The planets
The ten bodies a birth chart is made of: what the tradition uses each one to mean, how it really moves through the zodiac as seen from here, and where each of them is at this minute.
- The Sun The Sun rules Leo.
- The Moon The Moon rules Cancer.
- Mercury Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo.
- Venus Venus rules Taurus and Libra.
- Mars Mars rules Aries and Scorpio.
- Jupiter Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces.
- Saturn Saturn rules Capricorn and Aquarius.
- Uranus Uranus has no sign of its own in the traditional scheme, which was settled long before it was found. Modern astrology makes it co-ruler of Aquarius with Saturn.
- Neptune Neptune has no sign of its own in the traditional scheme, which was settled long before it was found. Modern astrology makes it co-ruler of Pisces with Jupiter.
- Pluto Pluto has no sign of its own in the traditional scheme, which was settled long before it was found. Modern astrology makes it co-ruler of Scorpio with Mars.
Ten, not eight
Astrology counts the Sun and the Moon among the planets because the old word meant anything that wandered against the fixed stars, and they were the brightest wanderers of all. It also keeps Pluto, which astronomy reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Both choices are older than the modern definitions, and the pages here say so rather than pretending the definitions changed nothing.
The positions are geocentric — where each body appears from the Earth, which is the only place a chart is ever drawn from. That is why Mercury and Venus never stray far from the Sun, and why every planet except the Sun and the Moon spends part of its time appearing to go backwards, as the retrograde page draws.
Personal, social and outer planets
Astrologers often sort the ten by speed. The Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars move quickly enough to differ between people born weeks apart, and are called the personal planets. Jupiter and Saturn, at about a year and two and a half years to a sign, are sometimes called the social planets, shared by people born within a year or two of each other. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto spend seven to more than thirty years in a sign and are read as generational, so their houses and aspects say more about a single person than their signs do.
Benefics, malefics and the two sects
Traditional astrology, which uses only the seven bodies visible before the telescope, sorts them another way. Jupiter and Venus are the benefics and Saturn and Mars the malefics: labels for the character of what each one signifies, not verdicts on anybody’s chart. The Sun, Jupiter and Saturn belong to the day sect and the Moon, Venus and Mars to the night, while Mercury joins whichever side it rises on, before the Sun or after it. The dignities page scores each planet by the sign it is in, and the aspects describe how two planets are read together.
The planets and the days of the week
The seven old planets still name the days. English keeps the Sun, the Moon and Saturn in Sunday, Monday and Saturday; the other four days come through Norse gods matched with Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus, which French shows more plainly in mardi, mercredi, jeudi and vendredi. The order of the week comes from the planetary hours, where each day belongs to the planet of its first hour.
Reading a planet in a chart
Every planet in a birth chart is read three ways at once: what it stands for, the sign it is in, which colours how it acts, and the house it falls in, which says where in life it acts. Each planet’s own page gives a worked example of all three, along with its rulership, its exaltation and fall, and how it moves.
What a planet stands for is the tradition’s vocabulary, not a force. Nothing on these pages claims that a planet does anything to anybody; they describe what a chart uses it to mean, and where it actually is.
Questions people ask
How many planets are there in astrology?
Ten in most modern charts: the Sun and the Moon, the five planets visible to the naked eye, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and the three found with telescopes, Uranus in 1781, Neptune in 1846 and Pluto in 1930. Traditional astrology uses only the first seven. The Sun and the Moon count because the old word planet meant any body that wanders against the fixed stars.
What are the personal planets?
The Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars. They move quickly enough that their signs and houses differ between people born only weeks or days apart, so they carry the most individual part of a reading. Jupiter and Saturn are slower and shared by people born within a year or two, and the three outer planets are shared by whole generations.
What is the difference between a planet’s sign and its house?
The sign is the stretch of the zodiac a planet was in, and is read as how that planet acts: its style and tone. The house is the part of the sky it was in, measured from the horizon at the place and minute of birth, and is read as where in life it acts. Most planets’ signs follow from the date alone, but houses need an accurate birth time.
Why do planets appear to go retrograde?
Because the Earth is moving too. We overtake the planets beyond us, and Mercury and Venus overtake us, and each time one seems to slide backwards against the stars for a while. The Sun and the Moon never do. Mercury turns retrograde three or four times a year, Venus about every nineteen months, Mars about every twenty-six months, and the planets from Jupiter outwards once a year.