If you’re fairly new to astrology or are still learning (aren’t we all??) you’ve probably heard of Mercury retrograde or things like Venus squaring Pluto, etc. etc. These are called transits and aspects, and they are the part of astrology that really helps us fine-tune the details of how your birth chart works and how you are (or aren’t!) affected by them.
What Does This Have To Do With Your Ruling Planet?
Well, it’s simple—you tend to be impacted more strongly by transits and aspects that are made to your ruling planet. So Aries rising folks, it’s important to watch the movements of Mars. Taurus Ascendants, keep an eye on Venus. And so on.
Need a refresher? Here’s a list of the ruling planets, based on your Ascendant/rising sign.
Ruling Planets of the Signs
Aries – Mars
Taurus – Venus
Gemini – Mercury
Cancer – the Moon
Leo – the Sun
Virgo – Mercury
Libra – Venus
Scorpio – Mars
Sagittarius – Jupiter
Capricorn – Saturn
Aquarius – Saturn
Pisces – Jupiter
Ok so we’ve got our ruling planets set in our minds. Right?
Mine’s Jupiter as I have Sag (Sagittarius) rising. So for me and other Sag (and Pisces) Ascendant people, it’s particularly important to keep track of where Jupiter is in the sky, any time it goes retrograde, and any strong aspects made to it.
“And just how do we do that?” you may ask. Luckily, you have a few different options…
How To Track Your Ruling Planet
Get an ephemeris. The astrologer’s bread and butter. There are both printed versions and electronic. Deborah Houlding has a quick visual explanation of how to read an ephemeris over on her site, Skyscript, and Astro.com (aka Astrodienst) provides an online ephemeris for every year starting with 1400 AD/CE (seriously!!) because they’re the bees knees ?
And/or get a paper planner/desk calendar that covers astrological events day-by-day. I really love the We’Moon yearly planner, as it’s run and created by and for womyn (to use their spelling) and isn’t a huge corporation. They’re feminist, anti-fascist, anti-oppression, anti-racist, pro-environment, and many are queer. <3 I have also used Llewellyn’s Witches’ Datebook in the past.
And/or check out Cafe Astrology’s astro calendars online. These are quite impressive feats of web programming, methinks.
Stay tuned for part two!
Further Resources
Hand, Robert. Planets in Transits: Life Cycles for Living.
Kent, April Elliott. Astrological Transits.
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