Hi Zuma,
Sure you can ask anything about Evolutionary Astrology here. And we will do our best to answer whatever questions come up. Looks like the chart for Joan of Arc didn't get posted, or at least I can't see it. So here is a link for all of us to see her chart:
http://www.khaldea.com/charts/joanofarc.shtml ... and here is a short bio of her that comes from AstroDataBank:
Biography
French saint and savior who is known as the Maid of Orleans or La Pucelle D'Orleans, a national heroine and a history phenomena.
A peasant girl, she was the daughter of a plowman and tenant farmer. Inspired by her visions and voices, she led the French armies to momentous victory, marking a turning point of the Hundred Year's War. Her victory at Orleans in 1429 opened the way for the coronation of Charles VII at Reims. Joan said that she heard the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret, who divinely inspired and instructed her. The French crown was in dispute between the Dauphin, Charles, son and heir of the Valois king, Charles VI, and the English king, Henry VI. Charles cause seemed hopeless at the end of 1427 as he was not yet crowned five years after his father's death. Reims, the city where coronations were customarily held, was held by his enemies. Domremy was on the frontier and, in 5/1428, led by her voices, Joan put on men's clothes and traveled to Vaucouleurs where she asked the Captain of the garrison to see the Dauphin. She was refused and sent home but, in 1/1429 she went again. Charles' advisors agreed to give her an audience so she went on to Chiron, reaching it in late February. He kept her waiting two days then concealed himself among his couriers. She went directly to him and said she wished to go to battle and would have him crowned. In 1429, she set off for Orleans with several hundred troops on April 27. On May 4 they took the fort, with another battle on May 6, and one on May 7 in which she was wounded. When the armies met on June 18, she had a great victory over the English.
Charles was crowned with Joan present, a coronation held on 7/17/1429. Charles left Reims July 20, traveling through his country in a celebratory parade for a month. Joan had more battles and sorties, attacking Paris 9/8/1429, where she was wounded and routed. In late December 1429, King Charles ennobled her and her family. During a siege of 5/23/1430, Joan was unhorsed and when she could not remount, was captured by the Bergundians. As Charles was working toward a truce with the Duke of Bergundy, he made no attempt to save her. Joan was tried as a heretic with opening statements on 1/13/1431. She appeared a dozen times at interrogations between February 21 and March 24. As she refused to promise to not attempt escape, she was often put in irons in the cold dungeon. The original 70 charges were reduced to 12 and, in May, she became very sick in prison. Thinking herself near death, she begged for the last rites of the church. On May 29, the Judges agreed to turn her over to secular officials.
The following day she was allowed to hear a Mass before she was taken to the stake and burned to death on 05/30/1431, Rouen, France.
For this quote, and the entire letter from which it is taken, see Paine's "Joan of Arc: Maid of France", Vol. I, p. 353 [the letter runs from p. 352 – 358)
"Her childhood was spent among the forests and strawberry-covered fields of the Meuse river valley, far from the northern regions where the political situation had become increasingly troubled. The throne at that time was occupied by Charles VI de Valois (aka Charles "the Mad"), whose frequent delusional periods rendered him unfit to govern. The monarchy had therefore been placed in the hands of several members of the Royal family (the Dukes of Orléans, Burgundy [Bourgogne], Berri, and Bourbon, plus Queen Isabel), and this warm extended family had become embroiled in an ugly civil war after Duke Louis of Orléans was assassinated on the orders of his cousin Duke Jean-sans-Peur de Burgundy in 1407. France would henceforth be divided between the Orléanist (or Armagnac) faction and their Burgundian rivals. In May 1413, when Jehanne was still a baby, the conflict produced the Cabochien Revolt in Paris. For several weeks the city was subjected to a violent uprising engineered by the Duke of Burgundy, led by a butcher named Simon Caboche, and egged on by a young clergyman and Burgundian partisan named Pierre Cauchon, whom Jehanne would later meet during a less pleasant period of her life."
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So let's begin the understanding of the Planetary Nodes in general at first. Any time we are dealing with the Nodes of the Planets, including the Moon, we are of course dealing with the natural archetype of the trinity: the past, present, and the future. As a result we are dealing with the natural evolution of the archetypes of all the planets and how this natural evolution is a reflection of the desires of each Soul. As we know the evolution of the Soul is caused by the types of desires that it has. Each soul is unique to itself yet all Souls have as a common determinant the natural law of desires that correlate to each Souls individual evolution.
To understand the Planetary Nodes of each of the planets is to understand the archetypes of those planets. Once we understand the archetypes of each planet the next step is simply to apply the natural law of the evolutionary trinity to them: the past, present, and the future as symbolized is their South Nodes, the current position of the planet in question ( the current life position of the natal planet ), and of course it's North Node.
We must always understand when we are looking at life from an evolutionary point of view that the past is always the basis of the present: it is always conditioning the present. It is because we have a past that we have a present and because we have a present defined by the past we also know that there is a future. It is because we have a future, of that which can be, that we have evolution itself. Thus, the natural pull of the future that we all experience is that which allows all of life, each soul , to evolve from the present moment that is defined by the past. If there was not this natural evolutionary pull to the future we would simply have a reality that does not evolve and remains stagnant for eternity.
Each planet will have their own North and South Nodes by sign. The signs of the Nodes correlate with their own archetypal meanings that correlate with how and why the archetypes have been developed, and will be developed as integrated in each moment where each moment is the actual house and sign of the natal planet in question. In turn each Node of the planets with have their own planetary rulers where the rulers of each node, by their own house and sign placement within the natal chart, and aspects that they are making to other natal planets, correlate to very specific and individual ways in which the ongoing evolution of the planets occurs.
Within this we must remember that it is essential to understand the core evolutionary intentions of each Soul as symbolized in the main evolutionary dynamic in each chart: the natal position of Pluto, it's polarity point, the positions of the North and South Nodes of the Moon, and the locations of their planetary rulers by their own houses and signs. Once this is understood then we can rightly understand the positions of all the other planets, including their North and South Nodes, and the location of their own planetary rulers by their own houses and signs, as correlating to the fulfillment in total of that core evolutionary intentions of the Soul relative to the main evolutionary dynamic in each chart.
This then will provide for the total and full picture of the ongoing evolutionary intentions of any given Soul.
So looking at Joan of Arc as an individual Soul we must first establish her evolutionary stage of development. My sense, given her life, is that she is well within the First Stage Spiritual in which one of the hallmark or archetypes within that stage is karma yoga: to do a work on behalf of God in such a way that the agency of the work becomes a vehicle through which God is made present to the individual. Thus she 'hears' voices giving her instructions as to what to do, and makes a decision to to just that. And these voices were the voices of 'saints' who had already 'died'. This can be seen in her birth chart by the 11th house Pluto in Gemini which forms a ten degree square to her Nodal Axis of the Moon: skipped steps. And that South Node is Virgo in her Second House, conjunct Mars, which itself is ruled by her Mercury in Capricorn in her Sixth House. At this point we then need to see that the South Nodes of her Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, and Pluto are also conjunct that natal Mercury in her Sixth House. The utter dominance of this signature does indeed correlate to not only her inner desire to be of service to God, karma yoga, but to be of service to her nation or country: France. This was her way also of establishing her own authority: Capricorn, her own place within the social structure or society.
In addition, the these voices initially were instructions about how to take care of and 'govern' herself: Capricorn. These inner voices of the Saints equaling God to her is also seen by her S.Node of Neptune in Aquarius conjunct her natal Uranus and the asteroid Pallas. In addition her N.Node of Mercury is conjunct these points.
And yet she was a women in the context of an extremely patriarchal time: Capricorn. Any Soul will be in one gender , male or female, to a preponderant degree over the other. Yet all Souls must also come into it's opposite gender in certain lives in order to evolve through such a natural balance even though all Souls are naturally and equally male and female. When we insert the asteroid Amazon in her chart it is at 29 degrees Aries in her 10th house, which is ruled by her Mars in Virgo conjunct her S.Node of the Moon in her 2nd house. To me this symbolizes that her Soul is a natural amazon Soul: a amazon women. Her inner relationship to herself was based on this. As a result she would have a naturally strong inner male within her natural feminine. And, yet, she was born into this rigid patriarchal time when she was Joan of Arc. This is of course why she then had to put on the costumes of men, to make herself look like a man, in order to be heard or listened to by them at all: for her to be able to assert, Mars, her authority, Capricorn, to them. Within this we need to remember that her sense of inner authority came from the inner voices that she heard that gave her her sense of direction and purpose for the very life that she lived.
The planet that rules those S.Nodes in Capricorn in her 6th house is Saturn in Taurus in her 11th house. It is this symbol that correlates with her Soul's desire, and the basis of the voices that she heard, to not only unite her country from it's civil wars, but to help establish the rightful ruler and king for France. Establishing the rightful ruler or King is also seen in her S.Nodes of Mars and Uranus in Sagittarius being in her 5th House: royalty. And those Nodes are ruled by Jupiter in Libra with the Moon in her 4th House: her homeland. And because they are in Libra this correlates to the 'justice' of Charles becoming the King.
So of course where all this lead was a massive confrontation with the 'authority' of the Church and it's earthly agents. And this confrontation not only lead to her intense persecution and humiliation, S.Node in Virgo conjunct Mars in Virgo, but of course all those S.Nodes in her 6th House with the natal Sun, Mercury, and Venus to boot. Once she was captured this was all set in motion and of course correlated to her intense personal crisis in which she was challenged by these external authorities of the Church to choose between the authority of the Church as embodied in the Pope and it's other agents, and the inner authority that she has received from the voices on the inner saints that spoke to her and gave her her very mission, karma yoga, for her life.
And it is this exact challenge that correlates with her 'skipped steps' as symbolized by her Pluto squaring her nodes. This challenge and confrontation with these external authorities is seen not only through Pluto's square to the N.Node of the Moon in her 8th house, but also the N.Node of Venus in that 8th house as well. And both are ruled by Neptune in Cancer in her 12th house which also conjuncts her N.Node of Jupiter, but also the N.Node of Pluto itself. The essence of this 'test' and confrontation came down to whether she would accept that authority of the external Church and it's agents, or remain to committed first and foremost to the inner sense of authority that she received from the voices of the Saints equaling, to her, God.
In some other lifetimes , and through different circumstances, this exact same kind of test happened before and she compromised her deepest inner truth, the truth of the inner God or Godhead that correlated to her sense of personal identity and purpose, to external authorities who challenged it with the threat of death: Pluto squaring the nodal axis in her 2nd and 8th houses, square Mars in the 2nd. And she chose in those lives to survive, 2nd house, rather that die. This skipped step, remaining loyal to the inner Godhead and the teachings and truths that came from there no matter what the consequences to the Soul from the external world, thus had to be recovered in order for her Soul to be able to continue to evolve.
Through her ordeal of being grilled during her 'trials' at the hands of the Church and it's agents she remained committed to her truth and inner authority no matter how many threats were made to her. She was placed in a prison with men: not women. Not only did she contract serious illnesses there to the point of almost dying, but was also subjected to the gang raping by these men: Mars in Virgo in her 2nd, conjunct her S.Node of the Moon, the Mars itself square her Pluto and Pluto square her N.Node of the Moon in her 8th House with the N.Node of Venus there.
During this ordeal she weakened , her Soul weakened, for a small amount of time and she attempted to recant her declarations about the inner voices of the Saints and the inner authority of God that came from them. She did this in order to survive: 2nd house. This is of course the echo of certain previous lives in which she had done this exact same thing. Yet it did not take her long to liberate from this either. The N.Node of Uranus is indeed conjunct not only her natal Pluto in the 11th, but also squaring her Nodes of the Moon and natal Mars, and the N.Node of Venus: to liberate from the skipped steps by reasserting her inner authority as defined by the voices of the Saints that she heard. Her Uranus is also ruled by her Mercury in Capricorn which is conjunct those S.Nodes of Mercury, Venus, Pluto, and Jupiter.
And, of course, this lead directly to her being burned alive: Mars on her S.Node in Virgo, in her 2nd house. The N.Node of that Mars is in Aries in the 9th House, square natal Neptune in Cancer in the 12th house with the N.Nodes of Jupiter and Pluto. She was burned alive yet in so doing not only did she recover her own skipped steps but died as a 'warrior of God', a warrior for the Truth no matter what the personal consequences were to her. And, as a result, and paradoxically, THE CHURCH FINALLY CANONIZED HER AND MADE HER A SAINT on May 16, 1920. And this happened with the transiting Uranus EXACTLY CONJUNCT HER N.NODE IS PISCES IN HER 8TH HOUSE, TRANSITING PLUTO CONJUNCT HER 12 HOUSE NEPTUNE, AND TRANSITING SATURN CONJUNCT HER S.NODE AND MARS !!
Let me know if this helps you Zuma and if you have any other questions. If any one else wants to ask more about the Planetary Nodes please do. Rad
