Planets Overview

The Planets and Luminaries. The planets are the actors in a chart. If a sign is how an energy expresses itself and a house is where it plays out, a planet is what is actually happening, the basic drive or function at work. The Sun represents the will to be, the Moon the need to feel safe, Mercury the urge to think and communicate, and so on through the rest. Reading a chart begins with knowing what each planet wants. Astrology uses ten bodies. Strictly speaking the Sun and Moon are lights rather than planets, but they are counted alongside the others and called the luminaries. The remaining eight run from Mercury out to Pluto. Speed sorts the planets into groups. The faster bodies, from the Sun through Mars, are personal and shape the individual personality. Jupiter and Saturn are social, linking the person to the wider world. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto move so slowly that whole generations share them, and they describe collective change as much as personal life. Each planet placed in a sign and house tells one part of the larger story.