Establishing meanings
Most astrologers or early-studies astrologers use the meanings of signs, planets, houses, aspects, etc. that are given them by whatever teacher or friends they associate with or from whatever books they have available. But, it might be interesting to think about the methodology one would utilize to determine these meanings for yourself.
Astrologers who practice their craft do this all the time of course. The average 20 charts a week that I rune are part of my on-going "adjustment" or process of refinement and verification of meanings. But, I'm talking about a "from the ground up" process.
For planetary meanings, we would look for charts wherein the Sun conjoined a planet or for when a planet was on a chart's Ascendant angle. Once we have several of these charts we can start to compare the person's characteristics and approach to life for common forms of expression. Then, we gather more charts and use those early assumptions as a basis for determining further commonalities. A couple dozen examples and you have the basis for the meaning associated with that planet.
This type of methodology tends to isolate the actual characteristics so that the "general" meaning can be extracted from assumptions, expectations and wild guesses.
We can do the same for houses, for aspects (conjunctions, to start with) between planets.
Doing this for signs might require more extensive work. We have to look at what defines a "sign." Everyone might jump in at this point and say "its the spring equinox or Aries point." Not quite true.
** Tropical sign placements do relate to the Aries point but they are defined by the Sun's Declination -- the greatest height of the Sun each day if we plot it as a sine-wave relative to a reference point such as the horizon. Doing so will provide a basis for segmenting a continuing curve by some convenient manner. SUN SIGNS ARE DECLINATION SEGMENTS.
** If declination was the sole determination then the signs of Taurus and Leo would be identical as each spans a 30 to 60 degree span from the Aries-Libra axis. So, since they don't seem to have common expressions, we should note that the sine-wave also points to a process of increasing and decreasing, as well as being above or below the Aries-Libra axis of equality.
** We now need to ask the very obvious question, "If declination defines the Sun's sign, are signs exclusively related to the Sun?" If would tend to think this would be true to quite an extent. How would Pluto, or even Venus, having their own orbital inclinations relative to the Sun-Earth plane, be expected to be influenced by the sign-segment it happened to be located within? If this question is valid, whether we can answer it or not, then we also have to consider Minderwiz's question about sign rulership.
** If some think that a planet has characteristics that are related to a sign, then what is the difference between a planet and a sign. This is important! A sign cannot denote anger, but Mars might. Signs don't covet jewels, but Venus might. What can one possibly offer as proof of "rulership" links between a sign and a planet -- and this includes Pluto and Scorpio. Casual adoption of this form of thinking is as dangerous as equating signs to houses in terms of their meanings.
Astrological charts are models into which we place a lot of physically "real" and "unreal" components. Planets are "real" as are the MC, Ascendant and Vertex angles at the time and place of an event. Signs and houses and the Moon's nodes are not real -- you can't see them. They are mathematical constructs. Arabian parts and Sabian symbols are not "real" but are concepts. So, what in your charts are real, unreal, junk or misunderstood components?
Just some thoughts. But everyone who does charts and pursues understanding needs to think deeply about these and other issues. Dave