Astrology For Beginners

[RedRose]

Astrology is a symbol language. It is simple, but not everyone is going to be good at astrology because it requires the ability to take different combinations of symbols and merge them in your mind, and pop out with a synthesis of them all. That is not easy for everyone. Many folks have different sets of mental gifts, of course, due to being here on earth for different purposes.

Your astrological horoscope answers five basic questions - What? (the planets and asteroids), How? (the Signs), Where?( the Houses), Connections? (Aspects) and Why? (Angles and Nodes).

WHAT: The planet and asteroids show me WHAT is going on. To see what someone projects outwardly, I look at their Sun sign. To see what they feel inside, I look at their Moon. What they are interested in and mentally stimulated by, I look at Mercury. To see what they find beautiful and attractive, I look at Venus and so forth.

HOW: The astrological sign that any given planet or asteroid is in tells me HOW someone is going to express that planet or asteroid. Someone with Mercury in Gemini is going to be extremly fast witted and interested in everything, sometimes to the point of being scattered. Someone with Mercury in Capricorn is going to be interested in learning what it takes to accomplish something tangible and lasting.

WHERE: The House shows me WHERE, what area of someone's life the planet or asteroid is going to express itself. Mercury in Gemini in the 7th House (the House of one-on-one relationships and marriage) is going to apply all that mental passion to understanding relationships, while someone with the same Mercury in Gemini in the 11th House (of humanitarianism and paradigm shifting) will be constantly thinking up ways to save the world, or at least a part of the world.

CONNECTIONS: Aspects (conjunctions, oppositions, trines, squares, sextiles etc) show us the connections and relationships between the agendas of the different planets/ asteroids in the different areas (Houses) of our life. For instance, our Sun shows us what we project outwardly, our personality, and the House it is in shows us where we should be shining our light in the world. Our Moon shows us what we need inside, what our emotional needs are, and what House the Moon is in show us WHERE we need to have our emotional needs met.

For many of us, our outer agendas (Sun) and our inner agendas (Moon) are in conflict (oppositions or squares). Then again, for many of us they actually work well together (trines and sextiles).

Just because we have a lot of squares and oppositions in our charts doesn't mean we are cursed, and people with all trines are blessed. Actually having too many trines makes people a bit dull. They appear to the rest of us like they are taking an R and R life, at a time in history where there is lots of work to be done.

"Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl who was born into a wonderful family. She did great at school, was very popular, married a terrific guy and had two wonderful children. She had a pleasant job and a nice house, took happy vacations, lived a long life and she died in her sleep peacefully."

It might be a great life, in theory, but not the type of life worth reading about.

WHY: The angles of our chart (Ascendant, IC, Descendant, and Midheaven) and our North and South Nodes answer the question of WHY are we here, what is our purpose in having incarnated?

Since there are many planets and asteroids, acting from 12 different signs of the zodiac, and showing up in 12 different areas of our lives (Houses) and some of these planets/asteroids work together and some of them are in tensions with each other....well it is a big synthesis job to be able to see the big picture, the whole scope and how it all creates a whole and unique person.

Love and Light,

RedRose

[RedRose]

The one thing astrology does NOT communicate is soul evolution. Two babies born in the same hospital at the same time will have the same horoscope, but they won't rise to their challenges this life and use their gifts in the same ways. For instance, one may be born the only child , into an up-class snotty family while the other baby is the 7th child in a working class home. If they both have Saturn in the 3rd House, an astrologer will know that each of these souls will be challenged by their cultures and environments to get the education they need to pursue their soul's purposes. They will both need to work hard at this, coping within their own situations, cultural limitations and dealing with a set of very different parents.

Not only will one of them probably work harder than the other to pull off their soul work, one of them may well have worked harder in past lives as well, which gives that child an extra advantage. So two people with the same scopes, have everything in common, but they create VERY different lives.

RedRose

[RedRose]

Hi Clouds,

Here is some more basic astrology background.

RedRose

[cloudspanther]

Thank you redrose,

I appreciate it, greatly.

lady bless,
clouds

ps, okies, with the talk of where you are born etc. I am slightly confused, cause I am an only child by my mother, but I am my fathers 7th. Does that relate in astrology? Or is it like the decorations on a cake?

[ValD]

Thank you redrose,

I appreciate it, greatly.

lady bless,
clouds

ps, okies, with the talk of where you are born etc. I am slightly confused, cause I am an only child by my mother, but I am my fathers 7th. Does that relate in astrology? Or is it like the decorations on a cake?
No, it doesn't relate at all to astrology.

[cloudspanther]

thanks for the answer valD I appreciate it, I asked more cause of the referance made to the two children born at the same time but into polar opposite familys. How they would develop ect.

lady bless,
clouds

[Aidron]

That was thoroughly informative, RR (now that I type this, it makes me want to think of you as double retrograde girl... too much astrology info swirling around in my head).

[RedRose]

Thanks Aidron,

I have Mercury, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto retrograde (appearing to move backwards) this life; the rest are direct. These planetary forces are thus inwardly directed within me, experienced within more than manifested in outer world ways.

Yet sometimes I wonder if retrograde planets actually reflect ways we are "different" - counter-culture? For instance, mercury retrograde folk are quirky, a bit odd - eh? When everyone is going one way, Mercury retrograde folk are busy elsewhere.

RedRose

[RedRose]

The following is an edited version of a post Fluffmeister wrote which I think is a fabulous beginner's lesson.

RedRose

Fluffmeister instructs:


Everyone knows their Sun sign - when you say to someone "I'm a Cancer", what you're really saying is "my Sun is in Cancer". "Cancer" is a particular chunk of sky, and that's where the Sun was when you were born; the Moon was in a different chunk of sky - perhaps the Moon was in the chunk of sky called "Aries" when you were born, and various other planets were in other chunks of sky. There are 12 chunks of sky, called "signs".

Now, as well as the planets which move quite slowly, the Earth spins every 24 hours, so a different chunk of sky is rising over the Eastern horizon every couple of hours. The sign that's rising when you are born is therefore very dependent on your birth time. It is your "rising sign" or "Ascendant".

Your Ascendant is very important - it's how you come over to people, whereas the Sun is the "real you".

If you read newspaper horoscopes, you ought to read both your Sun and Rising/ASC. The Sun sign horoscope will tell you the type of day you're going to have - is it an upbeat happy scope, or a downbeat scary one? However, the rising signs one will tell you *where* that upbeat or downbeat scope will play out - eg family, travel etc.

Your Moon is about your feelings. And the Moon is all about family as well as feelings, so your Moon is very important in your chart.

In astrology, aspects are the angles that planets make to each other - there are nice comfortable easy-flowing aspects like "sextiles" (that's 60 degrees) and "trines" (120 degrees), and difficult aspects like "squares" (right-angle, 90 degrees) and "oppositions" (180 degrees).

[Fluffmeister]

Thanks RedRose - just one point; that final paragraph saying "your Moon is very busy, making aspects all over the place" did relate to one particular person with a very busy Moon - it's not a general point.

[RedRose]

Hi Fluffmeister,

I changed the Moon part, and I will go over it again, and I can make any other edits you like. Or you might copy it and edit or even expand it. I was simply struck by your lucid descriptions, fully 3D, like when you wear those silly green and red eyed glasses at the movies.

Those 12 chunks of sky are amazing, aren't they?

RedRose

[Fluffmeister]

Hi Fluffmeister,

I changed the Moon part, and I will go over it again, and I can make any other edits you like. Or you might copy it and edit or even expand it. I was simply struck by your lucid descriptions, fully 3D, like when you wear those silly green and red eyed glasses at the movies.

Those 12 chunks of sky are amazing, aren't they?

RedRose

Thanks RedRose! Those 12 chunks certainly are amazing :)

[Ishtara]

Just wanted to bump this thread and thank you both, RedRose and Fluffmeister.

I am a complete beginner when it comes to Astrology and I must say this is the clearest introduction I ever read about basic concepts such as houses and oppositions. Thank you once again for posting this, it was very helpful! :)

[RedRose]

Hey, I just saw this. Thanks for the bump!

RedRose