Strongly aspected? Afflicted?

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all well!

I have been keeping my astrology studies... slow but steady... and I have to confess that the amount of 'possibilities' in on natal chart is quite astounding. It seems to me that many times we have planet positions and aspects that show contradictory tendencies (or potentials) in one individual, and I am having a hard time telling which characteristic is stronger than the other.

In the book they often say that this or that planet gains more emphasis if it's "strongly aspected" but I'm finding difficulty in defining what that means. Does that mean that planet makes many aspects in the chart? Or that it's aspected to "important" celestial bodies like the sun and the moon? That is it in a compatible sign/house?

I think it's hard to say which aspects I should see as "stronger" than the others. I have no doubt that we can all have contradictory behaviors and potentials within us, and that those may appear in the natal chart, but I believe that usually one is more "evident" than the other. One weights more, has a bigger impact in the personality.

The writers make it seem so easy. But when you first start analyzing charts (and so far I'm doing that only to be able to 'see' the signs, planets and houses 'in action'), you are confronted with downright opposing tendencies and it's hard to say which one dominates and which one is hidden... or undeveloped.

Is there a way to know this? What does 'strongly aspected' means? And 'afflicted'? Does 'afflicted' means weak or bad?

I wish the glossaries in the books would include these explanations! I've been looking desperately for book that would explain it to me, but since they don't I assume that this is a notion that comes with practice... still, I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.


I thank you all in advance!

Contradictions and Potential

Yes, Marina, the natal chart can seem quite full of contradictions and offer confusing hints of one's potential. You need to consider several astrological issues:

FIRST, the natal chart, or most/many natal charts, are full of contradictions. Think of these as sets-of-complexities that make up or contribute to your personality and affect how you develop your character. Contradictions will sooner or later in one's life have to be balanced or prioritized in some manner. You may indeed "balance" them, or you may give one priority of expression, or choose to favor and express one contradictory factor over another. It is these processes that make you unique --- you choose how to contain, use and express your contradictions.

SECOND, know that you cannot express your potential all at once at any one time in your life. "Potential" is accompanied by "experience." The natal chart, by itself, doesn't really offer us much in terms of stating where we will be at any period in our life. We need to use other charts such as progressions, directions, returns and transits in relation to the natal chart. We use these other charts, with and without the natal chart, to determine and follow our "experiences" in life. Only as we experience life do we have the opportunity to develop our potential one bit at a time.

Each natal planet will-or-may be linked to other planets via aspects or other relationships. As that planet is emphasized or triggered on a day-to-day basis by transits or by other chart factors, that planet's meaning will be modified and expressed in some way to a greater or lessor extent. Life is built brick by brick. It takes a life time to live a life. A lot is likely to happen between the start of life and the end of life --- all of those changes and happenings will hopefully start to build up a fairly consistent flow in one broad direction and merge the complexities of both the natal chart and of life's experiences into a rich life.

Some advice would be to:

A) Not try to determine every complexity in your natal chart. What you see and what it means will change with astrological knowledge and over time as you change.

B) Keep you astrology simple. Stick with the basics and don't try to use everything you read in books.

C) Learn to read a seconday progression chart, a transit-to-natal chart. Progressions show slow development via changes in the natal chart as some planets separate and others come closer. These change the emphasis of how planets express themselves in a stronger or weaker manner. Transits represent opportunities for a natal planet to gain experience of expression by being modified (for a short period of time) by the influence of another planet. This is called "experience."

Dave

Marina said:

Does that mean that planet makes many aspects in the chart? Or that it's aspected to "important" celestial bodies like the sun and the moon?

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An author can mean anything, so we can't be sure unless we directly ask him/her. Anyhow, yes, "strongly aspected" should mean "many aspects", and aspects to Sun and Moon would always be the most important.

Dave has given some sensible advice in keeping things simple, at least to start with. The more factors,such as objects, points and minor aspects you use, the greater the chance of running into conflicts when trying to read a chart. Experience will help but of course experience requires time and practice, so starting with the basics and using those is the best way forward.

I'd take 'strongly aspected' to mean close major aspects to between key planets. Key here would include the Ascendant ruler, Mercury and Moon, as well as Sun. Also close major aspects to the Ascendant, MC and possibly Part of Fortune.

I have read Marina saying that she doesn't read the cards for her day, so I feel I have to tell her not to get into transits, progressions...descriptions in astrology are many times full with warnings of doom. If we don't want to know our future for the day...less we want to know it for a year. And it is really difficult to predict with predictive astrology (transits and progressions).

We can get scared.

Thank you everyone for the answers! I am sorry for my delay in answering, I was away from the computer for most of the weekend.

dadsnook2000 said:

FIRST, the natal chart, or most/many natal charts, are full of contradictions. Think of these as sets-of-complexities that make up or contribute to your personality and affect how you develop your character. Contradictions will sooner or later in one's life have to be balanced or prioritized in some manner. You may indeed "balance" them, or you may give one priority of expression, or choose to favor and express one contradictory factor over another. It is these processes that make you unique --- you choose how to contain, use and express your contradictions.

SECOND, know that you cannot express your potential all at once at any one time in your life. "Potential" is accompanied by "experience." The natal chart, by itself, doesn't really offer us much in terms of stating where we will be at any period in our life. We need to use other charts such as progressions, directions, returns and transits in relation to the natal chart. We use these other charts, with and without the natal chart, to determine and follow our "experiences" in life. Only as we experience life do we have the opportunity to develop our potential one bit at a time.

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Yes, indeed. That's what I think to, that the charts are full of potentials, but how you manifest them depends on the situation in which you live and on your own choices. However, it seems to me that the charts also point of some 'situation' that the person may face in their lives, so I thought that maybe it could point to which potentials are more easily manifested and which ones would require a special 'inner work' so to speak.

I haven't jumped to progressions and transits yet because I am still trying to grasp the most basic astrology concepts. As I say, I mostly use natal charts (not my own yet!) as a way to see the planets and placements and aspects 'working' - I need to see the things 'alive' in order to learn, simply reading books doesn't do it for me. I don't think I have the competence to see the 'experience' part yet, but I completely agree with you that would be the best way to see if a certain potential is having the opportunity to be manifested or not.

dadsnook2000 said:

Some advice would be to:

A) Not try to determine every complexity in your natal chart. What you see and what it means will change with astrological knowledge and over time as you change.

B) Keep you astrology simple. Stick with the basics and don't try to use everything you read in books.

C) Learn to read a seconday progression chart, a transit-to-natal chart. Progressions show slow development via changes in the natal chart as some planets separate and others come closer. These change the emphasis of how planets express themselves in a stronger or weaker manner. Transits represent opportunities for a natal planet to gain experience of expression by being modified (for a short period of time) by the influence of another planet. This is called "experience."

Click to expand...

Thank you for the advice Dave, I'll keep them in mind. I plan to start learning transits and progressions as soon as I feel comfortable with the basic astrology, but I have to say that in the books, a hell-load seems like 'basic that you must know'.

Minderwiz said:

Dave has given some sensible advice in keeping things simple, at least to start with. The more factors,such as objects, points and minor aspects you use, the greater the chance of running into conflicts when trying to read a chart. Experience will help but of course experience requires time and practice, so starting with the basics and using those is the best way forward.

Click to expand...

The truth is that I have been using only major aspects and the 10 'planets'. I have not been using Chiron, Lilith or any of these objects. I still don't really understand the Nodes, so I am not focusing on them yet. Yet, even amongst these basic things, I have a hard time telling if in a certain chart Mercury is a 'strongly aspected' planet, or if Saturn is strong etc. Hence my question.

Minderwiz said:

I'd take 'strongly aspected' to mean close major aspects to between key planets. Key here would include the Ascendant ruler, Mercury and Moon, as well as Sun. Also close major aspects to the Ascendant, MC and possibly Part of Fortune.

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I'll take these into account, as you say. I always thought that maybe aspects with the Ascendant, Sun and Moon could add strength to a certain planets, but I wasn't so sure. There's a lot that comes into play in a chart it seems. You can have a Planet conjuncted to the Sun, but in its fall sign, so I wouldn't know if the planet remains 'strong' because of the Sun or is weakened because of the Sign...

I love these complexities and I wish to understand them. I am really enjoying the brain work-out that is Astrology!

Haizea said:

I have read Marina saying that she doesn't read the cards for her day, so I feel I have to tell her not to get into transits, progressions...descriptions in astrology are many times full with warnings of doom. If we don't want to know our future for the day...less we want to know it for a year. And it is really difficult to predict with predictive astrology (transits and progressions).

Click to expand...

Haizea, thank you, but actually the reason why I don't do daily readings has nothing to do with fear of the future. I simply do not find it useful to me, and I prefer to use my cards for more 'definite' questions. Of course I don't plan on sitting down and doing astrology work for myself daily, for similar reasons (and I wouldn't have the time, I barely have time for my morning prayers! ).

Haizea said:

I have read Marina saying that she doesn't read the cards for her day, so I feel I have to tell her not to get into transits, progressions...descriptions in astrology are many times full with warnings of doom. If we don't want to know our future for the day...less we want to know it for a year. And it is really difficult to predict with predictive astrology (transits and progressions).

We can get scared.

Click to expand...

As with all things, Astrology needs to be used in a sensible way. I don't do daily, monthly or annual predictions for myself or my family. It's not a matter of not wanting to know, it's because there are many different meanings to planets, configurations and chart features. Which meaning will be relevant depends much on what issues are going on in our lives and what our concerns are. So I will use predictive measures, for specific focussed questions and issues.

When I first got into Astrology one of the views was that the old practice of Astrology was full of doom and gloom and used words that could never be used in Modern practice, such as 'malefic'.

After some 40 + years on and off, I've come to the conclusion that it's actually modern Astrology which is laden with doom and gloom - just read some of the interpretations relating to Pluto and Neptune, indeed, as I've said before there were only two 'malefic planets' in the tradition, now there are five!

Life is not all doom and gloom, neither is it all strawberries and cream. For any prediction system, be it Astrological or Tarot or any other divinatory method we need to bear in mind that both good things and bad things happen but that in the main, life is not filled with extremes. We also need to bear in mind the context of someone's life. For someone with a serious and potentially fatal illness a transit of the eighth by Lord 8 might well be a sign of probable death; for someone in good health and in their early 30s it's more likely to mean a tax demand or possibly an inheritance.

People who consult Astrologers or Tarot readers tend to fall into two groups. The first are those who simply do it for fun but the more serious ones are those who have a problem that they want help with - that is a focus on something highly specific. In those circumstances predictive methods can be extremely helpful and those are the subjects that I think most readers appreciate. The person who turns up and says 'Tell me what's going to happen next year' without any further information is the worst subject and probably is someone who is out to challenge the reader anyway.

Marina said:

Haizea, thank you, but actually the reason why I don't do daily readings has nothing to do with fear of the future. I simply do not find it useful to me, and I prefer to use my cards for more 'definite' questions. Of course I don't plan on sitting down and doing astrology work for myself daily, for similar reasons (and I wouldn't have the time, I barely have time for my morning prayers! ).

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Our posts crossed, but you seem to use predictive methods the same way that I do. Selecting for definite and specific issues rather than as some general description of the future.

Don't worry about only using the 10 planets and major aspects. I only use seven planets and the major aspects and that's more than enough for me LOL. You might also consider your approach to a chart.

Modern Astrology sees the chart as something of a map of the mind. We need to see the chart as a whole to understand the drives and motivations of a person and their perceptions of the outside world. Contradictions and conflicts are seen as giving some indication of the drives and motivational reactions of the person.

Traditional Astrology sees the chart as more than this. Yes it shows the intrinsic temperament and behaviour of the person but it also shows not only their perception of the real world but also the real world itself, in so far as it affects that person. Thus the ruler of the tenth does not so much show their perception of their mother as their mother herself and her interaction with them. That is there's less emphasis on the depth psychology and more emphasis on reality (and I stress the relative terms here, I'm not saying that Modern approaches have nothing to do with reality or that Traditional approaches are devoid of psychology).

The effect of the difference is that in Traditional Astrology the chart does not have to be read as a whole. We concentrate on those parts of the chart that determine the psychology as a start and then look at how the person relates to specific areas of their interaction with the real world and this can be done on a house by house basis.

Both approaches would agree that we can identify issues that are inherent in the chart and those issues that a person might have more difficulty with. Whether the person ever faces such circumstances is revealed through predictive work, such as Solar Returns. That is not all potentials are realised during a person's life, whilst others may be exercised regularly. There is also the learning and development that goes on in a person's life - a person might be ill-equipped to deal with a particular situation as a teenager but eminently able to deal with it at aged 40.

How do we disentangle? The short answer is that to do it successfully we need to work with the person in a consultation - either professionally or informally but there's really no certainty in situations where we're trying to read for a 'stranger' who we have no access to. We can speculate but do little more. Indeed without some feedback from them, we have no way of checking that our specualtion is accurate in whole or part or plain wrong.

Strong and weak planets made simple

Once we start to determine rulerships, exaltations, and other adjunct modifications to each planet, things become complex. Rather than start off a chart reading with all of this baggage to contend with why not do it the simple way?

For example, MERCURY represents how you communicate, write, local travel preferences and activities, your thoughts and how you both perceive people/events and how you organize facts and memories. It's house provides a focus area of life where these thoughts and communications are emphasized, the sign might suggest the tone or style you apply to expressing these Mercury activities.

Then go on to each of the other planets. Just using these statements will provide a fairly clear idea of the core meanings of the chart as a whole, of you as a whole person. Where there is contraction, there is a personality wrinkle that makes you unique and which you will find a way to fold into your life.

Note, we haven't talked of aspects yet, nor how close or loose they may be. We haven't talked about all of the classical and medeival twists and turns that were used to refine and expand a chart's meaning to overcome the presence of only a few planets that could be worked with. Simple is the way to start. Dave

dadsnook2000 said:

Once we start to determine rulerships, exaltations, and other adjunct modifications to each planet, things become complex. Rather than start off a chart reading with all of this baggage to contend with why not do it the simple way?

For example, MERCURY represents how you communicate, write, local travel preferences and activities, your thoughts and how you both perceive people/events and how you organize facts and memories. It's house provides a focus area of life where these thoughts and communications are emphasized, the sign might suggest the tone or style you apply to expressing these Mercury activities.

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I'm all for simplification, the issue is of course, how much simplification? One of the most used simplifications is the Astrological Alphabet, which runs along the following lines: Mars = Aries = First House, or Mercury = Gemini = third House. The trouble is that it's a gross over simplification that leads to mistakes in practice. Dave's suggestion here is a reasonable start and it can give you a general overview. There will come a point though, when you ask not just how do I communicate but how well do I communicate? You might also ask if there is only one area of your life that you communicate through? When you get to that stage then 'rulerships, exaltations and other adjunct modifications', or aspects become important for further progress. Those additional factors can be added in bite sized chunks - for example you might want to look at whether Mercury is aspected by other planets, when you reach that stage. As long as you realise that you are dealing with a very simple model of Astrology that is a good way forward and once you are happy that you have the basics of that model in place you can move forward.

Dadsnook2000 said:

Note, we haven't talked of aspects yet, nor how close or loose they may be. We haven't talked about all of the classical and medeival twists and turns that were used to refine and expand a chart's meaning to overcome the presence of only a few planets that could be worked with. Simple is the way to start. Dave

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Yes aspects will eventually have to be confronted and you do need to know the planets' intrinsic natures first. You will also need to have a reasonable grasp as to the meaning of the Houses and at first sight these can seem totally arbitrary and irrational. There is however a reasonable rationale to them based on the daily rotation of the Earth.


I'm interested in Dave's view of medieval Astrologers, who seemed to know that they were lacking in planets and had to think up ways of dealing with their poverty of resources. with twists and turns. I'm sure he'll expand on that one later. And of course no one could complain about Modern Astrologers adding complexity to chart reading, their 20 or 30 pages for a natal reading being far less complex than the 3 or 4 pages of a medieval reading. LOL

At a more serious level, eventually you will need to make a decision about what levels of complexity to accept and which complexities to reject. That will be influenced not only by the quantity of complexity you want to allow but also the quality - that is some complexities may appeal to your approach others may just seem like making the simple become difficult to no good purpose. I think Dave and I would agree on keeping things as simple as is consistent with getting the results you are looking for, or are at least willing to settle for. We might disagree on which complexities to choose and incorporate but that's not really a major issue for you, as you have to settle on your own approach and this will change and develop over time. So nice small steps to begin with but once you are happy with those steps, then is the time to consider adding some complexity. Note I said consider, there will come a point sooner or later when the answer to that consideration will be to reject the additional complexity. You might well end up simply content that you've got the basics and not wish to go further, or that you are able to read a natal chart to your satisfaction, whilst recognising that there's a lot more that you could incorporate if only you had the time and inclination. It's not an all or nothing scenario.