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I am writing this post about the Personal Planets in the Horoscope. Specifically I am writing about their movement through the Zodiac (and through our own charts) and how they interact with our Natal planets.
What is a Personal Planet? Also known as the Inner Planets, these are planets (and Lights – so count the Sun and Moon here too) which move rapidly through the Zodiac. What do I mean by rapidly? Well Mars is the “slowest” of the personal planets and its average movement is more than half a degree per day. So typically, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, the Moon and Mars are considered the Personal Planets.
Another reason these are known as “personal” is illuminated in this example. I have three female friends who are born within one month of me in the same birth year (1979). Two of them are born within 15 days of me actually. With this in mind, how similar will all four of our charts be? What will be different? Well, knowing we all have the same birth year, that means that most likely, we will all have Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and even Chiron in the same signs – this is especially true because we are born with one month of each other. These are known as the Outer Planets because they move so slowly (and because their reflection in the birth chart is usually more subconscious until we do some work on ourselves to grow and mature psychologically). What will be different about the four of our charts is the Personal Planets. The Sun moves one degree per day. Mercury’s movement is quite varied because it goes retrograde three times per year – so it zips ahead of the Sun, slows down, goes backward (Rx) and then races forward again. Mercury can move as much as two degrees per day. Venus’ orbit is the closest to the Earth’s, so it typically moves around one degree per day or a little over, going retrograde about once every two years. And I already mentioned Mars. The Moon is the one “wild card” as it were, moving one degree every two hours. It changes signs every two and a half days. Therefore the Moon vacillates very often – hence the moodiness of Lunar types and the changing of the tides every day.
Knowing these planets’ speeds, we can see that even over the course of 15 to 30 days, some of these Personal Planets would change signs. My Sun is near the end of Pisces, so someone born 15 days later would be guaranteed to be an Aries, etc etc for the rest of the Personal Planets. And here is a curious fact: if someone is born 15 days before or after you, their Moon will most likely be in the sign opposite yours (my Moon is in Libra and sure enough, both of my friends who are born 15 days before and after me have their Moons in Aries). So we can see that the Personal Planets are called “Personal” because even when someone is born near your birthday, their Personal or Inner Planets can be quite different from yours.
As an aside, the planets Jupiter and Saturn are known as the Transpersonal Planets because they have more of an overt effect in the chart than the Outer Planets, but they move slow enough that over the course of several weeks, they will still be in the same sign. Jupiter moves about 30+ degrees per year while Saturn averages 12 degrees of forward movement per year. Therefore, going back to the example above – my three friends who are born near my birthday all have the same Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Chiron and Pluto. When I was born, Jupiter was Rx at 29 degrees of Cancer, so that means the person born a month before me has it in Leo.
In my next post I will elaborate on the Personal Planet’s aspects and movement through the Horoscope.
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