The importance of Planets

[Guest guest]

At 05:51 PM 11/10/03 -0500, Elizabeth wrote:

>Hi Therese and everyone,

>I have noticed this. Sidereal astrologers

>identify less with signs and rarely seem to say

>things like " I'm an Aries " or " He has Pisces

>rising " and then make conclusions based on that.

>I agree that the planets are much more important.

>Wasn't astrology originally focused on the

>planets anyway?

 

Yes, if you go back to Hellenistic astrology, it was all about the planets.

Even medieval astrology was mostly about the planets. The big emphasis on

the signs began with Alan Leo near the beginning of the 20th century. Leo

shifted the emphasis from predictive to psychological astrology and wrote

extensive delineations of the signs. The only problem was that a lot of

what he wrote wasn't true.

 

>And then I read somewhere, maybe on this

>list, that the signs were once called " houses " .

 

In early astrology there was a lot of confusion about signs and houses.

This gets very complicated, and it's hard to describe without pulling out

all the Project Hindsight translations. What we need is an Internet library

of all those translations. But then PH couldn't make any money!

 

>That got me thinking that the " archetypal "

>meanings in astrology probably belong firstly to

>the planets. Signs are just " houses " that have

>affinity to certain planets and have a tendency

>to resemble the planets that they have affinity

>with.

 

Planets are like people, and the signs are

>like the houses that people live in -- or visit.

>People's homes tend to reflect the personality of

>their owners, and people tend to feel more

>comfortable in certain houses than in others.

 

Elizabeth, this is something I have to think through! This is the basic

idea of signs and planets, but...I have to review the literature...Cyril

Fagan had his own ideas on this. A list member recently sent me some of

Fagan's articles where he downplayed or outright rejected some of the

popular ideas about signs. I don't think Fagan was always right, but he

does give us some concepts to think about.

 

>And so I see how a person with a strong Sun could

>be more like a Leo, even if the Sun is in

>Capricorn. The main characteristics comes from

>the Sun, which is like Leo.

 

I think this is true. Anyone with a strong Sun would be similar in some

way. On the other hand, some Suns would be more solar than others due to

the affinity of the Sun with certain signs. Theoretically the Sun in a sign

of Saturn would be more low key or less Sun like.

 

What we need is astrologers sitting around with different Sun signs,

telling us what they are like.

 

>Only in this case the

>Sun is visiting, and it's expression is modified

>by Capricorn, Saturn's home. Correct me if this

>doesn't sound right.

 

This is the theory, but I bet that no one has really tested it.

 

>So I think Sun signs are, in a way, all " Leos " .

>We all have a Leo in us, which seems to tie in

>with what I said before about all the signs being

>something real in all of us.

 

I don't remember if I posted the charts on this list of famous people who

had strong Suns and Moons? That is, Sun or Moon in the 10th squaring the

ascendant. The Sun people didn't care if people recognized and praised

them. They simply wanted to do their best to perform at the work they were

doing. Some of them were even loners. The Moon people wanted to please

everyone and be noticed by people. They solicited publicity and wanted

people's *response.* In the Tropical zodiac, of course it's Leo that asks

for attention, so the fact that it's the Moon that wants attention is one

way to verify the sidereal zodiac.

 

But if the Moon is more at home in the feminine signs, then the desire for

attention would be much stronger in those signs than in the masculine

(autonomous) signs. But Fagan rejected the concept of male and female

signs. I think he was wrong. The zodiac is a series of rising and falling

waves and these waves have their own characteristics.

 

The Sun or Moon in the 10th seemed to be more important than the signs they

were in. Maybe the signs just helped to describe their professional fields.

There's a lot to investigate here. Then again, the Moon is receptive, so it

may be overshadowed by any planets in conjunction, and maybe aspects as well.

 

Therese