The Sun: Your self and future
From the Sun comes light, that which draws us into life. The Sun represents all the changes we have not yet taken, that part of use that we have not yet experienced but are headed toward. The Sun represents our identity, or self (values and belief systems) It also represents that which we will become: older people, authorities those we look toward, or up to. Our essence, or future. The Sun is important and "hot stuff."

The Moon: The support system
Here is information about the kind of environment we create around us, our emotional support system. What nurtures and feeds you emotionally. The Moon rules your formative years, and can give an indication of what your mother was and indeed is like and how you were nurtured as an infant! Your image of your Mother


Mercury and Venus: The inner planets
These planets have more to do with our internal and personal life than with life outside us. These inner planets are located between the orbit of the Earth and the Sun. We can therefore look to qualities that are inside us. Venus indicates how we appreciate and measure our experience, how we value life. Mercury tells us something about how our mind works, how we think and communicate


Mercury: The mind and communication
Mercury is the light in our eyes, the ever changing consciousness within us that moves from idea to idea. Thus Mercury has always represented thoughts, ideas, and the mental process in general. It governs not only ideas, but communications, too by spoken by phone, letter, spoken, written, faxed etc.


Venus: Values and discrimination
Venus rules our values and sense of appreciation. When we appraise or appreciate something, whether that be another person or a new car, this is Venus the sense of love and compassion we may feel. By the same token, this planet rules enjoyment too. Whether it be self appreciation or just plain old decadent self enjoyment by having a good time, this is Venus. When we go shopping or are on a spending spree, it is Venus that allows us to appreciate and value all the good things in life.

The external planets: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn
The major planets outside the Earth's orbit (external to us) are Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These are the planets of the outer world.... life as we find it outside of ourselves.
Mars tells us something about the drive and energy we have, Jupiter shows us how to best channel that energy, and Saturn decrees what sort of material or territory we will be passing through. Again: Saturn tells us about the territory we will be going through, Jupiter the way or path through it, and Mars what kind of push or drive we can count on to keep going.

Mars: Drive and emotions
Mars is the planet of emotion and inner motivation or drive. When we search for the meaning of something, life or whatever, it is Mars that urges us on, keeps us searching. Mars also drives us against things, too and sends us into war and combat. The urgency of Mars, the search for meaning, is identical to the need for union, yoga and marriage. Mars is the planet of union, and marriage is the most common form of yoga. When we have questions about the opposite sex, we are looking at the planet Mars.


Jupiter: Career and life path
Jupiter is the planet of success and simple survival, the way we have to solve the problems that confront us. Thus Jupiter has to do with the way in which we can be successful, our vocation. The Hindu word for Jupiter is Guru. Jupiter is the guru and guide, the way we go through life, our life path or vocation.

Jupiter is the method each of us has for dealing with the laws of life. Jupiter is the light or path. Jupiter provides us with our sense of direction, the path we are one, the way we handle life. It affects how we approach life's problems. It has always been an indicator of how successful we may be, our vocation in life.


Saturn: Responsibilities
The process of find out who we are (self discover) starts when we come to grips with whatever problems life presents to us and begin to get a handle on them. In other words, if we have not dealt with Saturn, or time (that is, if we do not have some control of time), there is little opportunity for other questions. Saturn rules the laws and limitations of this material world we all live in. Saturn indicates where we are bound to learn, the narrowness that makes our way felt, the walls that make homes possible. Your image of your father

Saturn holds us together as much as apart. Saturn is said to be the great teacher, the planet that keeps us from getting carried away in one direction or another. Although it always seeks to limit and determine any thought, work, or action, it also defines and clarifies. Saturn is called the prince of the material world.


THE OUTER PLANETS
In the previous sections, we have dealt with planets that we can see with our naked eyes. In general, thee planets refer to life as we know and live it and are the so called historical or classic planets. Beyond these are three planets that are not visible in the sky and which have cycles longer than the average human life span. Since they are beyond Saturn or time, astrologers call them the trans personal or transcendental planets.... the pla¬nets beyond the physical. One of the ways astrologers learn something about our life beyond time (eternal life) is through these three outer planets: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Here we find information on how we discover ourselves (Uranus), how we understand and accept these discoveries (Neptune), and in time, how we depend and identify with them (Pluto).

Uranus: Break through’s and insights
Our responsibilities can tend to weigh us down, and we each have our particular ways of getting around (or breaking through) the mass of obstructions that tends to congeal around us. The planet that has to do with how we get beyond the difficulties and problems life presents us is Uranus. Here is the way insights come to us, how we discover or come to know and understand ourselves. It has to do with finding new uses for old things, and it rules inventions and sudden insights into our life..... everything that is unusual, eccentric, and out of the ordinary. It is the reverse of the status quo and is always unconventional and heretical. Uranus is, in many ways, the opposite or undoing of Saturn.

Neptune: Ideals and imagination
Even the most hard nosed of us have moments of real understanding, when things are seen as linked together and one piece. We stop getting the idea in little flashes and just get the whole thing. It dawns on us. We each have our own way of letting go, having communion, and (as the poet wrote) letting "the dewdrop slip into the shining sea." These moments and this state of mind are, in fact, the source for all our imagination. There are many ways of seeing through the separateness in the world to the unity behind it.

Pluto: Inner change and growth
Pluto is the planet of profound change, death, re birth and total transformation..... starting deep within us and moving toward the surface. If often touches upon the most sensitive psychological areas inside us. Once touched, we have no choice but to change and grow. The most sensitive of experiences, the times of greatest vulnerability, are times of complete identification with an experience, a person, or a thing. Perhaps this is only possible for most of us when we look into our child's eyes, and then only infrequently. Love is not the experience here, but total identification. This is very sensitive stuff. To touch upon this material is to go through deep inner change and transformation .... inner alchemy.