Planets in Astrology

What do the planets represent in astrology?

In astrology, the planets are the actors of the birth chart: they represent the psychological energies, impulses and functions that move within you. If the zodiac signs describe the how (the style, the colour, the atmosphere) and the astrological houses describe the where (the area of life, the stage), the planets describe the what: what force is acting, what part of you is being lit up, what need seeks expression.

Each planet rules a specific psychological function. The Sun is your conscious identity, the spark that makes you yourself. The Moon is your emotional world, the instinct that leads you to seek refuge and nourishment. Mercury is the mind that thinks, speaks and connects; Venus is the desire to love and to value; Mars is the will that acts, conquers and defends. Jupiter expands, gives faith and seeks meaning; Saturn structures, sets limits and teaches over time. Uranus liberates and reinvents; Neptune dreams, dissolves and unites; Pluto transforms, dies and is reborn.

Traditionally the planets are grouped into three categories. The personal planets — Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars — move quickly and describe traits that differentiate you from others, the ones that change from one week to the next. The social planets — Jupiter and Saturn — take from one to thirty years to traverse each sign and shape an entire generation. The transpersonal planets — Uranus, Neptune and Pluto — move so slowly that they define great collective cycles and entire epochs. Added to these are two karmic points: Chiron, the wounded healer, and the Lunar Nodes, the axis of evolutionary destiny.

To interpret a planet in your birth chart you need to look at three things: the sign it is in (how it expresses itself), the house it falls in (where it acts) and the aspects it forms with the other planets (what other energies it dialogues with). This page is the starting point for exploring each of the ten celestial bodies and the karmic points that shape your chart.