CL Astrology Blog

The Sun represents the center of your life. The most important activities in your life revolve around the Sun. The Sun points at what you need to do in order to feel yourself. You become yourself by acting out the Sun. If you ignore your Sun and try to play someone else’s Sun, you simply dry out and fall into misery. Follow your Sun, and regardless of any outcomes, you will feel that you are being you.

There are other important things that the Sun represents. It represents your conscious mind, your willpower, what you want (as opposed to what you need), and your leadership qualities.

When the Sun is not being expressed in a healthy way, you become selfish, insensitive to others, bossy, tyrannical, vain, and pompous.

The Moon represents your instincts and your emotional nature. It’s wired so deep down in you that is not visible and it cannot be controlled. You just feel it with no reason and no logic. The Sun is what you are becoming but the Moon is what you already are.

The Moon also represents your home. You go to your Moon to feel comfortable and to recharge and nurture yourself. When you are truly close to someone, you share your Moon with them.

The Moon may also represent your mother and your own nurturing traits.

The Moon spends roughly 2 1/2 days in each sign and takes 28 days to go around the zodiac.

The Ascendant represents how you deal with the things that life throws at you. It’s the tactic that you use for dealing with life, one step at a time. For example, you can deal with life by feeling the steps that you take. Or you can deal with life by being cautious but relentless. Or you can deal with life by trying to uncover any potential ulterior motives. How you approach the everyday affairs of life is described by your Ascendant.

Let’s take it further to the next step. The way you approach life becomes visible through the style of your actions. You act with a certain style and project a certain image. On the other hand, people who don’t know you well observe you and develop a first impression of you based on your style. We can say that the Ascendant is the image that you project out in everyday life, and the first impression that people get from you. People who don't know you closely will judge you or build an image of you based on your ascendant.

The Ascendant also represents what you feel, think and do when you start something new, such as a relationship, a new job, moving to a new neighborhood, starting school, starting a new venture, etc. The ascendant represents your personal and unconscious style of how you begin new ventures.

Mercury relates to how you communicate in all types of media. Its placement in the chart indicates your communication style (dry, direct, erratic, intense, sarcastic, etc), your level of confidence and self assertion when you communicate, and the subjects that you enjoy communicating about.

Mercury also represents the logical thinking processes of the mind. It indicates your thinking style (visual, fuzzy, linear, holistic, emotional, etc), and the subjects that you spend more time thinking about. As opposed to Jupiter, Mercury doesn’t deal with big ideas. Its function is more related to detail-oriented/technical thinking.

Mercury also relates to how you gather information from the world and your learning abilities.

Mercury never separates from the Sun more than 28 degrees. You will always find Mercury close to the Sun in every astrological chart.

Venus is the planet of love, relationships, beauty, harmony, and pleasure. It is indeed the most beautiful planet of all.

Venus is that part of us that makes us feel attracted to certain people and at the same time, it’s what makes other people feel attracted to us. Beyond attraction, Venus is also engaged in long term relationships and unions of all types, including lovers, marriage, close friends, and business partners.

Venus is also about the pleasures and the beauty of life. It is that part of us that relates to physical and mental sensuality. It only relates to sex in the form of the shallow pleasure that we experience through sex, the hedonistic part of it, but Venus is not sexually charged like Mars is. Other pleasures that Venus represents are food, wine, art, music, harmony across the board, and all other externally dependent pleasures of life. You may call Venus superficial, but still beautiful, blissful, with a life worth living.

Venus is always to be found within 46 degrees from the Sun.

Mars represents your animal nature, your physical, mental, and sexual energy; your drive; and self-assertiveness. Mars placement in the chart indicates where you spend the most energy.

Mars gives you the drive to compete in society, to get ahead in life, to go after a career or after a dream. Mars gives you the energy and urge to transform desires into action.

On the not so bright end of things, Mars is the source of aggression, anger, and rage, which may lead you to cause harm to others. Like any other planet, Mars needs to find its optimal way of functioning to be positive.

Jupiter is the planet of prosperity, optimism, and beliefs. It counterbalances Saturn and Mercury; and it compliments Venus.

As a counterbalance to Saturn, Jupiter represents expansion, abundance, wealth, optimism, hope, and good luck. It’s the planet that represents everything that is positive and comes easy to your life. The house where Jupiter is placed will experience growth and good fortune. Interestingly enough, where Jupiter is placed shows how you like to spend your leisure time.

As a compliment to Venus, Jupiter brings good fortune and wealth whereas Venus brings glamor and pleasure. This is the perfect recipe for self-indulgence if the two interact in a reinforcing way.

And last, Jupiter counterbalances Mercury. Jupiter is about big ideas and beliefs. While Mercury is concerned with the details, Jupiter is concerned with the bigger picture. Jupiter focuses on big business, political and philosophical ideas, and religious beliefs.

Saturn represents structure, self-discipline, self-control, responsibility, organization, ambition, long-term goals, limitations, and fear. As discussed above, Saturn counterbalances Jupiter. It also counterbalances the Moon and it compliments Mars.

While Jupiter is about expansion and optimism, Saturn is about contraction and pessimism. It’s a serious planet and it’s extremely important and necessary. While Jupiter’s optimism may push you into a highly risky venture, Saturn will either persuade you from taking such a risk or it will make sure that you are fully prepared for the task.

Mars is raw energy. It’s like a bomb. It goes off with no direction. Saturn is like a long-range cannon. It gives you the focus to pursue serious, long-term goals such as career and investments. Saturn is also the planet that leads you to the mastery of any subject or field. Saturn is not looking for instant satisfaction. It’s always looking for long-term achievements.

Saturn also counterbalances the Moon. While the Moon is about our feelings and finding our comfort zone, Saturn is about getting the job done regardless of how we feel inside. Saturn is also about pushing us out of the comfort zone in order to reach a goal.

Uranus is the planet of individuation. It is that part of you that makes you think in a different way than the establishment. Uranus gives you the freedom and the motivation for you to speak and act according to what you really think regardless of the status-quo.

To no surprise, Uranus is the planet of the innovator, the inventor, the revolutionary, the leading scientist, all of whom are ahead of their time. It is indeed the planet of the genius, but when it pushes too hard, it can also be the planet of the fool.

Uranus' action is sudden and unexpected, sometimes even violent. Because of this explosive nature, Uranus may also represent natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods, or actual explosions.

Where you find Uranus in your chart is where you tend to be eccentric.

Neptune is the door to the divine. It opens our mind to perceptions that do not come from the five senses. These perceptions come from some place which is both deep within and deep without at the same time. That place is where poetry, imagination, and the mystic experience come from.

Neptune and the Moon are similar in the sense that they both bring us inspiration and knowledge from beyond our mind. But they are very different in the sense that the Moon's knowledge is instinctual and has been with us for a long time, while Neptune's knowledge is new to us and comes from the divine.

Neptune and Jupiter are also similar because they both develop your spirituality. But they are very different because Jupiter opens the door to the religious experience, which is based on faith and belief, and Neptune opens the door to the mystical experience, which is based on our communion with the Universe.

There’s a fine line between Neptune’s perceptions and fantasies. When this line is blurred, Neptune may confuse imagination with reality and you may not see things the way they really are. You may also want to escape the material world and become absent from life and that’s why Neptune may also indicate an absence of some sort in the chart.

Pluto intensifies and deepens everything that it touches. It acts like some kind of radioactive substance that makes anything that it gets close to more intense. When things get too intense, oftentimes they need to be released before they start building up again. Pluto in your chart indicates an area of your life where you will likely experience recurrent transformations that you’ll have to deal with on your own.

Pluto is also a center of power in your chart. It’s like a higher octave of Mars. Mars is about energy. It makes you expend energy on anything that it touches. On the other hand, Pluto’s expenditure is more specialized than Mars’. Pluto makes you expend energy on the pursuit of power—social, financial, sexual, or political. Pluto is the power-seeking element of the chart.

The North Node of the Moon, called Rahu in Vedic Astrology, represents our most important desire in this life. It is that thing that you want to do, or have, or experience, or live more than any other thing.

The North Node represents your “calling” in life. It is the point in destiny that you feel attracted to. When you pursue it, you get a sense of purpose in life. When—and if—you reach your North Node, you feel that the purpose of your life has been fulfilled. And even if you never reach it, the pursuit of that destiny brings you fulfillment along the way.