posted May 18, 2005 12:29 AM              

Let's get to know the 10 planets we will be dealing with in Astrology. They are broken up into the Personal planets, Social planets, and Transpersonal planets.

The Personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) represent the basic components of the human personality. They symbolize the psychological urges that all of us share, and it is the various combinations of these planetary energies that produce our individuality. We each experience life in a way that is both specific to and the result of our unique genetic and environmental circumstances, but the will to survive, the need to respond, to think, to love and to act upon our desires is basic to every one of us. We are all imbued with these elemental drives, and the understanding of these planets according to their sign, house placement, and aspects to each other reveals the way our personalities are wired.

The Social Planets (Jupiter and Saturn)

Jupiter and Saturn are orbiting in the center of our Solar System, and correspondingly represent the relationship between our personal selves and the Universal Oneness we all share. Jupiter and Saturn signify the way we connect our subjective selves to the collective whole, through the development of objectivity, which is a social process. Objectivity means that we can be aware of the way others perceive us, or think about the effects that our actions may have on others. These two planets together embody the Social experience that each of us has, and they function to bring our connectedness with others to our awareness in diametrically opposed ways.

Through Jupiter, we learn to interact with others based on the experiences of growth, opportunity, childlike exploration and the expansion of consciousness, at every level. Through Saturn, we learn about relationships through such experiences as fear, restriction and limitation, oppression, handicap and the need to deal maturely with any difficult circumstance. Ideally, a balance of these two types of experience will lead to a fulfilling social experience of one self, but ultimately it is the placement of these two planets by sign, house and aspect that determines the quality and status of one's social awareness. With these two planets, we experience our lives in terms of a bigger picture, and so we gain the perspective we need to begin to comprehend the idea that a higher power is at work in our lives.

Transpersonal (Outer) Planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)

These three 'outer' planets represent the path to higher consciousness that is available to every human being on the planet. The energies of these planets are vibrating at a higher frequency, and so their effects are not always immediately obvious. However, whether we are aware of these 'higher' promptings or not, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are always working on us, bringing us to the willingness to step onto the path of our own evolution and urging us to become aware of the connectedness that exists amongst all of us. In this way we can Know the universal forces that bind us together here on Earth, and understand the power and meaning of our Oneness.

The Transpersonal planets represent three profound and eventually undeniable urges that we all experience: Intuitive awareness (Uranus), Enlightenment (Neptune), and the Metamorphosis of Self that results from these experiences (Pluto). These planets are slow moving and can take a very long time to manifest their true purposes in our lives, but they function to the best of their ability, whether we are conscious and ready to accept them into our lives or not.

The conscious experience of these planetary energies is very different from the unconscious experience, and because these planets represent such evolutionary forces, they can be quite uncomfortable to deal with when we are resisting them. Uranus can produce a jolt or a sudden turn in the life that can pull the rug out from under us. This leaves us on our behinds when we were once standing tall, and though that can sting, it is designed to get us to look at our lives from a new perspective, thereby awakening us to new possibilities. Neptune can descend upon us like a mist or a cloud, diminishing our awareness and even blinding us to what is real, and this process magnifies the more we resist it. But the lack of clarity is designed to cause us to walk without our senses to guide us. Faith is a profound experience when Neptune is strongly focused, and eventually we may come to realize that because we are creating our realities with our own thoughts and beliefs, we have the power to change those thoughts and thereby change our worlds. Pluto can put us through Hell, taking away what we think we want or need the most, forcing us to learn to let go and surrender to a more potent and All-Knowing greater good. The rebirth that ensues can truly show us the meaning of personal power.

The more conscious we are of the methods by which these universal forces operate, the more decidedly we can progress along the path to higher consciousness and human advancement. When these planets function, they generally affect large groups of us simultaneously (their actions are generational). The very presence of these forces and our knowledge of them automatically produce a greater awareness, and once we become conscious of that, we Know we have stepped onto the evolutionary path and can not turn back.

posted May 18, 2005 12:36 AM              

Sun - Fiery orb at the center of our Solar System. The Sun rules the sign of Leo, which rules the "Heart". The Sun is often linked to the father. Following your "Heart" is to honor and acknowledge your Sun, which represents your vitality, creativity, energy, self-expression, will and identity.

Moon - Body that orbits around the Earth. This is the Female Mother energy, ruling the sign of Cancer which rules the "Breasts". The Moon reflects the light of the Sun. It is our emotional, feeling nature. It is connected to our family roots and our past. When we honor our Moon, we honor our feelings. It shows how we nurture ourselves and others.

Mercury - The "Winged Messenger" and the "Trickster". Planet that orbits closest to the Sun. From our Geocentric, Earth centered, perspective Mercury is never more than one Sign away from the Sun. Mercury rules the signs Gemini‚ and Virgo. He indicates how we think and communicate. There is also a connection to siblings. His intimate connection with the Sun reminds us that we Create (Sun) with our Thoughts (Mercury). Think about it!