Planetary Condition in Astrology

In traditional astrology, not every planet is expressed in an equal manner. Some planets are stronger than others in a chart due to planetary conditions. In this episode, we'll explore a few of these basic yet most important conditions.

Welcome to Exploring Esoterica, the podcast where I break down different esoteric practices and shed light on the history and truth behind them. Let's explore this fourth and final episode on the framework within astrology.

Welcome to the last episode within this series on the four-part framework of astrology. There's a saying that goes, "you don't know how well you know something until you teach it to someone else", and that's been true for me in this series. Going over my notes and resources in order to make these episodes has allowed me to deepen my understanding of these basic concepts. Now, as I've said in other episodes, there are plenty of more advanced techniques that go beyond the scope of these introductory episodes that I've been doing. But I believe that it doesn't matter if you wanna become a practitioner of a particular esoteric or even religious practice. We still need to understand the history and underlying principles that developed over time.

I found that many times the history is what gets lost, and then we end up with techniques and religious concepts without any historical basis of where they came from, how they developed, and how they changed as society shifted over time. That's what I've been wanting to focus on, the historical concept behind the techniques.

Let's do a run through of what we've covered so far. In episode 12, we explored the philosophy of astrology within Hellenistic culture, which is a great starting point to understand the overall practice. In episode 14, we started the discussion on the four-part framework by examining the seven classical planets, which include the sun and the moon. And episode 15, we took a closer look at the 12 signs of the Tropical Zodiac. And in the last episode, which was episode 16, we took a look at the 12 houses in astrology. And now in this episode we're going to look at something called planetary conditions.

So if you would like to listen to those episodes, they will be listed in my show notes as well as linked in the description for those watching on YouTube. But let's go ahead and dive into this episode. And as usual, I'll break this down into three parts. Part one, we'll talk about planetary placements. In part two, we'll do a brief discussion on timing techniques, and in part three, we will wrap this up with a conclusion of both this episode and the series as a whole. So let's go to part one.

[02:30] Part 1: Planetary Placements

Now, when I started studying astrology many years ago, I tried to find the correlation between the planets in my natal chart and what I was experiencing in real life. Sometimes I could see certain planetary expressions playing out, and other times it felt elusive and I didn't see the connection. Modern astrology treats the planets as if they're all on an equal playing field. But this is once again a deviation from traditional astrology, and it also leaves out this very important concept called planetary conditions. Basically, certain plaintiffs will have a stronger influence and expression in a chart over others.

This is looked at two different ways. First is the placement within a natal chart, which I'm going to call a static expression. The other is through timing techniques, which I will call a dynamic expression that changes over time. So let's explore the static expression.

There are several ways to analyze planets and their placements within a chart. Astrologers will look at what's called the Big Three, which is your sun, moon, and the planet that rules a sign of your ascendant. Remember, the ascendant is basically the sign that was on the eastern horizon at the time of your birth. These three planets, and again, I'm referring to the sun and the moon as a planet, just simply for ease. We know they're not actual planets. But these three are considered the most important. These three symbolize our most immediate experiences in our life.

In the book you were born for this by Chani Nicholas, she refers to these plaintiffs as the three keys of your chart. The sun represents your life purpose, the moon, your physical and emotional needs, and your chart ruler, which is a planet that rules a sign of your ascendant, steers our life in a particular direction. The rest of the planets in a natal chart are seen as extra influences to these three elements. Astrologers will look at these three placements, first to consider their effect on a person, and the philosophy behind this is that these will give a clue as to what someone struggles with or naturally feels drawn to in their life.

From there, an astrologer will look at the other planets, particularly the two benefic planets and the two malefic planets. Remember, the benefic are Venus and Jupiter and they symbolize topics and situations that are beneficial for us. The malefic, which are Saturn and Mars, symbolize topics that are a struggle or a challenge for us.

Now as we explored in previous episodes, we also look at the signs and house placements. In the episode on the 12 Zodiac signs, I explained something called the planetary rulership scheme. Now, the actual term of this is called the essential dignities. Again, this scheme shows what signs planets are strongly expressed in which is the domicile and exaltation. And which signs the expression is distorted or challenge, which is the fall and the detriment.

Then we have the house placements. The angular houses will have the strongest expression if planets are placed here over the other houses. Again, these are the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth, also called the Ascendant, IC, Descendant, and Midheaven. Again, we explore these in other episodes, but they are the first type of planetary condition that an astrologer will look at.

[05:31] Configurations

The next is called configurations. Now, configurations or aspects is something I introduced in the last episode when I explored the relationship between the first house and the rest of the 12 houses on a chart. The concept also extends to planets. Again, when planets and points are in certain degrees of each other in the sky, they form geometric shapes on a chart. The five classical configurations are trine, sextile, conjunction, opposite and square. These shapes describe certain relationships between the planets.

The Ancient Greek describe these configurations as planets being able to see or witness one another. If planets were not in these configurations, that they were not able to see one another and therefore no relationship was formed. Sometimes these would result in favorable expression between the planets. Other times there would be a challenge presented there. So let's go over these five configurations.

Conjunction is when planets share the same sign or are within one degree of each other. Some astrologers will extend that to three or five degrees depending on the planet. Either way, the planets are close to one another in some way.

Sextile is 60 degrees or two signs apart, equal to the degrees of an hexagon. This was seen as a favorable condition between the planet. And trine is 120 degrees or four signs apart equals to the degrees of a triangle. Again, another favorable condition between the planets. These two sextile, and trine represent conditions and topics in our lives that are easy to go through or that we receive some kind of benefit from.

The last two aspects are considered unfavorable and challenging. Square is when planets are 90 degrees or three signs apart, equal to the degrees of a square. And opposition is when planets are 180 degrees, six signs apart. Basically, they're straight across from each other on a chart. Square and opposition mean that we struggle between these topics and situations in our lives.

Now planets that form any of these configurations to each other have a stronger expression than planets that do not. The more a planet shares these aspects with other planets, the stronger their expression. For example, if your moon is sextile your sun like in my chart, then the Sun in Moon will have a strong influence on each other. If Mercury is also sextile, your sun and moon as well, then Mercury will have a strong expression in your chart. Of course, all other planetary conditions considered.

Now, back to conjunction for a second. There are other conditions that an astrologer will explore that is more related to traditional astrology than modern, especially conjunctions that involve the sun. I would consider these to be more advanced, which is why I won't cover them in this episode. But feel free to check out my resources if that is something that you would like to dive more into. Whenever you hear terms of cazimi or combustion, it's referring to planets that are close to the sun in a chart. But again, that is a more advanced technique.

[08:34] Retrogrades

Now there's another planetary condition called retrogrades. I'll go into more detail in the next section, but for now, when a person has a planet that is retrograde in their chart, it means that these topics are ones that will develop slowly, or it's one that a person struggles with. For example, if you're born with Mercury in retrograde, you may have issues communicating with others, or you may be slow to learning new information. If you're born with Mars in retrograde, you may have issues with expressing your anger or standing up for yourself. These topics are slow to express themselves and can have a distortion due to these retrograde expression. Again, I'll explain in part two, just put a pin in it for now.

[00:09:15] Sect

Now, the last part I wanna talk about is sect. This determines which planets are the strongest in expression based on whether you were born during the day or at night. Recall that the ascendant, inde descendant angles represent the eastern and western horizon. If you're born while the sun is above the horizon, meaning it was daytime, then you have a day chart. If you were born during the night, the sun is going to be below the horizon and you have a night chart. The sun, Jupiter and Saturn are considered day planets while Mars, Venus and the Moon are considered night planets. Day planets are considered their strongest if they're above the horizon. Night planets are strongest when below the horizon. Mercury the ever ambiguous planet within astrology is considered neutral, and it depends on other factors, whether it's considered a night or a day planet. In fact, as with any philosophical or esoteric practice, astrologers have their own opinions of which planets belong to which sect or night or day planets especially, how to categorize Mercury. But this was a generally agreed upon classification of the time.

Now, due to the nature of the solar system and the rotation of the earth, most charts are going to have a planet that is contrary to sect, meaning it's on the side of the horizon that is weakest for it. For example, let's say you're born during the day and therefore have a day chart. Your sun is at the top of the chart, meaning you were born somewhere around noon when the sun was high in the sky. Venus is never too far from the sun and therefore will be somewhere on the day side of the chart depending on how far above the horizon your sun was. Venus is a night planet and therefore contrary to sect if it's above the horizon instead of below. Therefore, astrologers would consider this planet a bit weaker in its expression than if you had been born at night. It's rare that each planet is on the correct side of the chart unless you were born somewhere around dawn or dusk. It's very rare.

Now, these are just a few of the basic ways to determine the condition of a planet. There are way more nuances than I have time to explore in this episode, but all of these explain how strongly certain situations or topics can be experienced in our lives.

Now, of course, if you want to go deeper into these topics and the advanced techniques related to them, be sure to check out my resources. Also consider signing up for my monthly newsletter to get deeper insights of my journey through these esoteric topics. But with all that said, let's jump into part two of this discussion.

[11:40] Part 2: Timing Techniques

Now let's talk timing techniques of what I'm referring to as dynamic planetary conditions. These are the aspects that will change the expression of each planet in your chart. These techniques will either enhance certain placements or present challenges to certain topics and situations. There are quite a few, but I'll explain the more basic ones.

[12:13] Daily Transits

The first one I'm going to call daily transits. These are the continual movements of planets across the sky. A natal chart, and any astrological chart is just a snapshot of the sky at the time of someone's birth or the time an inquiry is given. But almost every astrologer is going to look at the movements of the planets on a daily basis.

Because planets traveling a certain pattern around the sun, we're able to guess where a planet will be along the zodiac at any given time in the future or in the past. And while this used to be a very labor intensive task, we now have software programs that can quickly draw up a chart for any given time in the past or future.

This is where the Divinatory aspects comes into view. Many astrologers will use transit charts to predict what conditions or circumstances may happen in the future. We can even use transit charts against our natal charts to predict what conditions and circumstances we may be dealing with in our personal lives at a time. Astrologer, Chris Brennan explained it a certain way in one of his episodes. The planetary transits give us the astrological weather, whereas our natal charts show us how we may be reacting to that weather.

Let me use a practical example. Let's say it's raining outside. We're all going to experience the rain in some way. Some of us are going to stay inside and stay dry. Some of us will brave the weather, but with an umbrella to keep us dry and comfortable, and unfortunately, some people will get soaked and have a bad day. That's the relationship between the natal chart and a transit chart. This is also the field called mundane astrology.

Now in ancient times and today mundane astrology was and is used to plan agriculture, to plan political and social events, even festivals and celebrations. In fact, if you've ever looked up a farmer's Almanac and seen the phases of the moon listed or even seen the phases of the moon listed and calendars and planners. That is an aspect of mundane astrology at work. There's a reason why people will attach erratic and unexpected behavior to a full moon. This is a similar interpretation that you find in astrology when it comes to full moons. It's in our culture, even when people dismiss esoteric practices such as astrology.

[14:21] Planetary Cycles

Now, let's take this concept of mundane astrology and transits a bit further. We've all noticed the phases of the moon. There is the new moon, the full moon, and the two quarter moons. These are all in a predictable cycle because of the way the moon orbits the earth. We can even predict when an eclipse is going to happen based on this pattern of the moon. Again, astrologers can predict the effects of a moon phase and eclipse based on the sign and house that is in on an astrological chart.

Speaking of cycles, we can also predict circumstances based on the cycles of different planets. I just mentioned about retrogrades, so this is when planets seem to be traveling backwards across the sky for a period of time. What's happening is an optical illusion from our vantage point on earth due to the way planets travel around the sun. It looks like they stop at a point, travel backwards, slow down, and stop again before traveling forward in a direct motion. This backwards movement is called a retrograde.

The interpretation is that topics represented by a planet in retrograde seem to have delays, distortions, and it's a moment that urges us to reconsider what we're doing and what's going on. We may have to revisit certain topics, fix past mistakes, or redo something better. In fact, there are several mistakes that I've made during the recording of this episode because I completely forgot to record this section on Retrogrades.

Mercury is about to be in retrograde later this week. And this actually happens about three to four times a year, and it's always a frustrating time. Even travel plans and technology seems to break down at this time. So of course people gonna have this in their natal chart, but it is a cycle that many astrologers would keep track of and anticipate. Even people who don't practice astrology have heard of Mercury in retrograde. Because it happens so often, it can coincide with real life interruptions and delays.

I'll use another quite famous example at this point. The great conjunction is a name given to the alignment of Jupiter conjunct Saturn. This means that Jupiter and Saturn are in the same place in the sky. Because these are the slowest plaintiffs in traditional astrology, there's a lot of interpretations given to this placement, especially on the societal level. The last time this happened was December 2020. Jupiter entered the same sign as Saturn, which was Capricorn in December 2019. This is when we were experiencing the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns of 2020. Many astrologers were keeping tabs on this transit a few years before December 2019, and some even predicted that some type of pandemic or social upheaval would happen based on previous examples of Jupiter and Saturn coming together throughout history.

Now again, this is when we entered the philosophical debate of faith versus free will that I discussed back in episode 12. This will always be a constant discussion anytime something as big as the pandemic occurs in conjunction with planetary alignments according to astrology. Sometimes these events will invigorate people's connection with astrology. It can also cause some kind of philosophical crisis or be dismissed as just another coincidence. But it does make you wonder about the connection of real life versus these esoteric practices like astrology on some level. Ancient civilizations didn't have the technology that we do now, and yet they were able to predict certain events using practices like astrology.

[17:36] Advanced Techniques

Now there are other timing techniques that astrologers will use to predict certain aspects of a person's life and what planetary replacement and houses of a chart will be more active during a specific time. These can include Annual Profections and Zodiacal Lot Releases, both of which were in use during the Hellenistic age, and therefore as part of traditional astrology. Modern astrology has something similar called Solar Returns and Secondary Progressions. And while those techniques are very different from traditional astrology, it's still the same concept of using planetary positions in a type of progression of the natal placements in a chart to predict future outcomes and circumstances. These all point to certain elements and placements in a chart being more active at a particular time in a person's life. Again, this all takes the concept of planetary conditions to an advanced level. Now let's pause for a few seconds and lemme let you chew on that before we wrap this episode up in part three.

[18:42] Part 3: Conclusion

Now this concludes my preliminary series on astrology. The philosophy, principles, and a brief history of the practice, as well as the four part framework. This includes the planets, 12 zodiac signs, 12 houses of an astrological chart, and the main planetary conditions that examine the strength of the expression of each planet in a chart. I hope that these have given some insight and clarification for those looking at the practice in a broad view. Astrology is a way both ancient and modern practitioners look at the world and cosmos to make sense of the strange and unexplained elements of life.

Some people use astrology to find meaning and validation in their life. Others may see it as some fad that non-rational people clinging to out of desperation or just simply as a hobby. Either way, there's no denying its impact in society and pop culture. Even people who don't practice astrology have heard of the 12 signs and the meaning attached to eclipses and phases of the moon.

As I said all the way back in episode 13 on Western Esotericism, society has dismissed and even banned esoteric practices throughout history regardless of their cultural impact. I'm currently reading the second volume of Nicholas Campion's History of Astrology in which he surveys the practice of astrology through the Middle Ages up until the modern times. I'll do a future episode when I revisit this series, but that's gonna be all for the traditional era of astrology.

Now of course, if you wanna learn more about the aspects and the nuances I didn't talk about, be sure to check out my resources in the show notes or description for those watching on YouTube. Be sure to sign up for my monthly newsletter if you wanna know more about what I have in store for the future episodes. But with all that said, that's going to be all for this series on the philosophy and framework within astrology.

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you would like to learn more, be sure to check out my website where you'll find transcripts to this episode, as well as older ones and additional blog posts. For those of you watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe and leave me a comment. Thank you so much, and I'll see you in the next one.