A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Astrology: Understanding the 12 Planets That Shape Your Life

Astrology is one of the fastest ways to understand and accept ourselves. Its greatest purpose is to reconnect us with our authentic selves.

Through astrology, we become more compassionate and accepting towards ourselves and others. It helps us clearly see our thought patterns, behaviors, family dynamics, relationships with children, career talents, relationship styles, and much more.

Astrology, when applied to everyday life, nourishes and enhances our experiences.

By learning astrology, we can better observe and understand ourselves and others, fostering greater empathy and acceptance.

Now, let’s jump straight into some basic astrology concepts. Some of you might already know these, but if you’re new to astrology, these basics are essential.

When people say, “I was born on this day, so I’m this zodiac sign,” they’re referring to the Sun sign. But the Sun sign is just one aspect of who we are.

Let me introduce an app called “AstroCharts” that helps you find your Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune signs. Just enter your birthplace (city-level) and your exact birth time (down to the minute). Accuracy is crucial for a precise birth chart!

If you’re on a PC, this website can help you explore your natal chart.

Website Link: ​https://astro-charts.com/tools/new/birth-chart/​

Astrology has 10 main planets: the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune. Each planet represents unique aspects of our life. Let’s start with the Sun:

What the Sun Represents:

• Father and male family figures: For women, it also means your husband or important men in your life.
  
  
• Motivation and creativity: What pushes you forward and inspires you to create.
  
  
• Hope, warmth, and showing who you truly are: How you naturally express yourself.
  
  
• Identity and self-worth: How you see yourself, and what makes you feel valuable.
  
  
• Life energy and vitality: Your health, strength, and physical energy.
  
  
• Main goals and direction: What you really want from life and where you aim to go.
  
  
• Your personal “hero’s journey”: Your unique life story and experiences.
  
  
• Things you deeply value: What matters most to you.
  
  
• Your future path: How your life unfolds over time.
  
  
• Authority, leadership, and fame: How you take charge and gain respect from others.

What the Moon Represents:

• The Moon shows your instinctive side: This part of you reacts without thinking. It’s subconscious, automatic, and often unnoticed.
  
  
• The Moon isn’t about logic or intelligence: It’s all about feelings and instincts.
  
  
• Sensitive to surroundings: The Moon reflects where you’re most affected by your environment and how easily your emotions can change.
  
  
• Habits and behaviors: Your Moon sign reveals your daily habits, routines, and ways of behaving.
  
  
• Your emotions and feelings: It’s how you naturally feel inside, your emotional reactions and mood shifts.
  
  
• Women relate to their Moon signs more easily: Women often strongly identify with their Moon sign because it connects deeply with feminine emotional energies.
  
  
• Deep inner needs: The zodiac sign your Moon falls into shows what you need emotionally to feel safe, satisfied, and comfortable deep inside.
  
  
• Natural responses: Your Moon sign also explains your instinctive reaction to every situation, without thinking.
  
  
• Your childhood home: It describes the emotional atmosphere and environment of your early home life.
  
  
• Relationship with your mother: How you interact and connect with your mother is shown through your Moon sign.
  
  
• Past memories and attachments: It symbolizes your past experiences, memories you hold onto, and emotional habits you might find hard to let go of.
  
  
• Daily life: It covers your everyday comfort zone and routines.
  
  
• Past experiences (karma): The Moon also hints at emotional baggage or experiences from your past that continue influencing you.
  
  
• Physical and hormonal health: It governs body fluids, hormones, the lymphatic system, menstrual cycles, pregnancy, childbirth, digestion (how you process food), stomach health, and breasts.

What Venus Represents:

• Pleasure and enjoyment: Things that make you happy and bring joy.
  
  
• Feminine energy: The gentle, nurturing, and receptive side within us.
  
  
• Giving and receiving: How you exchange love, affection, and appreciation.
  
  
• Love and intimacy: Your style of forming close relationships.
  
  
• Money and self-worth: How you value yourself and manage your resources.
  
  
• Charm and attraction: Your personal magnetism—what draws others to you.
  
  
• Taste and values: Your sense of beauty, aesthetics, and personal values.
  
  
• Art and creativity: How you express yourself artistically.
  
  
• Vanity and greed: The potential for overindulgence or obsession with beauty, money, and material comforts.
  
  
• Physical aspects: Venus also rules the body, venous blood circulation, female reproductive organs, and tendencies toward laziness.
  
  
• Venus shows the flow of energy—how you give and receive love, affection, and sensory pleasure. The sign Venus is in reveals how you naturally express love and how you feel most loved and valued in relationships. For women, Venus is particularly significant because it helps them deeply connect with their feminine side.

Here’s how it works practically (examples):

Venus in Fire Signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius):

• Expresses love by: Being passionate, enthusiastic, direct, and dramatic.
  
  
• Feels loved through: Engaging in active pursuits, sharing passions, and energetic experiences together.

Venus in Earth Signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn):

• Expresses love by: Being practical, reliable, physical, and responsible.
  
  
• Feels loved through: Solid commitment, shared responsibilities, practical care, and physical comforts.

Venus in Air Signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius):

• Expresses love by: Engaging in intellectual conversations, offering companionship and friendly gestures.
  
  
• Feels loved through: Communication, sharing ideas, lively discussions, and enjoyable social interactions.

Venus in Water Signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces):

• Expresses love by: Being emotionally sensitive, caring, and compassionate.
  
  
• Feels loved through: Deep emotional connection, sensitive exchanges, subtle understanding, and merging on a deeper, emotional level.

What Mars Represents:

• Action and drive: How you get things done and the energy you put into your goals.
  
  
• Your style of doing things: How you approach tasks and challenges.
  
  
• Areas you’re brave enough to explore independently: The fields where you’re willing to take risks and push boundaries.
  
  
• Endurance, courage, and perseverance: Your strength to keep going and overcome obstacles.
  
  
• How you assert yourself: Some people assert themselves through emotion, others through words or actions.
  
  
• Areas you defend strongly: The sign and house Mars occupies show what you feel strongly protective about.
  
  
• Physical energy: How much vitality you have.
  
  
• Competitiveness: Your willingness and approach to competition and rivalry.
  
  
• Sexuality: Your approach and expression of sexuality and attraction.
  
  
• Physical aspects: Mars rules muscles, the male reproductive system, arterial blood flow, as well as surgeries and accidental injuries.

Your Mars sign tells you what kind of activities energize you physically, helping you stand your ground and assert yourself. It’s all about how you show your strength, ambition, and competitive spirit. Mars is particularly significant for men, symbolizing their masculine self-image and how they express power and drive, especially in relationships and leadership roles.

Here’s a quick breakdown of Mars through the elements:

Mars in Air signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius):

• Expresses assertiveness through communication, ideas, and negotiation.

Mars in Fire signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius):

• Shows assertiveness through boldness, strength, leadership, and dominance.

Mars in Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn):

• Demonstrates power through persistence, practicality, efficiency, and hard work.

Mars in Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces):

• Uses intuition, emotional intelligence, strategy, and subtle persistence, often acting quietly yet determinedly.

What Mercury Represents:

• Your way of thinking: Mercury reveals how your mind works and the types of thoughts you naturally have.
  
  
• How you communicate: It shows the words you use, your speaking style, and how you share your ideas with others.
  
  
• Learning and teaching: Mercury is all about how you absorb new information, skills, and how you pass them along.
  
  
• Need to connect: It reflects your desire to understand others and be understood.
  
  
• Perception and expression: Mercury highlights how you take in information (input) and how you express it through speech, writing, or practical skills (output).
  
  
• Daily interactions: Communication, conversations, and interactions in everyday life.
  
  
• Education and early schooling: Your early experiences with learning and how you handled school life.
  
  
• Negotiations and deals: Mercury covers your skills in negotiation, trading, or doing business.
  
  
• Travel and short trips: It governs quick journeys, local commuting, and how you move around.
  
  
• Trickery and deception: Sometimes Mercury is linked to cunning, small deceptions, or even theft—using words or ideas cleverly.
  
  
• Youthfulness: Mercury represents youth, curiosity, and playfulness.
  
  
• Physical aspects: It also relates to your physical agility, coordination, and the body’s overall responsiveness.

In short, your Mercury sign describes your unique way of thinking, communicating, and interacting with the world around you, shaping how you learn, teach, and exchange information every day!

What Saturn Represents:

• Challenges and struggles: Things that feel difficult and tough.
  
  
• Limitations and restrictions: Areas where you feel stuck or held back.
  
  
• Fear and self-defense: The things you’re afraid of, and how you protect yourself.
  
  
• Responsibility and duty: Tasks you must do, and commitments you need to keep.
  
  
• Self-criticism and doubt: When you’re hard on yourself or doubt your abilities.
  
  
• Wisdom and maturity: Lessons you learn that make you wiser and more complete.
  
  
• Father or authority figures: How you relate to discipline and authority in life.
  
  
• Time: Patience and long-term efforts to achieve goals.
  
  
• Quality and reliability: Making sure things are built well and can last.
  
  
• Authority and respect: Becoming someone people trust and look up to.
  
  
• Physical aspects: Saturn rules skin, bones, and overall structure in the body.

What Jupiter Represents:

• Good luck and blessings: Areas where things flow easily and you experience success.
  
  
• Growth and expansion: Opportunities that help you grow and broaden your life.
  
  
• Protection and guidance: Feeling supported and safe.
  
  
• Wealth and abundance: Financial prosperity and overall richness in life.
  
  
• Beliefs and vision: What you believe in, your dreams, and your outlook.
  
  
• Confidence and optimism: Feeling hopeful and trusting yourself.
  
  
• Greed and excess: Sometimes going overboard or wanting too much.
  
  
• Wisdom and knowledge: Learning deeply and understanding broadly.
  
  
• Exaggeration and expansion: Sometimes making things bigger than they really are.

What Pluto Represents:

• Breaking free from old patterns: Letting go of things that no longer serve you.
  
  
• Transformation and change: Deep, meaningful growth and personal evolution.
  
  
• Hidden parts of yourself: Traits and strengths you haven’t fully expressed yet.
  
  
• Rebirth and renewal: Coming back stronger after significant struggles or endings.
  
  
• Turning crises into growth: Seeing challenges and pain as necessary steps toward renewal.

What Uranus Represents:

• Rebellion and innovation: Challenging old ways and breaking through limits.
  
  
• Individual freedom: Being uniquely yourself and craving independence.
  
  
• Uniqueness and being different: Not fitting into traditional norms.
  
  
• Sudden breaks and separations: Unexpected changes or endings in relationships or life paths.
  
  
• Attraction through uniqueness: Standing out because you’re original or different.
  
  
• Being outside the mainstream: Feeling or being treated as an outsider.
  
  
• Expressing yourself freely: Saying or doing things boldly without holding back.
  
  
• Rapid change, shock, and tension: Things happening suddenly, unexpectedly, and sometimes feeling stressful or cold.

What Neptune Represents:

• Water, oceans, and liquids: Flowing, unclear boundaries, and deep emotional states.
  
  
• Invasiveness and confusion: Feeling overwhelmed or uncertain about reality.
  
  
• Feeling lost or confused: Unclear situations or blurry boundaries.
  
  
• Rescue and redemption: Wanting to save or be saved by others.
  
  
• Deception or illusion: Situations where things aren’t as they seem.
  
  
• Addictions and escapism: Trying to avoid reality through habits or substances.
  
  
• Art, spirituality, and creativity: Deep imagination and spiritual connections.
  
  
• Dreaminess and idealism: Being hopeful and wishing for perfection.
  
  
• Control through subtlety: Quietly influencing situations or others without being obvious.

After learning and understanding all this astrology knowledge. You might still have questions about these planetary traits. This article is just a brief introduction—future articles will explain things more clearly, step-by-step.

In upcoming articles, I’ll explain what happens when these 10 planets are placed in the 12 zodiac signs, and I’ll also introduce the 12 astrological houses and how planets behave when they occupy them.

I hope you enjoyed today’s content! If you like this content, please share it with friends who also love astrology.