Rulership and Dignity in Tradition

A planet in a sign it rules is often said to be stronger, as if at home: what that planet stands for comes more easily and naturally.

The table holds seven planets: the Sun and Moon take one sign each, and Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn take two each, which uses up all twelve signs.

How to look it up: find which sign your Venus is in, then see that Venus rules Libra and Taurus. If it is in one of them, Venus is in its own sign. Check the other planets the same way, one at a time.

What the old texts say: Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, Book I ch. 17, reasons like this. Cancer and Leo are closest to our zenith and make the most heat, so they go to the two lights: masculine Leo to the Sun, feminine Cancer to the Moon. The half-circle from Leo to Capricorn counts as the Sun's and Aquarius to Cancer as the Moon's, and each of the five planets takes one sign on each side. Saturn, coldest and furthest, takes Capricorn and Aquarius opposite; Jupiter, moderate, the next pair, Sagittarius and Pisces; Mars, dry, Scorpio and Aries; Venus, mild and fertile, Libra and Taurus; and Mercury, never more than one sign from the Sun, the remaining Gemini and Virgo.

Exaltation is often read as a place where a planet can really show what it does; depression as a place where it works harder and takes more effort.

Depression is always directly opposite exaltation: the Sun is exalted in Aries, so its depression is Libra opposite; the Moon is exalted in Taurus, so its depression is Scorpio opposite. Remember the exaltation and you can work out the depression.

When someone writes “Venus in Pisces: exalted,” you can trace the reason: Venus is moist, and Pisces is where the moist spring begins. Once you know the reason it is easy to remember, and easier to sense what that placement is about.

What the old texts say: Book I ch. 19 goes planet by planet. In Aries the Sun turns north, days lengthen and its heat grows, so it is exalted in Aries and depressed in Libra; Saturn, standing opposite the Sun, is exalted in Libra and depressed in Aries. The Moon starts to grow brighter after meeting the Sun in Aries, and is exalted in Taurus, the first sign of her own triangle, with Scorpio opposite as depression. Jupiter reaches furthest north in Cancer and is at full strength, so it is exalted in Cancer and depressed in Capricorn; Mars, fiery by nature and fiercer furthest south in Capricorn, is exalted there and depressed in Cancer; Venus, moist, is strongest in Pisces where the moist spring begins, so exalted there and depressed in Virgo; and Mercury, drier, is the reverse: exalted in Virgo, the dry autumn, and depressed in Pisces.

The chart page lists the sign each planet is in. Put it next to this lesson's table and you can find for yourself which planets are in domicile and which in exaltation or depression.

Once you have found them, ask yourself: does what the planet in its domicile or exaltation stands for come especially easily to me? Does the one in depression take a little more effort, or a longer way round?

One placement is one clue, read together with the rest. Next time another site says “Venus in Pisces: exalted,” you will know where that comes from, and remember to look at that Venus's aspects and the house it falls in as well.

What the old texts say: Book I ch. 17 opens by saying a planet's closeness to the signs comes in several kinds, including houses, triangles, exaltations and terms; chs. 20 and 21 then give two different systems of terms, the Egyptian and the Chaldaean, and note that the Egyptian one is not consistent in order or amount. Classical strength is a set of linked rules.