Series - Aspects of Planets in Astrology.

So here we begin in 2017. The first article of the year. 

 

Aspects of Planets in Astrology. 

 

Just like the position of a planet in a house of chart is of great importance in understanding its results on Human Life, Aspects of a Planet from one house to other houses also play an important role. Sometimes a planet aspecting a particular house becomes the most important factor as it can make or break the things related to that house during its dasha. In this article, we will understand what an Aspect actually means? What happens when a particular planet aspects any house? And what other factors revolve around interpretations of Aspects? It is important to understand these things before we learn the impact of each planetary aspect on other houses and planets. 

 

So, let’s cover this topic on following points – 

 

What is an Aspect?

Percentage of Aspect. 

100% aspects of planets

What a Planet does when it aspects?

Benefic Aspect Vs Malefic Aspect. 

Aspect on House Vs Aspect on Planet. 

Joint Aspects in Birth Chart and Transits. 

Sandhi Aspects.

Divisional Charts. 

Western Astrology Aspects. 

Activation of Aspect.

How I will cover this series?

Conclusion. 

 

Let’s deal with all points one after the other. 

 

What is an Aspect? – So, 1st of all, what is an Aspect? In the most ordinary sense of understanding, understand Aspect as a Sight or Drishti. Just like we all have a Sight and it falls on some place or person, it is considered that planets in sky also have a sight and that sight falls at different places in sky, i.e. houses/signs or on other planets and impacts the human life. It is always better to understand planets as persons then we can understand easily how they work? Just like persons can have friendship/enmity within each other, planets can also have. Likewise, just like we have a sight, planets also have a sight/aspect by which they observe the things around them. This is the most basic understanding of Aspect. 

 

Percentage of Aspect – Now, this point becomes confusing for many as to how planets have different percentage aspects at different houses? At one house, a planet will have 100% aspect, but at another house it may have 25% aspect. How does it work? Again, the simplest way to understand this, is to treat the planet as a person. So, a person, standing upright, can have his 100% sight going in front, right? Likewise, every planet has 100% aspect on the 7th house from itself as 7th house is right in front. Then, a person, standing upright and without moving his neck, can’t have a look over his shoulders, right? Likewise, a planet can’t have sight over 2nd house and 12th house from its house as they work like shoulders to the planet. Other percentage of aspects of planets also depend on the kind of angle they are making to a particular house from their position. What we will cover here are 100% aspects as they are responsible for triggering events. It doesn’t mean that other aspects from 25% to 75% doesn’t matter but they will depend on other factors of chart for triggering the event. Let’s move further. 

 

100% aspects of planets – So, following are 100% aspects of planets – 

 

• Every Planet aspects at 7th house from its position with its 100% sight. 
• Besides 7th house aspect, Saturn also aspects 3rd house and 10th house from its position with its 100% sight. 
• Besides 7th house aspect, Jupiter also aspects 5th house and 9th house from its position with its 100% sight. 
• Besides 7th house aspect, Mars also aspects 4th house and 8th house from its position with its 100% sight. 
• As Rahu & Ketu are always 7 houses apart in Birth Chart and they represent opposite forces, i.e. Obsession Vs Isolation, their 7th house aspect is there theoretically but is not actually there practically as opposite energy is always there in 7th house to counter it. Besides 7th house aspect, Rahu/Ketu also aspect 5th house and 9th house from its position with its 100% sight.
• When we cover each planet and its aspects, we will discuss why Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Rahu/Ketu has got special aspects as stated above and why Rahu/Ketu’s 7th house aspect is existent but non-effective on some points?

What a Planet does when it aspects? – Now, this is the gist of this article, isn’t it? So, every planet rules some house/s in a birth chart. Then it sits in some other house in chart as it is not necessary that every planet will be in its own sign. Then from its position in chart, it sends a sight to the house it aspects. So, it takes the energy of the house which it rules, then takes it to the house it sits and then sends the aspect to another house as to show from where you will get the results of the house which it rules and where it sits? All this while, we also need to keep in mind the dignity, conjunctions, basic nature & karakas of the planet involved and the other house it rules, if any. 

 

Let’s take two examples – 

• Cancer Ascendant – Moon rules the 1st house of Self and Life Path. Suppose Moon sits in 11th house in Taurus, where it is exalted. It shows person’s life path is going towards nurturing & taking care of people (Moon’s significations) for Social Welfare (11th house). From 11th house, it aspects 5th house of Education, Teaching/Counselling & Children (all specifications of Moon again). So, this person will get his life path successfully when he gets emotionally involved in 5th house matters. As Moon is exalted in 11th house, he will be able to do it without much struggle. 
• Scorpio Ascendant – Sun rules 10th house of Career & Authority. Sun itself represents Authority. Sun sits in Capricorn in 3rd house of Business, that means Authority is coming from Self Efforts and Business. Now, Sun aspects the 9th house Higher Education. It indicates that person’s higher education and other 9th house related matters are going to help him in gaining Authority, but now as Sun is in Capricorn, i.e. enemy sign of Saturn, things won’t be so easy. He will have to go through wrong choices of Career before he eventually finds the right Career.

So, like this, we need to analyse planet, houses involved by ruling, sitting and aspecting, and dignity of planet to truly understand the meaning of aspect. When we go through separate planet’s aspect then we will further dig into the ways of analysing the aspects. 

 

Benefic Aspect Vs Malefic Aspect – It is important to note if planet aspecting is a naturally benefic planet or malefic planet. A benefic planet (Moon, Venus & Jupiter) will make things easy to the house it is aspecting. A malefic planet (Sun, Rahu, Ketu, Saturn & Mars) will add hard work & struggle to the house it is aspecting. 

 

Aspect on House Vs Aspect on Planet – Now, this becomes important. If a planet is aspecting a house which is empty then it is not as powerful as a planet aspecting a house which has planet there. It means if there is a planet to receive the aspect and reciprocate it, then it really activates the chart and houses involved in the relevant dashas. Even if there is one side aspect, like Saturn’s10th aspect on Moon where Moon is unable to aspect back to Saturn, then also it is better than a planet aspecting an empty house. But again, it doesn’t mean that planets aspecting empty house has no value. It is just that one side or mutual aspects have more energy exchange then planet aspecting an empty house. 

 

Joint Aspects in Birth Chart and Transits – Just like 2-3 planets sitting in one house of chart make that house significant for person’s life, likewise 2-3 planets jointly aspecting a house of chart makes that house important in chart. That is also the case in annual transit of planets, that’s why we look at double transit impact of Jupiter & Saturn to understand which house is getting impacted by them, so that events related with that house can be predicted with more conformity. 

 

Sandhi Aspects – This is one area of aspects which is normally missed by people. It is when planets are not aspecting by their sign/house positions but they are still aspecting due to close proximity of degrees. For ex – Sun is in Aries at 28 degrees and Mars is in Scorpio at 3 degrees. So, Mars is 8 houses/signs away. So, we can say that Sun is not aspecting Mars as Sun aspects only 7th house from itself which becomes Libra in this case. Once Mars is in Scorpio, it is away from Sun’s 7th house aspect. But important thing is that Sun is at 28 degrees, that means it is about to switch to Taurus, from where its 7th house aspect will go to Mars in Scorpio and the difference between degrees of Sun and Mars are only 5 degrees. So, here it makes a case of Sandhi Aspect as although they are in different signs then aspecting wave-length but the degrees are so close that both planets are able to exchange their energy. Same thing is seen as Sandhi Conjunction when for example, Sun is at 28 degrees of Aries and Saturn is at 4 degree of Taurus. Although, they are in different signs but degree-wise they are very close. If we remove the line between Aries and Taurus, they are within 6 degrees. This is the way Sandhi Aspect and Sandhi Conjunctions should be seen. Anytime planets are within 10 degrees of each other though in different signs, Sandhi Aspect and Sandhi Conjunctions must be checked. 

 

Divisional Charts - One thing we must keep in mind while reading any Divisional Chart is that we should not use normal planetary aspects in D Charts. Like, don’t use 7th house, 5th house, 9th house etc aspect for any planet in any position in any house. Reason is simple. Planetary aspect works with D-1 chart as it is the map of sky at the time of your birth. Like, if a baby takes birth right now, he will have Sun in Scorpio and we can easily use 7th house aspect of Sun on the house where Taurus falls. But same Sun will go into a different sign than Scorpio in D-charts. It may be in Capricorn. Now, we can’t say that Sun is aspecting Cancer in a D-chart because in sky it was still at Scorpio, not Capricorn. Hope this is understandable. So, the way out is to use Jaimini Aspects (http://astrosaxena.com/bija) in D-charts.

 

Western Astrology Aspects – Again, Aspects of Planets are not unique in practice in Vedic Astrology. Western Astrology also considers them and actually they have larger set of aspects. Only difference is that they give importance to aspects when there are mutual aspects. It means that planets should be present in both houses involved in aspect. So, we can say that Vedic approach is more inclusive but at the same time Western Approach is what can give you more results/events. Main aspects used in Western Astrology are as follows – 

• Opposition – It is what we call 7th house aspect. 
• Square – It is when planets are 4th house/10th house from each other. 
• Sextile – It is when planets are 3rd house/11th house from each other. 
• Trine – It is what we call 5th house and 9th house aspect. 
• Quincunx – It is when planets are 6th house/8th house from each other. 

Every aspect here represents a different theme and meaning for planets/signs involved, which I will cover in the end with my last article of this series. 

 

Activation of Aspect – As always, aspects of any planet will be activated during its MD/AD. Before that, planet’s aspect will be there but it will work in support to the planet which MD/AD is going on. Also, aspects get activated in case of mutual aspects as discussed earlier. 

 

How I will cover this series? – So, I don’t think it will be possible for me to go through a planet’s position in each house for each ascendant. I am planning to make an article for each planet’s aspect and in that I will cover planet in each house and its aspect on other house. Like, article about Sun’s aspect will include Sun’s aspect on 7th house from its position in every house. Only thing you need to figure out is what house Sun rules in your chart? Please feel free to comment if you have any other better suggestion to cover this series. I will consider. 

 

Conclusion – So, I think we are all set after this introductory article on Aspects to understand how an aspect of planet can impact our life. Last, but not the least, a planet sitting in a house will always have more impact on house than the planet aspecting the house. It is like you are sitting with a person and someone is looking at you from far. You will be more impacted by person who is sitting right besides you. So, let’s begin understanding aspects from the next article on Sun’s aspect. 

 

Hope this helps. Please feel free to post comments or queries, if any. 

 

Thanks, 

 

Vishal S Saxena - Astrologer