There are I guess, several reasons why people get into astrology. Most of you have read a horoscope and some of you will have taken the interest further and read astrology books and blog articles. However, almost all of you will have engaged with astrology with one fundamental objective – to discover more about what makes you, well, essentially YOU.
With this in mind, I started to think about how astrology works to reveal our inner self. Most of you will be familiar with your ‘Star Sign‘ – the sign occupied by your natal Sun – and some of you will also be familiar with your Moon Sign and Rising Sign too. However, for me, the best way of getting to know yourself is to become familiar with all of the planets. Why? Because each one represents part of your essential nature as a human being so when you look at them all together you get a very good blueprint of the person you were born to be.
It’s often very easy for us to focus on the parts of ourselves we like and ignore the bits we don’t like quite so much. However, unless we are prepared to acknowledge all of the qualities that make us who we are and accept the parts of ourselves we find the most troublesome, we will never fulfil our true potential. By looking closely at what each planet signifies, what sign it occupies and where it’s located in your natal chart, we can come to better understand how complex we are as human beings and how each part of us represented by the planetary energies contributes to the whole person.
So, without further delay, lets remind ourselves of what each of the ten astrological planets represents in astrology. Learning how each one works in your life – and using your knowledge to ensure their energies are expressed as well as possible – is your own 10 step program to better self awareness and understanding.
Sun
Regardless of sign, the Sun represents the basic essence of your character – your personality. It’s the energy you radiate out into the world, your own personal star at the core of your unique solar system. The Sun is your ego – it lights up your self esteem and if you’re that way inclined, your self importance. It governs your pride – and we all know the difference between being proud of our achievements and well, just being proud.
Understanding how your Sun‘s energy works according to it’s Sign and house position is the key to you becoming aware of how you express your Sun. Solar traits can be acted out in both positive and negative ways. The more conscious you are of your own character, the easier it is to combat the expression of negative traits by bringing them to light and accepting yourself as you are. After all, the Sun is your consciousness – it is the energy that makes you aware if yourself as a unique person. It gives you the strength to carry on in life and it prompts you to follow your instincts to move your life forward. It is your source of confidence, courage and creative expression. Use it well.
Moon
As the Sun gives out, the Moon takes in. According to it’s sign, the Moon governs your emotional responses, your sense of security, the things that make your comfortable – and otherwise. It’s pretty clear from this that getting to know your Moon is a great way of upping your levels of emotional intelligence. However, the Moon is unconscious and instinctive and it’s not always easy to bring your deepest emotions and needs to light – especially as the Moon has a dark side – those emotions and feelings we are happy to repress as they’re sometimes to hard to deal with.
So, a great way to learn to use your Moon wisely is to understand that it’s sign and house position gives you the clue how to best process your responses to the world around you. Being comfortable with life and emotionally balanced is always preferable to hiding your more difficult feelings away on the ‘dark side’.
Mercury
Mercury, ruler of Gemini and Virgo, is where and how you make contact with the world. How you communicate in all ways – speech, movement, transportation – even your choice of car and phone will owe a great deal to the sign that rules your natal Mercury and it’s house position in your natal chart. Mercury by sign governs how you use and enjoy language, the books you read – or not.
Mercury is the planet of curiosity and by sign and house position it tells you a great deal about how you take in and process information, organise your thoughts – and organise yourself. You need Mercury to make decisions, to evaluate between one course of action or another, to understand those handy instruction booklets that come with every appliance – and to process and understand everyday life itself. Without Mercury your life would be a lonely place – hey, we all need someone to talk to.
Venus
And we all need someone to love. There is a tendency in astrology to think of Venus purely in terms of relationships as Venus is the goddess of love. It is true, Venus according to sign does indeed tell you a great deal about your approach to relationships – and love relationships in particular. Venus shows who and what you find attractive but to focus on this to the exclusion of all else is selling Venus short.
Your Venus house placement is a pointer to your basic values in life – the things that are truly important to you at a fundamental level, as well as the things that give you pleasure. By sign, Venus governs your personal tastes, is an indicator of your artistic and aesthetic inclinations as Venus loves to create beauty and order – some of which may simply be in the eye of the beholder. And Venus is, of course, happy to splash cash to do so – your Venus by sign is a good indicator of your attitudes to material things – especially money – and her house position shows where you may be spending it.
Mars
Every Venus needs a Mars we are told – and yes, it’s true. Venus may rule romance but Mars represents your most basic go getting drive – the force that propels you after the things you want, whether it’s a person, an object, a personal goal – whatever is, Mars wants to ‘win’ – and I use that word in the broadest sense as in ‘to go after and get’. Mars is your most basic survival instinct and your Mars sign shows how your Martian side behaves. Your sex drive, your competitiveness, how well you control your temper (or not), the ways and force with which you assert yourself will be determined by the nature of your natal Mars sign. Natal Mars by house will show the part of your life where those Mars energies are most likely to act out.
At this point, I’m going to add a brief note about Mars and Venus. Traditionally they are associated with male and female archetypes, and it was thought men found it hard to express their Venus and vice versa. I don’t hold with that view – regardless of gender or sexual orientation for that matter, we are all capable of expressing Venus and Mars energies is a positive manner and should strive to do so. Remember, as I said earlier, those energies are part of you and should be honoured.
Jupiter
Jupiter is a social animal – and your Jupiter sign shows how you seek to take more of the world into your life. At an everyday level, your Jupiter sign tells you how you may go about acquiring knowledge or any activity that expands your boundaries. So, your attitudes to long distance travel, higher education, anything foreign or alien to you – by which I mean anything that takes you out of your habitual or fallback position – are governed by your Jupiter sign. Jupiter is the force that moves you onward and upward in life. If you feel stuck in a rut? Check out your natal Jupiter and discover how, by sign, you express your Jupiter energies and by house, where they may be best deployed.
If you’ve been frustrated with your life to date, or lacked optimism, you may have been overlooking your Jupiter potentials. You may need to trust not only your own abilities, but also how other people will respond to your efforts. You may need to approach life in a more optimistic frame of mind and make an effort to improve your life. Getting to know Jupiter can be great way of opening your mind to the possibilities that are out there and developing the wisdom you need to be truly happy in life – and have a sense of humour too.
Saturn
Saturn is the complement to Jupiter. Often viewed as the depressing polar opposite to the bringer of joy, Saturn is actually like green vegetables – essential for your wellbeing though you’d rather be eating something else. By sign, Saturn shows you how you approach responsibility, dedication and hard work and tells you a great deal about your attitudes to authority. Saturn in some signs may find it more difficult to deal with rules and regulations than others and if that applies to you look closely at how Saturn can help you develop self control and self discipline. Regardless of sign, that potential is always there with Saturn.
Saturn by sign governs your attitude to commitment, the ways in which you are reminded of your limits and how you approach being part of society. Saturn by house is also however, an indicator of the things you like to avoid doing, where you procrastinate in life, what you fear and try to ignore. Facing up to those things and simply getting on with them is perhaps the greatest lesson you learn – often our limitations are self imposed and using Saturn’s energies well helps you to simply get over yourself. It hurts to hear that but sometimes it needs to be said.
Uranus
Uranus is the first of the ‘generational’ planets – so called as the outer planets move slowly in the heavens. That, however, doesn’t prevent Uranus from having some personal input in your chart as it’s influence will be felt, according to it’s sign but more specifically in the house it occupies in your natal chart – and often it will be felt in a very disconcerting way. Uranian energy is disruptive and where Uranus falls in your birth chart indicates the area of your life where you experience change – often unexpectedly – and potentially significant stress. However for some people they welcome the excitement that Uranus can bring – and in this approach perhaps lies the solution to dealing with the disruption Uranus brings to our lives.
Learning to embrace Uranian energy is perhaps the best way to deal with it however, that’s not always easy as it involves having to accept changes that are often uncomfortable. Uranus can eject you out of your comfort zone with astonishing speed but the purpose of this – as it is with all of our difficulties – is to get us to discard the outworn in our lives, accept new situations and discover they’re not so bad after all.
Neptune
It’s difficult to describe Neptune‘s energy as well, energy. In fact it’s difficult to describe Neptune at all. Another generational planet, Neptune will, of course, express it’s energies according to it’s sign but by it’s house placement it shows the area of your life where you find it hard to stay in the present. The planet of escapism and dreams, Neptune can be inspirational, creative or plain addictive and delusional and it can be the most difficult planetary energy to deal with as it feels so elusive. The house where Neptune is situated can feel like a soap opera – but even that tells you one glaringly obvious thing: unless you let go of the people and emotions that keep turning your drama into a crisis you will never find the inner peace you need and that’s really the place Neptunian energy wants you to flow towards. And sometimes you really do need to get real and enforce a few boundaries. It’s not always as dull as you imagine.
Pluto
Finally, the darkest energy of all. The outermost planet (in astrological terms), is associated with raw primeval energy – the dark side of our existence – and as such, Plutonian energy is very difficult for many people to own up to. Again, Pluto‘s energy is influenced by it’s sign but at an individual level it’s most noticeable in the house it occupied at the time of your birth. Depending on it’s house placement, Pluto‘s energy can erupt as almost any form of obsession. Pluto in your natal chart shows where you need to be in control – largely because underneath it all you feel powerless or out of control. From this you can see it can be incredibly self destructive – both to yourself and others – erupting as jealousy, manipulation, bullying, coercion and a host of things, all of which you would not want to experience being on the receiving end.
A great way – in fact the only way – of dealing with your Pluto energy is to meet it head on. Pluto wants you to look deep inside yourself and root out the fears, phobias and obsessions that have taken over your life – and which you so often project onto others – and transform your life by accepting yourself as you are – warts and all. This is the legacy of Pluto – the ability to heal using unrelenting honesty as your medicine.
So, in this article , I hope I’ve given you some insight into how astrology works at a very personal level to enlighten you to your own character. Of course the subject of astrology as a whole is rich complex and diverse – in a blog post I can only scratch the surface. However, If you feel like exploring further, keep following this blog – I’ll be adding further posts and pages for you to read and, hopefully, enjoy.
© Sara Shipman
