Soul Direction and Life Purpose; An Astrological Perspective

Soul Purpose and Life Direction
An Astrological Perspective

“We are born at a given moment, in a given place, and like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born.”–Carl Jung

Are you thinking of changing jobs, getting divorced, or starting a family? Are you wondering what to do after college or retirement, or simply feeling “stuck” at the moment? Astrology offers unique insights into these questions from the perspective of your Soul, as described by your astrology chart.

Because your Soul chose to be born at a certain time and place, your chart reflects the original Soul intention on coming into this world. The great psychologist, Carl Jung, believed that the time of birth was not a coincidence, but was a mysterious synchronicity that reveals a great deal. He used astrology in his work with clients, and found that it worked. So what may seem unimportant to you--your birthday, time and place, is actually a profound tool; an ‘oracle.’ And what may look like a mystery to you, is not a mystery to the astrologer who can read the meaning contained in the chart.

Let’s see how this works. There are three pivotal key-points in solving the mystery: the Sun, the Moon, and the Nodes. When an astrologer looks at your chart these points are described in some detail by their sign, house and aspect positions. But we don’t need to get complicated–let’s look at what just the sign of each can tell us–

Your Sun sign reads like a personality description, presenting all the positive and negative ways you can “play out” your Sun sign. So for example, as a Gemini Sun, you can play out the flirty, fickle, uncommitted aspects of the sign or you can use your great breath of knowledge and communication skills to live a very full life in which you use your keen sensitivities to make wise and helpful decisions. From the Soul’s perspective you chose to be born a Gemini in order to play out the”highest octave” of the sign. That’s the first clue to the mystery: look to the highest possible use and talents in your Sun sign.

The second clue is the Moon. When we are young, we act out and live through our Moon’s qualities, and as we come into our own as adults we grow into our Sun sign qualities. So as you read about the qualities of your Moon sign you know it reflects not only how you were as a child, but how you react unconsciously, and something of your instinctual emotional nature. It also describes something about your relationship to your Mother, but that is another story. We can ponder the qualities of our Moon, and choose to use its qualities in emotional situations, but it isn’t the magnetic guiding star for our Soul purpose. We are meant to live into the highest octaves of our Sun and our North Node.

The North Node is probably the most important point in the chart. It is unique to each person and describes what your Soul wants to learn and experience in this life. It is a Soul Messenger. The North Node has a sign, a house position, and aspects–which means it needs to be translated to you by an astrologer. It too, has a “lower octave” which is the South Node, and this describes the unhelpful and negative qualities that our Soul wishes to move away from. It is generally thought that the South Node reflects some of the karmic qualities of our previous life, and although there are gifts and talents shown there, it is the North Node that points to the qualities our Soul wants to use in this life. So take a long look at what your North Node tells you...

How does this all work together in a chart? Let’s look at my chart as an example. My Sun is in Libra, my Moon in Aries, North Node in Taurus, and South Node in Scorpio. I have tended to learn things the hard way, to be ungrounded and to go to excesses when I was young. It has taken me a long time to live into my true profession as an astrologer (although I have been a professional now for 15 years). I married late, and after 20 years of marriage, got divorced, and then 5 years later remarried the same man. I have one grown daughter whom I am very close to.

My Sun sign Libra wants serenity, harmony and beauty. It is the diplomat of the zodiac and is opposite in nature to my Moon in the pioneering sign of Aries, which needs to think in terms of “me first” to survive. It is also significant that I have no earth signs in my chart—except the North Node in Taurus. So my Soul wants me to get grounded, to take on the desire for serenity and to move away from the Moon’s impulsive reactivity and excesses of my earlier years and former life.

My South Node is in Scorpio (also in the 8th house conjunct Jupiter, but you don’t need all that information) and my Soul purpose has been, in part, to move away from hurtful melodramas and to ground myself in my own talents and resources. I’ve needed to take on the qualities of loyalty and persistence of my North Node, Taurus, and to find the sacred in the commonplace, which is a beautiful quality of that sign. In a former life, I probably was the “power behind the throne” to someone of importance, and was used to enjoying the largesse of another person and a more dramatic life. Now, I’ve learned to work with my own resources and with what’s at hand, and for many years I’ve been a potter as well as astrologer. I’ve also lived in a stone house, and married an earth sign, Virgo.

The movement towards the North Node is a continuous process, not just one decision you make. For me, I needed to get lost, and found, many times....I divorced and remarried the same man. I write and do astrological counseling, which is my true vocation, but I have ‘followed several gods home’. I continually need to recommit to ever deeper levels of grounding and persistence in my work and life. Serenity and my home life is very important. I know I survived a difficult family karmic inheritance partly because of my feisty Aries Moon. (See online article “Family Karmic Inheritance). But that Moon can get me in trouble with her sensitivity and quickness to anger and defend. Yet I strive to act out the highest octave of the Libra Sun which pulls me towards tactfulness and peacemaking. And that South Node in Scorpio still tries to seduce me in every way you can imagine.

So, I come back to my chart and the astrological work again and again as a spiritual practice. It helps me remember who I am, and what I need to focus on. It reminds me when I forget. Astrology is a dialog between the different parts of oneself, but at least now I know who to listen to and why. I am grateful to have this tool that helps make conscious what is unconscious in my psyche, and I delight in sharing the gifts of these Soul Messengers to whoever asks.

Elizabeth Spring, MA, has a degree in counseling psychology with an emphasis in Jungian psychology. She has studied astrology since 1969 and been a professional astrologer since 1992. She can be reached for consultations or questions/comments at 401-294-5863 or at elizabethspring@aol.com