How does energy travel past the first node established in a standing wave?

the standing wave is just an observed outcome of two waves of the same frequency traveling in opposite directions and interfering with one another. The energy in the two waves isn't traveling 'up and down' but rather in the direction of the two waves. When the two waves meet and are out of phase by 180 degrees they 'cancel' one another and appear as a node. When they are in phase with one another they add and the peak moves up and down with the frequency of the component waves.

A standing wave is a "stationary" or a "steady-state" picture established after many wavelengths have interfered.

Bofore that, there is a non stationary motion that carries energy.

Note, the energy density is calculated from the summary amplitude, not as a sum of two energies of the opposite waves :-)

The nodes are zeros in the resultant (standing) wave. They have no effect on the propagation of the constituent progressive waves. They arise by antiphase superposition of the progressive waves, whose (scalar) amplitude is non-zero and the same all along the path of the waves, including at the nodes themselves! [That's the key thing about the Principle of Superposition: a wave propagates just as if other waves weren't there!]

Of course we can't observe the progressive waves, only their resultant, the standing wave. Indeed, we don't always even have to think of a standing wave as the superposition of progressive waves travelling in opposite directions; we can regard it simply as a collection of oscillations whose amplitude varies smoothly from point to point, with zeros at nodes, and with phase reversals at each node.

Typically in a wave, energy exists in two forms: potential and kinetic. In the case of a stretched string, potential energy at any point on the string corresponds to displacement from the straight line connecting the two ends, while kinetic energy corresponds to the speed at which the string is moving at each point along the string.

At a node in a "perfect" standing wave on a vibrating string, the string is neither displaced nor moving, so there is no energy at that point. No energy passes through that point either. Of course, if each of two counter-propagating waves is considered separately, energy is propagating in each. But in a perfect standing wave the energy propagation of the two waves is equal and opposite.

However, there is never a "perfect" standing wave. Because there are always energy losses due to friction, etc., the counter-propagating waves do not perfectly cancel each other at the nodes (which in this case are points of energy minima, not points of zero energy). If the resulting standing wave is analyzed in detail, it can be seen that energy does flow through those minimal but nonzero nodes.

There are two effects to bear in mind here. Firstly, the standing wave does not simply spring into existence wholly formed- it evolves from a travelling wave. The second is that the zero amplitude of the vibration at the node does not imply that energy cannot be transferred beyond it. In a transverse wave the node acts as a pivot, rather like the pivot of a see-saw- the pivot doesn't move but nonetheless a force applied at one end of the seesaw causes movement at the other end beyond the stationary pivot.

To understand the role of a node in a longitudinal wave, consider an instance of Newton's cradle with three balls- if one of the end balls is raised and allowed to fall its momentum is transferred to the ball at the other end even though the central ball does not move with a noticeable amplitude. Here the central ball is acting like the node- a stationary element through which momentum and energy can be transferred.