Conditions Overview

The Condition of a Planet. Beyond its sign, house, and aspects, a planet has a condition, a set of circumstances that affect how strongly and clearly it can act. Two planets in the same sign can behave very differently depending on their speed, their direction, and their nearness to the Sun. Reading a planet's condition adds an important layer of detail to a chart. Several factors shape this condition. Motion matters: a planet can be moving forward, slowing to a standstill, or appearing to travel backward, and each state changes how its energy is expressed. Nearness to the Sun matters too, since a planet can be overwhelmed by the Sun's light or, in rare cases, strengthened by sitting at its very heart. Other conditions come from a planet's relationship to the rest of the chart, such as being hemmed in by difficult planets or exchanging signs with another planet in a supportive way. This section gathers these ideas together, covering retrograde and direct motion, the stations and shadow periods around a retrograde, the states of combustion, cazimi, and being under the beams, and the conditions of being out of bounds, in mutual reception, or besieged.