The Basics of Astrology

by Siusaidh Ceanadach

The evidence of astrology goes back many thousands of years. Long before 10,500 years ago, the ancients built large temples aligned to the sun and Stars. Mankind turning to the heavens for some sort of order and guidance, ever looking upwards. A star is the ancient Sumerian symbol for divinity. Here then were the real founders of astrology. Today, like our early ancestors, we are still aware of the physical influence that the Sun and the Moon make on our lives and the World we live in.

The Sun, giving us warmth, energy and power.

The Moon, giving its influence of water, fluids, tides and rivers, and without water we cannot exist, for we are 70% water. The ebb and flow of the natural order.

From the Earth a backcloth of stars turns around us in a pattern that is almost unchanging year by year. But it was noticed that there were some heavenly bodies that did make rapid movement against this starry background. These were the Planets and the Sun and the Moon which I have already mentioned. The others, by the time the Babylonians began to make records had already taken on personalities of their own, which in turn became God like.

There were at that time five visible planets known to ‘wander’ around the heavens. These were; Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

Early Understanding of Astrology

Mercury became known as a quick, cunning, bisexual god and he was known to have a ‘calculating wisdom.’ These days we see him as connected with both physical and verbal communication, often short and sweet! Mars was the ruler of violence and war in the old times. Nowadays we see Mars as the energy giving force in sport and the driving force of a masculine kind. Venus had no very old meaning that I have found in my research for this talk, but as many know she is said to rule love. She also gives grace and quality, where she is placed in a natal chart. Jupiter was a king-like ruler of men. Now seen as an expanding force, fortunate and beneficial. Saturn was seen as a distant cooling Sun in exile, quick tempered and cruel, even now known as the negative side of this planet. On the positive side, Saturn in a natal chart will give order, stability and security.

And so it all began, this was the early basis of astrological lore. Of course it has to be said that in these early times, astronomy and astrology were intertwined, it’s only in more recent centuries that these two subjects have been separated.

The Start of the House System

The Chaldeans were observers and mathematicians and they saw the pattern in the sky. From this they divided the sky up to match the constellations through which the Sun and Moon were seen to pass, through the year. There were twelve in number, the forerunner of the now known Zodiac.

There was also another set of twelve sections, unconnected to the first, these were numbered from the east downwards, under the horizon. These represented areas of life, and this took on the pattern which is now known as the House System.

House	Meaning
1st	Life or self
2nd	Poverty or riches
3rd	Brothers in early times, now called the house of communication
4th	Parents, known now as your roots or home base.
5th	Children, also now, small pets and siblings. Pleasure.
6th	Illness or health, perhaps now our service in these areas.
7th	Wife or husbands, now more correctly called the ‘house of partners’ which governs any close one to one relationship.
8th	Death, and now known as the occult or secret/esoteric house.
9th	Religion in older times, now perhaps long journeys and further education.
10th	Dignities in early astrology, now better known as the house of profession and career.
11th	Friendship, but again more understood as associations and groups.
12th	Enmity in old times, now known as the hidden depths of the mind and hidden places, places behind closed doors!

The Elements and the early Zodiac

The Chaldeans identified thirty-six bright stars originally. From these the Chaldeans then selected twelve chiefs of these constellations and these with some modifications survived until the Western Zodiac was established in the early Greek period.

The Elements

The characters of these constellations, which have become known now as ‘Star Signs,’ were seen very early, even before recorded philosophy, as elemental and were linked to the four elements: Fire - Earth - Air - Water.

Added to this, the classical Greeks added ‘Qualities’ and the notion of opposites — odd & even, male & female, positive & negative.

The Qualities are: Cardinal (passionate and intense), Fixed (stubborn and rigid) and Mutable (flexible and easy going).

These are the basic early ingredients of Astrology, as we understand it today.

Basic Natal Charts

A Natal Chart is a map of the heavens, taken at the time of birth, from the place of birth. It’s a snap shot of a moment in time, a blueprint of the psyche that stays with you all your life. Each planet brings to the chart the essence of what it is. Then according to where in the chart the planets are charted, it brings further knowledge.

Breakdown of a Chart

What do the planets give, what do they mean to us?

Planet	Meaning
Sun	Self, the person’s vitality. Self-expression.
Moon	The emotions, instinct, intuition and female response.
Mercury	Communications, mental and physical.
Venus	Harmony, love, quality, grace and gentleness.
Mars	Physical energy, masculine side of nature, aggression.
Uranus	Change, sudden disruption, shock, sexual excess, deviation.
Jupiter	Expansion, intellectual and physical, loyalty and justice.
Neptune	Cloudiness, unreality, imagination, sensitivity, clairvoyance.
Pluto	Elimination, change, buried emotions, the unconscious and human reproduction.
Chiron	Healing, wounds, ‘the wounded healer.’
North Node of the Moon	Karmic knowledge, where we are to learn in this incarnation.

The Major divisions in a chart are known as the Ascendant or Rising Sign, the Midheaven and the IC or Imum Cœli.

So here we have it: the Zodiac, the house system, the planets, the ascendant and the midheaven. This paints a full picture of a moment in time. This can then be read for a person, the start of something, a country, or even the weather. It can also be used for a room or place, perhaps to find a lost item. Added to all of this we have so many other uses of astrology today, for health, for reproduction, for day-to-day events in our lives. These charts are called ‘transits’. We can progress a chart, look at it in synastry with the natal chart and evaluate it for the person, or for a thing — a company or a society, perhaps.

Synastry charts are well known, everybody wants to know if the person they have met and fallen in love with would be compatible with them, so they ask for their chart to be placed with their loved one’s. We then look at the two charts together and see if we can spot the pitfalls and the pluses!

Medical Astrology is a subject all of its own, but it is well used by many of the alternative medical professions as an aid to find which therapy of herb or medication would be most suited to the individual. As a nurse, I have used it extensively.

Financial and Political Astrology are areas to which I have never felt drawn, but the tutor I had when I trained with the Faculty of Astrological Studies was very well known as a financial astrologer and ten years ago was earning £60 an hour, mostly from city companies and those involved in the stock exchange.