North node
Definition
The north node marks the direction of growth in a chart: the territory that asks for development rather than the one that comes pre-built. Modern astrology reads it as where the soul is reaching in this life. Astronomically it is one of the two points where the Moon's orbit crosses the plane of the ecliptic, not a body but a geometric intersection that moves backward through the zodiac at roughly one and a half degrees a month.
In context
If natal North Node sits in your sixth house, the soul direction described by the placement involves daily craft, service, and embodied work, the territory the chart is asked to grow into rather than retreat from. The north node is always exactly opposite its sibling, the south node, so reading one without the other misses half the picture: the pair is read as a single axis of inherited skill and forward growth across the natal chart.
To go deeper
The north node belongs with the lunar node family:
- South node: the opposing point, inherited skill.
- Lunar nodes: the axis as a single unit.
- Eclipse: events that fire on the node axis.