The planets

Classical astrology counts seven planets: the Sun and Moon — the two lights — then Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. These are the bodies visible to the naked eye, and the whole system rests on that.

What the seven mean

• Sun — the living, the centre, the act of appearing. It describes what a life tends towards.
• Moon — the body, habit, mood. The fastest factor in a chart and the most changeable.
• Mercury — thinking, speaking, trading, conveying. It takes the colour of whatever it is joined to.
• Venus — affection, measure, beauty, agreement. The lesser of the two benefics.
• Mars — separation, drive, quarrel, tool and weapon. The lesser of the two malefics.
• Jupiter — growth, law, generosity, permission. The greater benefic.
• Saturn — limit, duration, age, structure. The greater malefic — and at the same time the one that holds.

Each planet carries more than the line that sums it up; if you want to take them one at a time, there is a planet-by-planet overview.

What about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto?

Discovered in 1781, 1846 and 1930, and invisible without instruments. For classical astrology this is not incidental: the system rests on domicile, exaltation, triplicity, term and face — and those assignments distribute twelve signs among seven planets. An eighth, ninth or tenth body has no place in it, no dignity, and nothing to do.

Modern astrology uses them and assigns them signs. One should simply know that the assignment is recent and does not come from the same source as the rest.

Condition matters more than position

This is where popular accounts stop and interpretation begins. Saying a planet is "in sign X" says almost nothing until its condition there has been established.

• Essential dignity — is it in its own sign, its exaltation, its triplicity, its term, its face? Or in detriment, or fall?
• Accidental condition — is it on an angle, where it can act, or in a cadent house, where it cannot?
• Combustion — is it too close to the Sun to be seen? A combust planet is, in the tradition's image, overwhelmed.
• Sect — day and night births differ. Saturn belongs to the day, Mars to the night; a malefic in its own sect is markedly less difficult.

A Jupiter in fall, combust, in the twelfth house promises more than it can deliver. A Saturn dignified, angular, in sect will carry — even though it is the "bad" planet.

Rulership

Every sign has a ruler, and through the houses everything else depends on it: the ruler of the sign on a house cusp is the planet through which that area of life is read. Seven planets and twelve houses thus form a web in which everything answers to something else.

See also: the ascendant, the signs, the houses.