North Node in Capricorn/South Node in Cancer -- This individual is learning how to achieve maturity. In past incarnations he had a tendency to look at life through rose-colored glasses, seeing only what he wanted to see with a definite conviction that everything else didn't exist. Now there is still much of the "baby" left in his Cancer South Node. He is so used to going through his prior life on crutches, wrestling with his dependencies while seeking bannisters to lean on, that his current life is the resultant shambles of escapist, childlike habits which keep impeding his growth. Truly, this is the perennial infant, desiring at all costs to maintain his role as the focus of parental attention. In areas of problem solving, he would rather have his parents do it. Everybody he meets and knows, be it friend, business associate or marriage partner, automatically becomes the symbolic parent to pick up the pieces of his misery, protecting him from being hit by the falling sky which he has created. He even creates his own self-inflicted illnesses if they bring with them the slightest hint of gaining love and affection. Constantly practicing at becoming an adult he seems never quite ready or willing to make the transition fully. Somehow he keeps feeling he needs much more practice first. All he does in this life is based upon his soul memory of sensitive past-life feelings which still are shattered by the slightest rejection. Many individuals with these Nodes are strongly wrapped up in the business of their country. They personalize government for to them it is still part, in a larger sense, of their own Cancerian family. Underneath all else there are unusually strong feelings of patriotism and loyalty. Many with these Nodes focus a good part of their strength and attention on younger people. They like to listen to the trials and tribulations of others, but not being quick problem solvers themselves, they have a tendency to hold everything inside them. As the weight of problems increases, like collecting layers, they seem to age in spite of themselves. The most difficult karmic problem of the Cancer South Node is learning how to let go. The individual brings with him into this life such strong inner fears of ever losing or forgetting anything that he keeps making extra special efforts to retain all he has ever gone through. As such he makes himself the "psychic garbage pail" of the past. Constantly he is thinking about his present in terms of what he should have done years ago - or "lives ago." He often can be seen sorting through old photographs hoping to create his future out of fragments of his past. At times he is extremely draining, using whatever is done for him as a springboard to ask for more. He tries other people's patience with all of his emotional problems, and long after the solutions are given to him he refuses to see logic through his cloud of emotion. He is not so much interested in finding out why something went wrong as he is seeking the lost feeling to be returned. Endings are especially difficult for him to deal with. The word "good-bye" has never been a part of his vocabulary for he has always tried to preserve all relationships as long as possible. His behavior in regard to objects is no different, since he tends to form permanent attachments to the nostalgic memories they carry with them.

The major karmic lesson in the Capricorn North Node is to identify with an ideal bigger than the personal life. The individual must ultimately come to stand for something, in spite of all his real or imagined personal difficulties. He must understand true responsibility. Many with these Nodes eventually become self-appointed hallmarks of tradition. They would rather die than have an outsider know any part of their personal life which contradicts the principle they have chosen to stand for. Through the North Node an image is established which others can look up to and model their lives after. At times personal difficulties deplete him of the strength to hold up this image, and yet hold it up he must, even if it means sacrificing his entire life. In most of his endeavors he is capable of becoming a methodical and cautious planner once he learns to overcome his past-life tendency to overact emotionally. In the charts of females, these Nodes represent an unusually strong search for a father figure. In males, there is a strong consciousness of the need to fulfill the father role. The most important thing about the Capricorn North Node is that it represents the point through which the individual will meet his karmic mission. For this reason alone, many with these Nodes tend to be reluctant to accept the full concept of adulthood. They would prefer to remain in an immature state for as long as possible for they sense a type of judgement awaiting them. Much like the condemned man desiring one stay of execution after another, they seek to hide behind others, constantly pushing themselves further and further to the back of the line so as to avoid meeting the effects of all they have created. This is the reason why many of them have great difficulty in accepting their own chronological age. While they admit to their age openly, they try not to live it. There is much past-life residue of immaturity. The soul has become fixated at one point in early growth. Now there is great difficulty passing that point. Still, it will be passed, if the individual is ultimately to stand for something. The zodiacal constellation of Capricorn is the gateway through which the soul must go upon leaving the physical body, and in this most occult of signs it will stand for inspection before the Judges at these Gates. While this may not be the last incarnation on earth, it will most definitely by house position receive karmic judgement in one area of the life. The individual with these Cancer-Capricorn Nodes will flounder half his life in helpless abandon and then one day resign himself to stand up to the saying, "tis a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before."

The house position of the South Node indicates the area in which the karmic residue of immaturity seeps into the current life. The house position of the North Node shows the ways in which the individual can now enter responsible adulthood by aligning his life with the principles of honor, respect and tradition. As soon as he learns how to do this, he is destined for a life of splendid accomplishment.

from: Schulman, Martin, Karmic Astrology - Volume 1, 1975, Samuel Weiser, Inc., New York

North Node in the 5th House/South Node in the 11th House -- Here the individual is learning about the Creative Process. He spends much time in the clouds, hitching his wagon to some distant dream or pondering through his vast multitude of fantastic ideas. In past incarnations he lived for the fulfillment of wishes. Now his gossamer world of wispy dreams is so ornamented with the accumulated fragrance of promise that it takes a great deal of realistic prodding to shake him loose. From a young age he has learned to become a "people-watcher," spending most of his conscious hours pondering the possibilities of other people's actions. As a result of prior lives, he has learned to become highly imaginative and inventive: at times he is even ingenious, but he is used to spending most of his mental powers working out the intricate plots of his fantastic daydreams. He never ceases to amaze himself at the oddities he can conjure up within his own mind, but for all his ingenuity he is one of the least practical people of the zodiac. He is always deeply enmeshed in thought. What he is really doing is seeking symbols which will provide new material for future dreams. His karma is to learn the importance of dreams, inasmuch as how they explain his life. Ultimately he comes to realize that his entire existence has consisted of acting out his dreams, to the point that he has become the puppet of his own fantasies. When he does come down to earth, his first instinct is to reach for friends who in either appearance or behavior remind him of the characters of his wispy fantasyland. His mind is constantly drifting off into the distant future, and there, in the science fiction of a century as yet unlived, he indulges himself in the intriguing fascination of the remotest possibilities which would otherwise have little or no bearing on his current life. Still he like to ponder. He thinks much about the value of his work as well as of the effects of his childhood, both of which he blames for his difficulties in coping with his sex urges. The truth is that neither his work nor his parents nor even his sex urges truly bother him, but instead his frustration arises from the gap he sees between the reality of his past-life dream world and the sharp awakening circumstances through whose boundaries and limitations his current life is actually lived. He finds it difficult to understand why there is a barrier between dreams and actions and as a result he spends much effort trying to break through the walls of limitation that separate one world from the other. But all the while he is dissipating his strength, and the more he does this, the less able he is to create his own life.

He must realize that through his fifth house North Node he is now given the greatest gift that man can receive - the power to create his own destiny. By studying the process of creation, he can become aware that it is his own thoughts that have caused all the circumstances that he deems real in his life. He must then go further to understand the link between his thought and his dreams, for truly it is his life of dreams that in greater measure than he thinks is creating his life on earth. He must learn to be responsible about his dreams and careful of what he wishes for since he, more than one with any other Nodal position in the zodiac, will actually see his dreams materialize. But always the physical effect of each dream comes with a slight twist; enough to make him aware of the danger of creating selfishly. This individual will have to live his dreams long after he remembers the reasons for them. It is a strong part of his continuing karma to understand "wish power," and how better can he understand it than by living through the consequences of all his wishes. Thus, his life is both a blessing and a curse for each time he rubs Aladdin's lamp his soul will either move higher on the wings of spirit or sink miserably in the depths of his own private hell. He is learning that the dreams of his eleventh house South Node are under the rulership of Aquarius where they must be dedicated towards a service for humanity and that the more he wishes for others the more he will ultimately have for himself. But when he reverses this process his life becomes a veritable shambles. If he chooses to create, he faces the unfortunate results of misusing a sacred gift for his dreams ultimately will become so jaded as to be utterly worthless insofar as they are able to bring him happiness. Unless these Nodes fall in water and earth signs they can cause difficulty in relationships and marriage due to so much past-life residue of non-attachment. Major turning points in the current life revolve around children, through whose eyes the individual comes to understand his own sense of self-worth. He observes how children put their dreams in to action and soon comes to realize that instead of making his dreams the plans for his future he actually has been allowing them to block every present moment. Once he sees his dreams as a well with no bottom, he is able to let go of the castles in the sky and focus his attention on whatever he is creating in the present. To do this he even reaches the point of becoming aware of how he allows his great need for friendships to dissipate his creative energies. More than anything else he desires to be a doer, but it is only after he gives up every personal dream that he can become strong enough to take the building blocks of his life and put them together. He must literally take the bull by the horns instead of allowing himself to be led through the gossamer Cinderella world his soul remembers. To accomplish this he would do well to spend much of his time learning self-discipline for only through the ability to guide himself will he ultimately be able to surface from the deep waters in which for lifetimes he has submerged his hopes and his dreams. Some highly evolved souls with these Nodes have experienced Cosmic Consciousness in a former life. Now through their fifth house North Node they are here to bring this awareness to the children of the earth.

The sign which contains the South Node shows the ways in which past-life dreams continue into this incarnation. The sign which contain the North Node indicates how the individual can constructively apply his dreams to reality through expressing creatively all he feels inside..

from: Schulman, Martin, Karmic Astrology - Volume 1, 1975, Samuel Weiser, Inc., New York