Illness and Vocation; Sun and North Node

I often encounter people with long-term illnesses that are hard to diagnose. And it seems to me that the illness is often ‘spiritual’ (for want of a better word) in origin. There is something within that needs to be a found - a talent, a gift that is uniquely theirs. It is one of the hardest things to do, there are often fires of self-doubt to be gone through. But it is only when you start to acknowledge what you have within, stop being afraid of your own light, that you start to get better.

You see people circling their gift, sometimes for decades, going to see any number of healers and conventional doctors, looking for a diagnosis on the physical level. Sometimes they get a diagnosis: it’s ME, or its post-viral something, or they’re allergic to all sorts of things and end up on elaborate diets. They can even end up identified with being ill, it becomes who they are. They may get worse, the life-force may gradually recede. And don’t get me wrong, these symptoms are real, they are not psychosomatic.

Astrologically, these are Sun illnesses. The Sun is the life force, the life-principle, as well as our inner goals, who it is we need to become. The 6th House is usually health, but this is not a 6th House issue. Sometimes a cold is just a cold, sometimes cancer is just cancer (the ‘c’ word that we all shudder at, I felt rather uncomfortable putting it in.) That is the 6th House. But sometimes it is the Sun, sometimes it is the life-principle being denied.

And nor is it just a matter of psychotherapy in the sense of sorting out old wounds. That may be part of the process. But at the end of the day, there is still something that needs to be grasped, gold to be found in the Otherworld and brought back. And you have to find it on your own. You can only get so far analysing old wounds. It is important to understand them and see how they have made you what you are. They give you wisdom and empathy. They ground you. And they often provide the gateway out of conventional reality and conventional values into the Unconscious, the Underworld, the Otherworld. But then in that other place there is something to be found, that only you can find. An astrologer cannot tell you what it is (fortunately!), only that it is there. Once found, it needs to be developed over many years.
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It is the archetype of the shaman’s illness. The illness will eventually kill him unless he acknowledges the spirits who want to work with him. Astrologically, the Sun will be extinguished unless the outer planets are honoured, unless they are allowed to replace the ego as the guides to your life. Of course, not everyone is so fortunate as to be torn apart until they form a relationship with the spirits, and even then they may end up living hand to mouth, not quite sure where they fit in in this modern society. It can be very tough, but there is a fulfilment to be found that no amount of conventional success and happiness can equal.

Pluto and Neptune transits inevitably have a part to play in this process. They can tear us apart, in the interest of claiming something new within ourselves that changes everything. Paradoxically, that which is most deeply you is not yours, which is why the ego has to be dissolved first. (That doesn’t stop the ego trying, which is why you get teachers and healers who are both gifted and a bit dodgy at the same time.)

Particularly in the case of Pluto, it can be like an abduction has occurred. Pluto is well-known for having abducted a young girl, Persephone, and taken her to his lair. Eventually she returned to this world, but as a woman.

So these prolonged illnesses can be as if Pluto has abducted your soul and you will not get it back until you have followed it to the Underworld and taken Pluto as your guide in life. Pluto marries Persephone, providing the basis for her seasonal return to this world. It is only seasonal because once you have met Pluto, once you have looked him in the eye, you can never be the same again. You will always have one eye looking back, looking inward, to the source of life, which is Pluto, which is something within you which you know to be true. And then you will get well. Gradually.

I think the North Node is also involved. The North Node is generated by looking at the intersecting paths of the Sun and the Moon. In a way, we ARE the Sun and the Moon, this combination of inner goals with instinct and embodiment, the future and the past, the sky and the earth. So the North Node points to a complete fulfilment of our nature. The Sun shows us our goals, but the North Node shows us where to go to complete them.

The Dalai Lama is a Cancerian. He wants to look after his people. With his North Node in Capricorn, he needs to do this through occupying a high institutional position. If he had renounced his Dalai-ness, he wouldn’t have been able to do nearly so much for his people, and his Cancer Sun would not have been able to function in the way it wanted to. Along the way, he had everything torn from him as a young man, and has faced the relentless pressures of the Chinese and the modern world. The initiatory fires have been strong and continuous, purging him even of his attachment to Buddhism.

Princess Diana was also a Cancerian, and she quickly became a mother after she got married. But she also had North Node in Leo, the sign of individuality and uniqueness, and as this kicked in so did she become troublesome for the Royal Family. But it meant she was able to express her Cancerian nature more fully through her charity work. As well as modernising the Royal Family, dragging it forward into the 19th century.

I’ve got Sun in Aquarius and North Node in Scorpio. When I was younger, it was natural for me to be on the outside of society, looking in with an angle on it. That is Sun in Aquarius. But I ended up feeling deeply out of sorts and like I didn’t have a life. It was only as I acknowledged the power of my more ordinary, earthly nature (Scorpio) that I started to come right, and the potential insight within a collective of the Aquarian could become real through being lived. For Scorpio, everything is sacred, there is no higher and lower, spiritual and worldly.

Bill Gates has Sun in Scorpio. Under his leadership, Microsoft became the most powerful computer company in the world, and notorious for the ruthlessness with which it squeezed out the opposition. This is Scorpio power, but at its most primitive. Bill Gates also has North Node in Sagittarius, and as he has got older, so he has decided to try and do something meaningful with his money. He is using his Scorpio power for the benefit of the collective. This transition occurred in 2000, when his philanthropic foundation was inaugurated. At that point Neptune was squaring his Sun, while Pluto was to conjoin his North Node 2 years later.