Before Synastry: A Very Basic Look at Charts

Touching someone's heart or looking into their soul is sacred. Do it with care and reverence.

Because I'm awfully lucky, I have a copy of Richard Idemon's Through the Looking Glass: A Search for the Self in the Mirror of Relationships. The book is a transcript of a week-long seminar that Richard did and it has been edited into a book by another person I love to read, Howard Sasportas. In fact, it is the transcripts of seminars that Howard Sasportas and Liz Greene did that I really love more than the books either one of them wrote individually. Astrologers, all three of them, but also psychologists. And great minds. We owe them a lot.

There is so much treasure in Through a Looking Glass. The chapter on love where Richard talks about the four concepts of love that the Greek knew is something we all need to read and understand. Don't they say that to understand all is to forgive all? Well, I think understanding also leads to the beginning of self-healing and I'd recommend this book just for that.

When I started my relationships' classes with Dawn, one of the first things she taught was to look at the missing element or modality in a person's chart because they will be strongly drawn to people who have what they are missing. Any good astrologer will tell you that before you do either prediction or synastry, you should look at the person's chart and understand it well. Transits, progressions and synastry don't happen in a discrete units, they interact with the chart and you have to read them like that. Which is why I don't do readings: it's too much work.

To get back to the point, Richard says the same thing: look at the chart, look at the dominant function, the inferior function, the singletons and which aspects predominate. By function he meant: element, modality, signs, house orientation and yin-yang balance. Look at that you'll have a fairly good idea of the areas where someone over-compensates, represses and projects onto the other. Projects and draws them into their ambit.

So I sat down like a good Virgo Mercury and drew up these tables. I had the music going and also did a lot of other things while doing this: third house Mars quinqunx Uranus, restless, restless!

This is me:

Modalities	Elements	Orientation by Sign	Orientation by House	Yang/Yin	Missing Functions	Singletons
Fixed 5	Fire 4	Social 8	Social 7	Yang 7 Yin 6	N/A	Universal Sign: Sagittarius, Neptune, ninth
Cardinal 4	Water 3	Personal 2	Universal 3
Mutable 4	Earth 3	Universal 2	Personal 2
	Air 2

Notes on Aspects: Squares are dominant. Followed by oppositions and trines.

I think my modalities are fairly balanced. But when it comes to the elements, you can see Air is an inferior function. This is going to matter, as we'll see soon. But moving on, it's a yang chart dominated by oppositions and squares. So, not exactly a gentle, easy-going person and bored easily by placid forms of relating. It's a chart heavy on the social, which means a lot of focus is on relationships. Note how both by sign and by house, my chart has an inferior Universal function. But there is Neptune, a singleton in the ninth, in a Universal house and sign. Richard talks about how the singletons and inferior functions can either be projected via a relationship or can dominate our lives. And he talks about their creative potential. And so here you see my Neptune, in my blog, in what I write about: universal pain and healing. And since it is in the ninth, an eternal search for personal meaning which is then shared. Neptune is ruler of my Ascendant and what I share comes from a very personal place indeed.

And pasted below is my husband's table.

Spouse:

Modalities	Elements	Orientation by Sign	Orientation by House	Yang/Yin	Missing Functions	Singletons
Fixed 5	Air 5	Social 8	Social 6	Yin 7 Yang 6	Universal Sign	Fire: Uranus, Leo, third
Cardinal 4	Water 4	Personal 3	Personal 4			Personal Sign Moon
Mutable 4	Earth 3	Universal 0	Universal 3			Universal House Twelfth
	Fire 1

Note on Aspects: Square and trines dominate. Closely followed by sextiles. There are no oppositions.

How lovely. Again, fairly balanced modalities. But we get somewhere when we look at his elements. He's big on Air and pretty low of Fire. And what does he do? He goes and marries a very Firey woman who's low on Air. If you were to make a cartoonised version of our courtship, it would go like this:

Me: Gee, he's so smart and knows so many things!

Him: Gee, she's so sunny and positive about things!

These things still work for us. And just like the table shows, I am more yang than he is but he gets his way more often than I do because of that singleton Moon of his which knows how to sulk!

***

Since I was in the mood for doing tables (it's so soothing), I made two more. Dear friends of mine, both. Here's the first one:

Close Friend #1

Modalities	Elements	Orientation by Sign	Orientation by House	Yang/Yin	Missing Functions	Singletons
Fixed 5	Water 5	Social 6	Personal 7	Yang 7 Yin 6	N/A	Social by House: Mars, Aquarius, seventh
Cardinal 5	Fire 4	Personal 5	Universal 4			Earth: Pluto, Virgo
Mutable 3	Air 3	Universal 2	Social 1

Notes on Aspects: Heavy on squares followed by sextiles.

What do you think about her? If I let you see her chart, you'd see it has a very eastern orientation. So even though she has all those planets in social signs, her main preoccupations is focused on the self. Very gentle usually, she loses all connection to fear sometimes and owns that singleton Mars. Richard says women sometimes project the masculine planets and this is a very macho Aquarius Mars in the seventh, the house of projection onto others. And she draws very masculine macho men into her ambit.

What is someone who is a homemaker by instinct? Someone who loves to cook and clean and grow things? Is it water (she's heavy on Cancer) or it is the manifestation of her Earth singleton? Perhaps the former. Because this friend of mine can be unusually let-fate-take-its-course when it comes to job-hunting and the whole work-money-making scene. Moreover, she has sacrificed in this area to personally take care of loved-ones who were ill.

One more friend chart and we'll be done. I don't know how well I'm doing (lack of Air!), but plod along I must to compensate for it.

Close Friend #2

Modalities	Elements	Orientation by Sign	Orientation by House	Yang/Yin	Missing Functions	Singletons
Fixed 6	Earth 4	Universal 7	Universal 6	Yang 7 Yin 6	N/A	N/A
Mutable 4	Fire 4	Personal 4	Social 4
Cardinal 3	Air 3	Social 4	Personal 3
	Water 2

Notes on Aspects: Squares dominate, followed by oppositions.

What do you think about him? What do we have here? Fixed, Earth, yang with a heavy emphasis on the Universal. Low on Water. Yeah, that's him. If you want to go have a chummy conversation about something minor and loaded with feelings, he is not the one you should go to. You should go to my friend mentioned before. With her heavy Social-Personal and Water orientation not only would she be interested in listening to you, but she'd get you. And cook for you in the bargain! (God, she's amazing!)

But you don't always want to talk about your feelings or be fed, sometimes you want to see through another lens. A bigger lens. A lens that sees the world both pragmatically and passionately. You want to look out from your little well and have someone show you what a big world it is out there; a world facing crucial issues both on the national and global level. You need friends like that, too. Friends who bump you out of the little personal or social ruts you have dug for yourself. It's amazing but a conversation with him always changes my mood for the better.

Ah, but let's look at his table a bit more. What does it say about his relationship needs? This is not an overly-emotional type. This is stubborn, pragmatic person whose interests and pre-occupations lead him to work on a scale that puts the personal and social second. Look at that lack of water. Maybe someone heavy on Water will hook him and infuse his life with the element of feelings and make it more well-rounded.

Conclusion: This is Step 1. Just the elements, modalities, signs, houses, singletons. Step 2 is analyzing the chart for aspects, looking at the ASC-DSC, the ruler of DSC and how it placed. Richard says the most important planet in relating is the Moon. I agree. So you would look at that, too. You would look at the IC-MC, Moon-Saturn, Sun-Moon, Venus-Mars. Unravel the parental story, the personal myths… everything! And then you would look at chart synastry. Is it only then you'll get a good idea of the relationship, its strengths and weakness. If I am a highly independent person obsessed with my goals and no time for anything else and you are a very emotional person in need of much healing through love and relating, then we have to factor that in the reading. Your Mars may be turning my Venus on (or is it vice-versa? Or is it mutual?), but if I am never there or hardly there, how does that help us? Your needy hurt Moon may decide to find someone else's Venus to turn on with that Mars; someone who also nourishes your Moon by cuddling, feeding and tucking you in.

***

I find relationship astrology one of the most fascinating branches of astrology. In fact, I find relationships fascinating. But having seen my heavy orientation in the social signs and in the social houses, I know you are not surprised.

LINKS TO READ

Here are links from a lady who studied with Richard and the first link explains how to draw these tables. Check out the links if you're into astrology, psychology and relationships or give yourself a great gift and buy his book!

http//www.astrologyclub.org/articles/singletons/intro/singleton_intro.htm

http//www.astrologyclub.org/articles/inferior/inferior.htm