Accuracy, Compassion Through Knowledge

Astrology for the Soul
by Jan Spiller

Astrologer Jan Spiller shows you the key to discovering your hidden talents, your deepest desires, and the ways you can avoid negative influences that may distract you from achieving your true life purpose, as revealed in your chart by the position of the North Node of the Moon. With insight and depth impossible to gain from the commonly known sun-sign profiles, the enlightening self-portrait offered by the Nodes of the Moon can explain the life lessons you came here to learn and how to achieve the fulfillment and peace you desire. Jan Spiller shows you how to locate the all-important North Node of the Moon in your astrological chart and provides a detailed interpretation of its influence and exclusive exercises to help you learn about:

• The SPECIAL TALENT that is waiting for you, a unique gift that could easily be turned into professional success
• The SELF-DEFEATING TENDENCIES in your personality that can hold you back and sabotage relationships
• The LOVE PARTNER who can be your soul mate--and the partner whose hold over you can lead to heartbreak
• The TRAP or temptation from a past life that can lead to disaster if you are not forewarned
• The HEALING AFFIRMATIONS designed to help you release your positive energy and strengthen the qualities that can bring you true happiness

This book contains my professional secrets: the methods I have used to successfully read personal astrology charts for the past twenty years.

Many of my colleagues think I'm psychic. That may be true, but it's not the primary mindset I use when I look at an astrology chart. To interpret a chart with confidence and accuracy, astrologers must have a starting point-an area they focus on when they first look at an individual chart. It may be the Sun sign, or the position of the Moon, the Eclipses, the major aspects, the number of planets in Fire, Water, Earth, or Air signs-each astrologer has his or her own personal entry into accessing, "seeing," and interpreting the rest of the chart.

I use the Nodes. The Nodes have never failed to give me the information I need to correctly guide the individual in achieving success, self-confidence, and balance within the personality. The accuracy of my readings is not due to "psychic talents" but rather to my attention to the activity of the Nodes.

When I look at an individual astrology chart, I first notice the position of the North and South Nodes of the Moon, by sign and by house. Then I notice the geometric relationships (called "aspects" by astrologers) that the Nodes are making to other planets, and any unusual circumstances with the planets that rule the signs the Nodes are in. Suddenly, the whole chart comes alive and I can understand the individual challenges this person has, and the qualities of character that need to be developed for success and fulfillment in this lifetime.

Accuracy

It is not necessary to have a belief in astrology in order for this book to be of value to you. Astrology, if explored from a psychological or scientific level has nothing to do with belief. It's practical. It has to do with gaining knowledge and doing experiments. Are the psychological profiles offered by astrology useful tools of self-knowledge for you? Are the timing predictions astrology can make (when based on your full birth chart) helpful in using your time more effectively?

In evaluating the truth of the material presented in this book, it is important to listen to your own inner knowing and past experiences. Regardless of what others may think, only you know the nature of your own internal battles.

If you choose to do some of the experiments suggested for balancing your North Node personality type, look to your own energy for confirmation of whether or not you are on the right path. If, after running one of these experiments, your energy level soars and you feel happy and free, you're "on path"! Trust yourself. If not, try a different experiment. You will know if you are on track by whether or not you feel happy and/or free.

If some of the suggestions made in your North Node section do not "feel right" to you, then trust yourself there as well. It may be an area that you've already overcome or that, for some reason, is not fully applicable to you. It's like trying on a pair of shoes-only you know whether or not they fit. Again, trust yourself.

Some of these suggestions might be frightening at first because they're new for you. But if they feel right to you-if they seem accurate-take the risk and set them in motion. You'll find yourself emerging from your experiment with a sense of fearlessness and self-confidence that's permanent. You'll know changes are taking place because things that bothered you just a few weeks or months ago won't get to you anymore. Your friends may still be feeling those things, but you'll be feeling something else-a peacefulness that has eluded you in the past.

For each of us, our deepest core issues are shown in the sign and house positions of the North Node at the time of our birth. However, in the process of writing this book, I realized I had unresolved issues in signs other than my own nodal sign and house. The difference is in the depth of the dysfunction. If a person has North Node in Cancer or the 4th House, the issue of releasing control, trusting, and openly sharing feelings is huge-it's like chipping away at a block of granite! But someone whose North Node is in another sign may also have difficulty with sharing feelings openly. Reading the chapter on North Node in Cancer may help them heal their issues of vulnerability and suggest practical approaches to create balance and ease. The difference is that it won't be as difficult to apply the suggestions in these "alternate" areas as it will be in the area of your own nodal placement.

For example, I have the North Node neither in Aries nor in the 1st House, but when I was working on the Aries North Node chapter I realized that I had problems with self-assertion and some of the other issues that those folks are working out. In the creative process of writing that chapter, something in me was healed and I spontaneously began asserting myself more constructively and being more honest. And my life became a whole lot easier! Once I "got it," it was easy for me to adjust and change. However, in the sign and house containing my North Node, it's a lot tougher. I started "getting it" twenty years ago, and I'm still working through it.

Compassion Through Knowledge

When astrology is approached from a level of true open-minded understanding, it leads directly to unconditional love. When you fully understand a person's inner mechanics and where their "glitches" are, how can you be angry with them? We are all doing the best we can with the light we have and seeking to overcome our imperfections. Why? Because it's practical. The glitches get in the way of getting what we want. We are all in this together.

Sun sign astrology, such as the horoscopes covered in daily newspapers and magazines' are predictions that take into account only the sign position of the Sun. Full natal astrology takes into account the sign positions of ten planets (the Sun and Moon are considered planets in this context, as the galaxy is seen from the point of view of its effect on the Earth), the axis that was active when the individual was born, and several other points: the Nodes, Eclipses, and so on. In fact, each of us is entirely unique; a birth chart isn't duplicated for 25,000 years because all the planets are traveling at different speeds around the Sun. In the moment you took your first breath, all of humankind-all the people alive at that time-passed through that moment with you. Everyone did the best they could to make the moment joyful for themselves, but then the next moment came along and humankind had to handle it-and the next moment and the next, on into the current moment. But the moment when you were born was stamped on the cellular level of your very being, and it remains a part of you.

With that connection, you took charge of purifying that moment for everyone else on the planet, and you alone have the power to perfect the moment of your own birth. It's as though you took that sliver of time, slowed it down, and stretched it out to last an entire incarnation. And as you begin to work with that moment, taking parts of your "wiring" that aren't working too well and adjusting them-thus creating happiness, laughter, and joy in your own life-the positive energy of these changes affects everyone else. Through your own personal life you are essentially altering a moment that occurred in the past, and when you change the past, it changes the present for everyone. I've heard many spiritual teachers say that the best we can do for others is to work on ourselves. We are all interconnected on the deepest level-we're One.

Copyright © 1997 by Jan Spiller.

About the Author

Jan Spiller is known throughout the world as a trusted and perceptive leader in astrology. She contributes monthly columns to Dell Horoscope, the largest-circulation astrology magazine in the world. She teaches regularly at New Age and astrology conferences and is a highly sought after radio and television guest. She was a contributing editor for the anthology Astrology for Women, and she has written Spiritual Astrology (with Karen McCoy) and Astrology for the Soul. To date, her books have been translated into ten languages. Her Web site is www.cosmicpath.com, and she lives in New York City and Santa Fe, New Mexico.