The North Node and South Node, explained

Where the nodes come from

The Moon's orbit is tilted about five degrees against the Earth's path round the Sun. The two places where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's are the lunar nodes: the North Node where the Moon crosses heading north, the South Node exactly opposite. They aren't objects, just points, but they're real astronomy: eclipses can only happen when the Sun is near one of them.

The nodes slide backwards through the zodiac, taking about 18.6 years to go all the way round, so they spend roughly a year and a half in each sign.

What astrologers read into them

In modern astrology the North Node is a direction of growth: the qualities that feel unfamiliar and pay off most when you lean into them. The South Node is the opposite, the habits and skills that come so easily they can become a comfortable rut. Read together, they describe a pull from one way of being towards another, and the houses they sit in show which areas of life that pull plays out in.

True node or mean node?

The Moon's orbit wobbles, pushed around by the Sun's gravity, so the node doesn't move smoothly. The mean node averages the wobble away; the true node follows the orbit as it actually is at that moment, and occasionally even moves forwards for a few days. The two are never more than about a degree and a half apart. We show the true node, as most current software does.

Right now they're 0.95° apart. If your birth chart's node is within a degree or two of a sign boundary, the two methods can disagree about its sign, so check which one a reading is using.

The node at the moment

The North Node entered Aquarius around 27 July 2026 and moves into Capricorn around 26 March 2028 (the true node rocks back and forth near a boundary, so the change can take a few days). That puts the South Node in Leo. Everyone born in that window shares the same node signs; the house is what makes yours personal.

Finding yours

Your chart lists the North Node with its sign and, if you know your birth time, its house. Put the South Node opposite. Then ask two questions: what comes easily to me in the South Node's sign and house, and what does the North Node's ask me to practise?