WEEK 3 READING ASSIGNMENT #2
THE PERSONAL FORCES; Part 2
Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn
© 2007-2022 Antero Alli
The Personal Forces simplied
* Ego structure, will, vitality: Sun
* Habits, emotions, needs: Moon
* Thoughts, intellect, writing, talking: Mercury
* Affinities, aesthetics, attractions: Venus
* Excitements, will, actions, aggression: Mars
* Beliefs, faith, dogmas, perceptions: Jupiter
* Fears, ambitions, standards, commitments: Saturn
The personal forces are symbolized by Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn; the transpersonal forces include Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The personal forces represent ego-stabilizers. Each has a different way of serving personality development and socialization. As each personal force is integrated into the weave of the developing personality -- sometimes with suffering, effort and struggle -- they combine to characterize and eventually crystallize as our fate: the person we are becoming. Imagine personality as a modern word for fate.
The Sun as a Dynamic Force of Self-Realization
Given the sun's cosmic status as our chief source of light and heat, the astrological Sun makes a royal symbol for how we personally generate light and heat in our own lives. Spiritually, the Sun represents the existing conditions of where and how we shine and radiate the being we are. This beingness requires absolutely no understanding to exist -- it simply is -- and is already expressed through the inner state of your spirituality. The State the Sun inhabits acts as the environment where we can most shine, and generate warmth, like the Star we were born to become.
What does it mean to self-realize? When the being within you is affirmed, its innate forces of heat and light radiate vital emanations of warmth and charisma to the world. When this being is negated -- by self-denial or accepted negation from society -- our inner light dims down. If we persist in a state of self-negation, this inner light can flicker and die out like a pilot light in a furnace. The dynamic force of self-realization gains momentum through any experiences affirming the being and accelerating the experience of being nobody but yourself; a heroic struggle in any society bent on selling you promises to become everything but yourself. Over-emphasize this solar force of the Sun sign, however, and risk suffering the various maladies of hubris, arrogance, and big ego burnout.
The Moon as an Emotional Force of Habit
If the Sun represents the fiery self-realizing force of who you are becoming, the astrological Moon reflects the life you are already living and have been living since day one. The Moon refers to your existing biological, instinctive needs for comfort, survival, food, and satisfaction -- basic, simple needs. Yet when the Moon is denied, we struggle in a life complicated with frustration, discontent, and depression. The Moon in your chart can tell you where (the State) and how (the Style) to most effectively "normalize" yourself when life's stranger, weirder episodes leave you feeling anxious or traumatized. In this way, your habit patterns can be experienced as useful and even, sacred.
Some people eat to soothe their nerves or read a book or talk on the phone or have sex or watch television. Whatever gets you through the night. The Moon defines familiarity and this familiar sense is always subjective: one person's safety can be another person's danger. Live too much for your Moon (for comfort and security) and your life bogs down into an insular cocoon of inertia; there's a fine line between a rut and a groove. We humans are a clinging species and our natal Moon remains a soulful reminder of our personal weaknesses, shortcomings, and humanity -- how we are like everybody else. The Moon informs us of what we are attached to, as well as where and how we need to be attached. The Moon refers to our most personal way of expressing ourselves in our moment-to-moment reactions to the immediate environment. Your Moon sign symbolizes your emotional style of how feelings are processed. The State your Moon inhabits refers to the experiences that best feed your Moon.
Mercury as a Mental Force of Ideation
As much as our instinctive life refers to how we are all linked by biology, the mental force of our ideas effectively divide us as people. Rather than what we think, it is how we think that most separates us from each other and determines whether we are actually communicating with someone or merely passing wind. Mercury articulates our thinking style: how we tend to figure things out, solve problems, and interpret our perceptions, feelings, and experiences.
When the Mercury dominates a given chart, that person's mental energy can tend to over-emphasize as over-thinking or talking too much. Mercury isn't synonymous with intelligence as a whole but represents the symbol-making muscle for developing language, analysis, and logic. Intellectual geniuses, for instance, can also be emotional idiots, i.e., jerks. If you look at the mind as a very powerful lens, it is easy to see how the force and nature of your thought processes influence your perception and how you translate your experiences. Thoughts, in and of themselves, may be autonomous, lighting from mind to mind and held only by the force of commitment. The Latin word for God is theos -- do all our theories reflect ideas about what we know (and don't know) about God? Mercury's sign represents our intellectual style, whether that's analytical (Virgo) or intuitive (Sagittarius) or instinctual (Cancer) or pragmatic (Capricorn). The State Mercury inhabits refer to where we need experiences that stimulate thinking and talking.
Venus as a Magnetic Force of Attraction
Just as the conceptual force emanates from the head center, so does Venus symbolize the heart center's vital emanations of affinity and attraction. Though love itself cannot truly be defined, it can be experienced. Awareness of love often begins with a basic affinity, be it with a belief or an art form or another person or a favorite food or music. This affinity develops into a love as it deepens, moves us, takes hold of us.
Astrological Venus also symbolizes the magnetic force of pleasure: what pleases us and what we find beautiful. Without these values, we are left with a dreary loveless existence. Without love, a life may be barely worth living. The force of love expresses value and worth and the Style that Venus expresses itself conveys how self-worth is defined. The quality of love in your life is determined by the nature of what magnetizes you, what you are attracted to, and what you attract to yourself. (Love can be blind -- who has not loved for all the wrong reasons?) Venus refers to how we are touched and moved towards intimacy, how are hearts are won over. Though love exists everywhere, love is easy to overlook when ideals and expectations about what love should be creates more abstractions that buffers us from the actual experience of love itself. Love is never what you think. Love is real only when you are aware of it as a living force, a presence, harmonizing you and the beloved, or whatever and whomever that may be. The nature of personal love differs for each individual and why love for one person can be anything but love for another; check the placements and signs of Venus! The State Venus inhabits show us those experiences that we seek to arouse beauty in our lives.
Mars as Motivating Force of the Will, Excitement and Action
The martial force symbolized by astrological Mars acts out through the physical impulses of the visceral will to act. Originating in the motor -- or gut -- center, the motivating force of will knows action as sacred. Mars symbolizes the existing conditions of the force of will in your life; what drives you to do whatever it is you can do. Action burns energy. You can only do what you have enough physical energy for. The sign that Mars resides in conveys a motivational style expressing the conditions necessary for triggering action and the thrill-criteria for what turns you on and raises your physical energy. Mars is all about for the force of excitement and what drives us. The style Mars passes through defines our thrill crieteria for what specifically excites to do anything.
Spiritually, Mars can symbolize what you are deep down living for: Your will to survive and your incentive to keep living. Psychologically, Mars refers to what you are willing to fight for based on knowing what you want and having the energy to act on that desire. Biological Mars refers to the Immune System and its army of red cells ready to fight and destroy invading bacteria and viruses. Lose touch with the motivating force of will and become more subject to the ebb and flux of your habits and ideas. The active force of will (Mars) naturally opposes the passive force of habit (Moon) until the will to act becomes a habit (actors must learn this habit to perform on cue). With too much Mars, our behavior turns irate, aggressive and combative; not enough Mars can result in indecision, ambivalence, and apathy. What are you living for? What gets you going? What excites you and turns you on? The State and Style Mars inhabits can show you those experiences capable of raising your physical energy and triggering your motivation.
Jupiter as an Uplifting Forces of Faith, Belief, and Vision
The natal Placement of Jupiter often shows where, the area of our lives, we are in need of more consciousness. It is possible there's a karmic side to this if our past lives neglected this area of experience resulting in a marked ignorance in the current life. Any experience that genuinely expand consciousness -- such as travel to a foreign culture or doing something you've never done before -- usually results a new perspective, a new way of seeing, because we were ignorant or blind to it before. Any uplifting force of consciousness expansion can be symbolized by an integrated Jupiter, especially when we have become more open to taking risks and leaps of faith beyond the known and familiar. Becoming more conscious means we are perceiving more reality. We become more aware of what matters and what doesn't, what is worth caring about and what isn't. When consciousness expands, true conscience can develop, an ethos defined by the Style and State of natal Jupiter. Through our own perceptions we can come to a personal experience of truth -- our truth -- and we form beliefs to confirm, justify, and maintain these truths. Over time these beliefs can crystallize into fixed assumptions, expectations, ideals, and dogmas until they are exposed by greater truths in our meetings with others who embody a more expansive view than us and also, during transpersonal transits.
If we can remain open-minded enough to new information and fresh experiences -- those that do not always conform to our previous assumptions -- we can update our assumptions and outgrow our obsolete beliefs. We learn new ways to keep learninr, what "higher learning" is all about. If and when our minds shut down from becoming too damn sure about something or everything, we can suffer the bigotry of fundamentalist thinking and its compulsion to be right all the time. The force of belief is never the truth but your perception of truth. Natal Jupiter points to where and how your truth can be known and where your own consciousness needs expanding to heal our ignorance.
Saturn as the Limiting Forces of Fear and Commitment
Life's more expansive experiences can trigger forces of an equally constrictive nature. If we ignore certain limitations that Jupiter abundance cycle can turn excessive and bloated. Eat, drink, and party too hardy and your health can suffer. Awareness of real limitations on any level can be symbolized astrologically by Saturn, the limiting force of your fears and true responsibilities. Actual fear (not an imagined fear) is a survival signal alerting you to a life-threatening situation: you spent the rent money on booze and wake up to an eviction notice on your front door.
Saturn's natal placement refers to your true responsibility in the current lifetime. This can often differ from, and even conflict with, the ideas of responsibility promoted by society, schools, family, teachers and peers. The consequence of ignoring or neglecting one's true responsibility typically acts out in a series of ongoing personal failures, even though others may see it differently. When conforming to the external standards of success and status - set by society, schools, family, teachers and peers - we may succeed in the eyes of others but not on our own more honest terms. Facing your personal Saturn means facing your fears, your limitations and the need for becoming a lot more aware of the consequences of your choices and actions. Integrating Saturn grants you the ability to reality check yourself and fulfill more reality-based goals, dreams, ambitions and relationships.
When Saturn over-emphasizes, spontaneity and creativity can be stifled and crushed. Too much Saturn spoils the party but not enough Saturn can spoil your entire life. By learning to respond to your real fears, you can develop enough response-ability to convert those fears into commitments. Increasing the force of your commitment builds integrity. The State that Saturn resides in can show us where we feel inadequate and the kinds of experiences that benefit from applied effort and commitment. Saturn means business. This is not a State where things always magically happen by themselves without a bit of elbow grease and work on your part.
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