Most astrologers believe that we have many past lives and as such we incarnate each time with karmic memories and experiences that can be seen in our natal chart for this lifetime. We can discover this through our South Node.
I like to describe this energy as your “Karmic Hangover” and I believe that understanding your significant past life as seen through your chart helps you to live a more aligned and purposeful life in this incarnation.
Steven Forrest states:
“The chart simply tells us what we need to know in order to effectively navigate the present life. It describes prior lifetimes that are relevant to the present one”
So this distinction is important, our chart is not describing all of our past lives – can you imagine trying to interpret that?! Rather it provides information on the most important past life themes for our present existence.
The idea is that the chart illuminates past life issues that remain unresolved AND that we have a soul intention to work on in this lifetime.
This brings us to another point about the Past Lives as seen through our chart – our chart reveals the difficult things that we need to work on – not the lovely life experiences.
Steven Forrest in his excellent book “Yesterday’s Sky” describes this:
“ …primarily represents unresolved wounds, tragedies, limitations and failures from the past, which potentially interfere with our ability to fulfill our soul contracts in this lifetime”.
To discover our significant past lives in our chart we first need to identify our South Node by sign – a karmic point in our chart. By doing this we can consider how we may have been limited in our past life and how it may be distorting our present life experience.
If you do not have your natal chart follow these instructions to create one:
1. Create an account at Astro.com and set up your birth data
2. Select your name from your AstroData
3. Click on Extended Chart Selection
3. Make sure under Calculation Options that you have clicked “True Node” and “Descending Node” and under aspects make sure you click to show aspects to “lunar nodes and eclipses”.
Your descending node is what I will refer to as your South Node.
Finding your South Node
Take a look at your chart and locate the sign it is in. Your South Node is called “Descending T. Node” in your chart.
You can see my example below with the South Node in Aquarius.
What the sign of our South Node tells us about your past life energy
The Sign of the South Node tells us about the nature of who we were in this important past life and the themes that arose.
Once you know the sign of your South Node, look it up in the table below.
| Sign | Themes of your past life |
| Aries | War, do-or-die situation, stress, danger, intensity, competition. |
| Taurus | Instinct, Survival, the Familiar, Agrarian, Farm-Based, “Primitive” culture, close to nature, |
| Gemini | Siblings, living by your wits, youth, ability with words – writer, speaker, educator. |
| Cancer | Home, Protection, Likely a parent with a major life event relating to children. |
| Leo | Privileged birth, status, limiting societal expectations. |
| Virgo | Racial or ethnic shaming, cultural puritanism, being a servant, sexual abuse, or real guilt linked to a “dirty deed”. |
| Libra | Marriage, Partnership, Diplomacy, Arts, Justice. |
| Scorpio | Dark events, gloom, suspicion, hard-won wisdom, soul growth, tragedy, prostitution. |
| Sagittarius | Quest, Adventure, travel, Crusading, Migration, Visiting Far Shores, Explorer, Religious, Monastic, Religious Movements, Priestess. |
| Capricorn | Hermit, Pioneer, Mother to a large family on a meager existence, Poverty, Hard Life, Strength, Self-Denial, |
| Aquarius | Revolutionary, Exile, Outsider, Radical Movement, Persecution, Torture, Rebel, Free-Thinker, Lone Wolf. |
| Pisces | Loss of self, devotional practices, monastic orders e.g. a priestess. |
You’ll see that the sign your south node is in can give us a sense of the energy or context of your past life and it can also hint at the karmic hangover that you may be carrying in your current lifetime.
Want to learn more?
To learn more about your significant past life including:
- the realm, physical environment and circumstances of the significant events of this past life.
- additional layers to your past life, unresolved issues and your core past life personality.
- pivotal events in this past lifetime
- your past life story
- your karmic hangover
Then check out my Past Life Astrology Toolkit for just $29USD