Astrological Grammar

Barleywine

This is a snippet from an article in Dave Roell's weekly astroamerica.com newsletter called "Toward a Grammar of Astrology." It appears to be written by Dave, although he makes no claim of originality. This reminds me of the mental excercise that I picked up during my early astrological studies back in the 1970s: trying to figure out the correlation of the bits and pieces of a chart from a "who, what, where, why and when" perspective.

"The house-sign-planet blend is the essence of astrology. (Not aspects.) Make the houses nouns. Make the planets verbs. Signs are modifiers (adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases). Use keywords to make sentences: Noun–verb–object."

For the sake of argument, I've always considered the houses to be "where" something manifests, the planets to be "what" will exert a presence there and the signs to be "how" (modifiers - adjectives, adverbs, etc. is how I've always thought of them) the planetary energies will be shaded or colored (although planetary action taken as "verbs" would also have a say in the "how"). "Why" the astrological footprint assumes its unique form is provided by the overall chart synthesis, and it could be suggested that the root of "who" the native personality is stems from the Ascendant/Sun/Moon combination. The "when" part of the "who-what-why-where-when" equation only enters into it when you put the natal chart into motion over time.

This is nothing I have any particular philosophical or intellectual stake in, just something that caught my interest in the newsletter, primarily because houses have never made me think of "nouns" since they represent the field of action for the planetary interplay. Maybe there are a few grammatical subleties Dave left out of the picture, but I'm no expert on the terminology.
 

Minderwiz

I remember using a variation on this in my early years. The planets being the actors, the houses being the role they are cast in and the signs indicating their suitability for the part.

It's a good approach for beginners and I fully agree with the Planet/House/Sign triad as being the essence of Astrology. Aspects are not what is essential but they too are a modifier, for better or worse' and also an indicator of timing, in the 'when'.

The problems with it come when we try and pass from beginning through some intermediate stage towards the end of actually knowing something about Astrology, or at least enough to do half decent predictions. The reason for this is that the simple explanation assumes that Mars (for example) has only one role in a chart, whereas in fact it has several roles in any chart. The same is true of the houses - are they one role, or several.

For example, let's suppose my MC lies in Aries and my Ascendant lies in Cancer. Mars lies in Capricorn and the Moon lies in Libra. Keeping things simple lets use whole sign houses (though exactly the same issues would arise from a quadrant system).

Now, is the Moon something to do with my home or family or is it something to do with me personally (as the Ascendant ruler), or is it something to do with my reactive mind, my first impulses to act before I've thought things through.

The grammar doesn't answer that question. Nor does it tell me what Mars' role is. Does Mars represent my wife, or me enemy, or somebody I don't know yet. Or does Mars have something to do with my Job or my social position, or even my mother (or my children, as Mars would also rule the fifth house).

Put those together with the square and you have a lot of possibilities, some of them could be:

I hate my wife
I hate my job
I hate my mother
I hate my children
My wife hates the house
My wife hates my father
I'm going to accidentally cut myself because I didn't bother to read the chain saw instructions and used it without thinking
The house is going to catch fire
I'm going to go down with Scarlet Fever
My father will contract Small Pox

And I've not bothered using the signs there either.

Now I wouldn't have gone for some of those interpretations but I know some Astrologers who would come up with virtually all of them between themselves.

Which is true? or are they all true at some time or other in my life. Or are they things I should guard against?

Those are the issues that the intermediate student has to grapple with. In modern Astrology it's worse still because all these things are continually in operation. In the tradition, that's not necessarily the case. The aspect might not be operational because of some other factor. And I wouldn't try and do a general reading on those lines. The issue of whether Mars is my wife or my job or my mother is easily dealt with in the tradition. Mars is my wife when I'm looking at issues relating to my wife and Mars is my Job when I'm considering issues about work. I know which role Mars is playing, because I'm only concerned with that one issue.

That can break down a little when we come to prediction. If Mars is moving to a conjunction by (say) Primary Direction next month. I might find that I get the job that I applied for but I might also get mauled by the pet cat or accidentally cut myself. I just don't know. Indeed Martin Gansten in his book on Primary Directions, uses a very similar example where both the desired 'job' and an accident actually occured at the PD.

I think the beauty of Astrology is that we never know for certain what will happen - the best we can do is predict that something will happen and that something will have the flavour of Mars, either naturally or accidentally, from it's role in the chart.

So the grammar gets me going but it's not going to get me all the way or even more than part of the way.

So how do you deal with the Mars in the seventh being squared by the Moon in the fourth (signs as indicated)?
 

Barleywine

Thanks for the (as always) thorough examination of the subject. The "noun-verb-modifier" approach reminds me of a child's building-block set with a single letter on each face, you can line them up in triads and you might get a simple word, or you might just get the "essence" of an "A," a "B" and a "C." Or like ordering from a Chinese restaurant menu: one entree from Column A, one from Column B and one from Column C; throw on some soy sauce and they all taste just about the same. It's basically a "training wheels" model for beginners, as you noted, but I strongly suspect that intermediate astrologers who haven't left their "cookbook" texts behind also haven't stepped very far away from this concept, although they will certainly wrap it in more words and make rudimentary stabs at a coherent synthesis. The early computer-generated natal reports weren't much better at it, even though their text files may have been populated by competent professional astrologers. Modern psychological astrology shares some of the blame, since every chart factor (once the Ascendant, MC, Sun and Moon are dispensed with) is given approximately equal weight in a holistic matrix of forces, only slightly differentiated by aspect prominence. It's one of the reasons I've become so attracted to traditional methods.
 

Minderwiz

You make a a very good point about weighting, indeed the psychological approach often seems to give more weight to the outer planets than Sun or Moon and often just glosses over Mercury, Venus and Mars.

There's also the consideration that the 'grammar' model is really only directed to Natal Astrology, when it comes down to other branches there are even more issues. We are often treating planets as significators, not because of their nature or even the house that they are in, still less the sign. Instead the signify people or things or events which are related to the chart in some way.

So the issue becomes should we use the model, even for beginners?
 

dadsnook2000

Minderwiz noted, "The "when" part of the "who-what-why-where-when" equation only enters into it when you put the natal chart into motion over time."

That is true, which is why I use Return and (derived) cyclic-daily charts. These put the natal chart and return chart in motion.

As for the grammar, Dave Roell gave a good explanation of how to use a formula to make sense of the planet-house-sign combinations. Natal chart grammar is one thing. Cyclic chart grammar is another thing as the planets and houses have to be couched in terms of common everyday living.

Neither natal grammaar nor Return/cyclic/daily chart grammar is like the classical text book descriptions which go on for paragraphs, pages or chapters.

** Natal Grammar can be nuanced to address "potential", or personality-character, or psychology. Each area of application is different and needs different words.

** Return-cyclic-daily chart grammar also has to be adjusted to fit the type of chart being used and the type of reading being done. Lunar returns are essential emotional reaction charts, pitting developed behavior and habits and needs against the changes of the environment (natal versus transiting meanings). Solar Returns are intent, will, decision, understanding types of charts. Almost any combination of pairs where one of the planets is an inner planet can be used to create return charts which have a unique cast to their reading.

Being able to understand these concepts and instantly adapt to them and use them is what differentiates a good astrologer from an early-studies student. The "grammar" concept is one good place to start learning astrology in my opinion. Dave
 

Minderwiz

Yes, I agree that it can indeed be useful for beginning Astrology. It's certainly not a bad starting point. My point is that it doesn't take the student much beyond entry into the intermediate stage, where the complexities begin to be recognised and hopefully begin to be dealt with. As with all simplifications, the potential difficulty lies in knowing when and how to move beyond it.

The newcomer has to learn to distinguish between planets, signs and houses, not just by name but by function. This approach does that, at least in part. But it has an inherent problem, the grammar doesn't fit all circumstances or even most of them.

If we take one of those many interpretations for Moon in fourth square Mars in the Seventh. 'I hate my job' Here Moon signifies me, as it's the Ascendant ruler, Mars signifies my job being the ruler of the MC.

Now we have a grammatical sentence in the form of subject verb object

The Subject is 'I' (personal pronoun) signified by Moon, the object (job) is signified by Mars and the verb (hates) becomes the aspect - the square. I left out the modifiers, though Mars in Capricorn is exalted, so the job should be a good one and I didn't deduce any reason for this. From a traditional point of view, it seems I'm more concerned with home life or my family or father in particular and the job just gets in the way.

Clearly this grammar doesn't quite fit Roell's where the planets are the verbs. So using his planets are 'verbs' approach and the houses are nouns, how do I go about making sense of this configuration?

I could try an alternative interpretation

My wife (seventh house) stabs (Mars) my father (fourth house)

This would fit Roell's scheme. Here the houses are nouns and the planet bcomes a verb (and stabbing is a very martial activity). My father is clearly a friendly sociable character (Libra on the IC) and my wife is clearly a slow careful but melancholy person (Capricorn on the Descendant). So Dad's innocent and she's probably suffering from depression and this has been building up for some time.

So Roell's method leads me to one interpretation and excludes the other because the grammar doesn't fit. My mindset is closed to the first possibility - it does not conform to Roell's formula.

Now it's the narrowing of the range of possibilities, the exclusion of some possibly valid interpretations that is the problem. The second interpretation might actually be the one that happens but if it's the first one that actually happens, I'm never going to recognise it using this variant and I'm never going to be able to predict it and prepare for it.

These two examples are clearly not the only interpretations of this configuration nor even the most likely but serve simply as illustrations. They are also simple, and Astrology is never always that simple. But I'm trying to avoid over complications and simply concentrate on the 'grammar' side.

As long as something happens at the intermediate stage which goes along the lines of 'well things are not quite that simple and planets can do other things than be verbs....' The student will progress. But that's not guaranteed unless there's a good teacher. Just look how many Astrologers are stuck in that other simplification of Astrology - Planet = Sign = House, even when they are allegedly professionals offering consultations.

Incidentally, the two alternative grammars are not the only ones I could have used - another interpretation might have been...'I'm accident prone, especially in the home.' Here one planet (Moon) is acting as a pronoun (I) and another planet (Mars)is acting as an adjective (accident prone) and a house (fourth) is acting as a noun.

The grammar analogy has inherent problems from the beginning, as with all analogies, it breaks down as we explore more of the subject. So those problems have got to be addressed at least at the Intermediate stage, certainly no later.
 

Barleywine

I don't recall the "grammar" of natal astrology ever being as simple as just linking parts of speech, "noun-verb-modifier." It was more like sentence structure, "subject-predicate-object" with modifiers: a "planet" (noun, subject) behaved (verb, predicate) in a certain way according to "sign" (adverb) in various "houses" (noun, object). Planets were "things" that acted, not the actions themselves. We didn't say "Man, I really got 'Mars-ed' yesterday" or "She 'Venus-ed' me last night - twice!" (OK, I WILL have to make an exception for "Mooned.") Houses were where the planetary actions took place and signs were how the actions transpired.

Case in point: "Verbing weirds language"

Calvin and Hobbes once discussed verbing in Bill Watterson's great comic strip:

Calvin: I like to verb words.

Hobbes: What?

Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when "access" was a thing? Now it's something you do. It got verbed. . . . Verbing weirds language.

Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.


Or, as the Duke of York said in Shakespeare's King Richard the Second, "Grace me no grace, and uncle me no uncles."
 

Minderwiz

I don't recall the "grammar" of natal astrology ever being as simple as just linking parts of speech, "noun-verb-modifier."

Yet that is what Roell appears to be doing if you quote him correctly. The analogy just breaks down if you test it. You're quite right to cast the finger of suspicion. It seems good and it might help the complete beginner make his or her first steps but thereafter it becomes an impediment.

Barleywine said:
It was more like sentence structure, "subject-predicate-object" with modifiers: a "planet" (noun, subject) behaved (verb, predicate) in a certain way according to "sign" (adverb) in various "houses" (noun, object). Planets were "things" that acted, not the actions themselves. We didn't say "Man, I really got 'Mars-ed' yesterday" or "She 'Venus-ed' me last night - twice!" (OK, I WILL have to make an exception for "Mooned.") Houses were where the planetary actions took place and signs were how the actions transpired.

Case in point: "Verbing weirds language"

Calvin and Hobbes once discussed verbing in Bill Watterson's great comic strip:

Calvin: I like to verb words.

Hobbes: What?

Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when "access" was a thing? Now it's something you do. It got verbed. . . . Verbing weirds language.

Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.


Or, as the Duke of York said in Shakespeare's King Richard the Second, "Grace me no grace, and uncle me no uncles."

True but still it has Astrological problems. I do say things like 'I got angry at my wife' and Mars can signify anger. 'She looks graceful' is a Venusian quality and I'm attracted to her is a Venusian verb.

The problem is that even a loose sentence structure doesn't work for anything beyond the beginners level. Planets can be signified (using Mars as the example) through nouns (warrior), verbs, (to cut) adjectives (Red hair) or adverbs (angrily).

Until we realise that, we're not going to progress beyond that basic level.

It's not something that is easy to teach, like the ABC or the 'grammar' but it's something we have to learn, whatever practice of Astrology we follow.

Now does it do any harm to the beginner to start that way?
 

Barleywine

It's not something that is easy to teach, like the ABC or the 'grammar' but it's something we have to learn, whatever practice of Astrology we follow.

Now does it do any harm to the beginner to start that way?

I just realized that this is the second time you've asked the question in this thread, so I guess I better try to answer. Personally, I'm not a fan of "cookie-cutter" anything. This approach to astrological training seems like "assembly-line" thinking to me, a kind of astrological "paper dolls," and I believe it sets a bad precedent, promotes a kind of knee-jerk absolutism that can linger on into intermediate practice. It makes developing a flexible and fluid appreciation for the techniques of synthesis that much more difficult to attain. It's one of the valuable things my study of the traditional approach to planetary strength has impressed upon me.
 

Minderwiz

The only book I can lay my hands on that does something similar to the Grammar is Stephen Arroyo's 'Chart Interpretation hand book. In his case he uses:

Elements
Signs
Planets
Houses
Aspects

And talks about those in terms of 'energy' and 'experience', in his introduction. How he can separate Signs and Elements is another matter LOL.

Arroyo's book takes 168 pages out of 181 looking at these in more detail. The last chapter being 'Guidelines to Chart Synthesis.' which includes the ABC approach of Aries=Mars=First House. Now Arroyo is one of my favourite modern authors, but to me his approach in this book is not particularly helpful in enabling beginners to progress. When you get to the end, what does it all mean?

The 'classic' approach is to consider Planets, Signs and Houses (though not necessarily in that order), in some but not necessarily extensive detail.

Valens looks at planets and the planet as Ascendant), Signs, Lot of Fortune and Ascendant ruler and their rulers, Houses.

Lilly looks at Planets, Houses and Signs.

These do indeed 'run on for paragraphs or pages', in Lilly's case 128 pages out of 852 and in Valens case 41 out of 184 (Riley translation - and that includes a digression on calculation as neither computers not Placidus tables had been invented).

Both Lilly and Valens stuff their works full of charts or specific cases compared to the one chart in Arroyo's book.

Now there's a great difference between Traditional Texts and Modern Texts. You couldn't nip down to the Alexandrian Bookshop and buy a copy of Valens off the shelves. Still less could you send off to Queen Hippolyta at Amazon for next day delivery. Instead you had to get Valens or one of his graduates to teach you and you probably copied out the book whilst you were being taught. The book was not stand alone. It came with Valens' tuition. Even in Lilly's time with the printing press, books were not as relatively cheap as they are today. Moreover there were far less students or potential students - smaller populations and a narrow range of literate persons saw to that.

Today, it's teaching time that's expensive - have a look at how much Frawley, et al charge. Books are cheap and they are written to be stand alone because of the wide range of potential students, at least compared to the seventeenth or second centuries.

That means the devices used have to be different. So there may be room for the 'Grammar' approach but only so long as by Chapter two, there's a re-look at it, along the lines of 'OK, now we've looked at planets as verbs, lets see how they function as nouns.' I'm not convinced of that, as an approach but at least the author (who stands in for the teacher) is getting the students to think along different lines and hopefully would gradually get them to realise how multi-dimensional Astrology is. And it needs to be done with charts that are discussed and used to illustrate the argument.

I don't want to suggest that all modern writes do as Arroyo does, nor that all Traditional writers have lots of examples. I'm simply comparing three specific authors to make some points.

Again I've taken a narrow view of what 'Grammar' is, based on your quotes from Roell and indeed from Arroyo's introduction. Grammar actually means, as Dave implicitly indicates, the whole system and structure of a language (and we are still using an analogy that Astrology is a language, rather than a discipline conveyed using language). Sentence structure is a small part of that and in the same way Planet, House, Sign (and Aspect, Element or whatever other things you see as the constituent parts) are only a beginning. To understand the system you have to go well beyond those.