Every chart is a complex web of interconnections.

To understand a chart, we need to constantly switch our attention from general architecture to particular placements and back.

We also need to keep in mind that astrology is a metaphorical language.

Look at this chart. I have permission to write about it. It’s someone I hardly know at the time of writing.

The first striking thing is: the Sun is rising. It is tightly conjunct with the Ascendant.

Imagine you are given to see a crowd of souls passing through the gates of incarnation. Some are darker, some lighter, some have soft colours, others are more contrasted, and some are shining more than others.

Every soul is a precious miracle, however some definitely stick out. They are more charged. They radiate more. Why? Karma, special training or mission, I don’t know. I’m just a storyteller trying to convey what it means to be born at the same time as the Sun.

This person will be like a Leo in Libra style. We can imagine bright golden scales roaring.

We can expect charisma, a strong presence and a natural tendency to attract attention. Give her a rotten stool and just by sitting on it she will turn it into a throne. She is a queen, but not the lunar kind of queen that gives heirs to the throne and does some charity work between two pregnancies. She is a ruling queen. She is powerful.

Libra with power yields the legendary velvet glove covering an iron fist, served with a disarming smile.

I have to nuance what I have just said now. Reading a chart has a lot to do with mental flexibility. So far, I have been describing a Rising Sun in Libra as if nothing was getting in the way. However there is a big problem.

The Libra Queen vibe is definitely there, but a square by Saturn says: No no no! Shut up! Not good enough! Don’t be so loud! Who do you think you are? All these things and more.

This square is tight: four degrees orb is strong. Moreover, Saturn is very powerful: it conjuncts an angle of the chart as well.

Saturn is not as tightly conjunct to the IC as the Sun is to the Ascendant, so we can think that the Sun is more powerful. Still, there is an atmosphere of titanic fighting.

Saturn is in Capricorn, its domicile. The Sun is in fall in Libra. Saturn would be exalted in Libra. This weighs in favour of Saturn, however, the greater closeness of the Sun to an angle is more determinant. Let’s hope the time of birth is exact!

Translating a chart into a life story is like reading a book. Some people would like to look at a chart and understand everything instantly, but it’s much more like a one page at a time process. Information, assimilation, pause, repeat. Let’s go on.

You may have noticed Mars opposing Saturn. A natural ally of the Sun, Mars brings energy to the fight. Here Mars rules over the seventh house: it may at times manifest as a partner challenging the inherited limitations of Saturn on the IC, possibly entering into open conflict with siblings or peers, and with whatever belittling self-talk is running in our heroine's head.

When we are in conflict with ourselves, we meet people who take side with one half of who we are, and we fight them with the other half. The people we meet may well be in conflict with themselves as well. Only half of them will actually take side with one half of ourselves, whilst their other half will fight our other half. Outcome: it’s complicated.

Mars in the ninth fights for an opposite philosophy of life… or goes taking action a long way away from the familiar environment of the third house.

Mars in Cancer is like a warrior holding a baby - or like a baby warrior. Being vulnerable and fighting… The semi-square with Uranus is very tight. The unpredictable rebel is facing the Saturnian wall. Moments of hyperexcitability, not to say craziness contrasting with the steadfast obstination of Saturn, in life and within.

I shouldn’t dwell on Mars for too long or I will forget the chart.

This Sun-Saturn square is so emphasised by its angular position that it could give its title to the whole story.

How about: “A heroic fight for balance”?

Saturn is weight and Libra is the sign of equilibrium which etymologically means “same weight”. Let’s imagine golden scales, one pan much more heavily loaded but than the other. Saturn versus Mars again.

The Ascendant rules over the body and the personality. This placement may, and yes this conditional is so annoying, may manifest as limping.

Libra rules over the hips, how about the pelvic bone, which looks so much like the scales, balancing the two legs with the spine as the central axis? It doesn’t cost much to ask. If this interpretation has not been literally true at some point, it is a relevant metaphor about psychological stuff.

How about not wanting to go where you’re supposed to go and lagging behind? Saturn is conjunct with the IC, so we can think of some oppressive authority in childhood, and it’s in the third house of learning and small journeys.

I don’t want to go to school! I don’t want to go to church!

Why Church? Because of the Moon in the ninth house. It’s the house of God. It’s also the house of journeys, of search for knowledge and exploration.

Something jumped into my mind as I was looking at the chart.

The position of Black Moon Lilith in Cancer conjunct with the MC - all conjunctions to angles matter - evokes a memory from my own childhood. When I was fourteen, a teacher had organised a trip to Germany for students. We were sleeping in dormitories. The youngest boy was twelve years old. He belonged to a Jehovah’s Witness family. The first evening, a boy exclaimed: “Look at him! Woah! He is praying!”. We all looked at him. He was kneeling on his bed with his hands joined, as he had learned, a focused expression on his face.

It was like being at the zoo. It must have been hell for him. The MC means reputation and Black Moon Lilith can be cruel.

A few years later, this guy would become my best friend and we would drink a lot of beer and make smoke signals together, but that’s not the moment to talk about that. In this person’s chart, Lilith afflicts the Moon through Cancer, and the Moon is in the ninth house which rules religion. It is in Gemini, a sign of communication.

“Have you heard of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?”

This makes me see Saturn in the third house or neighbourhood in the light of knock knock, who’s there? The Jehovah’s Witnesses, performing their duty and demonstrating their rigidity of mind from door to door. Pain, shame of rejection and repressed feelings of being so ridiculous are likely.

This idea goes well with Jupiter, an energy that likes preaching, ruler of the third house in the third house - in domicile in Sagittarius, but afflicted by a semi square from Mercury, itself ruler of a problematic Ninth House Moon ruler of Black Moon Lilith. Harmonious, Jupiter knows a lot, afflicted it knows it all.

Meanings get connected like pearls on the thread. The Jupiter-Chiron sextile is exact to the degree. Chiron brings pain and seeks for healing. Chiron is in Aquarius, ruled by Uranus in the eleventh house of (weird) communities and groups, it is the fifth house of self-expression - it’s the natural house of the Sun, this position echoes and reinforces the meaning of the Sun-Saturn square.

How to be yourself when you’re part of a formatting community? Pluto, the initiator and transformer, sits next to the North Node in the eleventh house. Look at the dark side and walk through it!

Uranus, modern ruler of Chiron, is connected with Jupiter by a trine, and opposes Chiron. Uranus is also exacerbated by an exact semi-square from Mars, in Cancer and the ninth house as well. Mars wants individual affirmation, Uranus is trans personal. This conflict is repeated.

I wouldn’t put money on any literal interpretation, because we are like Sherlock Holmes, trying to figure out stories in which all clues make sense, but there is a definite feel of something here.

Have you ever opened your door to wandering preachers like those, and melted for the radiant smile of an innocent child who (still) believes the tale? But later the body may know before the head and she’ll start limping… literally or psychologically.

I had forgotten, but after going through these interpretations, that a common friend may have mentioned the Jehovah’s Witnesses about this person, as I was talking about my experiences with them. The subconscious memory may have guided my interpretation. Still when you look at the chart, it fits well enough!

The challenge for everyone is to find more refined ways to express the fundamental energy patterns we’re starting with in life. Being confronted with wrong answers leads to asking the right questions. The ninth house is where we seek. The Moon and Mars stress its importance and it is ruled by Mercury.

Mercury also rules the North Node in Virgo. Mercury and Virgo show the way forward. Analysis, attention to details and practical skills.

Things that work are loved by Virgo. What is plain and practical is good grounding. If my hypothesis about limping is literal, Virgo is also the right sign for re education. It starts with the body.

When exploring a chart, our mind is quick to overheat and go into panic mode.

Often, calming down, going for a walk, letting go becomes necessary. Sleep brings counsel.

In practice, a conversation over a chart rather than blind work without feedback as we explore saves a lot of time and energy.

Let’s enter the chart through another door.

Another very important area in this chart is the stellium in Scorpio and the second house. It is huge for various reasons:

Venus is there, and Venus is the ruler of the Ascendant, aka chart ruler. Only this is hugely important.

In this chart, Venus also rules over the Sun.
Neptune and Mercury are conjunct the cusp of the second house, therefore they count as active in it. Mercury and Neptune rule over the Moon Nodes: the South Node is in Pisces and the North Node in Virgo.
In this chart, Mercury also rules over the Moon.

So we have the rulers of the Sun, Moon, Ascendant and Nodes, that is of the most important indicators, all gathered in the same place. We can also notice that Pluto, ruler of Scorpio, where all this is happening, is conjunct with the North Node, which insists on the importance of these Scorpio placements in evolutionary terms.

Before interpreting, simply noticing the architecture is a very important step.

The most concrete indicators are the houses. Let’s remember what the second house talks about.

Traditionally a house of money and possessions, the second house also talks of ressources (how we can get them) and of our sense of self-worth, which is closely associated with our resourcefulness.

A strong focus in this house suggests that acquiring is a big issue. It may mean struggling or having to work hard or having to come up with good ideas to satisfy basic needs such as food, shelter, security, and it is also likely to mean proving one’s own worth by being able to provide something of value which can be exchanged for money or acknowledgement.

With the ruler of the Ascendant in this house, the sense of identity is at stake. The Libra Queen, half glorious like a Rising Sun, half crippled by the Dark Saturn, wants to conquer her full status and prove she is worth gold.

I insist, this notion of being half crippled is essentially metaphorical - it may be a feeling, it could manifest as a physical problem but not necessarily. I came to it because of the Sun-Saturn square, but it’s also a Neptunian theme.

Once I was reading the chart of a child for its mother - always a delicate affair- and the ruler of the North Node which was in the second house was squared by Uranus. The mother was indeed anxious about the challenges that awaited her child. I had the idea to question her about how breastfeeding went. The child was often too excited to be properly fed. This was an early manifestation of this aspect of his evolutionary path.

I was happy to be able to point out a real difficulty which had been dealt with as it’s much better to see the problem than being scared in the abstract by an ominous placement!

So it would be worth asking this person if she knows how she reacted to being fed as a baby, and the relationship with food as an adult.

If reading this chart was done as a conversation, only exposing the themes associated with the second house would probably generate a lot of feedback, especially from a Libra Sun and Rising with a Gemini Moon. I would hear Neptune, Mercury and Venus talking together and I would only have to point out the right planet in connection with the right words as they would come.

Let’s start with Neptune. Why Neptune rather than starting with Mercury or Venus?

Because Neptune rules the South Node, and therefore is an energy that is familiar, integrated, possibly in excess and present from the start of the evolutionary journey.
Also because the personal planets are pointing at Neptune. It’s not Neptune that emphasises the importance of the personal planets it touches, but the opposite.
Because it’s better to start talking about one planet than trying to talk about all of them at the same time, so let’s pick this one!

How may Neptune manifest in the second house? This is an embarrassing question. As with any placement, many interpretations are possible.

Neptune may make things disappear in the fog and in the second house, tell a story of turning away from material possessions. Such an attitude is likely to come with valuing philosophy or spiritual life over material reality.

Knowing that Donald Trump has Neptune in the second house, we can be sure that this is not the only possible interpretation.

With Neptune we are longing for paradise. In the second house, we may seek bliss and universal connection through material possessions. Neptune is fantasy, and so is the “American dream”.

Sceptics would claim that if placements can mean one thing or the opposite, anything can mean anything and astrology is gobbledygook. Sceptics shouldn’t jump to conclusions so quickly. One thing and its exact opposite have a lot in common.

Opposites coincide: someone turns away from money and possessions, another accumulates a lot of them, both are inspired by an ideal, something of the nature of dreams. A story from the collective psyche inspires them. There is more than just plain common sense and practical considerations.

Neptune in the second house may also mean earning money selling drinks, playing music, selling pictures or perfumes, fishing, navigating or anything relevant to Neptune.

The real fisherman may not be as romantic as the fishermen of numerous stories, still he incarnates a character that has been inspiring generations of poets and storytellers. The bartender may be just doing this job for a living, he will be in touch with a flow of customers, and a number of them will get drunk like Neptunians trying to escape reality. One way or another, Neptune will be around.

Instead of trying to guess what will be the case before meeting someone for a reading, an alternative and much more comfortable question is: “What can be done with this energy?”

Imagine souls going to the behaviour market (as if behaviours were pieces of clothing). Those with Neptune in the second house would be offered to pick up from an array of possibilities, such as those I’ve just exposed.

We may wish we were able to know everything before talking to the client and blow their mind telling them their life story with all the details, but in theory, this would only be possible if there was no free will, if people didn’t have any choices and everything was written in advance. That’s not my philosophy.

This approach can be fruitful. Talking about the various things someone could do can be helpful.

The Neptune-Mercury conjunction is very meaningful, as Neptune rules over the South Node and Mercury the North Node. There is a loop effect. If you study the South Node, following Neptune, ruler of Pisces, you land on Mercury. If you study the North Node, following Mercury, ruler of Virgo, you land on Neptune.

The evolutionary path seems to be: you’ve already worked at making Neptune and Mercury work together before, and in this life, you’ll keep working on this same issue. Acquiring money and self worth are your test, dear Libra Queen. Your Venus points to this Mercury-Neptune balancing challenge.

Mercury is oriented towards what’s small: precisions, details and Neptune towards immensity. Could you look at the ocean and at a grain of sand in the same gaze?

Mercury and Jupiter, the other ruler of Pisces, are connected by a challenging semi-square. How to see the big picture without losing sight of the details, how to look with a magnifying glass and from high above at the same time? Do you get confused?

This is happening in Scorpio, next to the chart ruler; it’s a question of life or death, or at least it feels like it, for the Libra Queen.

To be or not to be depends on your ability to walk the tightrope above the void. Immensity and precision. The gold you desperately need is on the other side but you're out on a limb, limping. Drum roll!!!

Hundred times you fell, hundred times you tried again…

I’ll leave this exploration there. There is enough in a chart to write a thick book. I think there is enough in these pages to show how to proceed.

My way is not the only way by the way, but that is the way I believe in. I hope it helps!

Jean-Marc Pierson

Astrologer, writer

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