The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need

by Joanna Martine Woolfold

  Clever, creative, and resourceful, your fertile mind seems to be an inexhaustible source of ideas and suggestions. Your brain behind your cool facade is always ticking away. One of the things you must do is find out how something works, to dissect it, study it, and put it back together so that it works better. This is also true in artistic terms; you can do great visionary work if you have Scorpio rising in your chart.

  As a Scorpio Ascendant you are happiest when you can control from behind the scenes. You tend to be secretive and reserved, and shun the spotlight because you can’t work there unnoticed. If you are domineering, it is a subtle dominance, a kind of mind control. Some people claim that they are hypnotized by Scorpio Ascendants; it’s true that you have a way of knowing what others are thinking. Much of this comes from your acute powers of observation. You are a charming, witty conversationalist, but the acute observer will soon notice that it is the other person who is doing most of the talking. You are usually quietly watching, waiting, observing—filing away information that will be useful later on.

  Rising-Scorpios have a reputation for a sharp temper; the reputation is deserved. When crossed, you can be cruel and biting. You tend to use any weapon at your disposal—from ridicule to playing on a person’s fears. In the heat of that moment, Rising-Scorpio must be the victor. Later, you are remorseful for having dealt wounds, though it is extremely hard for you to say so.

  Scorpio is the astrological sign of hidden passion; Scorpio Ascendants tend to have a secret love affair at least one time in their lives, and usually marry more than once. Astrologers have observed a strange pattern in which Rising-Scorpios often lose their first spouse to death. They seem to suffer more financial setbacks and disappointments than other rising signs; but no other sign is more victorious in the end.

  As a Scorpio Ascendant you tend to have sharp features, a prominent nose, and large, hypnotic eyes. Sometimes your brows are thick and dark. Your body is agile and moves decisively.

  The planet Pluto, which rules Scorpio, is very prominent in your horoscope. The influence of Pluto bestows powerful feelings and emotions, a sense of purpose, persistence, determination, plus the imagination and ability to make a successful start in a new direction. This planet’s influence also favors secrecy, suspicion, jealousy, and cruelty.

  SAGITTARIUS ASCENDANT

  A SAGITTARIUS ASCENDANT favors independence and freedom. You cannot bear to be stifled by outmoded ideas or difficult lovers or tedious work. You are progressive, full of optimism about the future. You are also restless in spirit, anxious to get on with the business of living, ready to accept a new challenge.

  Sometimes your impatience is misunderstood. Your sensitivity toward other people and your need for freedom are part of the same personality. You grant freedom to others and never try to limit or restrict another human being.

  Sagittarius Ascendants are basically humanitarians, idealists who care deeply about injustice. On a personal level, you are honest and generous to others and easily wounded when confronted with selfishness or thoughtless cruelty. It’s true that you can expect too much of your fellow man.

  You have a knack for making friends, for you are very open to new people and new ideas. You enjoy a spirited discussion, an exchange of opinion. (Rising-Sagittarians have a reputation for frankness: other people always know where they stand with you.) You are interested in research, blessed with imagination, foresight, and clear thinking. You like to travel, see new places, learn how the rest of the world lives. Usually you tend to read a great deal, watch the news, subscribe to periodicals, plug into the latest information on the computer, talk about current events with friends. You prefer the simple life, with not too many trappings or obligations. You like money, but your real appreciation is for the independence it affords. You fear that if you take success too seriously, life will become boring.

  One of your problems is that you don’t measure the consequences of what you do. You are impulsive, sometimes reckless. To take action is the main thing, to do something about a problem. You don’t always stop to consider where all the activity may lead.

  Marriage is not the most important thing in your life. Sagittarian Ascendants have a tendency to marry the wrong person (at least once) and get into unhappy romantic situations from which they must extricate themselves. Travel is a major theme in your life, and luck surrounds you in foreign countries. Many Rising-Sagittarians live out their later years in another country.

  As a person with Sagittarius rising, you tend to have a pleasant, cheerful face, a broad forehead, bright, humorous eyes, and a friendly smile. You often make sweeping gestures with your arms and hands, and have a strong, active body.

  The planet Jupiter, which rules Sagittarius, is very prominent in your horoscope. The influence of Jupiter bestows good fortune, happiness, generosity, breadth of vision, sincerity, and a genial social manner. It also encourages restlessness, self-indulgence, conceit, impatience, wastefulness, and gambling.

  CAPRICORN ASCENDANT

  IF YOU HAVE CAPRICORN ascending, you tend to have a serious turn of mind. One would not call you melancholy, but you certainly aren’t frivolous. Cautious in your dealings, you are reluctant to commit yourself until you know the score. With strangers you are often quiet, reserved, perhaps a bit shy. But once you open up you can be lively, friendly, warm, and expressive.

  Capricorn Ascendants have strong personalities, possess great willpower and determination, and diligently pursue their goals. These goals are usually for a better life—money, status, a higher standing in the community for your family. It’s important to you to feel that your life is meaningful. You have self-esteem and are reliable, dependable, and stable. Sometimes, though, you will strive toward a goal and when you achieve it will still not be happy. You have a sense that something is missing, and you continue your search.

  You have an active mind with quick intelligence and an ability to concentrate. You can ferret out information, see flaws in a plan, map things out ahead in detail. Sometimes you may be accused of being too calculating, because you add up all the pros and cons before embarking on a project. If an opponent has a weakness, you are also quick to spot it—and not entirely above using it to your advantage.

  You tend to fuss over details to make sure all contingencies have been covered. It’s your way of being in control—you don’t want bad luck to catch you unprepared. Rising-Capricorns are worriers; in youth you worry about life, in old age about death. In middle age you worry about success.

  It isn’t always easy for Rising-Capricorns to show their feelings, though powerful feelings do exist. You love deeply, are loyal and protective, and go out of your way to do kind deeds for others. However, you are often torn by jealousy and resentment (which you hide), and down deep you never really forgive someone who does you an injury.

  What you achieve is mainly through your own efforts rather than through the influence of others. Though it happens that Rising-Capricorns seem to benefit financially through marriage, your own hard work within the union is largely responsible for your gain. With Capricorn Ascendants there is often a rivalry with brothers and sisters, or some kind of disagreement with their fathers.

  As a person with Capricorn rising, you tend to have a small, well-shaped head, deep and penetrating eyes, and a beautiful smile with good-looking teeth. You have strong feet and usually enjoy walking or jogging.

  The planet Saturn, which rules Capricorn, is very prominent in your horoscope. The influence of Saturn bestows discipline, ambition, patience, determination, good endurance, and thrift. It also encourages stubbornness, hardship, melancholy, aloofness, pessimism, and selfishness.

  AQUARIUS ASCENDANT

  IF YOU HAVE AQUARIUS ascending, you usually make friends easily. You are quick-witted and lively, open in your dealings, honest and truthful. You are an inventive conversationalist who paints word pictures that amuse and fascinate. Intelligent and charming, you are particularly suited to a position of leadership.

  Yo
u are idealistic in your outlook and want nothing more than for all the world to be happy and harmonious. Even the idea of conflict upsets you. You want to see the best in humanity and are hopeful about the future.

  Though you have a reputation for fairness and tolerance, there is a strong streak of inflexibility to your nature. Much of this is the impatience you feel toward those who do not have your visionary or lofty ideas. Rising-Aquarians are modern, forward-thinking, and progressive, yet you are as set in your ways as Capricorn or Taurus. One could say that you hold firmly far-out opinions. The choice for most people is to accept society as they find it or try to improve it. You want to construct a new society that will correspond to your vision of the ideal.

  You are often intolerant of other people’s shortcomings and can be wickedly sarcastic and very funny at the same time. Your razor-sharp powers of observation help you to uncover flaws that you can poke fun at.

  You are a system of paradoxes. You enjoy being with people but are perfectly content to be alone. You like to travel but love relaxing at home. You are friendly and outgoing but, at other times, moody and reserved. You have both a scientific and an artistic turn of mind. In your career, you often are involved in two distinct areas of work.

  Fame comes rather easily to Aquarius-Rising people, and many times it is just as easily taken away from them. Your life tends to be marked by unexpected triumphs and reversals. When good fortune smiles there is often a dark underside to it. For example, many Rising-Aquarians inherit money, but it often turns out that the legal entanglements are more trouble than the inheritance is worth.

  Aquarius Ascendants approach new places and situations with a spirit of adventure, even though the spirit does tend to wear thin. You become quickly bored. Rising-Aquarians usually marry early in life and find contentment with their mates. Though most of you are comfortably off by the time you reach middle age, you never quite make all the money you’d like. Friends are helpful to you in both career and personal matters.

  As a person with Aquarius rising, you tend to have a wide forehead, fine bone structure in your face, and dreamy, wandering eyes. Many of you are quite tall and rangy-looking.

  The planet Uranus, which rules Aquarius, is very prominent in your horoscope. The influence of Uranus bestows independence, originality, friendliness, a reforming spirit, versatility, and a hatred of restriction. It also encourages rebellion, unpredictability, tactlessness, eccentricity, and contrariness.

  PISCES ASCENDANT

  IF YOU WERE BORN with Pisces rising, you carry within yourself a strong artistic gift that must sooner or later find expression. You have an active fantasy life and a pronounced romantic outlook. You want life to be perfect and since it isn’t, you choose not to see what you don’t want to see. Down deep, many Rising-Pisceans believe that they alone are destined to suffer disillusionment in life; sometimes others sense this secret sorrow in you. Often you feel you were born at the wrong time in the wrong place, and you are strongly drawn to the past.

  Basically, you have a dauntless goodwill toward others. You tend to be very sociable, fond of entertaining, and enjoy the warmth of companionship. You love the good life—fine food and drink especially, beautiful clothes, and travel. At parties Rising-Pisceans are vivacious and verbal (sometimes you talk too much); you enjoy performing in front of a group. A talent for mimicry makes many Pisces Ascendants turn to the theater.

  The word sentimental comes to mind when describing you. Your tender feelings are easily moved by sad stories, lost animals, unhappy human beings. Your personality is also changeable, at times moody and distressed. Worry and imagined fears overtake and sometimes overcome you.

  In your private life you tend to be disorganized, a bit careless, the kind who is forever losing or misplacing belongings. In work, however, you are knowledgeable and creative and can be quite disciplined when working within a group, especially in artistic projects. You are also successful in occupations that involve writing and travel. Many Rising-Pisceans frequently change their residence.

  It often happens with Pisces Ascendants that a person who was an adversary in early years becomes a valuable friend later on. You may sometimes have trouble with a first marriage because of in-laws and relatives. As a Rising-Piscean you are probably fond of children; your own children usually bring you pride and happiness.

  If you have Pisces rising, you tend to have large, luminous eyes and a sensuous mouth. You are likely to have wavy hair and well-shaped feet.

  The planet Neptune, which rules Pisces, is very prominent in your horoscope. The influence of Neptune bestows compassion, sensitivity, keen intuition, imagination, creativity, and an interest in spiritual things and the occult. It also encourages confusion, indecisiveness, worry, vagueness, carelessness, and self-deception.

  FOOTNOTE

  *If you do not know the time and place of your birth, it is still possible to discover your Ascendant. This is done by a process called “rectification”of your chart, in which a competent astrologer determines the time of your birth using as guideposts the time at which major events in your life have taken place.

  documented that the life-patterns of time-twins are eerily similar. In many cases, they marry at the same time, have the same number and same sexes of children; they divorce, travel, and change jobs and residences at the same time; in many cases they die at the same time and from the same causes.

  Obviously time-twins are very, very rare. The unique pattern of Sun, Moon, and planets in your horoscope is most likely unduplicated by anyone else. Your Sun sign might be Taurus or Scorpio, but you may be as different as night and day from another Taurus or Scorpio. Just as your fingerprints are like no one else’s, your birth chart is like no one else’s. And if you wish to gain further insight into the knowledge astrology can provide you, you must know where the various planets are placed in your (or anyone else’s) birth chart.

  Each planet has a specific influence in astrology and governs a certain area of your personality or your approach to life. For example, Mercury relates to your mental outlook; Venus governs your love nature. It is the placement of these planets in the various zodiacal signs that determines how you express the different facets of your personality. If your Mercury is in Gemini, you tend to be extremely verbal and quick-witted. If your Mercury is in Capricorn, you handle detail work very well and carefully plot out your plans in advance. If your Venus is in Leo, you are not happy unless you receive a great deal of attention from a lover. If your Venus is in Aquarius, you consider freedom of expression for each person to be the most important thing in a love relationship.

  In the following pages you will find a rundown of each planet, its power and influence, and what that influence means when it is in each sign of the zodiac. There are Planetary Tables on pages 485–513 that will give you the exact position of each planet in your chart for your particular day of birth.

  Note: The astrological community has taken a great interest in a tiny planet or asteroid (it has not yet been determined which, and is often referred to as a planetoid) discovered by Charles Kowal on November 1, 1977. This tiny planetary body is named Chiron, who in Greek mythology was the wise centaur, a teacher, and a healer. Chiron has a diameter of between 100 and 400 miles and an orbit that lies between Saturn and Uranus. The astrological significance of Chiron is still under observation. In general it is thought of as an influence for spiritual regeneration and the search for meaningful work. Some astrologers connect it to Scorpio and Sagittarius, and others to Virgo. A group has been formed called the Association for Studying Chiron; this society feels that Chiron has no sign rulership and that its nature is, in their word, “maverick.” Many astrologers (and computer astrology programs) now routinely note the position of Chiron in horoscopes and, when doing chart readings, include an interpretation of Chiron’s placement in a birth chart.

  In August 1989, an interesting discovery about Neptune’s moon Triton was made. Data sent back to Earth from our space probe, Voyager 2, has led ma
ny astronomers to believe that Triton may once have been a planet that revolved around our Sun, and eons ago was drawn into Neptune’s gravitational embrace.

  In accordance with ancient prediction, many astrologers down through the years have believed that more planets will be discovered within our solar system. A prevailing theory (one among many) is that two more planets remain to be discovered—the planet Apollo and the planet Vulcan. Apollo is said to be the true ruler of Taurus (which now shares the planet Venus with the sign of Libra), and Vulcan to be the true ruler of Virgo (which now shares the planet Mercury with the sign of Gemini).

  Indeed, astronomers continue to search for two other planets in our solar system. One, named Vulcan, is thought to be close to the Sun, between Mercury and the Sun. The other, called Planet X, is being looked for beyond Pluto. Something out there is exerting a gravitational pull on Uranus, but Pluto (the planet beyond Uranus) is far too tiny in size to influence the orbit of a planet as big as Uranus, and so astronomers continue to search for Planet X. In fact, in April 1998, the scientific world was thrilled when it seemed that a tenth planet had been discovered, and disappointed when it turned out to be a comet briefly orbiting the Sun.

  When a new planet is discovered and assigned to a zodiacal sign, that sign undergoes a slow change in appearance. For example, before the end of the eighteenth century (and therefore before the planet Uranus was discovered), the rulership of Aquarius belonged to Saturn. Back then Aquarius was a much more sober, practical, melancholy, and restrictive sign than the bright, modern, forward-thinking, and electric Aquarius we know today. In the grand plan of the universe according to astrology, the true ruler of a sign brings out that sign’s true characteristics.