How to Visualize Planetary Positions in Your Birth Chart

Introduction

This lesson uses two visualisations: sign, Nakshatra and Navamsha as neighborhood, residence and preferred room; or as organization, department and exact role.

Both are applied to the selected chart of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator. It is a retrospective example, not proof or diagnosis.

Hear Saturn's full position

If you have a look at this selected whole-sign chart, Saturn is in the 10th house, it's ruling the 4th and the 5th house, it's in the sign of Cancer, it's in the Nakshatra Ashlesha, in the Navamsha it's in the sign of Capricorn, and in the Dashamsha it's in the sign of Libra.

So when I say all of this together it sounds very overwhelming. How to simplify it is the purpose behind this visualisation method.

Houses as parts of life

Imagine the houses to be aspects of life: the 1st house to do with your personality, the 4th house is your personal life, the house opposite to the 4th is your public life, the career, and the 7th house is opposite to you, your life partner.

I'm giving you a rough idea of the meaning of a few houses. So let's start by looking at the houses involved.

Visualize Saturn's duty

Saturn is in the 10th house. It further is ruling the 4th and the 5th house. If you don't know the signs and their rulers, identify the signs occupying these houses and their rulers. So let's cover the houses involved and visualize it in this manner.

Saturn is the ruler of the 4th and the 5th house and is executing, performing its duty in the 10th house. So what does it actually mean? It might mean that the person is sacrificing one's personal life, home life, for the sake of one's career. When Saturn is in the 10th, the person is going to take one's career very, very seriously, in this reading.

The 5th house is to do with time spent in leisure activities. Again, the individual is compromising that for the sake of one's career. So this is how you can visualize the houses.

The neighborhood and room analogy

Now let's have a look at the signs, Nakshatra and the signs in the divisional charts. How to visualize that? Imagine the sign to be a neighborhood where you have your house, and within that house you also have a preferred room.

The sign is the neighborhood, the Nakshatra is your place of residence, whether it's a flat or a house, and the sign in the Navamsha is your preferred room. Here, house means residence, not a numbered astrological house.

Cancer, Ashlesha and Capricorn

So here what do we see? Saturn is occupying the neighborhood belonging to Cancer, the sign of Cancer. Immediately we can draw some conclusions there. When Saturn and Cancer come together, the person can be like a caretaker of some kind, could be a public servant of some kind, in my reading.

Now the house you live in is much more important than the neighborhood. So the house, the flat, is the Nakshatra of Ashlesha. This is also helping you understand the peripheral role the sign placement is playing in determining the role the planet is playing in the chart. The Nakshatra placement is more important in the source's method.

So we've identified so far the person can be a bit of a caretaker. With Ashlesha as the Nakshatra, the person might be involved in building long-term strategy to prevent something bad from happening. And then in the Navamsha chart we find Saturn in the sign of Capricorn.

Within that house, the main room occupied by Saturn is the room belonging to Capricorn. So the individual would have to be super organized, in this interpretation. Earlier I've already mentioned the person is going to take one's career very, very seriously. This supports that.

The organization analogy

You can also visualize it in a different manner. Imagine the sign to be an organization, a company you're working for. The department that has been assigned to you is the Nakshatra. And the exact specific role you are playing is the sign in the divisional charts.

With this analogy you could say Cancer is the organization Saturn is working for. The Nakshatra is the department and that's Ashlesha. And Capricorn, the sign in the Navamsha, is the specific role Saturn is playing.

You can visualize a planet's position as you like. I'm hoping this will make the process of reading your chart or reading a planet's position a bit more fun. I've tried this method and I feel that I am a bit more engaged with the chart when I follow this visualization technique.

Check both owners

There's another step you can follow. If you are living in the neighborhood, you would also like to know if the neighbors are friendly, or if the owner of the neighborhood, the one responsible for the neighborhood, is friendly or not. This is where you check the sign ruler.

Cancer is ruled by the Moon, so you try to see the relationship the planet placed there and the Moon are having. I treat Saturn and the Moon as having a neutral relationship on the scale used here, not as a universal rule. If the neighborhood owner is unfriendly, then you can say the planet is uncomfortable.

Similarly, the house ruler is most important in the residence analogy. Saturn is ruling the 4th and the 5th house. For this person it's performing its duty in the 10th. You could say Saturn is renting the 10th house. And the owner of the Nakshatra, the residence, is Mercury. Here Mercury is Ashlesha's ruler, not the 10th-house lord.

I also treat Saturn and Mercury as neutral on this scale. If, for example, the ruler of the house, the Nakshatra, was the Sun, given the adverse relationship Saturn and the Sun share, this would have made Saturn's job or living conditions a bit more uncomfortable.

What I'm trying to say is to also go beyond the sign and Nakshatra. Also look at the Nakshatra and sign rulers. This will help you look at a planet's position more specifically.

Read Saturn's environment

The sign ruler is the Moon and the Moon is in the 3rd house in the Nakshatra of Purva Ashadha. This combination belongs to, I'm referring to the Moon's position, motivational communicators. We also find the Moon and Jupiter having a conjunction and they are both falling in the same Nakshatra, Purva Ashadha.

The individual can have big ideas and may make speeches without thinking things through. So this is the environment in which Saturn is finding itself. The Nakshatra ruler is Mercury and Mercury is in the 7th house in the Nakshatra of Ashwini.

Altogether I see that Saturn is given the task of having some sort of a long-term strategy to cover up for the big claims the Moon and Jupiter have made in the 3rd house, and to also cope with ever-changing public relations with Mercury in the 7th in Ashwini. This is retrospective interpretation, not demonstrated cause.

Read Mars and Venus carefully

Now I want to highlight another planetary position in this person's chart, and that's Mars. Both Mars and Venus actually are falling in the same Nakshatra of Bharani. In this retrospective reading of Hitler's chart, I see this position together as an indication that the individual can romanticise violence.

The Nakshatra of Bharani has a lot to do with setting things right, even by force, in the source's interpretation, particularly when Mars is involved. The individual can even start to love the idea of forcing justice somehow.

This is one historical reading; Bharani does not make someone violent or cruel, and a placement is not a diagnosis or cause.

Count five Ugra placements

If you analyse this selected chart based on the Nakshatras through the source table, you'll notice five chart bodies, counting Ketu, occupy Nakshatras belonging to the nature of Ugra, fierce: Mars and Venus in Bharani, and the Moon, Jupiter and Ketu in Purva Ashadha.

So we have earlier seen the individual can be some sort of a protector of the society, could be a long-term planner, could take one's work so seriously the work can consume the person, and could also be a motivational communicator who'd make big claims. But we also see the source's theme of romanticising violence.

Ugra is a traditional classification, not a diagnosis or a cause of violence.

Return to the method

If you put all of the source's interpretations together, this selected chart belonged to Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator. That retrospective fit is not proof or diagnosis.

The other thing I see here in his chart is that Rahu is in the 9th house in the Nakshatra of Punarvasu. The source interprets this as the individual deluding himself into thinking, “I am a great protector of some kind.” And with the Moon and Jupiter in the 3rd alongside Ketu, the individual could end up saying things and may have this inherent belief that anything is possible, a fist-in-the-air kind of attitude.

My purpose behind sharing his example was to explain how you can visualise planetary positions, and I have shared two methods. Then go beyond the sign and Nakshatra to their rulers. I hope you find it useful.