#80 | The Moon's Nodes | Cinderella Between Worlds

It's been quite the journey , so thanks for all of you who have come along and then to people that are just starting along the journey , welcome on board the soul's terms .

This podcast actually began as Tending the Sunfire , which I did with my friend Alexand , and Emma Love , dear friend of mine as well , was producing that for us , and along the way we did an episode on Cinderella and the nodes of the moon , where the three of us were interacting .

We ended up making two , maybe three episodes about it because there was so much to talk about between the three of us and it included , actually , a lost episode that failed to upload into the system .

So still back there in the there in the darkness is an episode that was unrecorded , unreleased , that the three of us really loved For today I'm actually going to re-enter that Tending the Sunfire is no longer available and out there , and so Cinderella remains something . That's a story that's dear to my heart and well worth exploring .

So many powerful symbols in that story , in that fairy tale , particularly for me the Grimm Brothers version that I'll be exploring today and having a look at how that differs a little from , or a lot actually from , the well-known and well-loved Cinderella from Disney in the 1950s , and I'll be looking at that in terms of its relationship to the nodes of the moon .

And the inspiration for that was an article by Dana Gerhardt that's on astrocom , which I'll leave a link for in the show notes , and it was a very inspiring article that I read maybe five or six years ago that really shaped my understanding of what the nodes are through fairy tale form .

And embedding astrology within fairy tales and mythology is obviously something that is really dear to my heart and really animates the whole field of astrology for me and brings it all very much to life . So it's something that I've gone deeper and deeper into over the years , as you would all know .

So I'm going to use Cinderella as the backdrop to explore the nodes today and a few changes in my thinking and the evolution of my own thinking about the nodes over the years . So looking forward to getting into that today . But first I'd like to just get a little bit of a grounding into what actually are the nodes of the moon .

What are we actually talking about when we talk about them ? Because they're kind of mysterious in their own ways . They're not actually planets . You know that . It's not like a luminary or a planet or an asteroid or a centaur or any of these more physical beings .

The nodes of the moon refer to the , the path of the moon's orbit as it goes around the earth's orbital plane , or the ecliptic . So you can imagine , the ecliptic is the this , the line that the sun goes through from the earth's perspective .

So from the earth's perspective it looks like the sun is slowly going around the earth and it's going through this particular line and on that line is the entire zodiac and also a fucus got in there with his toe , snuck under there just recently in , uh , in the 1930s they they realized , or they had redefined it , and so the zodiac plus a fucus and another

constellation , cetus . As the moon's orbit is tilted around five degrees , it goes above and below this particular line of the ecliptic and when it aligns with the sun and the moon and the earth for a full moon or a new moon and these nodes align , that's when we get eclipses .

So essentially , the nodes of the moon is really only useful astronomically to track the eclipses which happen around about every six months . We'll get lunar eclipses and solar eclipses in tandem . The symbol or the vision that we get of an eclipse is the idea that either the sun is disappearing or the moon is disappearing .

So the ancients , especially in the Indian traditions , saw that as the sun or the moon being swallowed but then also not being digested . So it was kind of spat back out . And that was the symbol used in the Hindu tradition of Ketu and Rahu .

So Rahu was the north node , or the head of this grand serpent that had been decapitated , and its tail or the rest of its body was the south node .

And this dragon or this dragon serpent thing and its tail or the rest of its body was the south node , and this dragon or this dragon serpent thing that had been decapitated was always trying to get back at the sun and the moon . So it would swallow it , but because it didn't have a body to digest it , it would digest it , it would spit it back out .

So this is how it was seen in Hindu traditions and I think the Western astrological traditions have really taken from that in the sense of north node is generally considered to be the dharma and south node the karma within even the western traditions .

So my sense is that in the western traditions we borrowed quite heavily from Eastern traditions in order to understand what the nodes actually are , and that's why it's a little tricky for the Western tradition that doesn't really have ideas of reincarnation thoroughly embedded anymore in the Western thought to really approach the nodes in a in a wise way .

I suppose that's the astronomy of the nodes . Really , if you think about the note , the north and south , notice that it's like the , the north and south pole of the moon , and the lines that those two poles have and the alignment of which creates eclipses , or is the is the cause of eclipses .

Then we can move into from there the , the astrology , and my thinking on the nodes has really evolved and I think the evolution of , of my thought around it is is maybe that it can be helpful to see a process by which we get to understand what the nodes are actually all about .

So I'm hoping to offer that today from what ends up being around 18 years of experience and pondering this and trying to articulate it into a brief episode on the podcast , so I hope this works for you . My understanding of the nodes actually goes back to my very first astrology book , which I bought in 2006 . It was called Astrology for the Soul .

It was by Jan Spiller and it's a bit of a classic , so many of you might be actually familiar with it , and it was presented very much as a cookbook . And the cookbook basically said that here's your south node and here's your north node . Here's your north node . They're always in opposition and they always have oppositional signs and oppositional houses .

So , for example , if your south node is in Taurus , then your north node is definitely in Scorpio at the same degree , and you can go around the zodiac like that to see that . And if it's in the second house , then it's definitely the eighth house , it's the opposition .

So in this cookbook formulaic style , the recommendation was to go away from the south node and towards the north node , and the more that you did that , the more you would involve evolve in this lifetime .

And the theory behind that was that the south node was your comfort zone and in that comfort zone you would likely stagnate or or get a bit lost or confused or stuck . And the way to avoid that in your own evolution as a human being on this plane and as a spiritual being was to move towards the north node .

And if you did those things in the north node , despite them being difficult and not really familiar to you and a little bit foreign , if you did those things you would evolve and change and become a more whole and complete human being .

So it was very much a linear , it's kind of like I can see within that that theory , the bow , and and we are pulling back into the south node to fire up into the north node and go on this journey of ascent .

And I worked with that for quite a while until one day I was reading an article in the Mountain Astrologer and the astrologer who I don't really remember actually who it was , but he was asked a question at the end of the interview which was what piece of astrological wisdom would you offer to readers and young astrologers just starting out ?

And he gave the advice if you feel lost , then re-enter through the south node .

And that suddenly gave me this conception of the south node that was very different than anything that I had been working with before , because to me I was still working with the Jan Spiller theory that you just need to move away from the south node and towards the north node and that's your way to evolution .

So suddenly there was this idea that the south node was in fact beneficial , or there was something good about it , or there was something kind of like a re-entry point , or maybe it was like a birth point or a rebirth point in the chart , and reading those words it just felt really right to me and I was experiencing it through my own chart as well as feeling

very true and very right . And so I worked with that for a while of like , well , well , what does it mean to re-enter through the south node ?

And is there a sense of if you can re-enter through the south , you just sort of naturally grow like a tree towards the north , and is that potentially how the nodes work , rather than this very linear move away from this , move towards that ? And if the south node is some kind of a deep home base , then why is it that I'd be moving away from that ?

What is the theory that I would need to sort of forget about ? That ? It started to seem to me to be not quite the right piece of advice in the end .

So then many years went by and eventually it it was actually melanie reinhardt that said , as my next piece of evolution into the nodes , I suppose she she offered that that your gift is in the south node but you need to give it through the north node . So again , this really changed my perspective .

Again it became less about moving away from anything in the in the south node but more about how do I take these inherent gifts that perhaps I've been working on for many , many lifetimes and how do I bring them in to existence with the help of the north node .

But suddenly it became that the south node with the gifts and the north node was this way to give those gifts . So that felt like , again , a very different evolution .

And then along the way I read this article that I'll put in the show notes from Dana Gerhart , where she was elaborating on the Cinderella story , the Grimm Brothers version of the story , and in that story she had the south node as the ashes where we're doing all this kind of hard labor , kind of hard labor we're in our remembering of , of something kind of

perhaps a little bit unhealthy or perhaps something we're doing back there that gets us stuck like cinderella as she's she's covered in ashes and and doing her chores .

And then the north node is the ball , which is the where the prince is , that that sort of takes her out into the world and out into who she's really meant to be , so some kind of destiny out there . And for many years I have sat with that and that's felt very true to me .

And just this past weekend as I was driving around on the scooter you know , sometimes just driving around is enough to have a little thought or a little download . I guess pop in is enough to have a little thought or a little download .

I guess pop in and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps , just maybe , the whole thing is reversed and perhaps that time in the ashes is in fact your north node and the time at the ball is in fact your south node , where there's this deep remembering and this deep homecoming that happens when you're there .

And then there's perhaps some kind of a dance that goes in on between the south node and the north node , but the north node is essentially this part by the ashes . It's all that stuff that you really don't want to do but you have to do in order to get the tools that make you ready for that south node .

Experience of experience of remembering who you are , of really deeply remembering who you are . So you can see , my thinking on it has changed quite drastically from that first book from Jan Spiller . And it is very interesting that that was 18 and a bit years ago and the Nodes have an 18.6 year cycle .

So I guess it's my own nodal cycle of being able to read and digest this nodal stuff . And it's also curious that the nodes themselves are coming to the end of their cycle . So at the moment they're at just about two degrees . They're always moving backwards . So they're at two degrees of libra and aries and they're moving backwards .

So they're going to come to the equinox point of zero degrees aries and then move back into virgo and pisces . And that's actually going to happen on january 29th this year , which is going to coincide exactly with both the aquarius new moon and also the lunar new year . So during .

So we have a lunar new year , aquarius new moon and the nodal shift that completes the 18.6 year cycle on that particular day , which feels very auspicious . God knows what it all means , but it feels like a very potent and powerful time . So there we go .

That is what I'm looking at exploring today , but I can't really explore it without firstly getting into the dreaming of this ancient story that we call Cinderella . That's gone by many , many different names over the millennia . That's gone by many , many different names over the millennia . So it's estimated that this story of Cinderella is over 4,000 years old .

It's been imagined in almost every culture that we can fathom and there's many , many different themes that show up . There's quite often a shoe , like we have in Cinderella this whole idea of if the shoe fits , wear it . But there's often also some trickster fish that steals something .

Or , in the Native American version of this story , there's the idea that Cinderella herself is sort of maimed by the stepmother . It only really resolves itself when she is connected to an invisible being that is able to recognize the true beauty that is underneath . So we have lots of themes like this throughout the years

. The disney version that we have was actually based on the french version of the 17th century , where there's a fairy godmother and a glass slipper .

And you know , I think I might have been quite hard on Disney over the years because well , understandably so I feel like it's really watered down some sacred and beautiful stories and taken the wisdom out and replaced it with something very materialist or just sort of empty or shallow .

But at the same time I didn't actually realise until researching for this episode that there was a version of this in France in the 17th century that did include the glass slipper and did include the fairy godmother , and so essentially , disney has looked through the ages and decided that that was the one to use for the 1950s movie .

That is still considered today to be one of the great classics of disney . But the version I'm going to go back to today is the is the grim brothers version and , as I've said many times on the podcast , but I'll say it again , the Grimm Brothers were collectors only , so they didn't write any of those stories .

And it can be a confusion amongst the consensus reality that it was in fact the Grimms that wrote the Grimm Brothers collection . That's understandable because it's kind of like in the name .

But in fact the , the grims , put ads in the papers and sent it out into the world and and , and then the peasants of germany in the early 19th century would come and tell their stories , stories that have been kept as in the oral traditions for really thousands of years past , generation to generation , and it was usually the old women or the crones that would

come as the wisdom keepers or the keepers of the stories . So the mothers , the old wives , tales would come and of course the grim brothers would write it down and I doubt that any of them were compensated for that and and that's where we get those grim stories .

So just in case you thought , because it's the name , is the grim brothers , it was a patriarchal undertaking . No , the stories themselves from the grim brothers are very much from the matrilineal tradition and therefore hold a lot of the lunar knowing . And that's interesting , isn't it ? Because we're talking about the lunar nodes ?

And it's interesting that even within the lunar nodes we have very solar perspectives that have entered as far as going from one place to another , evolving , ascending .

All of those are very solar or masculine ideas , whereas the lunar consciousness is able to be in the circular nature of reality , the way that things repeat and repeat and patterns form and and spending some time in that more circular way of thinking which stories help us to do , which helps us also to get in touch with the soul and not be in such a rush to

get from one place to another place , and I think in that early book , astrology for the Soul , as it was called , was really about getting from one place to another place , and I've got to wonder how . Now I just wonder how useful that is as an idea .

So the story of Cinderella starts out with a girl who is in the process of losing her mother , and so the very first lines of the story are a conversation between a girl and her mother , and she doesn't want her mother to go , but her mother is going and there's really nothing that she can do about that now .

And so her mother , her mother , as she's starting to slip away .

It's just her and her daughter in this scene and the two of them are connecting and and she's telling her daughter not to worry , you know , and to always be pious and good in the world , always to try to do her best in the world , and also to not worry , because once her mother is gone , she will be back in mother nature and that she can look for her in

nature Anytime she needs something , she can look for her in nature .

And with these words her mother slips away and is buried in the ground and snow forms over the grave and it's said that before the snow has even melted , the father and the husband of this woman has found a new wife , and so we can get that sense right at the beginning that there has not been grief , there's not been an allowance , there's not been a a way

to really go into the loss that has occurred , and that things have moved on immediately .

And in things moving on , cinderella's face with this new world , her , her old world involved really her and her mother and a father that was around , but now her new world involves her and a step mother and two stepsisters and the father , who's really not really around in this story .

And so the stepmother immediately takes control of the family and and the stepsisters . She wants to make sure that her own daughters , uh , have the , have a very comfortable and happy life , and they don't really know what to do with this , with this youngest girl , and what to do with someone like that .

She feels like an orphan , she feels like a leftover , she feels like you know , what are you going to do with this one ?

And so they decide to give her all of the chores , so she does the laundry and the washing and the cleaning and everything and the most important role , particularly in that period of history , was to clean out the ashes that are there by the hearth . So every day the hearth is burning and every day the ashes are building up .

So one of her net her , her biggest roles , I suppose , was to sweep and clean the ashes , which is why the girls , the two stepsisters , decide that her name should be Ashenputu , which ends up being translated into English as Cinderella , which basically means the girl of the ashes .

And so that is her role , that is her whole identity , and that is what her stepsisters keep calling her and keep telling her her name is . So we don't actually know , as the reader of this story , as the listener of this story , what her true name is . We only know her as cinderella .

And so this is how life is for her she's washing and cooking and cleaning and sweeping up ashes , and she's doing that day in and day out . And then one day her father decides he's going to go to the other town and he has a bit of business to take care of , and he asks his girls , his three girls , what they want him to bring back .

And the eldest one , the other stepsister she wants pretty jewels and bedazzling things . And the second sister wants a pretty dress and you know some fine silks .

And then he turns to his own daughter , who we now know as Cinderella , and asks her and she has a very different response to the other two she says , father , when you're on your way or when you're on your way back , perhaps a twig from a hazel bush will break off onto your hat . Please take that twig and bring it back for me .

So the father goes and he buys all the pretty bedazzling things and , sure enough , on the way back , a twig from a hazel tree does break off on his head and he gives that to Cinderella and she takes that twig from the hazel tree and she plants it at mother's grave and over the years , days and months and years , she waters this hazel tree hazel twig with

her tears , and over time it becomes an enormous hazel bush that has been planted there and is now watered with her tears . And so , day in and day out , if she's not doing her chores , if she's not doing that sweeping up of the ashes , she's there by her mother's .

She's not doing that sweeping up of the ashes , she's there by her mother's grave and nurturing this hazel bush as it grows up . So , yeah , we'll take a little pause here just to take in what the story is telling us so far .

Obviously , at the very beginning of this fairy tale which , by the way , the germans calledaubermachen , which effectively meant conjuring tales they didn't really see it as fairy tales necessarily , but stories that would conjure entire worlds , and so I see that as really the tradition that we're going back to other worlds and something about those other worlds .

They help us to see this world in a more in a more accurate light . Just by going to that other world we get the chance to look back at this everyday world and understand it at a whole different level . So in this story we have much like the myth of persephone and demeter , which is a really ancient myth , the this separation of mother and daughter .

In the story of Persephone and Demeter it's Persephone who's taken and in this story it's Demeter . Essentially it's the mother that's taken .

So that union between mother and daughter is broken right at the beginning of this story and it leads us to this situation that Cinderella finds herself in where she's really downtrodden , that Cinderella finds herself in where she's really downtrodden , disheartened . But we also get that sense bringing in the nodes .

Now I see that original union at the beginning of the story as just a glimpse of that south node , something we really remember , of our own wholeness and unity and fullness , and that gets severed in the same way as Rahu and ketu .

There's a severing of head and body and suddenly everything's split off , and so that unity that we did have is now being split off , and maybe it's sort of something like now that I think about it , maybe it's like the wholeness of south node and north node , that wholeness of , like your dharma connected to your karma , and everything making sense suddenly not

making sense anymore . There's some disruptive force that happens , and in that disruption everything is in complete disarray .

Now it's interesting at this point of the story with the hazel bush , and so I did a little bit of research on the , on why exactly it would be that it's a hazel bush and there's all and there's all sorts of symbolism through many different cultures , but one that really stood out to me was that in Celtic and Norse traditions , hazel was seen as a mediator

between the mundane and the sacred . So sacred hazel trees often grew near wells or springs that were considered gateways to the other world . So the hazel bush , therefore , is really considered , at least in the celtic and norse traditions , as being a bridge , like the rainbow bridge between worlds .

So let's think about that as we go forward of you know exactly what might be going on when she's requested it's almost like when she requests that she's not , she's not taken by this material world , she's .

She's already focusing on the other world and how to make a bridge to it , and and she knows that that bridge between the worlds is going to be ultimately what's going to be her salvation . So now again , if we think about the splitting off between the south and the north node , this hazel bush may be very important going forward . And let's see

. Now , one day it's announced to the kingdom that the prince of this particular place is coming into town and he's going to hold a three-day festival and in this three-day festival he intends to find his wife .

And so as soon as cinderella hears about this , she gets very , very excited and and there's a fluttering in her whole system and she can't quite explain why , but she just knows deep down in her bones that she has to be at that ball , but that is the place for her .

So the mother and the steps sisters are busy at it , getting ready and they , and particularly the stepmother . She feels like this is it , this is the big chance for one of her girls to marry up and to become royal , and then everything is going to be taken care of for them from then on .

And so , but cinderella is , she just has such a deep longing , almost like a soul knowing like she needs to be at that ball , and so she goes to her stepmother and she asks her stepmother , can I , can I go to the ball ? And the stepmother says no , of course not . What would you even do with the ball ? Like , what would you wear ?

You're only really good for the cinders . Don't forget the ashes . And you're covered in soot , be impossible to get you cleaned up . Plus , you don't have anything to wear . You don't have any shoes , you don't have anything . It's just a silly idea . You should just forget about that idea .

But cinderella does not forget about the idea and she begs her and pleads with her to allow her to go . And so the stepmother says , well , okay , I tell you what .

She grabs a bowl of lentils and she scatters them in the ashes and she says to her if you can pick out of the ashes these lentils and put them into their good pile and just take out the good lentils and then discard the bad lentils . If you can do that in two hours then I'll let you go to the ball . And she's sort of laughing about that .

And if you know the story of Psyche and Eros , it's a little bit like the tasks that were set for Psyche . In fact , cinderella and Psyche and Eros have a lot of similarities . It's one of those impossible tasks and there's no way that Cinderella's going to be able to do that . And she leaves the room and there's Cinderella by the hearth .

And she leaves the room and there's Cinderella by the hearth , around all the ashes , staring down at this completely chaotic mess of lentils , and she begins to cry and she begins to really feel this longing to be back there at the ball , that this is the place that she feels like she should be , but also the devastating loss that she's really not going to be

able to do that because she's not going to be able to complete this task . So there she is , in her loss and in her surrender and in that state of devastation . When she hears a little tap at the window , she's curious what could that possibly be ? When she hears a little tap at the window . She's curious what could that possibly be ?

And she looks out of the window and she opens it up and there's all these different birds that are at the window and they come flying in . She opens the window , they come flying in and then peck , peck , peck , peck , peck , they get down to work in the ashes and they drop the good lentils into a bowl and they eat the bad lentils .

And it's done in no time at all . And Cinderella is amazed and mesmerized , and in that sense of wonder , at these magical helpers that have come to her in her time of need . And she goes back to her stepmother with a bowl of lentils and she says look , stepmother , I did it feeling very chuffed with herself .

And her stepmother says like , oh god , this is ridiculous . Look , I tell you what , though it grabs two bowls of lentils , so double the amount , scatters that in the ashes and then says to her if you can separate those ones out in just one hour , then you can go to the ball .

So again , cinderella's like wow , you know , this is so cruel and so unfair and so harsh . And she goes to tears again and she's she's on her knees in the ashes . She hears again at the window and it's those birds .

Again she opens it up and twice the amount of birds have suddenly come in and they get to work straight away and they pick , pick , pick , pick , pick , pick and they're able to separate out quite easily the good and the bad lentils .

So now she brings her bowls of lentils , she comes back to stepmother and she goes look , stepmother , I did it easily , within the time limit . She's very chuffed with herself and she's dreaming of the ball and how good it's all going to be .

And then the stepmother says no , you cannot go , and then closes the door on her and walks away and starts to prepare her daughters for the ball . So here we have this , this really ancient wisdom piece here .

I believe it's a similar part of the story to when psyche has to separate out all of those seeds that were laid down by her mother-in-law , aphrodite , and that's her sort of wicked stepmother sort of figure .

And she can't do it either and she goes to the ground in tears and ants come along to help her to sift and sort , and in this case of Cinderella , the birds come along and we remember from the beginning that mother had said that she would be in nature now and so we can get a sense of mother , not in such an obvious way as the the french came up with

in the 17th century or as disney decided to lean into , that there'd be a fairy godmother . Instead of that , it's these birds . So so nature is embedded . I mean mother is embedded back into nature , rather than having to be some more obvious personification yet again .

And and there's a there's a real wisdom to the inner world here that when we're given that impossible task or when we're in a state of overwhelm which is definitely the lentils in the ashes or the big pile of seeds for psyche , there's really no point in starting to try to do that ourselves .

It's like getting our whole frontal cortex involved and getting the mind involved . There's some kind of magical formula here where we realize it has to be done , we realize we still have to stay in touch with the task . But if we try to do it ourselves , that's really not going to work .

We'd really rely on magical helpers and in the inner world that is the experience of relying on something more instinctive , which is why the animal kingdom come to help , rather than the fairy godmother , which is again a bit of an ascension myth , like something beyond you .

This is like something within you , something of your instinctive nature knows how to get to the bottom of this big , overwhelming thing . And if you would just rest into it and not try to do things with the frontal cortex and the , the ego and the mind , then it'll sort of take care of itself . So it's a beautiful thing and then .

But then there's that I mean , this is always the point in the story , when I'm telling this to a group or or to a class , or to even to an individual , where it's so devastating because it's so unfair , you can just sort of feel it for cinderella , the unfairness of it all . She's done everything she was asked to do and she still can't go .

And so this is also some deep wisdom . You know , like , if it's just about being in the ashes or going to the ball and there's only that linear thing , then that saturnian blocking consciousness that's in the way is going to stop you from doing that , and then that's going to be it . There's not .

It's almost like cinderella has to come up with a new way , a different way , a third way , a creative way , in order to get to the ball .

And that's why I think it's beautiful in the , in the well-rounded nature of this fairy tale that has obviously evolved over thousands of years of over so many different tellers , and evolved into this shape that was picked up in the German countryside , rather than something that was written by some kind of an author , something that was scribed off of this ancient

wisdom . It's that this hazel bush , which , as I said , is this representation of a bridge between worlds .

It's like she has to go to the bridge between worlds in order to create the bridge between the place of the hearth , which is really her home , and her deep sense of self , and her place at the ball , which is something to do with her destiny or who she's called to become . And that's the tension point between the ashes at the hearth and the ball .

And it's really this hazel bush at Mother's grave and the deep symbolism there that she's watered with the tears of grief that have come up . The roots are now deep and it's grown up , and so that's her direction , that's where she has to go and that is where she goes , slips out the window .

Essentially , she finds a way to slip out the window when her mother and step sisters have already gone to the ball .

She slips out the window , goes to mother's graves and actually finds her place at that bridge , you know , and and it's there , at that bridge , or we might call the crossroads , that's where we tend to work to find the magical helpers like Hermes or Hecate or these kinds of figures who come .

And of course it's at that place , under the hazel bush , at mother's grave , that the birds come back again , and this time they come with the gifts of the shoes and the dress and they clean her up , they do some magic , they get her ready for the ball . And there she is , at mother's grave , ready for the ball .

So she couldn't go through the stepmother , because the stepmother was still representing of the same basic paradigm . Like if she was going to go through that window , through that doorway , she wouldn't really be coming back to herself .

First , by going out the side window , she comes to mother's grave , she comes to the bridge between worlds , she becomes that bridge between worlds and something magical happens and now she's actually able to get to the ball . Now , when she does arrive at the ball , it's like the needle on the record kind of thing . Everything stops .

The prince looks at her coming in and it's like that is who I've been waiting for , immediately asked her to dance and they dance all night and as they're dancing all of these other suitors are coming along can I have this dance , can I have this dance ? And he says no , this is my partner . So he's essentially saying this is the only one for me .

So in this we can see . You know , I think in the modern literal mind we think that's about a romantic story , and sure it can be taken romantically . I'm not against it being a romantic story I used to be but I'm not so against it anymore . Given that romance has been sucked out of the modern world , I kind of welcome it a bit more nowadays .

But this does not seem to me to be a romance story . The prince is representative of that daimon , that element of the self , that royal self . Always throughout history . Archetypally , the royal self is like really coming into to the essence of who we are and who we were always meant to be .

And something about the union that happens between cinderella and the prince is that is that reunion within herself of all of her parts and she's suddenly in . She's suddenly exactly where she was always meant to be .

We can sort of hear glimpses of when it was her and her mother and that kind of connection and then , as they're dancing and they're enjoying , it's kind of like , you know , in the modern world this might be the end of the story .

But for cinderella or actually we know what happens in the modern world there's a , there's a midnight pumpkin sort of a thing , where she's forced by the external world to leave . But actually what happens in the grim brothers version is that her internal alarm system is going off .

Even though she's exactly where she's meant to be , even though she's found everything she's ever wanted , even though she's in this blissed out state of connection and unity and oneness and wholeness , she freaks out and it's too much for her and she runs . She just runs away as quickly as she can .

In the grim brothers version she jumps out the window and climbs down the tree and gets out of there and once she gets home , she , she takes off all of their pretty beautiful things and she replaces that with the , with the , all the rags , and , and covers herself in ashes again , takes a deep breath ah , that's better . So this is interesting .

You know , she's , she's and and

and . Essentially this is our nodal story . Now , the way dana gohard talks about it is like the north node is when you find your place of the ball . But then it's so intense to be in your calling that you run away .

And I've been thinking , though , recently about whether that's true or not , if that really is the north node , because what I found in my own nodal story and in in the nodal story of so many of my clients as I'm seeing again and again and friends that I've talked about this with , it's almost like north node , doesn't really feel like that ball .

You know , and I've been really considering that maybe the ball is the south node when you're able to actually come back to your own sense of wholeness , remember who you are like , remember your own song , remember your own connection to the divine , remember something of your past lives , remember something of your wholeness and completeness .

But it's almost like you couldn't really arrive there without doing the north node work . And I find that north node in my own life and , as I said in the , in the lives of many that I know , is more like the work at the ashes . It's like you don't really want to do it , you'd rather not do it .

It's always foreign , it always hard , but if it's the sense of you know , like Melanie said , you know your South Node is your gift but you've got to give it through the North Node . Or I might even say the South Node is the gift but you can't do the alchemical process within that gift if you don't have the tools of the North Node .

You know , that's how I would say it If you haven't developed the tools of the North node you know that's how I would say it if you haven't developed the tools of the north node , and where are you going to develop those tools ? Where you're going to develop them ?

By the ashes , doing all that work , you know , like chop wood , carry water , just day in , day out , developing and developing , and developing , which feels like the thing that we're doing by the hearth at the ashes .

And so there's something of the connecting then between the work it takes of the north node and then the ease and flow that is there in the south node , which is a flip of the article by Dana Gerhart . It's a flip because when she gets the ball it's a homecoming and she runs away from that because she feels not ready .

And who's to say , maybe she isn't ready yet , maybe she does need to do that three times , which , as we know , in fairy tale language just means like again and again , and again . So she's , she goes back , as we can hear , you know , we've got three different balls .

She does the whole process three different times , which again in our own lives , in our own nodal journeys , is like we get into the north node work , we get into that feeling of what it is to be who we really meant to be , and we go back and forth and back and forth .

But on the way we go to this magical bridge hazel bush at mother's grave , bridging world's place , the third place , and I think that ultimately without , without what she had already invested in in mother's grave , with her tears , with asking for the hazel bush , with spending time in grief , with spending time in the loss and spending time in that underworld , you

know , and in fact pluto , which means wealth , as we know , you know , and is the grave side , is the , is the realm of death , like that's where she really finds her gold , right , that's where she really finds her essence .

By spending time in that bridge between the two worlds , maybe by putting together the head of rahu and the and the body of k2 , and like getting the head and the body working together again so she can digest these experiences which maybe we see in the lentils right , the digesting of the experiences .

And it's only then that she really feels as though she's ready to enter the ball . But even on the third time and this is really the beauty of this Grimm Brothers version even on the third time she runs .

So there's no place where she kind of does the perfect dance and becomes the perfect heroine and , you know , overcomes all of her fears and just arrives at the ball and is happy . In fact she runs again .

But the thing on the third time is that the prince then is on to her . So after the second time he's on to her . He knows she's going to run again . And this is the thing about that calling or that diamond . It's like now we've we've sort of entered the ball too many times and now the diamond is coming for us .

So he , he paints resin glue on the step , knowing that she's going to run again , and when , when she runs that shoe it gets stuck on the resin glue and it's stuck on that step and she runs home without her shoe . She runs home with just one shoe and she goes back and covers herself in ashes .

But now when the prince comes out of the ballroom , he looks down and he sees that shoe , he's like , okay , good , and it was declared earlier in the story that she has very , very small feet , so they're very unique feet , and so now it's a case of the shoe . The golden slipper is now on by its own volition .

In a way it's coming for her like she can't avoid it . Now she's . She's danced with destiny one too many times and now it's now it's coming for her , but rather than her finding it at the ball , it's going to find her at the hearth . And I think that's really my main point today when I look at this story .

And in terms of the nodes , you know , there's something of the connection between the warmth of the heart , of that deep soul , knowing that deep interior self , and the interaction with that with the world outside of the ball .

And if we can pull those two together with the rainbow bridge , with the bridge between worlds , that is , the hazel bush planted at Mother's grave , psychologically , then we're able to move between these three places and we're able to ultimately bridge them together , with the prince , or daimon , or this part of the self , coming back and looking for us .

So of course the prince goes all around looking for somebody with feet . This small ends up arriving back at Cinderella's place . But that's not the end of the story and content warning it could get a bit gruesome because actually they are called grim brothers , so they're pretty grim stories sometimes .

And so what happens is and and this will be one to really reflect on so when she comes to their that , that house where cinderella is still in the back by the hearth of the ashes , the stepmother is very keen to get one of her daughters hitched to this prince .

And so she comes , she takes the shoe and she goes out the back and her oldest daughter she's like listen , I know this isn't going to fit , but gives , gives her a knife and says cut off your toes .

So it does , which she does Cuts off her toes , the shoe sort of fits , the prince takes her on the horse , but then of course the birds come along and sing a little song about how that's not the one , that's not the Cinderella . Look , you know , this isn't your bride , look at the blood on the shoe takes her back .

The stepmother gives the next daughter a knife , who cuts off her heel . Same result right off on the horse . The birds come and interfere , she brings , but he brings her back and then he says there must be someone else here .

Now I find this part of the story very apt , because this is how we kind of mutilate ourselves and we try to fit into these shapes and we're still trying to be like maybe I'll be worthy if I change myself this way or that way .

And these are the stepsisters as inner figures , who are trying to manipulate things and push and pull and essentially cut and copy certain things in order to sort of pretend . But meanwhile Cinderella isn't doing any of that . She's staying close to the hearth and the prince asks there must be someone else here .

And that's when the father says who hasn't spoken for quite a while . In this story he says well , there is this other girl from my first marriage , but you know , she really just is covered in soot all the time . She's running really good for the ashes and he's like , okay , bring her out .

And so you know , they go back and they get her , they clean her up and she comes out . She puts the shoe on , it fits perfectly . She goes against . She puts the shoe on , it fits perfectly . She goes against the other shoe , puts that on , it fits perfectly . And then off they go .

And so this is the idea of the shoe actually fitting right , like the calling and the self kind of coming together Again , a bridging of these different worlds , and I think that's ultimately sort of the circular nature of the nodes , what we're really trying to get at , not this linear idea of like I've got to get away like astrology for the soul , janspeel , I've

got to get away from this south node towards the north , but actually I need to bridge these two worlds . I need to go to the north , I need to experience what's out there .

I need to come back to the south and remember who I am and go back to the north , experience , get the tools , get the skills that I need for this lifetime , come back to the South and remember . So how does that fit with your own nodal story ? I'd really love to get a sense of that If you could . You know .

So those of you who know your nodes or those who don't , feel free to follow the link and get a sense of your nodes , at least superficially at the beginning , because it really is a deep contemplation , this journey between the nodes , and I think it will be , it will bear fruit if you go down that avenue .

Maybe that can be your own personal hazel twig that you plant at mother's grave and find a sense of like . How do I bridge these two worlds ? Now there is a little addendum . There is a little ending to the story .

That also is pretty gross , but I'll bring it in here , because when I did this in Tending the Sunfire I kind of did my own little Disney editing process and didn't add it in , so I don't want to do that this time . There's a wedding Prince and Cinderella get married .

We'd still never find out her original , real name , but we have to just imagine what that might be . At the wedding , the stepsisters show up , but so do the birds , and birds come and peck out their eyes and then they spend the rest of their days blind and wretched .

So a little bit of a revenge part on those stepsisters at the end , but also an interesting symbol that these girls have spent their whole life just worrying about what they look like and , you know , trying to get shiny things and never really investing in anything soulful or anything in the inner world .

And now they're faced with not being able to take in any of the outer world and being forced to look inward with the absence of their eyes . Well , I hope you enjoyed this 80th episode of the show . Uh , let me know . Please send me messages on email or on the instagram .

I I post the episode on instagram , so if you want to have a little chat about it , you can do so there . And special thanks again to the patrons , especially the new patrons that have just joined in , but but my all of my patrons that make this this , this project that we're doing , just that bit more viable .

Thank you to you all and I'll see you next time . Thank you for listening to on the soul's Terms podcast . To support the show , please consider leaving a five-star review , sharing with friends , or becoming a patron at patreoncom . Slash onthesoulsterms Until next time . I'm going to the center of the world . I'm going to the center of the world .