Chart with few vs. many aspects?

[By Jove]

Does the fact that a chart has few versus or aspects have anything to do with the personality? I've read that people with few aspects in their natal charts "do not fully integrate their psychological sides", are boring, or have uneventful lives.

I really don't have enough information to evaluate this on my own. Going over my friends' natal charts, all the friends I know who had dramatic episodes and difficult upbringings had charts with a fair share of aspects, especially hard ones.

On the other hand, I know one friend with the second-fewest aspects I have in my database has dealt with a fair share of social and anxiety issues. So maybe people with few aspects struggle like everyone else, but they're lives are not very showy to the public eye. So a lot remains hidden?

On the one hand, the friends with fewer aspects seem more "low-key". They are quiet, unassuming, and calmer. But on the other hand, that may not be true...

Here is what I mean. I know A***, the friend with few aspects, but they have some friends with many aspects. A*** puts out less creative work, but it attracts much more attention. A***'s artistic style is more "minimalist" and "concentrated" in the sense their work has less "stuff" doing on, but each "element" really counts.

And in general, people with natal charts with few aspects tend to have charts that are very heavy on one side (or even one quadrant). So there is little room for opposites, trines, squares, etc. But more room for conjunctions and "minor" aspects like sesquisquares and biquintiles. Also, these people have stelliums and other qualities that are not aspects but obviously very important.

And many of the people with so many aspects have much "background noise" of wide or minor aspects with the outer planets.

I don't know what to make of it. My overall approach to reading natal charts is not to care about the number of aspects. It's the natures of the aspects themselves that count. Any input from others on this topic would be appreciated.

[Dimitrios]

I pay attention to Aspektfiguren (Ebertin concept, Huber and others), combining different aspects in structures and shapes and usually this approach helps me to feel and understand more for the persons essence. I believe that aspects and figure aspects are so important that in most cases can change dramatically the image we would get for a person considering more important his/her single planet positions in signs or single aspects. I think that Ebertin's idea to combine different aspects creating holistic aspect figures (B.Ebertin named these "Dreierstrukturen") was genious and very practical concept. I rarely see charts with very few aspects, maybe because i use and include on a great scale also the minor aspects (72,144 included) and of course aspects to midpoints. Unless we talk only about the ptolemaic aspects, the only case i remember with very few main aspects is a familiar person. I find her so empty, superficial, boring and not enough smart and educated, also extremelly focused on sexual matters, but maybe this is just a coincidence...i dont tell that all persons with very few aspects are empty, superficial, boring and carnal.

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

I don't count aspects. I just don't think it matters. Aspects are about planets, and condition a chart by how close they are to partile and how angular, but not by how many other aspects there might be.

But then I don't know a lot of boring people. Or I just don't remember them.

[Jim Eshelman]

Does the fact that a chart has few versus or aspects have anything to do with the personality?

I'm not sure. It does feel like this is true, but that might just be my own brain feeling less complicated.

One thing about which I'm sure: In people with few close aspects, the wider ones become more important. In any given chart it's just "the loudest voices singing" that we hear. Also, there's a big difference between a person with no close aspects and a person with few close aspects: If you have one or two really close aspects, it or they can become more or less the whole chart! I learned from a master who could take one clear aspect in a chart and read more or less everything necessary to an immediate question.

I've read that people with few aspects in their natal charts "do not fully integrate their psychological sides", are boring, or have uneventful lives.

Integration isn't the issue with few close aspects, since moderately orbed aspects can serve the same purpose. Studies done to assess "unaspected planets" have produced optimum results when considering the five Ptolemaic aspects at Class 2 orbs of 5-6°. Planets with no major aspects within that range behave differently than other planets, one characteristic of which is seeming less integrated with the rest of the psyche. The same is true when two planets aspects each other but otherwise are cut off from the rest of the chart. (There's a thread on 'unaspected' planets in the Aspects section.)

On the one hand, the friends with fewer aspects seem more "low-key". They are quiet, unassuming, and calmer. But on the other hand, that may not be true...

I've seen something like this with charts that have primarily soft aspects - all trines and sextiles. But I haven't noticed it in an orb distinction.

[Jim Eshelman]

Jove, Dimitrios' remarks about the overall aspect pattern are interesting considerations. I don't know the exact technique of which he is speaking, but used to often draw an aspect map to help sort out the patterns of a chart. Since it came up in this thread, I ran one for your chart (I created a special Solar Fire wheel design for an aspect map).

The interesting thing to me is that, with close (Class 1) orbs, you have exclusively hard aspects. In fact, without Eris, you have nothing but sesqui-squares and conjunctions. One has to go to Class 2 orbs to get anything else. Here's the way your chart lays out with Class 2 orbs.

[By Jove]

I pay attention to Aspektfiguren (Ebertin concept, Huber and others), combining different aspects in structures and shapes and usually this approach helps me to feel and understand more for the persons essence. I believe that aspects and figure aspects are so important that in most cases can change dramatically the image we would get for a person considering more important his/her single planet positions in signs or single aspects. I think that Ebertin's idea to combine different aspects creating holistic aspect figures (B.Ebertin named these "Dreierstrukturen") was genious and very practical concept. I rarely see charts with very few aspects, maybe because i use and include on a great scale also the minor aspects (72,144 included) and of course aspects to midpoints. Unless we talk only about the ptolemaic aspects, the only case i remember with very few main aspects is a familiar person. I find her so empty, superficial, boring and not enough smart and educated, also extremelly focused on sexual matters, but maybe this is just a coincidence...i dont tell that all persons with very few aspects are empty, superficial, boring and carnal.

A chart is only half-complete without an exact birth time, so there is important information I am missing. That being said, regarding only the biggest Ptolemiac aspects (~5 degrees luminaries, ~5 degrees Mars, ~0 degrees with outer planets)...

Me: angularities aside, my chart has...
Moon conjunct Neptune and sextile Pluto
Mars trine Saturn
Uranus partile conjunct Mercury and Venus

A***:
Sun sextile Jupiter and widely trine (~6 degrees) Saturn
Moon square Uranus
Mars conjunct Venus and Neptune
Uranus partile sextile Pluto

Friend 2 with few aspects:
Sun conjunct Mars and sextile Saturn
Moon conjunct Uranus and Neptune
Mars partile sextile Saturn

Friend 3 with few aspects:
Sun trine Mars and conjunct Pluto
Moon trine Mercury, sextile Jupiter, opposite Saturn
Mars trine Pluto

Friend 4 with few aspects:
Sun conjunct Mercury
Moon trine Jupiter and widely conjunct Saturn
Mars conjunct Jupiter
Uranus partile conjunct Neptune

Perhaps I am being harsh or biased in my thinking. Focus only on the major things, and all these charts have significant aspects, even more aspects when compared to many others with "many aspects".

Either way, none of the people above ever came across to me as superficial, boring, or obsessed with trivial things. Often I had the opposite impression. Maybe it's because their "few" aspects sing very loudly (to use Jim's metaphor). Or quality over quantity, still waters run deep, less is more, [insert metaphor].

[By Jove]

Jove, Dimitrios' remarks about the overall aspect pattern are interesting considerations. I don't know the exact technique of which he is speaking, but used to often draw an aspect map to help sort out the patterns of a chart. Since it came up in this thread, I ran one for your chart (I created a special Solar Fire wheel design for an aspect map).

The interesting thing to me is that, with close (Class 1) orbs, you have exclusively hard aspects. In fact, without Eris, you have nothing but sesqui-squares and conjunctions. One has to go to Class 2 orbs to get anything else. Here's the way your chart lays out with Class 2 orbs.

ByJove aspect map.png

Addendum: some of the friends I mentioned have partile aspects with Eris.

TL;DR on my opinion, I guess. It's about the quality of the aspects, not how many little red and blue lines are crossing through the chart.

[By Jove]

I had a conversation with Danica a while ago. Midpoints can explain how plants interact in "scrunched-up" natal charts that have few traditional aspects. They seem to compensate for the lack of aspects by having large stelliums, 3 planet conjunctions, and partile midpoints.

They have powerful midpoints considering how so many planets are less than 30 degrees apart from each other. So applying partile midpoints in this way (between planets at most 30 degrees apart)...

Me:
Moon ~1 degree between Mercury/Venus/Uranus - Saturn.

A***:
Sun ~0 degree between Pluto - Mercury.
Uranus ~0 degree between Mars - Jupiter

Friend 2 with few aspects:
Neptune ~1 degree between Moon - Uranus
Mercury ~0 degree between Pluto - Mars

Friend 3 with few aspects:
none

Friend 4 with few aspects:
none

More info here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAstrologers ... al_charts/