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the wandering lights

Planets

The Sun and Moon, the five old wanderers, and the three outer planets added in modern times. Each carries an astrological voice and an astronomical motion of its own.

  1. SunThe Sun marks the chart’s centre of gravity: the part of a life that seeks coherence, visibility and purposeful expression.
  2. MoonThe Moon describes habit, appetite, memory and the quick adjustments through which a person meets ordinary life.
  3. MercuryMercury concerns exchange: speech, writing, calculation, curiosity, dexterity and the way one thing is translated into another.
  4. VenusVenus describes attraction and agreement: what is valued, what gives pleasure, and how affinity is created or maintained.
  5. MarsMars shows directed force: the capacity to cut, compete, defend, pursue and act before consensus has formed.
  6. JupiterJupiter enlarges and gives direction: confidence, law, belief, generosity and the larger ideas by which a life finds its bearings.
  7. SaturnSaturn describes limits that acquire weight over time: duty, scarcity, endurance, structure, age and the consequences of delay.
  8. UranusModern astrology uses Uranus for rupture, invention and the insistence on a freer arrangement when an existing order has become rigid.
  9. NeptuneModern astrology uses Neptune for permeability: imagination, devotion, glamour, confusion and experiences in which ordinary boundaries soften.
  10. PlutoModern astrologers use Pluto for compulsion, exposure and irreversible change—processes that strip a situation down to what still has power.