Angel of Forgotten Souls Vice Captain
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 Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:02 pm
The planets in a birth chart represent the common human needs and urges that we all experience, although we go about fulfilling those needs in a variety of ways and styles. By knowing your child’s chart, you can see how best to teach them health in all areas in their life. Let’s look at a practical breakdown of the ways each planet addresses the five areas of health most directly.
The Sun represents our fundamental sense of self, as separate and distinct from others. Like the planets in our solar system all revolve around the sun, it is what all the various parts of ourselves center around and thereby represents a set of behaviors and attitudes that form the base of our identity. When we are taking care of our Sun’s needs (as indicated by the sign and house where our Sun is found in our birth chart), we have a sense of wholeness and sanity, like we know who we are. The Sun has ties to all five areas of health because without it, we run out of vitality and energy even to continue the process of living.
The Moon represents our primary emotional needs, what makes us feel secure and nurtured. It can also indicate the ways we most easily feel someone’s love, and the way we like to show our love and care for another. It represents what we would call our heart. The Moon is tied most to our emotional health. When we are taking care of our Moon’s needs, we are more likely to be happy. When we are not, we feel insecure and unhappy.
Mercury represents how we learn and process information, and how we communicate that information to others, as well as listening and paying attention. It also can indicate the subjects we most like to learn and talk about. It is our voice, figuratively and literally. Mercury is tied most to our social and mental health. When we are taking care of our Mercury’s needs, we are speaking up when we need to, we are keeping our brain healthy, and we are engaging with the world on some level. When we are not, we may feel scattered and unable to concentrate.
Venus represents our desire to make connections, be it to people or to the world around us, which includes the kind of people we find ourselves drawn to (whether for love or friendship), and the way we go about attracting people to ourselves. This also includes our ability and interest to express our creativity and to take inspiration in from our environment. Venus is most directly tied to our social health. When we are taking care of our Venus’ needs, we feel creatively connected to our world and are nurtured by our relationships. When we are not, we may feel lonely and uninspired. Mars represents our will, which includes how go after what we want and our sense of self-empowerment. It can also indicate the ways we handle conflict, experience and show anger, and defend ourselves, when necessary. Mars is tied most to our physical and social health. When we are taking care of our Mars’ needs, we are effectively resolving conflicts and feel that we are powerful enough to effect change in our lives. When we are not, we may feel powerless or experience built up frustration that is not expressed effectively.
The Ascendant (sometimes known as the Rising Sign**) is not a planet but can be understood and interpreted in the same manner. It is an important point in our birth chart that represents how we interface with the world. Imagine a person as a house. Every house has a front door, and that front door (as well as the entire front of the house, actually) can give people an impression about what they assume they would find inside the house. It is the same way with people as we create first impressions of others by their overall presentation (including their mannerisms and physical appearance). The Ascendant represents how we feel comfortable interacting with others in everyday situations. It is your personal style and outer appearance (physically and our general persona).
Unlike the formal definition of the word persona, the Ascendant is not a calculated or planned set of behaviors. In fact, when we are taking care of our Ascendant (as indicated by the sign in which it falls in our birth chart), we are comfortable in our own skin and don’t have to think about where we place our hand or how we are dressed or what expression is on our face. When we are not, we feel socially awkward, vulnerable, or out of place. The Ascendant is most tied to social health and to a lesser extent, physical health.
These planets are sometimes called the ‘personal planets’, because we easily engage with them from a very early age and on a constant and personal basis. When we get older and start experiencing and expecting more from life (perhaps around age 12 or so), we start to encounter the remaining planets in a more recognizable and conscious way.
Jupiter represents our sense of our own potential, as well as the potential inherent in life’s experiences. When we are taking care of Jupiter, we are taking appropriate risks to challenge ourselves and reach for our potential. A healthy Jupiter leads to faith in ourselves and in the world. An unhealthy Jupiter leads to unfocused greediness or naïve and foolish actions. Jupiter ties in most easily with spiritual health.
**It is called the Ascendant or Rising Sign because it is the sign that was rising or dawning over the horizon at the time of your birth and it represents, as my mentor always liked to put it, “how you dawn on people.”
Saturn represents our desire for accomplishment and our ability to do what we need to in order to achieve our goals, such as exercising self-discipline, patience, practice, and commitment. When we are taking care of Saturn, we are taking responsibility for the results we get or don’t get as a result of our action or inaction in certain areas of our life. An unhealthy Saturn may lead to us lamenting the natural consequences that arise from our lack of effort and endurance, and allowing ourselves to feel victimized by people or circumstances without considering our own accountability. Saturn can tie into all areas of life, depending on what lessons it represents in your birth chart according to sign and house placement.
Uranus represents our quest for individuality, to discover and embrace what we really are as opposed to what we have been taught to be by our peers, our parents, our culture or the media. Healthy Uranus behaviors result in awareness of a pure element of the self and an acknowledgement of our right to pursue what makes us uniquely ourselves. An unhealthy response to Uranus can result in unfocused rebellion and contrariness without the benefit or result of self-knowledge. Uranus ties in most easily with spiritual health and in some ways, social and mental health.
Neptune represents our ability to receive and trust intuition as well as our connection to divinity and/or our higher selves. When we are taking care of Neptune we know the difference between a healthy surrender of our ego to cooperate with our intuition and inner guidance and an unhealthy surrender of our ego where we do not have appropriate boundaries between the self and others. An unhealthy Neptune can also result in having our head in the clouds and making poor judgments. Neptune ties in mostly easily with spiritual health.
Pluto represents the process of turning wounds and fears that we have accumulated in this life into personal power and emotional strength. As we grow, we encounter people and situations that cause us pain, pain that is sometimes too overwhelming to properly process at the time. As we gain strength and maturity over time, it becomes appropriate for us to deal with these wounded parts of us at various stages in our life. A healthy response to Pluto is acknowledging when it is time to look at a fear or a wound and facing it, processing and letting go of some of it to access more of ourselves and our personal strength. An unhealthy response to Pluto can result in letting the usefulness of our defense mechanisms expire to the point where now our fears are keeping us more hurt and trapped than what originally hurt us in the first place. Like a bandage, sometimes we need to protect the wound, but sometimes we need to take that bandage off to air out the wound and let it finish healing properly. Pluto ties in most easily with spiritual and emotional health, and can tie in to mental health to some extent.
Like the Ascendant, the North and South Nodes are not planets, but are two important points in the chart that represent the overarching principles of our soul’s purpose. The North Node represents a set of attitudes and experiences that we are trying to embrace to further our growth. The South Node represents attitudes and experiences that we are comfortable and familiar with (perhaps too comfortable). If we rely on the South Node behaviors too much alone, they can limit our growth and lead to existential boredom and dissatisfaction. The North and South Nodes are primarily linked to spiritual health.
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