North Node in 4th House
Read about the North Node in the 4th House and then click the link at the end to take the test to see how well you understand this nodal placement.
Having North Node in the 4th House, you came into this lifetime with an assumption that you would always be in a position of authority and that naturally you should be in control. While you have this memory from past lifetimes, in fact, you are here now to focus not on others but on putting your own house in order. Attempts to manage or direct people will lead you to feeling empty and frustrated in this lifetime. When you organize your affairs and address your own emotional problems, the universe will support you.
In your childhood, one or perhaps both parents may have been exceptionally demanding, instilling in you a belief that you were destined for some great achievement. Astrologer Martin Schulman cautions that this conviction may be afflicted to the point that the person with North Node in the 4th House “firmly believes that without his achieving some great destiny, life is utterly worthless.” Schulman suggests you learn the value of the old adage “A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush.” Do not forsake what you have for the possibility of what you might achieve, he warns.
Your relationship with each of your parents is more important for you than for others. People with these nodes are known especially for a deep connection with their mother. You are keenly aware of your dependence on your parents, now and in the past, but also struggle for independence. Coming to terms with your roots is part of your lifetime task of subordinating career to personal life. This does not mean that you cannot have a career, however. Consider Anton Chekov, Alex Haley, and Tennessee Williams, who all share this placement of North Node in the 4th House and found great acclaim through their writing about families.
Be aware of your motives for any goal. If you are pursuing something for the sake of recognition, to make yourself valuable in the eyes of a third party, or to give yourself legitimacy, then you will surely be unlucky. When you act for the sake of your own happiness, to further a healthy home life or to nourish your own emotional growth, good luck will follow, for this is your karmic path.
As the emphasis in this lifetime is on home and family, you will most likely be blessed in this area. Serene domestic surroundings, solitude, and privacy are good for your soul. Balance lifetimes of public acclaim and responsibility with long periods of soul development. Above all, attempt to develop emotional maturity. You are not the center of every situation. You are here to learn to nurture others.
Do not indulge your desire for power or recognition. Surely you will only exacerbate your feelings of inadequacy and provide evidence for your conviction that you are underappreciated. Also beware a tendency to climb the social ladder or indulge feelings you will someday take your rightful place in society. Such thoughts will lead you from your spiritual path.
While you find it easy to organize for others at the office, this is just a distraction. You must turn and face your emotions at home. Learn to express and honor them. You will find the love and appreciation you long for only by opening up the emotional faucet. Resist the temptation to bury yourself in work. Rather, plunge into the dark night of the soul: devote your time to loved ones, garden, cook, heal, tend to your home and spiritual matters.
Look within and you will find a brave new world even more exciting than the one outside you. What’s more, you are bound to discover at the end of the long journey that everything you are you owe to your parents. As T.S. Elliot wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started /And know the place for the first time.”
Think you are ready to take the quiz to see how well you understand this node placement?
Click here to Take the Test!
Recommended reading:
Karmic Astrology, vol. 1, Martin Schulman
Astrology for the Soul, Jan Spiller
Purchasing the books through the links provided supports the site by generating a small commission.
WOW! Spot on… thank YOU! <3
What would a retrograde North Node mean? Example : N. Node Leo Retrograde 4th house
Nodes are almost always retrograde. Their normal motion is backwards
Im thinking your the king of your Homelife with these placements.
Beautiful work, fellow astrologer! A friend of mine found your blog and pointed me over here!
*waves*
Thank you for the praise and for taking the time to leave a note.
Thank you I see the patterns in my life
Spot on. Exactly what I have experienced and struggled with in recent years. Thank you!
Thank You so much for this. I couldn’t have read this at a better time for me than today when I asked the angels for a message. It has given great comfort.
Words of wisdom and comfort on my personal journey.
Thankyou 🙂
Definitely feel solidly screwed on the career/rightful place in society front. Seen my seemingly totally unstoppable Capricorn work ethic and ambitions just completely ripped to shreds countless times.
For me, domesticity is awful. It feels like sleeping with 5 blankets, or wearing 5 sweaters, or something;
I’ve gone homeless by choice two separate times, and could truly care less about starting a family. Had a ‘son’ once and failed him permanently. My poor boy… My nurturing side is strong but out of that sense of loss instead of a bona fide motherly feeling. Moon is in fall, and has given me great psi gifts, but is a very dark thing.
Anyway with this ramble… I want to attest that this outline of s node cap in 10th, n node cancer in 4th, is accurate. Very much so. I am not getting the clear affirmation I incredibly demand right now on simply this: am I incarnated here for a deep purpose or should I just kill time? Gifted or not, I demand that basic shred of self knowledge, not having it disgusts me and I’m tired of waify internerds making things up along these lines. So I’m going with what worked in the past in my occult studies/experiences. And that’s astrology. Watch out for your s node refusal to let go. In this case, your similarity to Hitler who clearly went with s node cap instead of evolving. N node cancer is yin. Get feminine. But with your lifetimes of backbone.
Some similarities here, I failed at any attempt to get social recognition, despite being the gifted kid at school. Although admired (or hated) by other teens, I never felt good at school. Then I had my 1st failure when (not) graduating university. Spend a few months (year ?) in squatts, which was maybe not a good idea, as I wasn’t even in good company…
I could never find a girl friend who was to my real liking, and when I went with those who were open to me, it always turned into short stories. Except for one but she was a cheater, I even got krabs – Libra SN, here.
No regular job, went back to care for my mother when she became old – which sounds quite good for 4th house NN, but no way I could have a family or a house of my own. With the 10th house rejecting me so bad I could not afford to feed kids or pay a mortgage. Which paints quite a lose-lose picture, but this is apparently the karma described by these articles, be happy what you have, and enjoy whatever emotions come, be it after a good meal or the frustration to be a ‘loser’ in the eyes of most ?
Sounds quite weird for a meaning of life.
Makes me think of this Black prisoner freed in 2020 in the US after 40 years in jail, turns out he was innocent. Someone asked him what he felt about this, he replied that he was not angry, and had enough time to experience emotions that other people can not even imagine… apparently that was good enough to fill a life, for him.
But without any status, most people do not respect you, they think it’s your personal choice, pure lazyness, and you won’t get away with some obscure story about a ‘4th house’, when you don’t even have your own family ?
I study a lot of astrology, and thought I was familiar with all that I could be with my chart. North Node Pisces 4th house. Your insight is so helpful, especially with current planetary placements!
Thank you so much. So accurate. Very helpful. Really, thank you very much.
Hello,
I have my north node in capricorn but in the 4th house. So what’s my agenda?
Hey did you get an answer because I’m the same way?
What would a North node leo in the 4th mean? I’m so confused about this placement
Thank you for the note, Sonia.
love the information i got from this site. some true, some not so much. i have north node in 4th house in virgo and south node in pisces in my 11th. very close to my mom (but i have 2: one that raised me and one that birthed me but didnt raise me) LOL
Thank you for this article. It gave me some clarity. Most of it is very accurate some maybe not yet. The achieving part is very accurate, the motherly bond not so much, and the family peace at home not so much. I have a north node in Pisces in the 4th house in retrograde. How would retrograde work for that?
I need to make money.
It’s not something I’ve been doing, I went to work before and had horrible protaliban sexist bosses, one even spanked me, but I didn’t quit
Got fired.
I think my MC & Venus in Scorpio South Node in the tenth house, keeps me in places I shouldn’t be but simultaneously compels me to commit a metaphorical suicide. I’ve stopped selfinflicting, my father raped me when I was 13, mummy was jealous of my school, so I got myself kicked out. I find parents have always roadblocked my development and can say the same for Tennessee Williams, Lee Harvey and Anton Chekhov, all of whom were abused, none of whom had a serene perfect home life as you describe it.
They wrote about slavery, torture, rape, sexism and they wrote from the experience inflicted on them by family esp. parents.
I think the goal for true Node in the 4th house is to see parents as children, as needy, dependent, sycophantic , soul suckers who when not fed & coddled will set out to destroy you with your help very successfully, but when nurtured forgiven their follies accepted announced but dismissed will behave themselves and stop road blocking your life.
I think the actress Clara Bow also had north Node in the 4th house
I have north node in 4th house Virgo, my parents were roadblocks in my success as well, my father left when I was very young and my mother is a raging alcoholic who is jealous of me (I’ve since it ties with her). I think we must use the house ruler planets of our node houses and understand their relationship, people with our node positions must realize our karma is to love ourselves and therefore we can truly nurture other, which will in turn bring us peace.
Cut ties **
Can confirm, NN in 4th. Unhappy childhood and home. This Node seems to be about creating your own new “home” and as you said viewing parents as kids eventually, and forgiving them for their not always bright decisions. At least that’s happened to me.
1000 % affirm your points about parents as children. My placement is NN 4th in Scorpio. Parents have each been devastating and disruptive across the whole of my life, from before their divorce at the age of 2 years until present day, these people have been adolescent victims and abusers. Purely as a matter of personal protection and healing I was compelled to cut ties with each of them, independent of each other, during the past 10 years.
I have been around astrology for many years since a child (one of the few yet monumental gifts given by my mother…) and the moon’s nodes perplex even astute astrologers. Your post further validates my experiences in this life. Thank you
wow! This does hit home! Thank you for sharing, very insightful!
north node Capricorn in the 4th house seems to be saying the opposite thing. I can see both aspects being relevant but how to combine them?
“Be aware of your motives for any goal. If you are pursuing something for the sake of recognition, to make yourself valuable in the eyes of a third party, or to give yourself legitimacy, then you will surely be unlucky.”
And this has been true throughout – just didn’t know why I’ve been so unlucky. Looking at my chart and setting out to find answer, I found your blog. Today, I struggled to finish a proposal for a new contract and wondered why I was just not into doing this, although I really need this work, like yesterday. Reading this north node in the 4th house was like standing in front of a huge mirror that reflected back this blairing image of truth, of which I cannot ignore any longer. I will finish the proposal. Now it’s time to be free and really enjoy life & loving. Reading this is yet another conformation for me to trust and take care of me, forgive my parents (both are deceased) for not being there for me emotionally – they were great providers and I was very close to my mother, inspite of her being emotionally distant. I appreciate you for sharing this – it shook me deeply. Thank you and Blessing to you as well.
My NN is in Capricorn + my 4th – SN is obviously in Cancer + 10th = they are flip flopped basically.
From the age of 17 – 30’ish – hard work + high achievement in business, graduate school, etc.
Then past 19 years (2001 to present) have been one challenge after the next.
What are the lessons + “things to learn” here? I don’t have a family of my own – boyfriend of 10 years didn’t work out + my fur babies (my kids) past into spiritual world recently.
While I don*t have a definite answer as to what are the lessons to learn for you, I*ve found it useful for the “flipped” situations to think of the planets as the energy that the actors (the planets) use or are influenced by in this particular house, allowing for a broader scope of the term family which could be a group you belong to or identify with, anything from a group of friends of yours, for whom you provide a home (not necessarily in the physical sense), to a community or even the family of mankind (which would fit the aquarian time we are just entering).
Some in this thread have suggested mastering the art of forgiveness could be a task for NN 4th – with mastery a rather Capricorn issue…..
Hey, I just read the 4th house north node description. I feel so stuck and lost now lol because my Northnode is in Aries and that describes alot I was told to do the opposite of. What am I supposed to do? Please my parents and keep losing and killing myself…..or focus on being the home person and golden child they need doing all the perfect house stuff they taught me….without a sense of self? Sorry not criticising onky asking for guidance cause I’m confused on what I’m allowed to do.
These past few years have been great for learning about lack of control and the need for emotional maturity. This article provided me an integration of some of the learnings I’ve gleaned from this time and before. Am feeling more aligned with the journey now… Thank you!
Funny cause I don’t have family or family life. i consider my best friends my soul family. I don’t want a family with kids – the stereotypical family life and cringe at the thought of being a housewife lol. NNode in scorpio in 4th house conjunct pluto…
I share with many here, the 4th house Virgo NN. And I have the added affiliate of Jupiter resting in my 4th house. I always thought to make my parents happy, make them proud of me. Value thy elders and what not. And for 16 years I have worked for them. They have all but abandoned the business, not the money,, just the work. I do the work. 1.5 years ago, I mentioned I was ready to sell. I could foresee much detangles happening with in the network. 1.5 years later, I’m still doing all the work, and all the “crap” has come to be, to add, I just cant support us here, I don’t make enough money….That to me is beyond words, as I can see from my job, how much of it there is. I think I realize I need to cut my losses and walk. I will get nothing, and my born in family may struggle to see (siblings) why I did this. As they don t seem to receive the same treatment. And I am freaked of this total loss. I have a beautiful family. That I find are also at risk of the manipulation of their grandparents. This happened to my oldest daughter (11 years older than my youngers) And I am faced with loosing everything I have worked for, to flee, take to another state, begin again (which I”m stellar at) and follow my dream (writer) and spiritual path…So I know I must. I just find it incredibly sad, too. Perhaps I will write of family, as I already write on karmic levels because it’s so natural. Don’t be too worried I love to do things in metaphor, so it’s an easier read then straight forward. I must. I don’t have a choice. I guess that today I send the text. Letting them know that I will not work 6 days a week open to close again. I will not be there through the holidays. Are they just taking advantage of me? Is that what they always did? well lets see, Because I have other aspects to dive into, and I have a hefty load in my 12th house, not to mention BML rests at a comfy 24th degree Leo also, taking refuge in my 4th house. So in this mind, so mote it be.
Spirit on, my friends. I send genuine love light your way. As you walk this life and this astoundingly amazing time of transformation, I hope you find it well received. I wish you vitality and fortunate blessings as you path forward in to the Aquarian age, the age we may find solace, Be well, be free, and my you find your greatest joy.
Beautiful! Spot on! I will take these words with me moving forward in life. Bless you!
I am 70 yrs old and wish if only I’d known this years ago. I am very much estranged from older siblings and lost my father at 14yrs and my mother in 2017. I have lived overseas many years. But would visit my mother and family many times.
That was an excellent appraisal of north node in 4th house, south node in 10th, thank you!