Nadir [Astrology]

Have you always been fascinated by archeology? Today, I’m going on a dig, and I invite you to join me.

Nadir is probably the most neglected point in the horoscope, probably because it is deep, private, and underground. I have found that it is also the key to understanding and experiencing our meridian, that is, the axis that starts in Nadir and flowers in Midheaven. Because social status is so vital to humans and other primates, it is natural for astrologers to focus on the Midheaven, which symbolizes what Dane Rudhyar termed our “social office” and is usually understood in modern life as career, reputation, and social status. This is what most astrological clients want to know about.

However, the meridian is rooted in Nadir, and it is an axis, a whole thing, so understanding it holistically is key to experiencing it fully.

The Tree and the Journey

I have found that envisioning the meridian as a tree is helpful to many clients. Most people are focused on the leaves, more and more leaves and colors in the canopy. They are using sprays and all kinds of fixes to make the canopy bigger. They are usually disappointed because if you want to nurture a tree, you start with its roots because the roots feed the rest. How does this work?

Nadir (also I.C.) is the cusp of the 4th house, and understanding the 4th is grounded in regarding it within the cycle of houses. The 1st house is the imprint, the vibration with which we approach the world. It is our “original impulse,” especially when we are in new, unfamiliar situations like taking our first breath. The 2nd house has us starting to realize that we are separate from mother. We have a body and, by extension, other resources we can use to actualize our impulses, hence blankets, animals, toys. In the 3rd house, we become mobile, first by crawling, then by walking, and we meet our familial social world. We start learning language in earnest, rules, how to interact with family and siblings in and near the home. We explore and form concepts of our world. 

In the 4th house, we take our impulses, capabilities, and experiences, and we use them to formulate a self-concept. We create who we are among our family, siblings, and neighbors. In the 5th house, we channel this creation, this self, by expressing it unabashedly, just for the joy of it. We still don’t know much about the world, though, so in the 6th house, we learn to temper our self-expression by working and serving other people and groups; in a sense, we “purify” our self-expression. 

In the 7th house, we join with an other in a relationship, so this means that we learn about our self through the reflections from the other. Since we are co-creating a relationship in which we depend on the other while s/he depends on us, the Reptilian brain is deeply involved. We are investing and are vulnerable, so our experiences with our other tend to be unprecedented in depth because we project unconscious elements onto our other. In the 8th house, we transform by transcending our individuality: we may lose our ego through passion, our individual property becomes property of the relationship. In the 9th house, we expand our self beyond our relationship; we seek a bigger truth, we are on a quest to understand the world, how things appear to be, what is truth, not only for us as an individual, but for “society.” We formulate beliefs. We seek to know how our experience thus far relates to the larger world.

By the time we reach the 10th house, we have taken the self we created in the 4th through a journey with many twists and turns; this journey is alchemy because each house confronts our self with transforming in some way. The 10th, then, symbolizes society’s reflection of who we are. It is a result of this journey.

The Root

If we change our experience of the 4th, it reverberates through the 10th…

Nadir is the bottom of the northern hemisphere, which lies under the horizon, so it’s not visible. Also note that it is the first water house. When we create our self-concept, which is not necessarily who we are but who we think we are, we do this unconsciously for the most part since our intellect is just budding at this stage of development. As the 10th is the result of the 4th and successive houses, if you want to change your experience in the 10th, you’ll have the biggest impact if you start with the 4th.

As with all astrological symbols, the 4th has many levels of symbolism, but the key idea of home, family, country, ancestry, etc. is the root whence we sprouted as individuals. We have the need to be “from” somewhere. Here is some magic: all of this does not represent some kind of “objective” truth; it represents our experience of the symbol. Therefore, we may change our experience of any part of our lives. If we change our experience of the 4th, it reverberates through the 10th.

Working with Nadir

The main thing to keep in mind is that Nadir is largely unconscious, so we can’t approach it intellectually, we need to engage our unconscious. That said, we can use our intellect and conscious mind to focus and probe and wonder. We can create a space in which we can invite our unconscious to open up, and patience is key to this process. Astrology can be a huge help, too. Here are some things I do.

• Look at the big picture, the chart’s balance in polarity, hemisphere, signs, chart patterns, etc. How does Nadir synch with the overall?
• Analyze all the aspects to Nadir, and give more weight to aspects that are close to exact. I use Astrodienst to form and print charts, but they, along with all other astrology sites I’ve seen, do not note aspects to Nadir, only Midheaven. This is okay for the common aspects, but when you’re working with quintiles and septiles, you’ll need to calculate them separately (oppositions, trines, squares, inconjuncts, and octiles aspect Nadir and Midheaven with complementary angles).
• Although astrologers don’t agree on this, I have found that Nadir and 4th house correlate with the native’s experience of father and Midheaven with Mother. This can guide you in how you weight Nadir’s aspects to other father-denoting planets like Sun and Saturn.
• Saturn is of special importance here because, as the primary significator of structure of all kinds, it also symbolizes one’s incarnation itself, according to Dane Rudhyar. This can be quite revealing when interpreting Saturn’s relationship to Nadir because the self we first create in the 4th is what I call the “accommodated self” because we create this “prototype” when we’re virtually helpless children. Saturn represents what Rudhyar calls the “pure self,” which is the result of the energy of the universe before we started accommodating our earthly surroundings. The difference between them is eye-opening.
• Interpret these chart factors through the lens of, “How does this energy affect my self-concept?” Check out Chiron opposition Nadir for one example. If the Nadir is empty (contains no planet), look for its expression through its ruler, the planet that rules the sign on its cusp (Nadir).
• This analysis will give you a firm picture of the roots, so now you can use a similar process to interpret the leaves (Midheaven). Don’t be surprised if you feel resistance from your self (if you are doing this for you) or your client: we are conditioned to focus on external results and to shrink away from murky internal work that is uncertain in its resolution.
• Learn to do dream interpretation. Most of my mega-insights have come through dreams. If you are patient and committed, it’s not difficult. Check out Johnson’s Inner Work.