2. The Nodes and the numinous

In allowing some images to rise which might help me pull the the threads of the  thesis together, the one which most persistently presented itself was that ghostly picture of a man’s head and shoulders which must be the world’s most famous photographic negative – the one which appeared when the photograph taken of the marks on the shroud of Turin was developed.

For many people throughout the world, this is a sacred image of the crucified body of Christ, and a central symbol representing the Christian era. Regardless of one’s religious stance, it is not hard to see how this single awe-inspiring one-dimensional image conveys the symbolic essence of  what Christianity means.

It functions as a kind of spiritual hologram; in itself it is a one-dimensional holographic plate.(ii) But when the light of faith is shone on it, a three dimensional picture – physical, emotional, and spiritual, of  what Christianity means, arises for the observer.

http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/File:Shroud-of-turin.jpg

In contemplating the outcome of the research into the lives of both Mary Shelley and Marc, the idea of the natal Nodal pattern representing a symbolic  holographic plate has taken shape.

The true turning points  in life seem to leap into three dimensions – emotional, physical, spiritual – from the holographic plate on which the basic pattern of the person’s destiny is etched. That pattern is most appropriately carried in the Nodal structure. It holds images of  the light  of the quest for meaning through the Sun; reflection and containment of that light through the Moon; and grounding in Life’s unfolding process through their orbits’ particular relationship with the Earth’s plane.

In every synastry in Mary Shelley’s case; in every key event  in both Mary’s and Marc’s  lives, running backwards and forwards in time and in the symbolism of all the birth charts, one can see, shimmering through the really critical turning points,  the ghostly, but quite distinct holographic plate of both Mary’s and Marc’s natal Nodal patterns.

The four Nodal Moments, though sketchier because of their being only one section cut through each subjects’ unfolding life pattern, nevertheless also carry within them the basic shape of the natal Nodal blueprint. Robin Heath’s comment is apposite:(iii)

“……….astrology appears more and more to behave like a hologram. You can perform almost any technique with the data, turn the chart inside out or slice it up, and still the symbolic pictures remain.”

Perhaps that  powerful spiritual image of the sacred Shroud arose for me because in reflecting on the meaning of what I had seen at the core of all the different ‘takes’ on the Nodes at work in a range of people’s lives, I felt myself to be in the presence of the numinous, the sacred.

I find it impossible to describe adequately my feelings when I realised that  in Mary Shelley and Marc’s lives, with each synastry and every major event and turning point,  the natal Nodes and their attendant patterns had been painted, not faintly or casually, but in bold primary colours that could not be missed. I had a powerful sense of being in the presence of something ‘Other’ , something which was not circumscribed by the mortality of one individual in one lifetime.

The resonances over long periods of time which were so evident in linking Mary Shelley’s Nodal pattern with the contemporary controversy over how far we humans should overstep our limits in altering the very building blocks of life, focused by the appearance of Dolly the Sheep – and the links I found with my own horoscope, hers, and the time I had chosen to write about her – really struck me.(iv)

I did not expect my research into ‘The Moon’s Nodes in Action’ to present me with such a strong  suggestion that we all have our destiny, that certain potent times in life present events and turning points which are initiations into  the furtherance of that destiny – or that outwith our lives there may be  some intelligent ‘Other’ observing and/or guiding  that  movement. But  that is the feeling which persists in me as a result of this work.

I have always reacted with a degree of impatience to the theorising, usually with little empirical evidence to support it, which takes place about the Nodes – now I’m rather more respectful! But it feels good to have done a fairly substantial piece of practical exploratory work demonstrating the theory in action.

As the Indian astrologers have been telling us for centuries, the Moon’s Nodes really do seem to be connected to the workings of Fate in the shaping of personal destiny.

References and Notes

(i) The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Vol 12, p 55

(ii) a hologram is “an image produced on photographic film in such a way that under suitable illumination a three-dimensional representation of an object is seen”. Oxford Paperback Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 4th Edition, 1994

(iii) The Mountain Astrologer, Issue 78, April/May 1998, Letters p 11

TO BE CONTINUED

Previous Posts in this series:

The Moon’s Nodes in Action: Part One

Major and minor chords: The Moon’s Nodes in Action: Part 2

and next….

“In my end is my beginning….” The Moon’s Nodes in Action: Part 4

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800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2011
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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