What are planets?

The planets are the actors of the chart, the ten bodies a reading is built from. A sign describes how an energy expresses and a house describes where it plays out, but a planet is the energy itself, the underlying drive or function at work. The Sun carries the will to exist, the Moon the need to feel safe, Mercury the urge to think and speak, and so on across the rest. Learning what each planet wants is where chart reading begins. Astrology counts ten bodies, though the Sun and Moon are lights rather than true planets and are known together as the luminaries. The other eight run outward from Mercury to Pluto. Speed sorts them into three groups. The quick bodies, the Sun through Mars, are personal and shape the individual character. Jupiter and Saturn are social, tying a person to the wider world. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto move so slowly that whole generations share a placement, so they speak to collective change as much as to one life. Set in a sign and house, each planet tells one part of a larger story.