out his

father’s unfulfilled dream of going to sea, and responding
to his mother’s need for protection from his father. “I was
afraid to leave home in case he killed her.” He felt desperately
pulled, because they both loved him and in their own ways
were good to him, whilst at the same time putting in place
conditions which threatened to blight his future life.

His father died when he was 21, just after the end of his
first disastrous relationship with a disturbed and needy
woman. His second major relationship which occupied his
twenties was equally disastrous. Not long after he eventually
extricated himself, his mother died, in the summer of 1992,
just before major exams which he nevertheless passed.

That summer he had an affair with Alexis, who he was to

discover over the months that followed came from a very
disturbed background. She went off the Pill without telling
him until it was too late - she became pregnant. Andrew
and she decided to try and make the relationship work for
their child’s sake, so she moved into his house that autumn.
She was prone to wild mood swings and outbursts of violent
behaviour.

Their child, a boy, was born in spring 1993 and within
hours Alexis was expressing fears that she might harm him.

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There followed a nightmarish nine months during which
Andrew looked after both her and the little boy. Alexis put
such pressure on him that he gave up his well-paid job to be
at home all the time.

In response to severe provocation, Andrew struck her on

several occasions - he was horrified, despising as he did
male violence towards women. He could see how he was
replicating his father’s behaviour towards his mother – “I
was facing for the first time the ugly side of my own nature.” By
the end of 1993 he had given up hope that the relationship
could work. He was afraid Alexis would become pregnant
again. He dearly loved his little son. He feared for his own
sanity.

The night that Saturn entered Pisces on 28 January

1994, just before midnight, he walked out. I have chosen
this as his “Nodal Moment”. As can be seen from the
accompanying charts, the astrology is stunning.

Natally the South Node is in the 4th House, with Mercury

conjunct at 28 Capricorn, Saturn widely conjunct at 10
Aquarius. (Cvi)This offers a powerful image of a man bound
to home and family both by a strong sense of responsibility
and a fear of change, fear of the disruption brought by the
new. The NNode in Cancer in the 10th, however, points to
the need for Andrew to push himself beyond the restrictive
safety of his family roots, in order to create his own sense
of safety and belonging, through the pursuit of a life path
which embodies a belief in the value of caring for others,
and gives him outlets for his imaginative and emotional life.
The link between Cancer NNode and Part of Fortune in Leo

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Fig 30

Fig 31

138
suggests that accessing his creative energy in a satisfying
way can be one reward of challenging the restrictive pull of
the Saturn/SNode position - and that he has the capacity
to rework the axis by bringing his capacity for mental
discipline and commitment to the welfare of others to bear
on his own creative work.

When he walked out, his progressed Asc/Desc axis was

making an exact Grand Cross with his radix Nodes, thereby
pointing out that a major challenge to become all he could
be, would be provided by a key relationship. The prog
Asc moving from Libra to Scorpio is significant. A major
issue with Andrew all his life had been his giving way
in relationships to the needs and demands of needy and
manipulative women - replays of his relationship with his
mother. But the prog Asc as it crossed the 4th House/10th
House Nodal axis was moving into Scorpio, a tougher and
more determined sign than Libra - pleasing others is not
Scorpio’s primary goal!

Saturn, ruler of both his IC and co-ruler of his 5th, natally

placed in the 4th, brings in the joint responsibilities to
home (he was living in the family home left to him by
his father) and to his child. Transiting Saturn entering
Pisces in the 5th suggests, at one level, an end to self-
sacrifice/ offering himself up to victims, being manipulated
through his compassion and his neediness. Saturn’s
dynamic opposition to the Mars Uranus midpoint at 0
Virgo intensifies the theme of angry and radical rebellion
against service to others - furthermore Mars rules the Desc,
intensifying the relationship theme, and Uranus co-rules
the 5th House of creativity and children. This powerful

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energy surge activates the transiting Nodes at 0 Sagittarius
/Gemini, heading towards conjunction with transiting Pluto
and radix Venus. The overall pattern completes another,
mutable Grand Cross -”I’m out of here-I want a bigger life
than this!” Furthermore, the transiting Nodal axis is 45/135
the radix MC/IC axis, and transiting MC/IC is closely
conjunct radix Nodes.

I have never seen such a powerful, fateful Nodal moment in

anyone’s chart. It speaks so strongly of the gate to the future
opening, offering a different level of expression of energy
than that dictated by the family past.

The eclipse seasons in the year prior to Andrew’s walk-
out are eloquent. The lunar eclipses of 9 December 1992,
4 June 1993, and 29 December 1993 at 16 Gemini, 14
Sagittarus, and 7 Gemini respectively, all charge up the
turbulent Mars/Uranus/Pluto in Virgo opposite Moon/
Jupiter/Chiron in Pisces as the transiting Nodes regress
through the 9th/3rd House. Images of the wounded family
past surging up through his life, of great anger towards the
feminine principle, of the build-up of battle rage running
with a huge sense of woundedness and neediness, and the
restless desire for pastures new, are powerfully evoked from
those images.

The partial solar eclipses, of 21 May 1993 at 0.5 Gemini and

29 December 1993 at 21.5 Scorpio, both trigger the difficult,
combative Venus/Mars square which is also being transited
by Saturn square Pluto. The picture is of a relationship
explosion brewing up; there were several explosive episodes

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between him and his partner between those two eclipses.
Interestingly, the 21.5 Scorpio solar eclipse a month before
Andrew left picks up his pre-natal lunar eclipse degree
of 22.5 Aquarius which represents his 5t house cusp in
his natal chart, and attendant Saturn/Uranus and Moon/
NNode midpoints. There is a powerful picture offered here
of his intense feeling for his child, and his sense of duty
and commitment, clashing with his self-focused, freedom
oriented drive to get out.

A further point of interest is that the full moon on 27

January, the day before he walked out, fell at 7 degrees 23
minutes of Leo - his pre-natal solar eclipse being 7 degrees
and 49 minutes of Leo. This alignment falling on his 10th
house Leo part of Fortune, triggering his natal Sun/Uranus
midpoint, adds weight to the existing emphasis on the
pull between his attachment to his son and the necessity
of freeing himself from circumstances stifling his creative
growth.

One year on, Andrew reported himself to be in good shape.

He has regular contact with his little boy. He has put up
barriers to Alexis’ powerful attempts at emotional blackmail.
He has been taken back by his former Company and is
working his way quickly up the promotional ladder again.
He will probably do an Open University degree and is
pursuing studies of a spiritual and symbolic nature. His life
feels far more creative, despite the pain of not living with
his child... ”What I did the day I left I now see as vital to the
rest of my life. Had I stayed, I would have repeated my father’s
life....I now feel I have a good chance to make my life my own.”

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 4. Anna X

Anna was born in the West of Scotland in 1952. I have

known her for over 10 years since she came to study
astrology with me in 1987. She is a big personality,
whose persistent courage, questioning spirit and lateral
intelligence I admire. Astrologically, she has a Scorpio
Ascendant with Pluto, her ruling planet, in Leo square the
Ascendant from the ninth house, conjunct the South Node
in Virgo. (Cvii)

She has had a tempestuous life, having fought her way

from a very dysfunctional family of origin through family
crisis and tragedy, early motherhood and marriage, and
difficult, sometimes violent relationships with men towards

Nodal Moments 4 Fig 32

142
Fig 33

Fig 34

143
a greater understanding of who she is, what she can offer
the wider world, and in what form she should offer it. Last
year in a letter from Africa where she now works, she said
“my inner life is a rampant beast with all sorts of questions and
demands...” To me this sums up what drives Anna!

The turbulent nature of her life, her perennially questioning

struggle towards a gradually widening perspective, and
her drive towards creating meaning for herself through
service to others are well described by the Nodal pattern
in her chart and its planetary links. Furthermore, Mars in
Scorpio from the 11th House trine the NNode in the 3rd
in Pisces, sextile the SNode in Virgo in the 9th, shows her
commitment to fighting hard for what she believes in, and
what will serve the wider human community.

It also shows that she is called on to battle against the

darker forces in life and in society - she started her
professional career as a Women’s Aid volunteer in 1979,
with her three children aged 8, 5 and under a year old. In
the same year her sister was diagnosed as suffering from
cancer; she died a month after Anna started her professional
training in September 1982. Following a custody battle with
her parents re her dead sister’s little son Alan, he came to
live with Anna and her children in 1984, the same year that
she separated formally from her husband; he had left the
family home in April 1982.

In 1985 she qualified as a social worker and got her

first professional job. By 1994, she was working as a
project leader for a major children’s charity, her mandate
being work with ethnic minority communities, anti-

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discrimination and children’s rights work. In the early
autumn of 1994, as the North Node crossed her Ascendant,
she obtained a temporary Acting Assistant Director’s post
within her organisation. She was getting very restless - her
sons had left home, her daughter was nearly sixteen and
looking towards university in a year or two. Pluto, her
ruling planet, was transiting the latter degrees of Scorpio,
preparing to square her Nodes from the first House. She
attended an evening tutorial I gave on the Nodes, and we
light-heartedly speculated on what might happen when
Pluto moved into Sagittarius - relocation perhaps?

I have chosen Anna’s “Nodal Moment” as 11th October

1995. On that day at 9.30 am she was successfully
interviewed for the senior post which she flew to Africa to
take up in January 1996. It is a very significant day in her life.
Her mother was born on 11 October 1924, and her sister
died on 11 October 1982............

The progressions and transits tell a very clear story. The

progressed MC is just moving into Scorpio, applying
conjunct 11th House Mars, sextile SNode in the 9th House,
trine NNode in the third. Progressed Moon is in the 9th
House in Leo,- the post concerns the welfare and protection of
children through a major children’s charity - due to cross the 0
degrees Virgo SNode in the 9th House when Anna went to
Africa in January 1996.

Transiting Pluto is in the last degree of Scorpio (re-entering

Sagittarius on 11 November 95) applying conjunct the

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Part of Fortune at 0 Sagittarius, square the Nodal axis at 0
Virgo/Pisces in the 9th/3rd Houses.9

The transiting Nodal axis is also prominent, transiting Node

at 26 degrees Libra in 11th conjuncting the Mars/Neptune
midpoint, triggering the Sun/Mercury midpoint. Anna had
parted from her long-term lover the previous year, the last
straw having been discovery of various of his infidelities,
and he went to work in Europe only weeks before she got
the African job. As the Node headed for her natal Moon
Mercury/Saturn Neptune square, a close woman friend
died: on 13 October, two days after her interview.

This pattern also foreshadowed her homesickness when she

first went to Africa, and the uncertainty of her daughter’s
home base. Initially she came out with her mother to Africa;
but after a couple of weeks returned home to Scotland
where she is currently living with her father. The ill-health
centring round lung problems which Anna had to fight
from the end of 1996 is also foreshadowed in this pattern,
although not manifesting acutely until the end of 1996/
start of 1997 as the NNode crossed Chiron at 4.5 degrees
Libra in the interview chart, squaring the 2nd House(note)
Venus/Node midpoint in her natal horoscope.

However, Anna after a traumatic start seems to have

adjusted well. She has many areas of responsibility in her
job, and many stresses. One of the big satisfactions - and
her work’s main focus - has been her helping guide into

9 Note: when transiting Pluto moved from Leo to Virgo in June 1958, Anna
relocated from Scotland to England the following spring, just before Pluto went
direct at 1.5 degrees Virgo in May 1959.

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law in the country in which she works, a Children’s Statute,
unique in Africa, founded on the UN Conventions on
the Rights of the Child. This was the outcome of a seven
year review of all existing laws which started in 1990. The
Statute became law in August 1997 - with the North Node
in 20 Virgo in her 10th House, opposite her natal lunar
eclipse degree at 22 Pisces.

There are very strong links between the solar and lunar
eclipses of the November 94-5 season and the chart for
the interview on 11 October 1995. During this period, the
transiting Nodal axis is retrograding through the 11th/5th
Houses, providing very appropriate background indications
that a process is at work in Anna’s life which will push
her towards expressing her personal, pioneering creative
energies in the greater collective at a more challenging level
than she has ever done before. Her energies, as we have
seen, involve pioneering work for children - a very literal
expression of the 5th House.

The solar eclipses of 3 November 1994 and 29 April 1995,

at 11 Scorpio and 9 Taurus respectively, appear as the
Ascendant and Descendant point of the Interview chart,
and echo Anna’s own 19 Scorpio/Taurus natal axis. The
lunar eclipse of 18 November 1994 at 26 Taurus widely
conjuncts the Moon and closely squares the MC/IC axis of
the interview chart, as well as picking up her natal Pluto/
Node, Venus/Neptune midpoints.

The next lunar eclipse on 15 April 1995 at 25 Libra falls

on her natal Saturn/Neptune conjunction in the 11th
House. The autumn one at 15 Aries, three days before her

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successful interview, falls on the natal 5th House cusp,
charging up her Jupiter/Saturn/Mercury T Square. The
final, total solar eclipse of that season falls on 24 October
at O Scorpio - conjunct her progressed Asc/radix Mars and
the interview chart’s rising Venus/Node conjunction. This
eclipse also triggers her radix Venus/Node midpoint at 29.5
Capricorn. She hears at the end of October 1995 that she
has got the job.

I think that Anna’s Nodal Moment shows vividly the call

to “be all you can be!” which comes when the Nodes are
strongly activated and potentised by the energy charges
provided by the eclipses.

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Conclusion

‘Major’ and ‘minor’ Nodal activity

Transits and progressions weave in and out of life - there

may be years for example which are dominated by Pluto,
others by Neptune, or very heavily Saturnian years. There
are the few occasions eg where a planet changes sign by
progression, or the MC progresses over Uranus, or the
Moon. But there is Nodal activity of some kind going on all
the time, as the Nodal axis regresses through the horoscope,
transits come to the Natal or progressed Nodes, and
progressions touch off the natal Nodal pattern. The Nodes
appear to me to function both as witnesses (the Sun) and
midwives (the Moon), symbolic translators of the archetypal
energies of the planets into the medium of Life as it is lived
in the Sun/Moon/Earth system.

Where, then, does this leave the contention that Nodal

times have a particularly powerful, fateful “charge” to them?
That can’t be true of every year in life, surely? If it were, the
intensity of it would pretty quickly reduce people to cinders!
What, therefore, distinguishes those special moments or
turning points in life where either at the time, or later, we
realise we have crossed an important threshold?

From the research done on Marc’s life in particular, I have

concluded that there are two kinds of Nodal activity: major
and minor, as it were. As already discussed, there is always
some “minor” Nodal activity going on.

The really powerful “major” times on the other hand, which

are few in any lifetime, are characterised by not just one or

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two, but a cluster of transits and/or progressions involving
the natal, and/or progressed, and/or transitting Nodes. The
outer planets, especially Pluto with its strong “fated” feel,
stand out. This was an impression I had already formed
after 15 years of chart reading - but I’d never tested it out in
formal research before.

Pre-natal eclipses are very much part of the weave, as can

be seen from the case study material. The most striking
example is seen in Mary Shelley’s horoscope where the
pre-natal solar and lunar eclipse degrees appear as the
actual Ascendant and SNode degrees in her horoscope, and
the charts of all the key people and events in her life with
reference to the authorship of Frankenstein.

I’m quite clear now, as the Nodal axis regresses through

the chart, identifying via the highlighted houses the overall
territory up for change, that the transiting eclipses function
as “battery chargers”, gradually building up the energies
of the person’s life in preparation to receive major change.
An image comes to mind here from the female menstrual
cycle, of the egg gradually being primed and prepared until
it is at its maximum point of readiness to receive the male
sperm, conceive and begin new life. I think the eclipses
begin their work of charging-up as soon as the relevant
eclipse season begins, which may be as long as eighteen

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months before the turning point in the person’s life
appears.1

The Nodes and the numinous

In allowing some images to rise which might help me

pull the threads of the thesis together, the one which most
persistently presented itself was that ghostly picture of a
man’s head and shoulders which must be the world’s most
famous photographic negative - the one which appeared
when the photograph taken of the marks on the shroud
of Turin was developed.2 For many people throughout
the world, this is a sacred image of the crucified body of
Christ, and a central symbol representing the Christian
era. Regardless of one’s religious stance, it is not hard to
see how this single awe-inspiring one-dimensional image
conveys the symbolic essence of what Christianity means.

1 Note: A very clear example comes to mind from my own recent life. In the
spring of 1997 I decided that I needed an office out of my home to create space,
mainly to write this thesis. My Asc/Desc axis is 9 Virgo/Pisces The Virgo/
Pisces eclipse season started on 9 March with a total solar eclipse at 18.5 Pisces,
opposite Urania in my first House, closely linking in Mary Shelley’s and Marc’s
Nodes. It was at this time that I chose Marc as my case study subject. On Friday
7 March I saw the office I decided on 10 March to rent. I paid for setting up the
office from an insurance policy I had taken out 18 years previously at the age of
32. The NNode then was transiting the first decanate of Sagittarius, squaring my
Asc/Desc. At that time, I had a feeling I might need money for some important
ploy when I was 50!
The middle period of the season saw me well settled into the writing as the 9
Virgo eclipse fell exactly on my Asc. The day before the total solar eclipse of
26 February 1998 fell on the 6th House side of my Desc, I had a call from my
landlords saying they needed to know by Friday 27 February whether I was
going to renew my lease (up on 9 May) since the building was being sold. I
decided to renew for 6 months and sent my cheque off just before the lunar
eclipse on 13 March at 22 Virgo. The lease runs out on 7 November 1998 - the
day I’m due to graduate from the CPA!
2 The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Vol 12, p 55,(Encyclopaedia
Britannica 15th Edition 1995)

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It functions as a kind of spiritual hologram;3 in itself it is a
one-dimensional holographic plate. But when the light of
faith is shone on it, a three dimensional picture - physical,
emotional, and spiritual, of what Christianity means, arises
for the observer.

In contemplating the outcome of the research into the lives

of both Mary Shelley and Marc, the idea of the natal Nodal
pattern representing a symbolic holographic plate has taken
shape.

The true turning points in life seem to leap into three

dimensions - emotional, physical, and spiritual - from the
holographic plate on which the basic pattern of the person’s
destiny is etched. That pattern is most appropriately carried
in the Nodal structure, which holds images of the light
of the quest for meaning through the Sun, reflection and
containment of that light through the Moon, and grounding
in Life’s unfolding process through their orbits’ particular
relationship with the Earth’s plane.

In every synastry in Mary Shelley’s case; in every key event

in both subjects’ lives, running backwards and forwards in
time and in the symbolism of all the birth charts, one can
see, shimmering through the really critical turning points,
the ghostly, but quite distinct holographic plate of both
Mary and Marc’s natal Nodal patterns. The Nodal Moments,
though sketchier because of their being only one section cut
through each subjects’ unfolding life pattern, nevertheless

3 A hologram is “an image produced on photographic film in such a way that

under suitable illumination a three-dimensional representation of an object is
seen.” Oxford Paperback Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 4th Edition, 1994.

152
also carry within them the basic shape of the natal Nodal
blueprint. Robin Heath’s comment bears repeating:4
“...astrology appears more and more to behave like a hologram.
You can perform almost any technique with the data, turn the
chart inside out or slice it up, and still the symbolic pictures
remain.”

Perhaps that powerful spiritual image of the sacred Shroud

arose for me because in reflecting on the meaning of what
I had seen at the core of all the different ‘takes’ on the
Nodes at work in disparate people’s lives, I felt myself to
be in the presence of the numinous. I find it impossible
to describe adequately what I felt when I realised that in
Mary Shelley and Marc’s lives, with each synastry and every
major event and turning point, the natal Nodes and their
attendant patterns had been painted, not faintly or casually,
but in bold primary colours that could not be missed. I had
a powerful sense of being in the presence of something
‘Other’, something which was not circumscribed by the
mortality of one individual in one lifetime.

The resonances over long periods of time which were so

evident in linking Mary Shelley’s Nodal pattern with the
contemporary controversy over how far humans should
overstep their limits in altering the very building blocks of

4 The Mountain Astrologer, Issue 78, April/May 1998, Letters p 11.

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life, focused by the appearance of Dolly the Sheep - and the
links I found with my own horoscope, hers, and the time I
had chosen to write about her, really struck me.5

I did not expect my research into ‘The Moon’s Nodes in

Action’ to present me with such a strong suggestion that we
all have our destiny, and that at certain potent times in life
there are events and turning points which are initiations
into the furtherance of that destiny - and that outwith our
lives there may be some intelligent ‘Other’ observing and/
or guiding that movement. But that is the feeling which
persists in me as a result of my work.

I have always reacted with a degree of impatience to the

theorising, usually with little practical evidence to support
it, which takes place about the Nodes - now I’m rather more
respectful! But it feels good to have done a fairly substantial
piece of practical exploratory work demonstrating the theory
in action. As the Indian astrologers have been telling us for
centuries, the Moon’s Nodes really do seem to be connected
to the workings of Fate in the shaping of personal destiny.

5 10th House Uranus at 25 Gemini, square 1st house Urania at 19 Virgo in

my chart, plugs into her whole Nodal pattern, picking up her pre-natal lunar
eclipse degree at 20 Sagittarius. My 10th House Mars at 1.5 Cancer is conjunct
her Asc/pre-natal solar eclipse degrees at 2.5/ 3.5 Cancer. Her Mars Sun Uranus
is conjunct my Fortuna Ascendant, her Chiron Venus conjuncts my Neptune,
Her MC Pluto IC squares my NNode MC IC, her Mercury trines my MC NNode
and her Neptune squares my Mercury Chart Ruler. I started work on the thesis,
by reading Emily Sunstein’s book on Mary Shelley, in mid-July 1997 with the
NNode at 21 Virgo, and I’ m finishing it now with the transiting Node at 3 Virgo,
conjunct her Mars and my Fortuna. I hope to graduate on 7 November 1998,
when the transiting Nodal axis will be at 28 Leo/Aquarius, exactly conjunct
Mary Shelley’s MC Pluto IC, square my NNode MC SNode IC at 28 Taurus/
Scorpio - it’s hard even for a persistent pragmatist like me to disbelieve in fated
connections when contemplating all this!

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The Nodes, birth, death and rebirth

The Nodes have also struck me as having strong

connections, in the clustering effect I talked about, with
conception, birth and death, of either a literal or more often
a symbolic kind. I found it intriguing, for example, that
in the two of Marc’s Turning Points which concerned the
beginning of the two key relationships with women which
would most powerfully affect his life, the charts for the
conception points of the relationships were more powerful
than those for the actual start of Marc going out with
Beatrice and then Caitlin. In Mary Shelley’s case, the chart
for the waking dream in which she could have been said to
have conceived the idea which led to Frankenstein, was very
powerful.

All of the key moments in all the case material concern

conception, birth and death - literally, in the case of Princess
Diana. Andrew’s concerned the death of a relationship, but
also the death of certain pathological ties to the family past,
leading to the birth of an altogether more positive stage
of his life. Anna’s Nodal moment represented the birth of
a whole new cycle of her life; the date of the interview, 11
October, was also the anniversary of both her mother’s and
her sister’s death. John Glenn’s moment concerned his
rebirth as an astronaut, and also since he is 76 years old
could be seen as him intent on going out in a blaze of glory,
perhaps literally.

Marc’s first Turning Point represented the death of his

youthful image of himself as an intellectual achiever, and a
very painful birth into experiencing the more brutal aspects
of life as a necessary part of his life path. The election of

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Thatcher in 1979 represented the death of his political
hopes for his country - the whole period since then for
him has been a long struggle for a man who needs the
inspiration of belief to guide and focus his considerable
energies and gifts.

My research has confirmed both the traditional view of the
Nodes’ connection with birth, death and rebirth, and my
own impressions gained over many years’ practice.

The Nodes in relation to other chart factors

I started out with certain questions. Do the Nodes say
something specific, or do they act as a reinforcer for
information which can be derived from other chart factors?
I think I have demonstrated quite clearly that the Nodes and
their attendant planetary/Angular links can be used on their
own to sketch out a clear picture of the basic structure of a
person’s life path and the archetypal energies which need
to be responded to and brought into the journey, for that
person to be all they can be.

It appears that some lives are more touched by the hand of

Fate than others. It seems that strong outer planet links,
especially Pluto’s conjunctions or squares to the natal
Nodal axis, and strong prevailing major patterns eg Uranus
conjunct Pluto opposite Saturn conjunct Chiron linked to
the Nodes, bring some people a more challenging and Fate-
directed life than others. Mary Shelley’s chart is a very good
example of this, with Uranus, dispositor of Pluto conjunct
MC, conjunct her Sun and square her Nodal axis.

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I have distinguished between minor and major Nodal
activity in transits and progressions, and demonstrated that
the major effect is what appears to be present when turning
points occur. This would suggest that in contemplating
the unfolding picture of a person’s life, the combination
of Nodal activity with the foreground presence of outer
planets, especially Pluto, points out that something really
special is going on and should be carefully noted.

I also asked whether astrologers are missing something

important by not paying attention to the Nodes, natally
and as life unfolds. I think the answer to this is yes, with
particular reference to the transiting Nodal cycle and the
eclipse seasons which accompany them. The pair of houses
highlighted by the transiting Nodal axis and eclipses should
be carefully observed, especially if the pre-natal eclipse
degrees crop up in the form of a returning eclipse, or a
current eclipse is triggering natal patterns linked in to
either of the pre-natal eclipses.

I appreciate that we all need to earn our living and there

are a multiplicity of interpretive factors available which
would take all day to prepare if they were to be included
in every reading. We have to be selective. But having done
the research for this thesis, I think that, in preparing a
reading, if the clustering effect I have been discussing is in
evidence, it is important to pay particular attention to that
person’s natal Nodal pattern and the current Nodal/eclipse
picture. The client is then likely to be bringing matters of
a life-changing nature to us for discussion, which offers us
roles both as observers and midwives; human agents in the
here-and-now of those mysterious ‘watchers by the threshold‘
whose numinous presence in our lives is symbolically
represented by the Moon’s Nodes in Action.

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Index of Charts

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and a sheep called Dolly

Fig 1 Mary Shelley, natal chart details 24
Fig 2 Mary Shelley - natal chart 38
Fig 3 William Godwin - natal chart 38
Fig 4 Mary Wollestonecraft - natal chart 39
Fig 5 Percy B Shelley - natal chart 42
Fig 6 Lord Byron - natal chart 42
Fig 7 Mary Shelley - natal chart (for easy comparison) 43
Fig 8 Baby Mary - natal chart 43
Fig 9 Mary and Percy - event chart - declaration of love 51
Fig 10 Mary and Percy - event chart - elopement 51
Fig 11 Mary Shelley - natal chart (for easy comparison) 52
Fig 12 Mary Shelley - event chart - dreaming of Frankenstein 55
Fig 13 Publication of Frankenstein - event chart 55
Fig 14 Dolly the Cloned Sheep - natal chart 63
Fig 15 Twentieth Century - event chart 63

Marc X - a life through the nodal lens

Fig 16 Marc X - natal chart details 82
Fig 17 Marc X - Turning point 1 - tri-wheel chart - transfer to secondary school 92
Fig 18 Marc X - Turning point 2 - tri-wheel chart - going out with Beatrice 92
Fig 19 Marc X - Turning point 3 - tri-wheel chart - end of formal education 95
Fig 20 Marc X - Turning point 4 - tri-wheel chart - 3 May 1979 - Thatcher 97
Fig 21 Marc X - Turning point 5 - tri-wheel chart - end of marriage 97
Fig 22 Marc X - Turning point 6 - tri-wheel chart - Caitlin 98

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 Four nodal moments
Fig 23 John Glenn - natal chart 124
Fig 24 John Glen - event chart - in Earth orbit, 1962 125
Fig 25 John Glen - event chart - return to space, 1998 125

Fig 26 Princess Diana - natal chart 131

Fig 27 Princess Diana - naibod secondary chart 131
Fig 28 Princess Diana - accident 132

Fig 29 Andrew X - natal chart 135

Fig 30 Andrew X - event chart - walk out 138
Fig 31 Andrew X - bi-wheel chart - walk out and naibod secondary chart 138

Fig 32 Anna X - natal chart 142

Fig 33 Anna X - event chart - interview 143
Fig 34 Anna X - bi-wheel chart - interview and naibod secondary chart 143

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Background
The Astrologer’s Companion by Filbey and Filbey (UK )
Aquarian Press 1986.
A Dictionary of Astrology by Fred Gettings (UK) Routledge
& Kegan Paul 1985.
The Astrologer’s Astronomical Handbook by Jeff Mayo (UK)
L.N.Fowler & Co Ltd 1982.
The Practical Astrologer by Nick Campion (UK) Cinnabar
Books 1993.
Encyclopedia of Astrology by Nicholas de Vore (USA)
Littlefield, Adams & Co 1976.

Cycles
The Lunation Cycle by Dane Rudhyar (USA) Aurora Press
1986.
Cycles of Becoming by Alexander Ruperti (USA) CRCS
1978. Chapter 3 The Sun-Moon Cycles.
The Luminaries by Liz Greene & Howard Sasportas (USA)
Samuel Weiser, Inc 1992.
Sun Sign, Moon Sign by Charles & Suzi Harvey (UK)
Aquarian Press (HarperCollins) 1994.
The Structure of Cycles by Joseph Crane pp 73-4 from The
Mountain Astrologer Issue 77 Feb/March 1998.

The Moon’s Nodes

An Astrological Guide to Self-Awareness by Donna
Cunningham (USA) CRCS Publications 1978. Chapter 12
‘The Neglected Nodes of the Moon’.
The Astrology of Self-Discovery by Tracy Marks (USA)
CRCS Publications 1985.Chapter 4 The Lunar Nodes : Our
Life Purpose.

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The Astrologer’s Node Book by Donna VanToen (USA)
Samuel Weiser, Inc 1981.
Draconic Astrology by Pamela Crane (UK) The Aquarian
Press 1987.
Karmic Astrology The Moon’s Nodes and Reincarnation by
Martin Schulman (USA) Samuel Weiser, Inc 1975.
The Karmic Journey by Judy Hall (UK) Penguin Arkana
1990.

Eclipses
The Eagle and the Lark by Bernadette Brady (USA) Samuel
Weiser1992.
Eclipses : Astrological Guideposts by Rose Lineman ( USA )
AFA Inc 1995.
Lunar Shadows by Dietrech J. Pessin (USA) Galactic Press
1997.
Encyclopedia of Astrology by Nicholas de Vore (USA)
Littlefield, Adams & Co 1976. Eclipses: pp 132-167

Mary Shelley
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (UK) Penguin Popular
Classics 1994 (first published 1818)
MARY SHELLEY Romance and Reality by Emily W.
Sunstein (USA) John Hopkins University Press 1991.
MARY SHELLEY by Muriel Spark (UK) Constable and
Company 1988.
CLONE The road to Dolly and the path ahead by Gina
Kolata (UK) Allen Lane 1997.
Hyenas in Petticoats by Woof, Hebron & Tomalin (UK) The
Wordsworth Trust 1997.
TIME Annual 1997 The Year in Review (USA) Time Books
1998.

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Anne Whitaker has been an astrologer since the 1983 Jupiter-Uranus conjunction
in Sagittarius. She also has a long background in adult education, social work,
counselling and supervision. Anne holds an MA degree, postgraduate diplomas
in education and social work, and the Diploma from the Centre for Psychological
Astrology (1998 London, UK).

Based in Glasgow in Scotland, she can be contacted at

‘Writing from the Twelfth House’, ‘Astrology: Questions and Answers’
and her Facebook Page

Anne’s other ebooks can also be purchased from either of the above sites:
‘Rumbold Raven’s Magic Menagerie’ (illustrated children’s poetry book)
‘Wisps from the Dazzling Darkness’
(an open-minded take on paranormal experience)
‘Jupiter meets Uranus’
(a great introduction to how astrology works at the individual and social level)

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