chart rulers and such

Some texting with a friend a few days ago (she was noting all the venus action in her chart- sun and moon) led to the topic of chart rulers. It's pretty easy to figure out- it's the planetary ruler of your ascendant. my friend's ascendant is cancer, so her chart ruler is the moon.


Brief rundown of the others signs and their rulers:
Aries-Mars
Taurus-Venus
Gemini-Mercury
Cancer-Moon
Leo-Sun
Virgo-Mercury
Libra-Venus
Scorpio-Pluto and Mars
Sagittarius-Jupiter
Capricorn-Saturn
Aquarius-Uranus and Saturn
Pisces-Neptune and Jupiter.

This adds another dimension to your chart, to see a driving force behind your whole chart. Someone with a Pisces rising, Neptune ruled chart is going to be led by a vision, which may or may not be rooted in reality, but will inspire them for good or ill. Jupiter flavor can come in as well, perhaps making this vision seem larger than life, which can be intimidating or inspiring, depending. Someone with a Mercury ruled chart is going to be ruled by busyness- thinking, overthinking, doing, overdoing- but will they allow themselves to move forward?

Uranus rising has a deep need for personal expression in this life. It goes down deep and if they feel blocked or oppressed an especially wild side may come out. Mars is energy, striving, a FORCE to be reckoned with. Pluto takes this Mars energy but hides it down deep for safekeeping. Saturn is steady, methodical, but need a release so the pressure won't burst them, they almost need to give themselves permission to have fun (they deserve it!). Jupiter wants to expand, travel, and generally open up to the world and potential experiences. The sun rising is bright and their presence will ALWAYS be felt. And Venus... Venus expects harmony and beauty but at what cost? They may need to figure out less obvious ways to reach their objectives...


Back to my friend, and fellow moon ruled charts: The moon is characterized by an ebbing and flowing, feelings running DEEP and emotions coming on strong and leaving just as quickly. The moon ruled chart then makes me want to see where the MOON in her chart falls, since we know that the moon has a strong influence. Her moon is in Venusian Libra, in the fourth- which is the moon's natural house. a-ha! More evidence of a very lunar lady. :) However, Libra is a very mental sign, rational thought always at least tries to break through, no matter what the rest of the chart looks like. So, she has a bit of a balance (another thing Libra rules), balancing act, between the emotional and the mental aspects of her personality. I think of stillness, anything that allows for serenity, no matter how fleeting, is going to be very beneficial for someone with these placements, as it will allow for their overworked mental and emotional faculties to rest for a few moments, which can allow for fresh air to roll in... New insights. :)


(For more information, could google "___ chart ruler meaning." An Alan Oken site may come up first, as it did with mine, and he goes into much more detail than i will about chart rulers- great read. (As an aside- his books are fascinating).

As he points out, some signs have more than one ruler. Scorpio has Mars and Pluto, Aquarius has Saturn and Uranus, and Pisces has both Jupiter and Neptune. Some signs have multiple rulers because the planets simply hadn't been discovered yet! Can you see how this may be true for the Scorpios, Aquarians, and Pisces you know? How Scorpio has the drive of Mars, Aquarius fights the restriction of Saturn, Pisces has the same need for expansion as Jupiter.)


Anyway, I digress. What planet rules your chart, and how do you see it? I want to follow up this post sometime in the future by talking about planets that fall in the first house, and how that can affect things... but, first things first. :)

sometimes i draw instead of blog

...and it's pretty loltastic. the girl in the daytime part of the chart is just REALLY happy, okay?! heh.

anyway, it's basically just some thoughts on different houses in the chart, of which there are 12. each has a natural ruler and qualities that sort of govern the house, and then your specific chart fills in the details...

the top half of the chart is the "daytime" part. what's we're putting out into the world, and where. could be obvious, but not obvious because it has been for so long. relating to the other in any sense of the word. it's bright even where it's dark.

and the bottom half is the "nighttime" part of the chart. a focus on your inner workings, what comes out, what's created from these spaces in one's chart... beneath the surface. even the light is dark, light reflected in the moon and stars.

this is obviously SUPER first draft. posting this because i haven't done anything here in days, and i tried writing something and it just felt forced and wasn't going anywhere. feeling a restriction in that third house. i need to be adaptable in the ways i communicate and work and travel...
(am i the only one starting to be confronted by my control issues?)

(control=scorpio=solar plexus chakra. you can physically work on negative stuff around control issues by working on this chakra. you can visualize it being light and clear and bright yellow like the sun. you can rest a hand there, or a crystal or a stone. breathe there. mind/body. stray thoughts from yesterday, and yes there's lots of scorpio in the sky right now, although the moon no longer is there, has moved on to sagittarius).

okay, so i wrote more than i thought i would. hello to whoever reads this. :)

edvard munch and the dark

It's Saturday again. It's already pitch black here in Maine. Has been since about 4. I feel unsettled. I just discovered Planet Watcher yesterday. Love how easy it makes it; all the past, current, and upcoming transits are listed. Still, so much Scorpio in the sky, but Sag provides a lifeline.

I looked up Edvard Munch's birth chart the other night. I don't remember how but I came across The Scream online somewhere, a print of which hangs up in one of my sister's room and that my son once said was "mama." heh. Anyway, that all led to me looking up his chart and actually his birthday was in not even two weeks from now, the 12th of December. I ended up reading his biography too and it was so interesting.

But back to the chart, Capricorn moon, trine Pluto in Taurus. Slow moving but powerful. Uranus in Gemini, the thought of which just makes my head spin. It makes me think of madness, not for the individual in particular but just as a theme for the day... the mid-1800s. And so, so much Scorpio in his chart. Intense undertones. Like a hidden passageway, or something. Not unlike the sky right now- Sag, but lots of Scorpio in the sky, with Saturn, Mercury, Venus, and the North Node of the moon there...Add in the Cancer moon stirring things up inside us and it feels wild, but in an understated way. Madness? Heh. Kidding...

Well this ramble of a post is coming to a close. :) Happy Saturday...

The universal appeal of The Scream. "Is the money you make worth the price you pay?" (Graham Nash)

"the square is agony"

About a month ago I was jotting down some random thoughts on the Astrological aspect of the square, in my phone. Actually... exactly a month ago. Hmm. Obviously I was frustrated while writing it, as it reads like this:

The square is agony.

Self inflicted?

Choices seem impossible.

Can't get out of my own way.

What to do? What to strive for?

Wanting conflicting things.

No balance like an opposition.

It's like an awkward poem. And yeah, it sounds kinda doom-and-gloom. It could be spun another way. And I do think that there are beneficial aspects of the square. It does create action (conflict) within oneself. I think that it is seeking, as opposed to a trine which is more about receiving. Less work, but there can also be less appreciation with a trine- almost an entitled sense. I feel the square truly does appreciate. Appreciates it when things go their way! ha.

The square is near and dear to my heart because my chart is FILLED with them. Let me count... sixteen. Without counting my asteroids and Ascendant/Midheaven, it's down to eight. This is mainly because I have a lot of Pisces and Sag in my chart (although I do have a Venus/Neptune one as well, but in different signs). Pisces and Sag are both mutable. There are definitely, definitely similarities between the two. I relate very much to both signs. 

But that angle does create tension. I'm forever weighing choices, I DO get in my own way, and I even daresay an element of self-sabotage. Like what I wrote in my previous post, about what Doreen Virtue had said, about the ego not wanting you to believe that you're already good enough.

Getting down to the technicalities- a square is a 45* angle. They most commonly occur between signs of the same quality- cardinal, fixed, and mutable.One of each element occurs within each quality. It's like having different ways of dealing with something, having the square in your chart. Clashing perspectives that can leave you gridlocked.

What helps me a lot with this aspect is writing, journaling. Getting the crazy thought process out of my head and onto paper (or the interwebz). It lets me be more objective, and see what may be mental noise more than anything. Meditation can help that stress, as well...

The free way to see if you have a lot of squares, or any aspect, in your chart, is to mosey on over to astro (the "extended chart selection" page) and draw up a free chart, then cruise to the bottom of the page. You'll see a grid with the info, and from there you can google the aspect itself or the individual squares. For example, Mercury square Uranus, like in the chart below (not mine- just an example chart. :) ). Oh, and I like to select "draw aspect lines to Chiron." :)

What aspects do you notice in yourself, and how do you make them work for you?

aspect overview/cut and dry

Aspects are the ways the planets interact with one another.

There are four basic aspects:

Trine: planets three signs away from each other, aka signs in the same element (water, fire, air, earth). This represents an easy flow of energy in that part of the chart. For example, Aries and Leo, fire signs, trine.

Planets four signs away from each other, with the same quality (cardinal, fixed, mutable), square. An example of square are the fixed signs of Taurus and Leo. This is more of a challenging aspect.

Signs opposite each other are in opposition, duh, for example Aries and Libra are in opposition. This signifies an area of life where balance is an issue.

 Conjunct is two planets in the same sign. This intensifies the sign and planets in the chart.

Astro makes it pretty easy to find out your aspects. When you get your free chart, you'll see a chart like this on the bottom left-hand side:

This is where it gets kind of confusing- you have to decipher the symbols! You can see each planet running diagonally down the top of the chart; sun, moon, mercury, etc. The symbols inside the chart show the aspects. At first, I'd recommend just look at the four major aspects- square (represented by a square :P), a trine (triangle), opposition (two circles joined by a line), and conjunct (a circle with a line going out of the top right).  You can see that this person's Venus and Mars trine, while their Moon and Mars are in opposition.

Or you could just look at this, from wizzards, which is an awesome site btw. If you want to get more specific, this shows the actual degrees between the aspects- the closer in degree they are, the tighter the aspect, and more intense it is:

This adds another dimension to Astrology and your chart. :) You can start to put more pieces together and get a clearer picture of your chart and yourself! After you've done this it's easy to Google "jupiter trine pluto," or whatever, to see what sort of info pops up.

This is confusing stuff, so please feel free to ask away in the comments if you have any questions about your aspects! I'm not sure if this is super clear so please ask if anything's unclear. Sorry that this is such dry material, but I wanted to bring it up...

Also, I have a new plan of action for blogging... an experiment, of sorts, to try to keep me more on track. Let's just say that today is "aspect day." :P

What's a transit?

Alternate title: Look at my new buttons! :) I love 'em. I'm thinking about adding an instagram one as well, but the problem is that I have to do a third-party thing (since instagram is mobile-only, officially), and I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that yet. Anyway, you want these buttons for your website, I found them here.

So. What's a transit? It's something I've talked about before on here but today I realized that I never really defined it. You know how you have your birth, or natal, chart, right? Your birth chart captures the exact moment of time when and where you were born on this Earth. Transits refer to the planets' positions at any given time. To the right, you'll see a box under "Today's Solar System." This tells you all of the planets' current positions. 

Does that make sense? Next is the tricky part, but not really because astro makes it super simple. 

So you have your chart. Now, take those current planets and put them into your chart. Where the current planets fall tell you what houses in your chart- parts of your life- are being activated. Maybe there's a current planet or two in an empty house of yours; perhaps a planet is forming an aspect to a personal planet (fancy talk for a planet in your birth chart), and activating that planet in a different way.

That's it. To expedite finding yours, go here (astro.com's "extended chart selection" page), and select natal chart and transits* from the first drop down menu. After putting in your birth data, you will see your birth chart as usual, but with green symbols around the chart, which stand for various planets. This provides a visual to see where the current, transiting planets are falling in your chart.

example of the natal chart with transits*  selection on astro.com. note the green planets around the chart.

I've done blog posts on different house transits here and here, if you'd care to check them out.

Thanks for reading! xo

way down east, maine.

foggy drive. way down east. maine.