A Compelling Observation about the Moon’s True Nodes in Solar Returns

In June of 2019 I’ll be speaking on Solar Returns at the 36th Congreso Ibérico de Astrología in San Sebastián, Spain.  In preparation for this talk, I examined dozens of solar returns of prominent figures for years when dramatic events occurred in their lives.

In studying these many charts, I noticed a correlation which I believe has not been previously reported in the astrological literature.  Specifically, in years of dramatic, life-altering and often disruptive events such as accidents, illness, hospitalization, surgery, falls from power, political losses, exile, turmoil, arrests, conflicts with authorities, relocation to another country, the loss of an important loved one or even the death of the native, it occurred in the solar return for that year that the Moon’s true nodes were either stationary or had made a station and changed direction within 24 hours of the moment the Sun returned to its natal position.

From the geocentric perspective of astrology, the Moon’s nodes are simply the points of intersection between the Moon’s orbit and the Sun’s orbit (the ecliptic).  In traditional astrology, the custom was to use the Moon’s mean node which is always retrograde because the Moon’s nodes makes a cycle backwards through the zodiac about every 18.6 years.  Modern science is able to measure more precisely the exact position of Moon’s nodes, which generally run retrograde but which can “stop” and go direct from time to time because of slight perturbations in the Moon’s orbit due to gravitational forces as it travels around the Earth.  For those who wish more information about the difference between the Moon’s true and mean nodes, I recommend the YouTube video by David Cochrane.

To illustrate this phenomenon, let me pick a couple events at random: the arrest of actor Jusse Smollet and the death of Eva Perón from the point of view of the solar return of her husband.

“Empire” actor Jussie Smollett made national headlines this year when told the Chicago police in January that two men had attacked him and yelled racial and homophobic slurs. Apparently the whole incident turned out to be a publicity stunt.  Smollet was born June 21, 1982 in Santa Rosa, CA, time unknown, so I used sunrise to calculate his natal chart.  His solar return for this year (based on a sunrise birth) looks like this:

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Note that his true lunar nodes are stationary (S) in the solar return for this year.

The next example is the solar return of Juan Perón (born 8 October 8 1895), president of Argentina, for the year when his wife Eva died (26 July 1952).  President Perón was born at 7:47 AM in Lobos, Argentina.  Here is the solar return in effect for the year his wife passed away:

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As you can see, the true nodes in this solar return are very recently direct in motion.  Looking in the ephemeris, the true nodes had been stationary just two hours before the exact moment of the return.

It should not be surprising that the Moon’s nodes making a station or being very recently stationary should correlate symbolically with such dramatic and life-changing events.  Traditionally the moon’s nodes were always associated with eclipses, which were ominous portents since Babylonian times.  The Babylonians also regarded stationary planets are being extremely powerful.

In Vedic mythology the Nodes resulted from Lord Vishnu hurling his disk to sever the head of Rahu-Ketu for having secretly imbibed the nectar of immortality.  In vengeance the two nodes (Rahu and Ketu) periodically swallow the light of the Sun and the Moon, causing eclipses and terrifying humans on earth.

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All original material on this page is copyright Anthony Louis 2019.