I haven't read her work, so I don't know what she means, but here's how I would interpret it:
If you're looking for the potential indicated by the north node, consider its sign/house combination. What are the meanings associated with its sign? Throw out the keywords you can think of. Let's say the NN is in Leo. So, indications include self, love, joy, play, creativity, personality development, responsiveness to others (in the sense that Leo self development depends on positive feedback exchanges with others--for example, a comedian tells a joke, the audience laughs, the comedian tells more jokes. The audience's laughter is positive feedback for the comedian, and the jokes are positive feedback for the audience.)
Then consider the house. A Leo NN in the first house is very different from a Leo NN in the seventh. Also consider it in contrast to the south node's house. Let's say we're looking at a case of south node in Aquarius in the seventh, north node in Leo in the first. The past life history--could be literal past lives, could be just unconscious expectations internalized by the native--is one of being focused on relationships (seventh house) for reasons that more about fulfilling social expectations (Aquarius) than about entering relationships because they're genuinely fulfilling.
The native may, in fact, have done that in the first two or three decades of this lifetime: gotten married just because it was expected of them, and/or dated someone they didn't really like just because that person was considered a good catch. If it's showing up as a south node issue, not only has the native done that, they've staked their identity on it. This could be, for instance, a woman who's thoroughly identified as a wife, but doesn't really love her husband, he's just the prop that gives her an identity. Or maybe that was a past relationship, or past relationship pattern. This might be a person who strongly feels they need to be in a relationship or they're nothing, but they have trouble finding a relationship in the first place. Or maybe that kind of behavior showed up in high school--this was the cheerleader who dated the captain of the football team just because of his status--but they move on from it fairly early.
The north node, in this case, is telling us that they need to develop their identity outside of a relationship, based on whatever they genuinely like. If there's a planet on the north node, that modifies the message. Venus on the NN? They need to develop self love (and they might have a big life story around unrequitted love, stemming from their staking their sense of self on relationship). Mars? They need to go out and do something to develop their sense of self, probably something challenging, competitive, or risky. Sun? Self development message is doubled down, and they've probably started heading to the north node early in life (if not, they're having a huge identity crisis before they're out of their teens). In contrast, if they have the sun with the south node, they probably stay stuck on "I need a relationship" longer, and they actually do need some kind of relationship--at the very least, other people to bounce things off of.
If the house placements of the nodes were reversed, self development would happen more through relationship to others, and there might be some resistance to that, some "I don't need other people" attitude (that would be a south node pattern).[/QUOTe
Nicely done Osa. A lucid explanation.
