Planetary Crib Sheet

[Jim Eshelman]

[The following is from a three-column sheet I first put together in the 1970s as a way of teaching how to read a horoscope from an "angles & aspects" approach. It has three kinds of information for each planet. I think I wrote an article on this for American Astrology at some point, so an early version may be out there in circulation. In any case, I've tweaked it here and there over the years and its still the best way I've found to teach people the basics of natal interpretation from the ground up. Since I can't do columnar layout for the forum, I've restructured it.]

SUN
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Vitality, sense of identity & purpose (direction), directed application, leadership abilities.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Sense of identity, personality; attitudes toward authoritative persons or institutions; vitality.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Energizes (vitalizes) the planet. Identifies ego with it – makes its qualities central to one’s nature.

MOON
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Adaptability, appetites, immediacy of one’s feelings, sensitivity.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Outer “mask,” persona; emotional responsiveness; relations with mother figures or public.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Responds freely to the planet’s energies; permits its easy expression; employs it for adaptation.

MERCURY
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Nervous sensitivity, perceptiveness; desire for knowledge; manual/mechanical talents; commerce.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Personal communication & expression style; cognitive style.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Adds intellect, calculation, perception, voice. (Mercury’s nature is easily modified).

VENUS
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Need to give love, need for harmony & pleasure; “naturalness.”
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Love nature, romantic, & pleasure style, social urges; awareness of beauty & harmony; “femininity.”
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Soothes, harmonizes; gives pleasure through the planet’s nature.

MARS
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Aggression, need for physical expression, personal feeling of strength. Competitiveness.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Energy level, aggressive tendencies, “masculinity,” passions.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Whatever urge the other planet represents is pursued aggressively. Energizes, inflames, coarsens.

JUPITER
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Need for highest & best, to better oneself, to be liked & included; compliance, role-playing.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Socialization, response to social expectations; need to be included; style of gregarious expression. Need for the highest & best.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Enhances, qualifies, instills confidence (can over inflate). Planet’s arena is source of self-valuation.

SATURN
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Need for self-reliance, emotional distance, material security; self-protective urge; caution; willingness to accept responsibility.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Way of facing life’s struggles, areas of insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, personal autonomy needs.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Structures, formats, inhibits, frustrates. Sense of inadequacy, thus often of over-compensation.

URANUS
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Need for freedom, individuality, independence; openness to naked reality; desire for variation, freedom from format.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Individualistic concept of self; avenues of excitement (and how it is pursued).
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Impersonalises; unshackles, awakens, stimulates, adds freedom from structure or inhibition.

NEPTUNE
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Need to clutch, attach, depend; sensitivity; vulnerability; self-contained reality.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: Imagination & fantasy, mode of reality fabrication; sensual indulgence, response to temptation.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: Exaggerates, diffuses, confuses, distorts; infuses with fantasy; hypersensitizes; atrophies, withers.

PLUTO
WHAT INCREASES OR DECREASES WITH PLANET’S ANGULARITY: Disaffinity with rules, categories, structures; desire to relate without imposed qualification; need for immunity from outside pressure.
WHAT IS COLORED WHEN THE PLANET IS ASPECTED: “Get away from it all” urge; need to be independent of cultural trappings & labels; search for existential meaning.
HOW A PLANET IT ASPECTS IS AFFECTED: “All or nothing:” strongly intensifies or thoroughly diminishes; strains. Creates powerful need that planet’s expression be free of others’ arbitrary limitations.

[Jim Eshelman]

Jim Eshelman wrote:

I think I wrote an article on this for American Astrology at some point

For completeness' sake, this was "How to Be Your Own Astrologer!" in American Astrology, May 1978.

-Derek

[mikestar13]

I carried May 1978 AA around with me for ten years or so until the magazine fell apart: the article was so good in itself, and a reminder to get back to basics when a Neptunian flight of fancy would get hold of me.

[SteveS]

So much missed by not having all the AA Sidereal Astrology Mag articles available on this forum for rapid exploration with computer technology. Ken Bowser says he will produce a book of AA Sidereal Astrology articles in 2017. I sure do hope so.

[Jim Eshelman]

So much missed by not having all the AA Sidereal Astrology Mag articles available on this forum for rapid exploration with computer technology. Ken Bowser says he will produce a book of AA Sidereal Astrology articles in 2017. I sure do hope so.

That would be cool! It would also be gigantic if anywhere near complete. There must be a couple of thousand pages of material in magazine format alone, which would be three or four times that many typeset for a standard book.

I suppose I could dig out and type up the article Mike mentioned one of these days. If I haven't done it in a few months, feel free to remind me.