Photo: Markus Clemens via Unsplash / Houd Ammari, atrial, Andrew Pixel, and Chikovnaya via Canva
There are five personal planets in every chart that define your personality.
By Amanda Sawyer — Last updated on Jan 18, 2023
In astrology, the location of planets and luminaries at your time of birth paints a picture of your personality, mapped out in your birth chart.
While your birth chart contains 10 planetary placements total (including the sun and moon as planets), only five of these are personal planets: the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
Personal planets are particularly important in understanding and exploring your natal chart and personality traits. These bodies, it is believed, have the most direct influence on our lives.
The changing of moon phases and planetary transits involving these planets affect you personally as opposed to movements of the outer planets, also called generational planets, which have a broader influence on society as a whole.
Personal planets: the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars
Here are the meanings for each personal planet in astrology that affect your horoscope and different aspects of your personality.
1. The Sun
Your Sun sign represents your conscious self-expression and vitality.
The Sun represents male energy, the divine masculine within each of us. The Sun gives us our strength and the type of vigor we carry. The Sun is symbolic of the fire within and depending on the sign it occupies in your chart, you may come across as a strong and commanding person like a Sun in Leo, or you may be a communicative, fast talker, like a Gemini.
The Sun is how we show up to the world. Your Sun sign can be likened to the very first layer of who you are.
2. The Moon
The Moon represents the unconscious self or your private life.
The Moon is representative of the female archetype. We all have a divine feminine and this is where she resides. She is your sensitive nature and how you express yourself in your private life. This is the layer revealed to our close friends and relations.
You may find your very private trends in feeling and thought fit more closely into your Moon sign. Your Moon sign represents in many ways how you care for others.
Think about the different dynamics that can play out for "Mother & Child" relationships. The Moon shows our nurturing ability.
3. Mercury
Mercury is your preferred method of communicating.
Mercury is the planet of communication, both verbal and written. It's also the way our minds tend to work and it indicates the ways we use our intellect.
Your Mercury sign indicates your day-to-day communication style. Look to the house your Mercury sign is in to better understand how you approach this important area of your life. Mercury helps you to express yourself to others.
4. Venus
Venus is where your romantic nature resides.
Venus is symbolic of the Greek Goddess of love. Your Venus sign represents how you love your romantic partners and how you want them to love you.
Venus shows our loving passions, the type of affection reserved for our most intimate of relationships.
5. Mars
Mars is your motivation and how you reach your goals.
Your Mars sign represents your ambitious nature as well as your physical body and how you tend to and use it. Mars is a masculine energy and shows us how we fight and work. Men will often express their sexual natures through Mars.
Mars' energy is a raw energy, a warrior energy — the sort of energy that represents how you go out and get what you want. Mars is the conqueror, the general of sorts.
Amanda Ilene Sawyer is a writer and Mississippi native who is interested in science, anthropology, and spiritualism.