Rahu and Ketu differ from the other seven grahas in one fundamental way: they are not physical bodies at all.
Seen from Earth, the Sun's apparent path and the Moon's orbit do not lie on the same plane — the Moon's orbit is tilted. Where the two planes intersect, there are two crossing points. Neither can be seen with the naked eye; they are notional.
The point where the Moon ascends is Rahu, the North Node; the point where it descends is Ketu, the South Node.
Most of the time the planes are not aligned — which is why solar and lunar eclipses are uncommon. Only when they do align does an eclipse occur.
In Sanskrit, Rahu and Ketu are still called grahas, but they are not planets and neither was assigned a day of the week. And in your chart, they always sit exactly 180 degrees apart, directly opposite one another.
What does Rahu signify in Vedic astrology?
Rahu's nature is the future.
It is bound up with craving — and the two are really the same thing. Whatever you crave is by definition something you do not yet have: not having it is what makes you want it, and wanting it is what drives you forward. Craving therefore always points ahead.
In the traditional imagery Rahu is a head. The story tells of a god who severed it, separating head from tail thereafter. Rahu is that head: a great mouth, endlessly consuming, endlessly pushing forward — and no tail at all.
Why is Rahu exalted in Taurus and debilitated in Scorpio?
Taurus is naturally the second house — the family's wealth, the resources your household provides, food, and every kind of comfort.
Which is precisely what Rahu wants. Food, money or enjoyment, Rahu finds Taurus thoroughly agreeable and operates at full strength there.
Scorpio, by contrast, is dark and secretive. Rahu likes display and material things it can see — confronted with darkness that may conceal anything, and a scorpion that may be venomous, it grows fearful. So Rahu is uncomfortable in Scorpio.
Rahu's own sign is Aquarius, a deeply innovative sign and the sign of collective consciousness. We talk constantly now about consensus — do you and I agree, does this society agree, what is everyone thinking? That is Aquarius.
Rahu ceaselessly wants what is new, wants to move ahead, wants to innovate — and so it drives what one person wants, what two want, what a hundred thousand or seven million want, all in the same direction.
Rahu is our head
Rahu is our head, and therefore our free will.
Consider: the eyes, ears, nose and tongue are all on the head, and the mind is the brain. These senses take in signals without pause, and without pause they report: I like this, I do not like that.
No external stimulus is even required. You lie down and it feels good — like. Three minutes later something itches — dislike. You scratch it and the relief arrives — like. Three minutes after that you are too warm, you turn on the air conditioning, and comfort returns — like.
And on it goes until you fall asleep. Always forward, one thing after another after another. That is Rahu.
Rahu and what you came here to do
We arrive here having lost our memory.
The Chinese speak of the broth of forgetfulness, and every ancient tradition has some version — you are struck senseless before you come down, and the memory is gone. That is symbolic, of course: nobody actually hits you. It is that our own attainment is insufficient. In the same way you cannot recall what you dreamt after waking, Buddhism calls this ignorance.
So when you entered your mother's body and took form there, you had no idea what was happening. Of our own past we know nothing whatsoever.
The birth chart offers a way of recovering some of it. Rahu signifies what you came into this life on Earth to complete. What you already possess and have long since mastered belongs to Ketu.
Key facts about Rahu
- Name: Rahu (North Node)
- Nature: not a celestial body, but the ascending intersection of the Moon's orbit with the ecliptic
- Signifies: the future, craving, free will, innovation, collective consciousness
- Symbol: the head — a dragon's head with no tail
- Exalted: Taurus
- Debilitated: Scorpio
- Own sign: Aquarius
- No day of the week is assigned to it
- Always 180 degrees from Ketu