Rahu and Ketu are not planets. They are the two points where the Moon's path crosses the apparent path of the Sun. Eclipses happen only near them, which is why every tradition has treated them with a particular seriousness.
Rahu, the North Node, points toward what is unfamiliar and hungry: the direction that feels awkward yet keeps calling. Ketu, the South Node, describes what already comes naturally — talents so well rehearsed that they can become a place to hide.
Read them as one axis, never as two separate verdicts. The house that holds Rahu names the area of life asking for courage; the opposite house, holding Ketu, names the resources you already bring to that effort.
The nodes move backwards through the zodiac and take about eighteen and a half years to complete a cycle. Their returns around ages 18–19, 37 and 56 often coincide with a quiet change of direction rather than a dramatic event.
Astronomically, the nodes exist because the Moon's orbit is tilted about five degrees to the ecliptic. Twice a month the Moon crosses that plane, once heading north and once heading south. Those two crossing points are the nodes, and they always sit exactly opposite each other.
In the Indian tradition Rahu is the head of a celestial serpent and Ketu its tail. The image is useful: the head is all appetite and no digestion, the tail all memory and no direction. Neither is good or bad; each is incomplete without the other.
Consider Rahu in the tenth house with Ketu in the fourth. The person may feel pulled toward a visible vocation, recognition and responsibility, while home, family and inner privacy come easily — perhaps too easily. Growth means stepping into public life without abandoning the roots that steady them.
Reverse it, with Rahu in the fourth and Ketu in the tenth, and the story turns around. Competence at work may be almost automatic, while building a home, a private life or a sense of belonging is the unfamiliar, nourishing challenge.
Planets close to either node colour the axis. A planet conjunct Rahu tends to be amplified, restless and hard to ignore; a planet conjunct Ketu can feel strangely familiar, gifted yet detached. Look at aspects to the nodes before drawing conclusions about the whole chart.
Transits over the natal nodes, and eclipses falling near them, often mark periods when the question of direction becomes urgent. They rarely force a single outcome. More often they make the old pattern visibly uncomfortable so that a choice becomes possible.
In consultation, the nodes are best offered as a question rather than a verdict: where are you hiding in what you already know, and where are you being invited to learn? Clients usually recognise the answer before the astrologer finishes the sentence.