The planets are key building blocks to reading a chart. Understanding of their layers of archetypal meaning builds over time.

To learn them, it’s best to start with the basics, described below. As you learn, you’ll return to these essential meanings and functions in a chart over and over, seeing new nuances of their manifestations with every chart. 

The personal planets—Mercury, Mars, and Venus—are the planets closest to Earth. In transits, they move quickly (that is, have shorter orbits around the Sun) and reflect the activities of daily life.

Why isn’t Earth included? Well, the Earth is actually at the center of the chart. The chart itself is a representation of the sky and solar system at the moment of birth, from the point of view of the exact location of birth.

In natal charts, Mercury, Venus, and Mars represent fundamental facets of the personality (see the sections below for more on this). The outer planets, by contrast, move more slowly and tend to reflect shared generational attributes and characteristics in natal charts, though they too can also distinctly influence personality and temperment. 

Learn more about the “lights”—the Sun and Moon—here.