Caput Draconis in geomancy: the dragon's head, threshold and beginning

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Caput Draconis, the dragon's head, is a geomantic figure linked to the Moon's north node: threshold, entry, beginning. Form, traditional meanings, divergences and reading.

Key points

Latin name	Caput Draconis, "the dragon's head"
Form	Three lines of two dots and one line of one dot (at the bottom in the usual presentation)
Total dots	7 (odd number)
Associated celestial point	The Moon's north node
Keywords	Threshold, entry, beginning, welcome
Nature	Neutral, takes on the character of neighbouring figures
Sign	Virgo (Agrippa); varies between authors

The figure

Caput Draconis, the "dragon's head", is one of the sixteen figures of geomancy. It is drawn with four lines: three lines of two dots and a single line of one dot. In the most common presentation, where the lines are read from top to bottom as fire, air, water and earth, the single dot is at the bottom. Some authors, however, draw the figures upside down: graphic convention is not uniform, and it is the parity of the lines that matters for the calculation.

With its seven dots, it is odd: it can therefore never occupy the place of the Judge, which is always an even figure. It is the "reversed" form of Cauda Draconis: turn one upside down and you obtain the other.

A name from astronomy

The "dragon" of the figure is the one imagined by ancient astronomers to explain eclipses: the nodes of the Moon are the two points where the lunar orbit crosses the plane of Earth's orbit (the ecliptic). When a full or new Moon occurs near a node, an eclipse takes place. People imagined a dragon swallowing the luminary: its head is the north node (ascending), its tail the south node (descending). Indian astrology knows the same pair under the names Rahu and Ketu.

The nodes are not celestial bodies but calculation points, which slowly regress along the zodiac in a little under 19 years. Geomancy gave them a figure of their own; see lunar and solar eclipses for the astronomical detail.

Traditional meanings

In medieval treatises, Caput Draconis is considered a neutral figure: "good with the good, bad with the bad", meaning that it amplifies the character of the neighbouring figures. It is especially favourable for starting something: a venture, a journey, a relationship. The most frequent keywords are the threshold, the entrance, the doorway one walks through, and welcome.

Domain	Possible traditional reading
Project	A good moment to begin, provided the rest of the chart is favourable
Relationship	A meeting, an opening, a first step
Work	Hiring, opening, a new responsibility
Warning	A beginning is no guarantee: the figure is an amplifier

Planets, signs and divergences

The attributions vary. The texts of Agrippa and those that claim the authority of Gerard of Cremona associate Caput Draconis with Virgo and with a blend of Jupiter and Venus, planets judged beneficial. Some modern tables, including online encyclopaedic pages, propose other links (Sagittarius, for example); the elements are not unanimous either. This instability is not a flaw in the source: it shows that these correspondences are conventions that have evolved, not observed facts.

Keep the practical lesson in mind: read the figure from its general sense (threshold, beginning) rather than from a fixed table of planets.

In a reading

Placed in a given house, Caput Draconis highlights a point of entry. In the first house, it speaks of you and of your way of approaching the situation; in the seventh, of the start of a relationship or a collaboration; in the tenth, of a professional step.

An exercise: take a decision you have been postponing and ask yourself what the concrete "threshold" to cross this week would be. The figure invites you to name that first step, not to guarantee it.