The planets in the signs and the emotions
Here we look at what the person you love feels: what makes them feel loved, how they express desire and what they enjoy. Earlier we looked at imagination, communication and the way we show ourselves to the world. Now we also look at what happens when anger appears and it’s hard to say it without hurting.
Perhaps you’ve promised yourself not to repeat a reaction and, when you least expect it, it shows up again. What lies in your hands is becoming more aware of what is happening: recognizing the emotion, breathing and stepping back a little to observe it. That space can help you choose a response and take responsibility for what you do.
In my classes and consultations I explain that an emotion can arise before we manage to decide how to respond. Faced with the same situation, one person stays calm; another expresses their anger openly and soon after recovers their composure. Some people seem untroubled until they explode at the least expected moment, and others show their anger with hurtful words without ever raising their voice.
Germán Rosas’s astrological system offers a language for observing those differences. It studies the planets from two perspectives: their relation to the emotions and their relation to events. Each one proposes a different way of reading the birth chart.
In the first, it relates the planets to the glands, the hormones and the emotions. From those associations, it interprets certain ways of reacting according to the sign each planet occupies. These correspondences belong to the interpretive framework I present; they should be kept distinct from a medical explanation of the emotions.
In the second perspective, the reading of events looks at the house the planet occupies in the birth chart and the house or houses it rules.
Here I concentrate on the emotions. Inventory 1 (genetics, family and sociocultural models, values and beliefs) also plays a part in the way we live and express what we feel. The astrological reading makes sense when we relate it to that personal history.
Within this approach, the position of a planet describes an emotional tendency. The way it is processed can vary: a person may stay trapped in what they feel, or recognize it, reflect and regain their balance. Knowing a tendency doesn’t mean being at its mercy.
Think of Mars in Cancer, which this system associates with outbursts of pent-up anger. If during childhood those outbursts were reinforced by the reactions of parents and relatives, the person may repeat them as an adult. If they learned to recognize them and take responsibility for what they do, after the initial impulse they can find room for reflection.
The planetary position and personal learning are two distinct aspects of the reading I propose.
We can also recognize patterns in the people who attract us. Sometimes we say, “I always end up with people who are like this or like that.” Looking at our own part in those encounters opens a different question: what am I looking for, what do I recognize as familiar, and which emotions am I putting into play again?
That repetition can resemble what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy. Observing it helps us understand the part that depends on us, without claiming control over other people’s decisions.
Talking with your partner about what you feel and listening to what is happening to them lets you agree on ways to support each other. Ignoring those states is like sweeping the dirt under the rug and hoping it disappears on its own. Making them visible is the first step toward working on them.
The planets in the signs
Here I begin with Venus; the Sun, the Moon and Mercury have their own guides. In each entry you’ll see the emotions the system relates to the planet and the forms of expression it attributes to them according to the sign.
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
In astrology, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are called generational or transpersonal planets because of how slowly they move through the signs. Their interpretation is linked to changes of environment, collective transformations and new paradigms.
The system also relates them to emotions, but their part in relationships shows in the aspects of compatibility. Here I present the general meaning they have in this approach.
From each person to the encounter
You have now gone through different ways of giving affection, getting angry and enjoying yourself; next comes moving from each person to the encounter between the two charts. That encounter begins with some affinities between signs, the relations of the Sun with the Ascendant, the Descendant and the Moon, and the contact between the two Venuses. The question will be how those possibilities are expressed in the bond you share with your partner and in the agreements you have chosen.