Astrology Basics

There are four elements in astrology:
Planets  Zodiac signs Houses Aspects

Each of them help explain different parts of your personality and life.  Planets are the different types of energy you express, zodiac signs determine how the energy is expressed, houses represent where the energy is expressed in your life, and aspects show tension, harmony, and fusion among energies.  When you combine all of these components and their meanings together, it’s pretty easy to understand or research the chart yourself.

Planets (Energy) ~

Sun (Rules Leo) - Your ego or essence.  The Sun is how we go about expressing our individuality.  It’s the way we give meaning to ourselves and makes us different.  Your sun sign, is most commonly referred to as your zodiac sign, or the sign that people find out when they ask your birthday.  The Sun can also represent your father or any factor relating to the father figure.  Even though the Sun is a sun, it’s still considered a planet astrologically speaking.

Moon (Rules Cancer) - Your inner soul or emotions.  What goes on inside of you nobody else sees is your Moon.  It can show what someone is when they are alone, their deepest desires, their needs, their wants, their inner child, and motivations.  It represents the mother or factors relating to the mother figure.  Even though the Moon is a moon, it is still considered a planet astrologically speaking.

Mercury (Rules Gemini + Virgo) - Your mind and communication.  If the Moon is your emotional mind, your Mercury is your mental mind.  It’s how you process things logically, rather than emotionally.  Mercury shows the ways in which you share ideas with others.  It shows how you express yourself.  Mercury is what carries thinking from your ego (sun) to the outside. 

Venus (Rules Taurus and Libra) - Your love and desires.  It is your love language.  It’s how you express love and what you need to feel loved.  Venus can tell you how open or closed you are in love.  It shows how committed you are in love.  Venus can help indicate what someone finds pleasuring or desirable.

Mars (Rules Aries + Scorpio) - Your passion and anger.  Mars represents any form of really strong emotions or feelings.  It represents physical expressions as well.  It’s like your physical energy. Mars can also explain your sexual nature.  When I try to guess someones Sun sign, I always end up guessing their mars because this energy is so apparent.

Jupiter (Rules Sagittarius + Pisces) - Your true knowledge, expansion and luck.  Jupiter tends to inflate or dominate the place that it’s in, highlighting the part in your personality.  You have more or express more of it than you seem to have or more attention is given there.  Sometimes Jupiter can make the place it’s located in too easy.

Saturn (Rules Capricorn + Aquarius) - Your control, restriction, and barriers.  Saturn has rings around it, like having something around it to keep it from moving forward.  Saturn puts difficulty wherever it is to teach you a lesson and soon you will gain some kind of karmic reward from it. You become a master in whatever it is located because the energy is forced to be expressed with a methodical approach, wisdom, and control.

Uranus (Rules Aquarius) - Your change, innovation, progression and unexpected.  Uranus is tilted on its axis, making it unique compared to the other planets.  Uranus shows where you have something interesting to bring or unexpected.

Neptune (Rules Pisces) - Your delusions, creative, and intuition.  Neptune makes it difficult to pinpoint or understand the area it’s located in, creating some form of illusion. But because Neptune represents intuition, you can see what others can not with a 6th sense based on where Neptune is located.  

Pluto (Rules Scorpio) - Intense feelings, destruction, power, and rebirth.  Kind of like mars, but these are all feelings felt deeply.  These feelings are not found blindly in the open, but are secret and dark.  This planet could indicate fear or vulnerability.  This energy breaks down and rebuilds itself constantly giving the place it’s located a chaotic feel.

Zodiac Signs (Energy Expression) ~

There are twelve zodiac signs in astrology.

• Aries - Independent, leader, lively, swift, competitive, ambitious, selfish, assertive
• Taurus - Comfortable, materialistic, beauty, stubborn, sensible, traditional
• Gemini - Quick minded, self-expressive, communicative, intelligent, itinerant
• Cancer - Homey, protective, emotional, nurturing, reserved, capricious, solicitous
• Leo - Dignified, leader, lively, creative, selfish, driven, domineering, charismatic
• Virgo - Analytical, logical, methodical, strategic, practical, smart, perfection
• Libra - Balanced, diplomatic, passive, selfless, manipulative, beauty, charming
• Scorpio - Cunning, manipulative, deep, secretive, investigative, intense, dark
• Sagittarius - Philosophical, optimistic, explorative, funny, intelligent, driven
• Capricorn - Ambitious, cautious, pessimistic, serious, hard-working, practical
• Aquarius - Individuality, innovation, genius, rebellious, detached, humanitarian
• Pisces - Delusional, selfless, intuitive, dreamy, universal, lazy, escapist, creative

Each sign represents different qualities and characteristics and ultimately determine the expression of a planet placed in one of these signs.  The signs are divided up into elements and styles.  The different elements are: fire, water, air, and earth.  The different styles are: cardinal, fixed, and mutable.

• Fire Signs (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius) are known for their passion, entertainment, and spirit for life.  
• Earth Signs (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn) are known for their stability, practicality, and value on the concrete or materials.  
• Air Signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) are known for their intelligence, communication, and ideas.  
• Water Signs (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces) are known for their depth, emotions, and psychic abilities.

• Cardinal Signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn) are known for wanting to control the environment around then.  They want to implement things to work for them.  They are the initiators of their element.
• Fixed Signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius) are known for being extremely stubborn.  They will do what they want to do, disregarding the affect they have on others or the affect others have on them.  Stubborn at heart, the energy they possess is constant, intense, and lasts forever. 
• Mutable Signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces) are known for being influenced by and working with others.  They are opposite of Cardinal and are willing to provide help or support to benefit everyone as a whole.

For an example, to help understand this concept, you take a sign combination that is mutable earth.  Earthiness gives a practical and logical sense, but they are helpful and willing to change for others because they are mutable.  This is the sign Virgo.  If you were to change the earth sign to a cardinal, you would get something that is more self-serving and leader-like rather than helpful, but would still give off that practical and logical feel.  This changes from a Virgo to a Capricorn.  Capricorns work very hard in a practical manner, but are in powerful positions directing people in their own view.  A typical Virgo is rarely found in a leadership position because they would rather help people mutually than give orders in their own vision.  By doing this you can tell the difference between signs and get a more clear understanding.

Houses (Where Energy Takes Place) ~

The Houses in your chart are split into twelve different parts each representing a different part of your life.  Wherever a planet (energy) is located in a house, is the part of your life expressed in that certain way.  If you don’t have a planet in a house, it doesn’t mean that house is messed up.  Just look at where the house cusps a zodiac sign.  If you don’t know what I mean by “cusping,” your Rising Sign (AC) is your first house cusping a sign.

1st House - Self and Identity (ruled by Aries)Also known as your Rising or Ascendent Sign (AC).  This is your self projection. This is what bridges you to the outside world and bridges the outside world to you.  It’s your cultivated identity and personality.  It’s what you want people see and describes how you prefer to go about life.  In many ways, the Rising Sign gives you the eyes and role of the sign it cusps.  For example, if you have a Gemini Rising, you take the role of the communicator and intellectualist.  If you have an an Aries Rising, you take on the role of the leader or competitor.  Remember, you only take on the role, your personality may be something else.  As another example, I have a Capricorn Rising, so I take the responsible and serious role, but my personality is fun-loving and carefree.  People see me as a cold person, when really I’m much warmer.

2nd House - Values, Possessions, Money, and Self Worth (ruled by Taurus)

After you have an identity, you need your second house to give your first house worth.

3rd House - Communication, Neighbors, School, and Siblings (ruled by Gemini)

Once you’ve been established the 2nd house, the 3rd house establishes your surroundings and the way you get your thoughts and ideas to others.  It’s passing knowledge on a day to day basis.

4th House - Home Life, Beginnings, and Family (ruled by Cancer)

This house is opposite your midheaven and can be referred to as your Medium Coeli (IC).  It tells you what it was like in your childhood and home.  This house can also explain your mother’s influence on you.

5th House - Pleasure, Hobbies, Romance, Children, and your Creativity (ruled by Leo)

Pretty much anything that is enjoyable will be located in this house.  It’s the house that shows what you like to do for fun.

6th House - Daily life, Work, Diseases, Enemies and Pets (ruled by Virgo)

This is the last selfish house.  It determines the way in which you get your skills and goals out into the world in a step by step manner.  Enemies, pets and diseases are found here because they can get in the way of your goals.

7th House - Relationships, Marriage, Your “Other Half.” (ruled by Libra)

Anything that deals with other people is found in this house.  This house is the Descendent (DC) opposite of your Rising Sign.  If your Rising is how you want to appear, your descendent is how you see everybody else.  It’s what other people have that you don’t.

8th House - Death, Rebirth, Secrets, Occult, Sex, and Deep Emotions (ruled by Scorpio)

Relationships are scary and probably one of the most important things in the world, which why this house has a lot of taboo things in it.  Relationships force us to look at things are uncomfortable and full of depth.  Emotions and fears for example.  8th house is what gives meaning to relationships as well as sharing your power and resources with others.  

9th House - Expansion, Travel, Exploration, Teaching, and Beliefs (ruled by Sagittarius)

Unlike the 3rd house, which is communicating thoughts and learning on a daily basis.  The 9th house are ideas and thoughts that are really important to you.  You can get an idea of how someone believes by looking at their ninth house cusp, like if they’re religious or not.

10th House - Career, Public Life, and Internet (ruled by Capricorn)

Also known as your Midheaven (MC).  This is your public image.  It’s what people see when you are at work or in front of a large amount of people.  In many ways, you could refer the Midheaven (MC) or 10th House cusp as your second ascendent.  This house can also explain your father’s influence on you.

11th House - Colleagues, Social Connections, Hopes, and Dreams  (ruled by Aquarius)

Gives meaning to your career an image.  If you don’t have people to work with you and if you don’t have a purpose then what’s the point of the 10th house.

12th House - Self Undoing, Aloneness, Vulnerability, Unconscious (ruled by Pisces)

This house is a kind of a confusing house.  It essentially wraps everything up in your life and kind of just contains things that we don’t really understand.  It’s the part of us that we don’t want to really accept.  This house has a lot to do with our relations to God or the universe.  The subconscious is found here.  It could also represent the breaking of ourselves and starting over as it is the end, while the first house is our beginning. 

Aspects (Tension, Harmony, and Fusion of Energy) ~

There are three main aspects that tell you something about planets within your chart.

Conjunction - Two planets 10 degrees within one another and fuse energies together.  For example, if someone’s mars and venus were conjunct, the way they love in relationships (venus) and the their passion and sex (mars) would become one.  They would display both male and female energies, making them androgynous and super attractive.  Conjunctions are considered the most powerful aspect.

Trine/Sextile - Planets that harmonize energies with each other.  For example, someone’s Saturn trine Sun would give someone’s ego (sun) structure and discipline (saturn).  If someone has too many trines, or only trines in their chart, they tend to be lazy; they’re not achieving much in their life.

Opposition/Square - Planets that have opposing or clashing energies that need to be worked out.  For example, someones Saturn square Sun would make someone’s ego feel too structured to the point of feeling restricted, which then causes depression and lack of self-worth.  Squares are difficult things to work with, but overtime can build character and endurance making the person quite successful.