The Draconic Zodiac - the Background

The Draconic Zodiac

Would you like to see the deeper, emotional or past-life (depending on your beliefs) purpose of your life? Or, would you like to easily see what your most profound connections are with others, that can’t be seen if you only use the Tropical or Sidereal Zodiacs? All you need to do is add the Draconic Zodiac to your chart reading repertoire. First, let me give you a bit of the back story, the origins of the Draconic Zodiac.

The Draconic zodiac is based on the North and South Nodes of the Moon, which are also called Rahu and Ketu in Vedic (Indian) astrology. To understand the Vedic view of Rahu and Ketu, I’ll briefly tell the mythology - which is how much of Vedic astrology is understood, through stories. Here is the story of how Rahu and Ketu came into being. Rahu and Ketu were once serpent or dragon, whose original name was Svarbhanu. The Head of this dragon is called Rahu, while the body and tail is called Ketu. The Vedic story of how the Head and Body of the Dragon were separated involve the Dragon stealing and drinking a liquid called Amrita. Amrita is an elixir which bestows physical immortality to whoever drinks it. The Amrita was not intended for the Dragon, it was being offered by the God Vishnu to the Devatas, which are lesser gods. The Dragon managed to steal a portion of the drink, before Vishnu realised what was happening, at which point Vishnu cut the Dragon’s head away from it’s body. It was now too late to reverse the immortal blessing that the Dragon received by drinking Amrita.

But forever after, the Dragon’s head and body are separated, and were thrown into specific points in the sky (as the story goes), at the intersection of the Sun and Moon’s orbits, which are opposite points of an axis. The Vedic way of thinking of Rahu and Ketu is as shadow planets. They have no substance or mass like all other planets, but they apparently have as much impact on us that the planets with physical mass do. Rahu and Ketu move in a clockwise motion, which is considered retrograde as they orbit the Sun (except on rare occasion they move briefly in forward motion). The planets with physical mass move most of the time in a counter-clockwise motion.

The Vedic mythology suggests that Rahu is an insatiable head - he can never be satisfied because anything he eats or experiences is not processed through the body or digestive system, and so he hungrily pursues more and more material experiences. Rahu represents liars, thieves, and people of low morals and integrity. Rahu will do anything to get what it wants, and that includes lying, cheating and stealing. Rahu causes ambition, obsession, and confusion. Rahu can also give fame, wealth and other material gains, as these are the things he craves. But in the traditional Vedic culture, craving material comforts or excesses is not considered good. The Vedic culture is more geared toward a balanced life with spiritual wisdom and devotion being an important part.

Ketu is thought of as a highly spiritual influence, as Ketu causes an emptiness and or a dissolving experience in the area of life Ketu is affecting. Satisfaction can not be found, no matter how hard one tries to create it. Detachment is the lesson that Ketu is trying to move us toward, in the area of life he affects. Detachment is a key to moving toward a more Enlightened state, not craving and wanting more from the material world. And choosing meditation, charity and devotion to God are part of what Ketu can offer for those who are ready. Ketu can certainly be said to cause problems too, just as Rahu can. Ketu brings separation where he influences our life. He causes dissatisfaction, lack of focus, obstacles, and can bring depression or great suffering. Ketu tends to separate us from the physical or material aspect related to the house or planet he aspects. But, he can also bestow incredible spiritual experiences as well. How Ketu is experienced depends in big part on what the person’s desire or focus is: if you want a deeply spiritual life, as a renunciate, you will adore Ketu. If you want a life of material comfort and success, Ketu will be the bane of your existence.

In Western methods of interpreting astrology, the understanding of the North and South Nodes is somewhat different. It is not the exact same in the various Western methods, but to generalise, I’ll sum it up by saying that the South Node is the area of life we have much experience and are usually quite proficient in. It’s our comfort zone, which can make it enticing to stay in that mode of living, because we’re already really good at it. But it can feel less than satisfying to choose not to grow and evolve. We might start to feel a bit stir crazy if we always do what we’ve always done. We will know at some level, maybe not consciously, that we need to push our boundaries and grow beyond the confines of where we feel safe and comfortable.

The North Node is an area that we will be pulled into, but it’s not comfortable for us, because we don’t have much experience in that area. In fact our greatest experience is in some ways polar opposite to the North Node - as the signs that are opposite each other have qualities that are complimentary and relating to the same themes, but exactly opposite in nature. So, we are meant to move from the past (the South Node) and where we’ve already developed skills, and into our future (into the North Node), into an area of uncertainty and unknowns. The North Node could be said to hold our feeling of purpose for this lifetime, and our sense of forward movement and direction. We can’t really be satisfied when we know we aren’t moving forward in life, into a feeling of deepening purpose.

There are some commonalities between the Vedic understanding and the Western interpretation. For instance, Ketu is an area of life we have much experience in, and thus why he tries to teach us detachment and letting go, because it time for us to develop the other side of the axis, Rahu. And that is why Rahu creates such cravings in the area he sits, so that we will be compelled to go in that direction, even though that is an area where we don’t have much experience, and so we might be afraid to go there, as it’s unknown. It’s clumsy. Or it can experienced as sort of ego-driven - as ego is strongest when if feels weak or inferior. It puffs itself up to make it appear bigger and more powerful than it actually feels. We can work with it in a very start/stop, herky-jerky way, as we try, fail, try, fail and try and fail again at developing that area of life. We simply must continue and not give up, no matter how many times we fall short of our own expectations. We can’t learn without trial and error.

So, just to reiterate what I’ve already said, the Vedic interpretations of Rahu and Ketu have some different qualities ascribed to them than the more modern Western interpretation, but perhaps you could say that they are just being seen through different cultural lenses. So the interpretations sound very different, when in actuality, they may be more similar than it seems.

We are being pulled toward the North Node (Rahu) with a strong feeling that could be felt as a craving, like with Rahu. That craving is what forces us toward the North Node, our future. The direction we need to move toward in order to balance out our experience, rather than relying too heavily on the Ketu, or the area of life that we have an abundance of experience in. And Ketu has a spiritual quality perhaps because it is an area we are talented with, and that talent is something that we can look at as a spiritual gift that we can continue to use, in moderation, as we move toward our future, at the opposite end of the nodal axis, in Rahu. We need to find a balance on this axis, incorporating both the North and South Nodes into our lives in a healthy, not overly dependent way on either side. And not shying away from the unknown that we feel with the North Node, but moving forward bravely, learning with each new experience.}

Now that we understand more about the Nodes of the Moon, let’s get into how to use the Draconic zodiac in the next blog post.