Random Q & A

Debilitated Mars?

Does it make people harder to be angry at this time. Remember, when a mars is in Cancer, it’s debilitated. And Mars energy is firey and has to do with sex and anger. So when Mars is in a watery place like Cancer, does it make a person be less angrier??

Mars is currently in sidereal cancer. The signs effects on planets are more reliable when reading them sidereally.

All other things ignored in the chart, when Mars is in cancer – especially if in the middleish portion (in the lunar mansion called The Flower – Pushya) it increases the persons tendancy to be non-violence and peaceloving. They will have few siblings if any. They will dislike sports, contests, and militarism. It gives a push towards gender-based issues too.

Mars never exists all by himself. But for the sake of answering your question I’ve said what I’ve said. If someone comes out and says, “Hell my Mars is in cancer and I love thai kickboxing and want to kill people and eat their hearts” I’ll have to remind them of two things — (1) Mars is NOT the factor contributing to those traits, other things in your chart are. (2) Are you sure have Mars in *Sidereal* Cancer? Is he in The Flower, mansion???

(Also I should mention that debilitated planets always have strong QUIRKS. They don’t like to be debilitated and from time to time they lash out as a result. So for example, a calmed Mars as described above will still produce infrequent lash-outs and anger issue, perhaps very infrequent and regretted acts of mild violence, etc.)

Sun Conjunct Mercury

I have Virgo sun conjunct Virgo Mercury. How does this affect my thought process and communication skills?

It happens very frequently because Mercury never ventures far from the Sun, and is never more than 1 sign away. However under the right circumstance it produces a special alignment (“yoga”) called “brilliant intellect” (“budha-aditya”). The circumstances which make this happen are a strong connection to the 5th house. If the combination occurs in the 5th House, or in the 11th (opposite the 5th) or in Mercury or the Sun owns the 5th House, this combination is considered to be activated.

It will cause the intellect to be insightful and clear – which would result in good speech, etc. all qualities of Mercury would be enhanced.

However if the conjunction is with 8º combustion occurs, which significantly changes the results.

This is an ancient technique I’ve described above. Best to reference it with your chart in a sidereal format, with whole-sign houses.

Rising Sign vs. Moon Sign vs. Sun Sign

In which order do these fall in IMPORTANCE of a person , according to astrology, Rising sign, Sun or Moon?

The faster moving objects in the sky are of greater personal and individual impact in a birth chart. From this rule you can answer your own question.

Rising Sign is most effective. It decribes the tangible reality of the person

Moon is next – describing the emotional and subjective nature of the person.

Sun is third – describing the identity focus (or ego) of the person.

The rest of the planets are not commonly focal points, but rather modify the three above focal points.

Separating & Applying Aspects

If an aspect is currently separating, can it reverse in the future? how exactly does it work? Because almost all of the aspects in my chart are separating, is this good? Or once all your aspects get far enough do you just die?!? I’m very confused and would greatly appreciate any information anyone has to share

“separating” means that the planets were moving OUT of aspect at the time the chart depicts (your birthtime, in this case). Separating aspects are less powerful than applying aspects (applying aspects involve planets as the move IN to aspect).

The aspects in your birth chart never change, because your birth chart is a snapshot of one moment in time – your birth. They will not get more or less in or out of separation.

Aspects are only 1 facet of reading a chart, btw. don’t get caught up and think it’s the end-all be-all of your chart.

In transits, which are not snapshots of single points in time, but animations of multiple points of continuing time, things change. Let me explain with an example -

Say the Sun is at 15º Cancer, and the Moon is at 10º Capricorn. As the hours pass the Moon will move to 11, 12, 13, 14º of Capricorn, and the aspect between the Sun and Moon will gradually “apply” – it will get stronger and stronger until the Moon hit’s 15º at the aspect (an opposition in this case) is “exact” and at it’s strongest.

The Moon continues moving, minute by minute, hour by hour, to 16, 17, 18º and more in Capricorn. As she moves away from 15º, where the exact opposition occured, the aspect between her and the Sun “separates” – which causes it to dissipate. Eventually the Moon will move out of the aspect entirely.

The 5 true planets can go retrograde. So in their case, it IS possible to reverse and change from separating to applying. However this is a technicality that I mention just for completeness. In the context of what you are asking, there is not change to the aspects ever, because you are asking about a birth chart, not a transit.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

How Signs Get Their Qualities (Gemini & Virgo as Examples)

There are 12 zodiac signs – constellation regions through which the planets move. Each one has it’s own unique traits. How do they get these traits? They get their traits primarily from the planet who owns them.

In astrology signs are places in the heavens and planets are beings - people. Just like people own houses, countries, etc – the planets own the signs. Every planet is a being with inherent qualities, just like every person has inherent personality traits. A sign get its traits from the personality traits of the planet which owns it.

Each sign is also composed of a different element, gender, and direction. The traits of the ruling planet get modified and made more unique as they filter through these aspects of each sign.

Here are the planets, their most essential trait, and what signs they own. You will be able to see how these traits permeate their signs.

Planet	Quality	Sign 1	Sign 2
Moon	Mind (private emotions)	Cancer
Sun	Identity (public ego)		Leo
Mercury	Intellect	Gemini	Virgo
Venus	Senses	Taurus	Libra
Mars	Ambition	Aries	Scorpio
Jupiter	Faith	Pisces	Sagittarius
Saturn	Reality	Aquarius	Capricorn

Do note that the other planets (Rahu, Ketu – and the outer astronomical planets) do not play a role in authentic astrology as it was revealed in ancient times. If you think a bit about the beautiful perfect symmetry in the chart above it will probably start to become clear to you why this is so.

Example of Mercury’s Two Signs: Gemini & Virgo

Mercury owns two signs which appear to be quite different in many ways. Let’s therefore use them as an example of how to use the above info to truly understand the characteristics of the signs.

Mercury is intellect and that is the dominant trait which will create the characteristics of both Virgo and Gemini. Let’s see how.

What Virgo and Gemini have in common is that they both belong to Mercury. But they have other important differences which cause the essential nature of Mercury to manifest different traits for each sign. These are the differences:

• Gender: Gemini is “masculine” (extroverting) and Virgo is “feminine” (introverting)
• Element: Gemini is air, Virgo is earth
• House: Gemini is the 3rd House of the zodiac, Virgo is the 6th

Let’s just take gender first. Gemini has masculine gender so when Mercury’s personality trait (intellect) exhibits itself in gemini it becomes “extroverting intellect” – this results in Gemini’s classical traits of loving to communicate and talk, being quick witted, and being on a sort of quest to find fun and excitement.

Virgo, on the other hand has feminine gender, so Mercury’s intellect becomes “introverting” here, making it very strong, but palpably withdrawn and cautious of over-extending itself, reserved, and therefore appearing timid or vulnerable to others.

If you consider the other differences between the two places in the sky (Gemini and Virgo)  it will all become even clearer. Gemini is air, which makes Mercury’s intelligence incline towards quickness & fun (pleasurable sensations – air moving across skin); while the earth of Virgo makes the same intellect of Mercury seek practical things like reliability and practicality.

Finally, Gemini is the 3rd house of the Zodiac (being the 3rd of the 12 zodiac signs). Therefore Mercury’s intellect expresses itself here in context of the Astrological 3rd House – Making it even more disposed towards communicating (talking) and gives it some aptitude for having fun while enjoying ones own ambitious desires. Virgo, on the other hand, is the 6th House of the zodiac – causing Mercury’s intellect to become apt with painstaking work, chores, and being somewhat well suited to medical or health fields.

Go On…

I encourage you to try repeating with the other planets and signs what I’ve done above for Mercury and his two signs, Virgo and Gemini.

Yours,

Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

Venus – Evening Star, Morning Star

Vedic Venus in her Western Glyph

In many ways, Venus is the most fascinating object in the sky, besides the Sun and Moon. For one thing, she gets brighter than any other star or planet, even Jupiter. And another fascinating thing is that she appears to disappear and reappear!!!

For 9 months of the year you can see her in the night sky, but she appears to sink and disappear, and then, after a few weeks, there is a “new” star born – but not in the night sky – in the morning sky! Ancients figured out quickly the “evening star” and the “morning star” were really the same star – Venus. This appearance of dying and being resurrected makes Venus extremely important in they mythologies of almost all cultures. Especially the Vedic and Mayan cultures.

In Vedic culture Venus is the master of the primordial forces (“asura-guru”) and the only being who knows the art of bringing the dead back to life!

Mayan astrology bases its cycles on 9 month periods, corresponding to Venus’ cycle as either an evening or morning star.

Recent conjunction of the Moon with Venus as the Evening star, over a graveyard - reincarnation & resurrection!

See, what happens is that Venus sort of “rubber bands” around the Sun, from our perspective here on earth. She whips past him and then stretches more slowly out to a limit of about 2 zodiac signs away from the sun, hangs there for a moment, and then slings back to whip past the Sun again and do the same thing on the other side. When she is on the “left” side of the Sun (i.e. when she has a higher zodiac degree than the Sun) we see her at night, after the Sun sets and we call her the evening star. And when she is on the “right” side of the Sun, with a lower zodiac degree, we see her in the early morning, before Sunrise – and call her the “morning star.”

Right now, as I post this, she is whipping past the Sun, and has crossed to his “left” side. So gradually now for the next 4 or 5 months you will start seeing a bright bright bright star in the early evening sky more or less due west. This is Venus!

Around the middle of the Summer she will be the brightest of all, and visible for the most amount of time at night. This is when her “rubber band” will be pulled to its extreme! It is at this time that she is most powerful and influential. (Yet another reason to look forward to Summer!?)

Don’t miss the beauty of observing Venus in the evening sky. From about February you should start to be able to get good views of her.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

Today’s Eclipse, Yesterday’s Earthquake

Eclipse mid-January 2010

Today we have an eclipse. These are always important phenomena in astrology because they represent victory of the forces of Chaos (the two eclipse nodes, Rahu and Ketu) over the forces of authority and stability (the Sun and Moon). As a result, eclipses open up windows for dramatic changes. Conservative or traditional cultures tend to, of course, view such changes as “negative” but the modern open mind can see that such events have both positive and negative potentials because in our modern world a lot of change is necessary and would be a good thing.

This eclipse is a little special. Not because of it being a part of a “triple eclipse” – which is fairly commonplace, but because it in consuming Venus as well. There is also the station of Mercury, while under a square aspect from Saturn. The position of this eclipse in the sidereal zodiac is also quite important, for it puts the planets involved into very dramatic conditions.

Earthquakes are classically associated with eclipses. Not much more than a day ago we saw a devastating earthquake in Haiti which seems to have killed 10s of thousands of people.

Indeed some factors of this particular eclipse indicate a disaster on that scale. Firstly all the benefics are incapacitated. Jupiter is still newborn in an enemy’s sign. The Moon is at zero strength, being eclipsed. Venus is nearly at zero strength as well being nearly completely combusted in the sun’s rays and being consumed in the eclipse location as well. Mercury is the weakest of the benefic planets, and she finds himself under the hard aspect of malefic kingpin Saturn… so he is in no position to save the day. So the malefic planets really have complete control of the karma being shown in the sky right now – and that means that we will see negative karmic reactions. In fact we sorrowfully witnessed this in Haiti on a rather unprecedented scale.

Vaisheshikamshas

The graphs at right show the positivity and negativity of the  planets as a result of their positions in the dasha-varga (10 harmonic facets of each zodiac sign). As you can see Rahu is overpowering all others.

This eclipse occurs at 1º of Capricorn which is the lunar mansion (nakshatra) of Final Victory (Uttara-Ashada). Persons with important placements in this area of the sky will have great potentials for significant changes in their life right now.  If you have important placements early in sidereal Capricorn, or late in sidereal Sagittarius and are considering or experiencing changes you should consult a trustworthy astrologer to get personalized guidance, as this could be a fantastic window of opportunity for you.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com