i quite like this website on planetary nodes.... hopefully others here will as well..

https://www.planetarynodes.com/

i listened to naomi bennett give a talk to the scottish astrological association a couple of days ago that reinvigorated my interest in this topic.. i believe it was carl payne tobey who did some work on this topic many years ago... i read his book, but it too was a long time ago! anyway.. check out the website if you are interested.. kudos to maria for making the website and research available for others to consider..

Hello James,

Thank you for the link!

It is certainly very interesting...! I dabbled into these a long time ago - the complement to planetary longitudinal zodiacal positions and motions as I was sure that the latitudinal positions and motions do contribute to distinct meanings that were probably discovered in ancient times but were either not extant or simply not written down - noting that the planetary nodes (esp. the geocentric nodes apart from the lunar nodes) were not so easy to be calculated using old tables and zij and what have you. The lunar nodes were probably diligently tracked because they are directly related to the solar and lunar eclipses.

Just want to add a few observations of my own (of course inspired by others as well!) …

I remember reading somewhere, can't recall where - probably Ibn Ezra, who correlates ecliptic latitude to body weight/size and also from another, also can't recall where - probably Abu Ma'shar?, who correlated the price inflation/deflation to the ecliptic phases...

Ecliptic phases? This is the analogue of longitudinal phases. While longitudinal phases of the moon & the planets are their positions and motions relative to the sun, the ecliptic phases of the moon & the planets are their positions and motions relative to the path of the sun (ecliptic).
Of course, we all know that when two circles are neither parallel to each other nor on top of each other (i.e. they are slanted), will always intersect at two points (aka nodes). Moon and the planets have their own great circles as they "move" around the zodiac and have two intersections (nodes) with the ecliptic great circle.

When the moon or a planet are exactly zero degree by ecliptic latitude, that planet is on its own node. If the sun happens to be there as well, then occultation happens. Occultation of the moon has a special name – solar eclipse (name = ecliptic as eclipse can only happen when both luminaries are on the ecliptic – or thereabout). While a planet on its own node has a specific meaning, a planet on its own node WITH sun (occultation) surely has a more augmented signification (one should say?). The ancients have a specific term for this… it is Cazimi! (well, at least for those who restrict cazimi to conjunction by longitude AND latitude with ??? deg orb…). Hmmm, Moon cazimi is solar eclipse (usually has a negative connotation or neutral…) but any other planet in cazimi is usually extremely good for that planet is with the King.

Anyway, back to the ecliptic phases… Moon and the planets would have four ecliptic phases,
(1) From ascending node to its highest latitude (latitude is positive and increasing)
(2) From its highest latitude to its descending node (latitude is positive and decreasing)
(3) From descending node to its lowest latitude (latitude is negative and decreasing)
(4) From its lowest latitude to its ascending node (latitude is negative and increasing)

These four phases would add more colours to the planetary significations. Using the most studied nodes (lunar nodes of course), when moon is at the ecliptic (zero latitude) then she is on her own node (be it ascending or descending) and when she is on the highest/lowest latitudinal point, she is at her own bendings. In horary, when the quesited is about the price of a house one is eying to purchase or a stock one is tracking, the position of the moon in the ecliptic phase could give us an idea of the price motion as we track the latitudinal motion. Let’s say that at the time of the question, Moon (of course she has to signify the quesited) is at the first phase, the price should be relatively high and increasing – and if this is confirmed in real life, we can then estimate when it will reach its highest price by looking at the number of degrees/days when it reaches its highest latitude and use the common methods of translating deg/days into real time…

We could extrapolate from this, other uses of the latitudinal/nodal motions …hmm…I am just too lazy to do these types of research nowadays…what are your findings James (and others) along this line?

Hello yet again...

Looking at the planetary nodes themselves... only the lunar nodes have been "personified" or rather "dragonified". What about the other nodes? Should we try to "dragonified" them as well (may be using other exotic animals especially those that have tails so that we can make tales of them...hehe).

Superior planets could only make superior occultations whereas inferior planets could make superior and inferior occultations...hmmm

A discussion point: Could we make any analogue of mundane events to the celestial event of a planetary node conjuncting another planet? Example: could we make a distinctive signification of say, Venus conjoining Jupiter's ascending node? I am inclined towards "No" but then, one could argue that we do that to the lunar nodes...

hi astrojin

all good questions and observations! i think we can still stick with the dragon imagery for all the nodes as they are invisible and yet they appear to have a life of their own, however hidden or mysterious it is..

i haven't gotten very far in my studies on this.. i think planetary nodes have a lot of merit.. of course the most recent example, and one cited in the link i shared, is the coincidence of the saturn-pluto conjunction in the same vicinity as the south node of these planets and all the mayhem that seems to have ensued - the pandemic and perhaps more... most astrologers were only looking at this outer conjunction, but not considering how this conjunction on the saturn-pluto south node of its own axis could also be factored in here..

ywe are more familiar with the cycle as it pertains to the moon - and as you have articulated it here -

"(1) From ascending node to its highest latitude (latitude is positive and increasing)
(2) From its highest latitude to its descending node (latitude is positive and decreasing)
(3) From descending node to its lowest latitude (latitude is negative and decreasing)
(4) From its lowest latitude to its ascending node (latitude is negative and decreasing)"

i think (4) is latitude is negative and increasing... even though this is the cycle as it relates to the ecliptic, i have given it some thought, but not enough thought.. i have most gotten caught up in the sun-moon cycle and noticed the importance of this waxing and waning cycle on prices for example... the parallel you describe is the same for the sun-moon cycle and i did indeed read that in a ben dykes translation - choices and inceptions - as memory serves... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159 ... inceptions

but i do think this is much the same with regard to the planetary nodes, however i haven't done much of any research on this - sorry to say! i think it is an area ripe for exploration, but for whatever reason, not an area that has been explored much by astrologers generally...

thanks for chiming in and asking these questions!

Hi James!

i think (4) is latitude is negative and increasing...

Yes that's right! I have corrected the original post...

About the nodes being invisible... that is another observation that has its own signification. I remember reading in the "chronicles" of Abu Ma’shar, when a caliph tested his astrologers (Abu Ma'shar was one of the astrologers) by asking them "what he was thinking at the time" - Abu Mashar got the right answer when he said "You are thinking about God". He claimed that he read from a persian text that says that when the node is close to MC when a consultation chart is presented (thought reading), it means that God is in the person's mind as nothing his highest (in the MC) and unseen (node) but God.

I really like the analogues of nodes = planets invisible influence...

Come to think of it there are many invisibles in astrology...invisible planets - their nodes?, invisible aspects or shadowy aspects - antiscions?, invisible signs - the 12th parts or duodecatemoria?, invisible houses - in aversion houses?, invisible rulers - the monomoiria?

thanks for the quote of abu ma'shar on the idea of the node on the midheaven with respect to what a person is thinking... the invisible idea does have a lot of examples in astrological use like what you mention..

another way to think of this is that we are working with metaphysical or even spiritual realities that don't reveal themselves openly or easily.. while we like to rely on the logic part of astrology, we still have to rely on the intuitive part which is more opaque or arcane.. the planetary nodes are a concrete example of how we may be missing part of the logic as to why we continue to evolve in our understanding of astrology.. i know that was wordy, but hopefully you get what i am saying.. i think the planetary nodes offer some special insights that are generally overlooked, or not considered in astrology circles... my own learning curve included a wake up to just how significant and important the nodes are in a chart... that was an example of my own inability or resistance to incorporating a part of astrology i didn't properly understand or appreciate... i think the same thing is probably happening here with my de-emphasis on the planetary nodes... cheers james

astrojin wrote:The lunar nodes were probably diligently tracked because they are directly related to the solar and lunar eclipses.

The lunar nodes are also more popular because they move more quickly over time. The lunar nodes will cycle through the zodiac in an 18.6 year cycle, so everybody has different nodes, and they can be calculated and compared in charts. However, planetary nodes move much more slowly, in which the Nodes for Mercury through Pluto have cycles ranging between 27000 and 71000 years. That means planetary nodes are effectively frozen in place, and are "key degrees" similar to fixed stars.

astrojin wrote:The ancients have a specific term for this… it is Cazimi! (well, at least for those who restrict cazimi to conjunction by longitude AND latitude with ??? deg orb…).

Indeed, this is why cazimi is defined to be Conjunct within 16 or 17 minutes. That's basically the radius of the Sun in the sky, so any body that's cazimi in both longitude and latitude is transiting or occulted by the Sun. For this reason cazimi should really only be assigned when the Conjunction is in both longitude and latitude, so the eclipse is taking place and the planet is really "in the heart of the Sun".

astrojin wrote:Looking at the planetary nodes themselves... only the lunar nodes have been "personified" or rather "dragonified". What about the other nodes? Should we try to "dragonified" them as well

Yes, the "draconic zodiac" defines 0Aries to be the location of the Moon's North Node. There are alternative zodiacs for each of the other planets, e.g. a "Mercury draconic zodiac" which defines 0Aries to be the location of Mercury's North Node. Programs like Astrolog can be configured to display the lunar draconic zodiac, as well as these alternate "planetary draconic zodiacs".

astrojin wrote:could we make a distinctive signification of say, Venus conjoining Jupiter's ascending node? I am inclined towards "No" but then, one could argue that we do that to the lunar nodes...

Yes, we consider it significant when any planet Conjuncts the Moon's nodes, so there's also significance when any planet Conjuncts a planet's nodes (especially its own Node). However, the power of the Conjunction may be lower for planetary nodes, just as the Moon itself is generally considered more significant than a planet.

Thank you Cruiser1 for the lengthy and detail response...!

These are certainly areas that an astrologer could explore further.

BTW, I used astrolog as my main astrology software in my own work and recommended it to my students during early years of my active astrological practice (30+ years ago!) - for a good 5 years before started to explore the paid softwares...such as Solar Fire but I still have the latest astrolog in my system for the last more than ten laptops...!

So, my deepest appreciation for the free distribution of astrolog, that I could do astrology during my early years (when I was still struggling to make ends meet!)