The planets in your chart

Planets, signs and houses

A simple way to read any part of a birth chart is this:

• The planet is what: a part of your personality, like love or courage.
• The sign is how: the style it is expressed in.
• The house is where: the area of life it shows up in most.

So Venus in Leo in the seventh house might read: “your way of loving (Venus) is warm and generous (Leo), especially in close partnerships (seventh house).”

The planets at a glance

Planet	Stands for	Time in each sign
Sun	identity, vitality, purpose	about a month
Moon	feelings, needs, instincts	about 2½ days
Mercury	mind, speech, learning	a few weeks
Venus	love, beauty, values	a few weeks
Mars	drive, courage, desire	about 6 weeks
Jupiter	growth, luck, wisdom	about a year
Saturn	discipline, time, maturity	about 2½ years
Uranus	change, freedom, originality	about 7 years
Neptune	dreams, compassion, intuition	about 14 years
Pluto	power, transformation	12 to 30 years

Astrologers call the Sun and Moon “planets” for convenience, though of course they are a star and a satellite.

Personal and generational planets

The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars move fast, so they describe what is personal to you. Jupiter and Saturn are “social” planets, shared by people born within a year or two of you. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto move so slowly that they describe whole generations.

Points that are not planets

Charts also include points calculated from orbits: Dark Moon Lilith, the Moon’s Nodes and the small body Chiron.