Before anything else, slow down!

I’ve seen many students, including myself, rushing. Picking a placement, randomly, elaborating out of context…

Our own attitude is as worthy of attention as the chart itself.

A proper interpretation is potentially as huge as a whole biography. Intensely summarised, it may boil down to a few pictures (worth a thousand words each).

Let’s think in pictures.

Mental pictures are like cartoons. We may not “see” them as clearly as actual drawings, with all the colours and details. They may be nothing but fleeting sketches. All we need is to get the picture.

Here is my chart. Let’s dig for images!

I usually recommend to start looking at the angles; we could begin noticing Saturn and the Moon as the likely biggest players, especially the Moon as she also rules over the Ascendant. Neptune is also powerfully emphasised by the Sun.

Let’s start with the Sun for a change. It is where and how we are called to shine.

It says something essential about the life story. In my case it is in the Fifth House. (Houses are the most concrete indicators. For the question: “What are we doing here?” houses are relevant.)

The challenge is that every house comes with a bundle of possible meanings. Self-expression, children, romance, education, entertainment, fun and even financial speculation are crammed in the fifth.

Traditional astrologers, when enraged against the modern approach, also mention that the fifth is the house of sex, and not the eighth.

There are so many possible pictures! We may feel paralysed and jump to another placement to avoid the embarrassment of not knowing what to choose, or we can draw several mental pictures, and decide later which ones to keep or how to modify them.

As it’s my chart, I know I don’t have children, but in a chart with Cancer Rising and such a packed fourth house, this would make sense. There are obstacles but… one thing at a time.

So we can sketch a radiating parent surrounded with children, with a rope in their hands.

In a speech balloon above their head are the words: “Let me show you. I make a loop. It’s a rabbit hole, and this part of the rope is a tree. The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around the tree and back into the hole…” This is happening on the shore next to a boat; To be good sailors, the children must know how to make knots. The Sun is conjunct Neptune in my chart, so some elements of navigation are relevant.

This picture doesn’t belong to my life literally, as I told you I have no children. I am not a sailor either. But we should keep it, because there is a good deal of metaphorical truth in it: dear reader, you’re not my child, but still I’m here showing you how to do something.

Astrology is difficult to navigate. It’s like water, it’s difficult to find firm ground. It’s a language from the psychic sea.

Once I was reading for someone who wondered about having a packed fifth house and no children. She was a teacher. She spent her days showing kids how to read, write and count. So this is also a picture to keep in mind.

A fifth house theme is creativity. Creativity is giving a voice to the inner child and we are in the house of children. We can picture a child with pencils, imagine a child's drawing, with a house, a tree, the sun or a rainbow…

If you prefer, a teenager with a trombone can do, or grandma learning to play drums, it’s never too late.

The difference between mentioning “creativity” as a known key word, and making mental pictures, is that we “charge” the pictures with life. This is like inviting life stories to appear.

In my chart you may notice the connection with the third house: in Placidus the third house cusp falls in Leo, the Sun rules it. The cusp of the fifth is in Scorpio and Pluto, its modern ruler, is in the third. Add to that the connection by sextile between the Sun and Pluto. The chart insists on this third-fifth connection. Themes common to both houses are likely to be the case. In the third there is school and learning. It’s also communication, speaking and writing, among other things. I have performed as a storyteller. It’s an art form, there are clubs and festivals with audiences entirely made of adults, yet, it’s a household word to say that people who love listening to stories have a childlike soul.

In the context of a chart with Cancer Rising and a dominant Moon, storytelling works well as a fifth house expression, especially with Mercury conjunct Venus, in spite of the square from Saturn. (It was hard to overcome stage fright…)

Let’s pretend it’s an unknown chart and keep digging.

Maybe a fifth house Sun can afford to live a life of leisure and pleasure, drinking and seducing women?

Picture a dandy sitting in a casino with a lovely half naked lady sitting on his lap, drinking champagne. Winning stock market shares show the tip of themselves out of a pocket.

Romance doesn’t have to be shallow though. How about a troubadour playing the luth and telling a love poem to a magnificent lady falling in love from her window? But we’re in Scorpio, if we go for Romeo and Juliette, we may get the tragic ending…

Let’s keep all these sketches available in a corner of our mind, but let them go. No need to press our brain like a lemon.

We are like Sherlock Holmes. We are looking at clues. If we find a single picture in which all clues make sense, we’re happy. We may not find the absolute synthesis though. Humans are often walking contradictions.

Let’s look at other indicators.

Or let’s take a break first. Let the dough rise.

We believe in “doing” far too much, including at the mental level. Interpreting a chart can’t boil down to a succession of operations like additions, multiplications, solving equations, writing lists and sketching diagrams. We would end up rediscovering that the meaning of life is forty two.

We’re not counting but conjuring up mental pictures. If we feel out of our comfort zone, let’s take as many breaks as we need to keep relaxed, mentally light like dragonflies.

Let’s breathe, go for a walk. Let’s dare doing nothing without feeling guilty. Let the dough rise.

When the conscious mind is looking at a chart, the subconscious mind is looking as well. When the conscious mind comes up with a handful of pictures, the subconscious mind understands that pictures are wanted. The conscious mind needs to be able to shut up to get a chance to hear from the subconscious’ suggestion. It’s like fishing. You don’t spend the day beating the water.

Let the dough rise!…

In this chart, a major placement is Saturn, and it is opposing the Ascendant.

The Ascendant it’s me, banging into Saturn, a heavy metal door. Bam! On the other side of the door, someone (who may that be?) slams it shut. Rejection!

This rather negative interpretation of Saturn fits the Venus-Saturn square as well. Saturn, in the seventh house, the other. Venus, in the fourth house, where it all started. We can picture a slap in the face. As usual, if it’s not literal, it’s metaphorical.

Mercury is even more squared by Saturn than Venus. Mercury finds it difficult to get in touch. It doesn’t know what to say. It will have to work hard on its lines. As a storyteller, I was rather the kind who wrote his texts first, learned them by heart and felt reassured by this firm structure. I also felt more comfortable in well structured settings, like standing on a stage in front of an audience than in informal groups. I have learned but it took effort and time.

The Moon rules over the Ascendant, and is in the fourth house, conjunct the IC. Sometimes, jokingly, I say I am a rat. I love my burrow. It’s a lovely picture, if you love rats. If you prefer a fox no worries.

Moreover, almost all the planets are hiding under the horizon. You could also imagine a guy in his house, digging in the basement.

After a door was slammed shut in front of him, he may have thought that digging a tunnel could be a better idea. This could be a movie by Woody Allen. How to surprise the girl of your dreams: pop up unexpectedly from under the kitchen table for dinner, and open your heart before she calls the police.

The fifth house is the house of romance, and Neptune can be as weird as Uranus in its own style.

A fifth house emphasis in a chart which also indicates serious difficulties with relating is highly likely to mean creativity.

And so on!

Jean-Marc Pierson

Astrologer, writer, storyteller

You will be very welcome here, now :-)

NB Woody Allen came to my mind as I was elaborating. I looked up his chart: we share some critical placements: Saturn conjunct DC, ruler of the Ascendant conjunct IC. In his case, Saturn squares the ruler of the Ascendant.