The 5 Personal Planets In Astrology And Their Interesting Influences

14 Jul The 5 Personal Planets In Astrology And Their Interesting Influences

There are 5 personal planets in astrology you’ll find in your natal chart – and these define your personality.

If you’re new to the realm of astrology, note that we’re all born with special horoscope charts made up of ten planets, but only a small portion of these are referred to as personal planets in astrology (aka inner planets.)

What’s more? I presume you may be wondering why there are ten planets in astrology when you only learned about nine in school. Well, that’s because the Moon and the Sun are also counted as planets in astrology (Earth isn’t included as a planet in astrology because we live on it and astrology is the study of the other planets’ movements and effects on us.)

The sun sign is the one you’re already familiar with (mine is Virgo) and it represents your ego and how other people view you. You also have a Moon sign that symbolizes your feelings and the mother, as well as a rising sign that’ll help you understand what you’re on earth to do and accomplish.

Now, just like the Moon and the Sun, all other personal planets in astrology (including Mars, Venus, and Mercury) exist on your natal chart to tell you more about your personality traits. They are believed to have the most direct influence on your life.

During a significant planetary change or Full Moon, you can also look to these personal planets to see how the phenomenon is going to affect you personally, which will, in turn, help you have a better understanding of your daily horoscope readings on a magazine or your favorite website.

A planet like Mars, for instance, will tell you a lot about your home life whereas the moon will allow you to reflect on feelings you might be burying down but need to address.

That said, while researching for this post, I realized that a lot of people are confused by the concept of personal planets in astrology versus an individual’s personal, ruling planet. You can find out your personal, ruling planet through learning your rising/ascendant sign (note that you’ll need your exact date and time of birth to find this out.)

Here is a link to a website that will help you generate a free natal chart with your ascendant sign which will, in turn, help you discover your chart ruling planet.

Without further delay, let us skip to the main section of the post and start by looking at the significance of planets in astrology.

Planets in astrology and their meaning

The planets associated with astrology are the exact ones we learned about in school, including Mercury, Mars, Venus, Uranus, Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, and Pluto.

To this list, we add the Moon and the Sun. These two are obviously not planets. The Sun is classified as a star, and the Moon, well, our Moon is basically a satellite to the Earth.

In astrology, we call the Moon and the Sun givers of light or “luminaries”, and they’re treated just like planets in astrological fashions and applications. For that reason, you’ll hear most astrologers referring to the Moon and the Sun as planets just for easier reference, so do not sleep any over it.

With that in mind, in today’s article, we’re only interested in Mars, Venus, Mercury, Moon, and the Sun. The reason we use these for cohesive views of our basic drives, motivations, and personalities is that they move relatively faster around the sun, making them perfect for weekly and daily horoscope predictions.

The others, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Pluto, are referred to as the outer planets. These ones are way more slow-moving in the solar system, some of them even spending years in the same zodiac sign. For that reason, they’re mostly only used to determine long term life trends in one’s life; but can also be extremely essential on a personal level if personalized in your chart.

How do personal planets in astrology work?

Planets in the solar system are the central building blocks of all birth charts. At the date, place, and time of your birth, each planet in the solar system was somewhere in the celestial sphere, in a specific house and specific zodiac sign of your chart. That’s why your natal chart (aka birth chart) is also considered your map of the heavens at the exact moment you were born – showing the position of each one of the planets and containing the connections and angles they were making to one another.

With that in mind, astrologically, every planet is known to embody a certain energy.  This energy is, in turn, channeled or expressed in a specific manner via the sun sign where that planet is. A planet’s energy is also directed toward a specific area of your life as shown by the house the planet is in on the natal chart.

For future reference, here is a rough rundown of planetary energies in astrology.

1. The Sun – Ego, Health, Vitality, Life-force, Willpower
2. The Moon – Instinctive Reactions, Feelings, Emotions
3. Mercury – Logic, Intellect, Communication
4. Venus – Values, Magnetism, Love
5. Mars – Anger, Desire, Ambitions, Drive
6. Jupiter – Belief, Expansion, Philosophy
7. Saturn – Control, Limitation, Responsibility
8. Uranus – Independence, Freedom, Individuality
9. Neptune – Compassion, Illusion, Spirituality
10. Pluto – Rebirth, Transformation, Regeneration

Here is a brief, practical example to show how the same planet can deliver different energies.

In your natal chart, Mars in the Scorpio sun sign in the 10^th house is likely to express itself by helping your ambition and drive (Mars) get passionately conveyed (Scorpio) in your career (10^th house.) In simpler terms, it means you’ll likely be pretty ruthless when it comes to your ambitions and will be personally driven to succeed regardless of what stands in the way.

Conversely, Mars in the Gemini sun sign in your 11^th house may find you giving all your energy to campaigning, making speeches, and even writing letters intended to save the world. Your ambition and drive (Mars) will be communicatively conveyed (Gemini) in a community you care about (11^th house.)

As you can see from the two examples above, the planets have the ability to express their energies very differently depending on where in our natal charts they are.

Planets in astrology will also frequently form certain angles to other planets. When that happens, it is called planets being in aspect in astrology, which simply means that the planets are modifying one another’s energy in a wide array of ways. I know it further complicates the picture, but trust me, after reading your natal chart a few times, you’ll get the hang of it. Here is a detailed guide on How to get and read your natal chart.

Also, for an in-depth rundown of aspects in astrology, check out this post.

But if you’d like to complete reading this post before leaving and checking out the linked ones, let’s talk about aspects briefly.

As noted before, your birth chart is basically a map of where the planets were at the time you were born. But this does not mean that they stopped moving after your birth. They kept revolving around the sun, and as they do, they keep forming aspects to their original positions and to each other’s current position.

These are also called transits and are an extremely common predictive tool in the realm of astrology. Transits will tell you what will take place around you next year, next month, next week, tomorrow, and even later today.

Remember though, they do not compel you to act a certain way. You still retain free will. They just tell you how you can best take advantage of upcoming planetary energies.

The last phenomenon presented by planets in astrology we’re going to talk about is retrogrades.

At times as seen from here, on earth, some planets will appear as if they’re moving backward. This is called a retrograde motion, and during this phase, the energy of the planet in retrograde will get reversed. Here is a detailed guide in retrograde planets in astrology and their meaning.

Ensure you interpret each planet’s retrograde carefully.

Now to the section we’ve all been anxiously waiting for.

Personal planets in astrology

1. The Sun

The Sun, as you may already know, is the star around which all other planets in our solar system revolve. Conventionally, however, astrological charts place the Earth (instead of the Sun) at the center of the solar system and note the positions of all other planets in astrology in relation to the position of Earth instead of the sun.

Natal charts that place the Sun at their center are known as Heliocentric charts and they’re still used in certain branches of astrology.

Natal charts that use the Earth at their center, on the other hand, are known as geocentric charts.

Either way, in a natal chart, the Sun denotes the individual whose chart it belongs to. Just about all newspaper horoscopes you’ve come across base their reading on one’s sun sign, i.e. the zodiac sign in which the Sun was placed at the time of your birth.

That said, using this alone is an overly oversimplified way of reading one’s natal chart and is the reason most people that just read about their sun signs in a magazine or newspaper find them unreliable.

2. The Moon

The Moon orbits Earth – and both the Moon and earth go around the sun together.

The Moon goes around the Earth every (approximately) 28 days, which is the reason that its position in people’s birth charts will vary noticeably depending on the time the people in question were born.

That said, it’s common that most people do not know the exact time (to the second) they were born. If that sounds like you, then you’re recommended to put in your time of birth at noon. The Moon position will be slightly off; keyword SLIGHTLY.

With that in mind, the position of the Moon in one’s natal chart represents the subconscious and their emotions. Here is an extra fun fact. The ruling planet of Cancer is the Moon.

3. Mercury

As the planet that is closest to the sun, Mercury is the quickest planet in the solar system when it comes to going around the sun. It does so in only 88 days. The only ‘planet’ that orbits faster than Mercury is the Moon; but since the Moon orbits the Earth, Mercury remains the fastest around the Sun.

Traditionally, Mercury was the gods’ messenger and is linked to communication in the realm of astrology. Hermes is his Greek equivalent.

If found in its significant positions in one’s birth chart, the planet indicates a quick thinker and one’s ability to innovate and adapt.

Mercury rules both Virgo and Gemini.

4. Venus

Venus is popularly regarded as the goddess of love since she represents affection and beauty. In Greek legend, her equivalent is Aphrodite.  This ruler of Libra and Taurus takes 225 days to go around the Sun, which is less than a year in Earth’s time.

In a natal chart, Venus shows one’s emotional temperament & maturity as well as the nature of their relationships in their personal lives. When a natal chart shows a strong influence from Venus, then it often indicates that the person in question is likely to pursue strong, positive relationships only.

5. Mars

Mars is undeniably well known around the world as the god of war in Roman Mythology. His equivalent is Ares in Greek mythology, but Ares is less famous.

Anyway, Mars, the planet, does a complete trip around the sun every 697 earth days (approximately 1.88 years.) Astrologically, this planet rules Aries – the sun sign generally regarded as the 1^st sign of the zodiac.

Mars is also considered a co-ruler of Scorpio as this was the case before the discovery of Pluto in 1930.

As one of the personal planets in astrology, Mars represents action, energy, and drive. Its position in your birth chart will reveal the areas of life in which all these qualities will be found in abundance for you.

6. Chiron

I know, I should have stopped at Mars. Chiron isn’t a planet, but it does revolve around the Sun and its effects are significant on everyone’s natal chart, so it’s only fair that we take a brief look at it.

Discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal, Chiron is an asteroid that was recently discovered in 1977. As noted above, it also orbits around the sun but its full trip around the star takes around 51 years. Also, note that the asteroid is not equidistant from the sun all through its orbit. At times it’s very close to the sun and at others, it’s further away.

For instance, its elliptical path around the Sun permits it to take around 18 months to pass through Libra and Virgo, but more than nine years to go through Aries and Pisces.

Kowal himself termed the asteroid “a maverick” because it wasn’t quite like any other planet or heavenly body known at the time. Also note, it’s named after a centaur in roman mythology – a beast that’s half-horse and half-human.

Chiron stands for becoming wiser through experience and in astrology, it has become known as the wounded healer. In your birth chart, it indicates the area where you might have the biggest emotional wound – a wound with the potential to become your greatest gift if healed.

If you liked this content on personal planets in astrology, I’m confident you’ll love this one on the seven astrology chart shapes and their meaning. Do not forget to check it out.