Exploring a "Lunar Zodiac"

In another thread I explained some basic information about the Moon's nodes, and also noted that nobody interpretes the Moon's position in the natal chart in relation to its north node. I noted that the north node was the Moon's "Aries Point". This thread is for the purpose of exploring the validity of using the Moon's North Node point as a "Aries Point" for a "Lunar Zodiac" interpretation for the Moon.

Let's start this discussion with an example chart; George W. Bush. His North Node is at 20 Gemini, his natal Moon is at 16 Libra in the 3rd house. The Lunar Zodiac's Aries point is at 20 Gemini, placing his Moon in the Lunar Zodiac "Cancer" sign.

How would we interprete this? Moon in "Cancer" is oriented toward home and family, fundamental values and childhood-instilled beliefs. The Moon in the 3rd house would relate to talking and communicating about one's needs and beliefs. George W. Bush certainly has made a hallmark of his presidency the articulation of family values and personal, deeply held beliefs.

Compare that view of his Moon to a Libra Moon. Joan McEvers in her book, Planets; the Astrological Tools, notes this Moon placement as indicating a fear of being alone or fear of not being in harmoney with one's surroundings. Which of these two interpretations seems most appropriate to you?

What I'm suggesting in this thread is that we each examine our own chart and note the Moon's North Node position, the Moon's house and sign location, and then to pretend that the North Node position is the Aries point and to then determine which "lunar zodiac" sign the Moon would be in. We will then interpret the Moon's meaning according to its natal house and Lunar Zodiac sign versus its natal house and Tropical Zodiac sign. It should be interesting.

To start things off: My North Node is at 29 Sag. My natal Moon is in the 3rd house conjunct the IC within 2 degrees (I'll consider this a fourth house moon) and is a 3 degrees Virgo. This yields a Moon position in the lunar zodiac sign of Sagittarius, and in the 4th house. Concern for the truth, an unease of not knowing or not being prepared is buffered by the 4th house focus on preparation, concern over the basics of any topic, concern for family. Since the Moon, for a man, often represents the women in his life it is interesting that my wife is a Sun-in-Sag person.

Good luck with your interpretation. This is how we play games in astrology and learn the fundamentals. I don't think you'll find this concept in any books that are available -- I've never read anything about this concept. Dave

My N Node is at 19 Aries, and my natal moon is 14 Aquarius in the 9th house.

However, I'm not sure how you find the Lunar Zodiac sign from this.

Looking at the above examples, it looks like you take the N node sign, and the moon house.

This is probably wrong, but I'll just make an effort: Moon in aries, 9th house?

A first exploration

rainwolf, given that your N.Node is at 19 Aries and the Moon is at 14 Aquarius your moon will end up (in our exploratory Lunar Zodiac) in Capricorn and in the (original) 9th house. Capricorn lunar positions suggest a concern over ones sense of place and reputation, a rejection of being imposed upon, a need to have a measure of control and to filter out emotional reactions that might be inappropriate. This may affect you 9th house activies and areas of life expression: travel in groups may be avoided so you can set your own pace and schedule, studies in localities that are far away or different from your own "home" area may be carefully considered and rejected, explanations of new subjects or philosophies will be subjected to testing and solid consideration.

When you consider that the N.Node is probably in the 11th house, this sets up a conflict at emotional levels: Friends and associations are where you need to be active if you are to expland your mind and skills, there is a need to be "social" in your orientation. How does this fit with your hypothetical "Capricorn" Moon? Do you only slowly warm up to others? Do you tend to volunteer for committee work and quietyl find a place within a group? Do you prefer smaller groups over larger groups?

So, from this partial view of your chart, and using this hypothetical new way of looking at the Moon's place and functioning, do you feel that you are more Capricorn than Aquarian in these narrow areas? Dave

From that explanation, I feel that the capricorn moon in the 9th would apply to any "conscious" emotional reactions that I can somewhat control.

For example I have concern about reputation, but I sometimes fight back and not let social status affect my thinking, emotions, and judgment. Also, having a measure of control is also true in some instances, but at times I can push that aside (as with filtering out emotional reactions) and act differently in hopes of making a situation better or something along the lines of that.

Now for my natal moon. I think that my moon in aquarius is something I cannot control, and do not want to act unaccordingly to, at all. It causes me to be independent, somewhat aloof, and emotionally cool in many instances. I've mentioned it other times on AT too. If someone tells me I have to act differently, and in the back of my mind I know my moon in aquarius is at work, I will either have to say 'no', or will have to deal with a sense of cognitive dissonance because I am not acting how I would naturally act.

So to sum it up, I would say that my original moon dictates how I react emotionally (and cannot change) in an subconscious way, and my lunar zodiac is my conscious emotions which I would like to express, but can push aside if needed. I hope that helps.

Yes

Yes, that helps. We are dealing with a concept that has a basic model but is merely conjecture until we can gather enough samples to allow us to say, "this is a valid assumption to test, and if it tests out, then we may move it into regular astrological practice." So, we are starting a journey here and we can continue if other list members join in. Dave.

my turn

My north node is at 1/2 leo, my moon is at 4 aquarius

That puts my moon in my north nodes 7th house conjunct to my southnode. meaning that my emotianl radicalness (aquarius) can be my detriment (decendent) possibly placing 'emotional togetherness' as my achilees heel (to assocoiate with the aquarius symbolism) and leadership (leo) as my destiny. Then again, I could be seeing this in the wrong light though.

Paradox

Using your Moon's N.Node as if it were an Aries Point, your Moon would be in the Lunar Zodiac "Libra". Since the 7th house is involved, in actuality, we can postulate the following:

You always strive to take a balanced, calm and fair approach to friends, partners and resolving issues and conflicts. Given that you probably have a Leo Ascendant, your approach tends to be gracious, expectant that others will listent to you, and a little pushy (perhaps). Underneath, emotions tend to be a little restrained in contrast to the social side that people see in you. You are a little more detached, one might say logical although short-termed interest might be better. You'd rather react and move on then dwell on the issues of repairing hurt feelings.

Dave

Actually I have a Virgo 2deg Accendant, so I am actually more analytical, picky, and sensitive but you are very correct in saying that I want to move on to building new structures to reinforce freindships rather than repairing hurt feelings.

and perhaps my emotions are a little too restrained at times, it is hard for me to be 'out of touch' with current situaions.

If I were to look at this sort of thing, I would look at the "lunar zodiac" being something along the line of the houses rather than the zodiac signs themselves. I.e. the Zodiac signs themselves relate to the sun in the way that the houses relate to the ascendant. The "lunar houses" would then relate to the N. Node in the same way that the ascendant relates to the houses.

One could take this to its logical complexity and use 30 degree incriments on the lunar orbit and project them to the ecliptic, but this might be a little much. Something like equal houses would create less complexity and require fewer complex divisions of the zodiac (how many great circles do we need anyway?).

The exact system of this sort is something I have not yet fully conceptualized yet.

Among the questions that are raised:
1) How do we interpret every other planet as it exists in lunar houses?
2) What exactly do the lunar houses represent and what meaning do they have?
3) Why focus on nodes and not on things like lunar phases (i.e. treating the beginning of the lunar cycle from the sun rather than from the N. Node)? Or are both approaches valid with different meanings?

I will admit the idea is pretty fascinating though...

Comments

einhverfr, you may be looking for too much detail and depth in this concept of a "lunar zodiac." We are playing with an idea. The conversation that started this play related to a question about what a Moon's node was.

As to whether we should be using "signs" or "houses" in this game, I chose to use signs -- this logical choice was based on the fact that the Moon's orbital plane crosses the Earth-Sun plane in both a northward and soutward direction similar (in a crude fasion) to the tilt of the Earth's axis while orbiting the Sun seems to bring the Sun north or south of the equator. Its a broad jump of logic but it is easy to visualize and accept.

The Moon's North Node is the point where the Moon crosses northward across the Sun-Earth plane once each Lunar cycle. Two weeks later it crosses southward. I've said that we can treat these points as Aries & Libra points for reference. Moveing forward from this "Aries" point, each 30 degrees of the orbital path can be equated to a "Sign." This gives us an altrnate "Sign" to consider relative to the Moon's placement.

Early suggestions and example suggest that the Tropical or conventional sign placement represents a seemingly unconscious or reactive mode of expression for the Moon as influenced by the "style" of its "sign." On the other hand, the Lunar Zodiac sign seems to represent a more conscious or logical manner of trying to express the Moon's energies.

These results, this game, is highly speculative and should be treated as a mental exercise. It may prove to have some merit for further examination, but then it might not. In my experience, its the ways we play with astrology that can teach us to think better and differently about our craft. So don't get too deep into this as it is not serious -- it may get that way, but it isn't yet. Dave