Quick Question

How do you determine which planet is the most prominent in your horroscope? I've always thought it was your sun sign's ruling planet... But then I read somewhere that my most prominent planet is Mars, the ruling planet of my Ascendant. Any help would be great!

-Artemis

(Oh, and I hate to be a bother again, but the interpretation of my sun in my tenth house is that I will experience great success and honor in life, but then it also says that my moon in the twlefth house will give me only little popularity. Does this mean I have the potential to be either, depending on the path I choose? And does that apply to all other seemingly opposing traits expressed by my natal chart? Thanks again!) Jan. 23, 1988. Dallas, TX (USA), 11:16 AM

I'll try and answer your questions, though there are several approaches to both parts - the joy of Astrology


Firstly on the strongest planet in your chart. It depends alot on what is meant be 'strength'. The Sun is usually seen as the most important of the planets, followed by the Moon. The Ascendant is not a planet but a point, however the ruler of the sign of the Ascendant is also taken as being important - In your case Aries is on your Ascendant so Mars is the Ascendant Ruler - often referred to as the Chart ruler.

The idea of rulership leads to the concept of 'dispositors'. My Sun is in Libra, so its ruler of dispositor is Venus. It's similar to the concept of a guest, The Sun is in Venus' house so it looks to Venus for permission to act. Now my Venus is in Scorpio so I would take its dispositor to be Mars (I work on traditional rulerships). In turn Mars is in Leo, so it is ruled by the Sun. So I have three planets that are interdependent. Indeed most of my planets are in Scorpio, Leo or Libra (with the Moon in Aquarius and Uranus in Gemini). Sun, Venus and Mars together rule the rest and have to get along with each other. So I could come to the conclusion that these three are my strongest planets. For some people there may even by a sole dispositor, one planet which directly or indirectly rules the rest. This could be said to be their strongest planet. In your case Jupiter rules directly or indirectly 7 planets including Mars. However you have Jupiter in Aries and Mars in Sagittarius, so Mars also rules Jupiter - a situation known as 'Mutual Reception'. Mars rules the other planets not ruled by Jupiter. So Jupiter and Mars are the two strongest on this basis, with Jupiter shading it from Mars.

A second approach is to take planets that are Angular as being strong - You have Jupiter on the Ascendant (indeed within a degree of your Ascendant) this would make it strong and some Astrologers would take it, rather than Mars as your Ascendant ruler, given that it is so close). Again it is possible to have more than one Angular planet. Planets on the Ascendant or MC are probably stronger than planets on the Descendant or IC.

Traditionally there is a system of essential dignities that goes beyond sign rulership. It includes exaltation, and rulership by Triplicity, Terms and Face. These essential dignities can be ranked and 'scored' to find out which planet has most essential dignity in your chart. The Astrologer William Lilly also had a scoring system for what is termed 'Accidental Dignity' - that is dignity by where the planet is in your chart - Angularity mentioned above is one form of Accidental Dignity.

Through both Essential and Accidental dignities Lilly worked out what the strengths of each planet were and which was the strongest. This approach is still used in Horary Astrology but is rarely used in modern Natal work.

Ok, so we have three measures of 'strength' - dispositorship, Angularity or Dignity (both Essential and Accidental). These are not the only possiblities but are the most used. We also have 'importance' in Sun, Moon and Ascendant Ruler.

On your second question, striclty speaking they are not imcompatible readings, being successful and honoured does not mean that you are liked I would tend to take Sun in the tenth to mean that you will express your creativity and your will through career, or the role you choose to play in society - that does not guarantee success or honour - though if sufficient effort goes in, then who knows what might happen. Moon in the twelfth may well suggest that you keep your intuitive side under wraps, it acts behind the scenes. It might also be something that occasionally leads to you getting things wrong - self undoing and yes, it can mean that the public have difficulty getting to know you because you may often need solitude to deal with your emotional cross currents. Your Sun has only one aspect - a sextile to the Moon, so these two planets are more likely to work well together than cause stress (though working well together does not mean the overall effect is nescessarily positive).

Your Moon is disposited by Mars and is trine to Mars, so it will work well with your Ascendant Ruler. However it has a square to Neptune which might suggest a tendency to be overwhelmed by emotions or find it difficult to pin down your feelings. It is also likely to indicate a sensitivity to the suffering of others.

Thanks!

Wow! I'm so proud of myself, I actually understood a little of what you said, Minderwiz! I looked up the terms stated in my little black astrology book, and that certainly helped. Thanks a million!

-Artemis

PS- I haven't been posting that long, but I've certainly noticed the staggering amount of good-will on Aeclectic. On most other internet boards, you ask a "stupid" question or state an opinion that other consider wrong, and you're probably going to get called an "idiot redneck". That's really what I love about Aeclectic. Thanks again!

hi artemis! i suscribe to the theory that the planet with the tightest proximity to any of the four angles is your "strongest" planet. i have only planets in angular houses and three planets in scorpio conjunct my ascendant, but since my saturn/ moon conjuction is tighter to my IC, it is slightly stronger in my personality. since you are an aries ascendant, you might enjoy debbie kempton-smith's Secrets from a Stargazer's Notebook, she is an aries and the book is written in brash aries style and very perceptive at the same time, although originally published in 84ish so some style references are dated but you will get the message. lemme know if you check it out, its my all time astro fave

I'm in the habit of looking at the most aspected planet or planets. When a planet(s) has its big nose in everybody else's business, to me, it's the strongest. If that planet(s) is also angular, it's all the more potent.

I'm not quite sure I'm in full agreement with AG. I certainly accept angularity as a measure of strength and, as Scorpio says, the tighter the orb the better.

With the most aspected planet, I'm not quite so sure. The reason being the distinction between 'importance' and 'strength'. I would certainly agree that the most aspected planet is important, indeed may be very important - because, as AG says, it is involved in more areas of your life than any other planet. It would be very difficult to ignore the role of this planet in your life.

I take 'strength' to be an indication of the power to express the principle represented by the planet in an easy, fluent and positive way. I would therefore take a look at the aspects and how they affect that expression. I have two planets, Pluto and Uranus which have 5 aspects each. Two of the Uranus Aspects are minor, a quintile and a semi-square, neither very tight. With Pluto all the aspects are major - a 6 degree opposition from the Moon, conjunctions with Mars (under 2 degrees) and Saturn (over 6 degrees), a square from Venus (under 2 degrees) and a sextile from Neptune (over 3 degrees).

The conjunction with Mars and Saturn would traditionally be seen as weakening the planet and even for a modern Astrologer these aspects do not empower Pluto. Only one of the five aspects is 'easy'. Pluto will struggle to make itself felt. Now I fully accept that these aspects are very likely to act as 'drivers' - the struggle leading to achievement. However the struggle is because Pluto is limited not because it is strong. I must admit though that I'd rather have a driven Pluto than a situation where Pluto energy just slushes around getting in the way!

I would probably point to my Saturn/Moon opposition as being stronger - Saturn is conjuct the Ascendant, (and therefore the Moon is conjunct the Descendant) both being in a tighter orb than Venus which is conjunct the IC. Of the two the Moon is the most angular. Both planets have four major aspects and form part of a T square with Mercury. The tightest two orbs are 3 minutes and 11 minutes respectively. However apart from a sextile to Uranus, they are again 'hard' aspects - suggesting some difficulty in expressing their principles - further challenges. I think my point is that it's a matter of weighing up several factors here and for me angularity and closer orbs tend to outweigh the extra aspect.

Generally, I think that the best approach is to weigh a number of factors in deciding the relative strength of planets - whether these weights are related to aspects and angularity or include the more traditional rulerships (indeed Lilly reckoned angularity to be as important as rulership).

as if you didn't have enough to juggle

there's also the notion of singleton planets, whether by element, modality, house type or even hemisphere. I've listed each category in terms of strongest to weakest (in my mind)...

I'm not sure how much *strength* a singleton has however... I can imagine a poorly placed singleton to lack strength.