As the second light of the solar system, the moon has always been associated with the sun in the minds of men. The moon and sun are the primordial cosmic couple. This satellite of the earth, which mysteriously waxes and wanes, has been compared to the eternal feminine principle, the mother hovering over your infant’s cradle. Psychologically, the moon is thus symbolic of the mother and the mother image. This figure is a primordial element in the psyche of each individual. Depending on your nature, the mother figure may correspond to your biological mother, a grandmother, or a woman who cared for you in infancy and childhood. When you reach adulthood, this mother-figure and all the emotions and bonds associated with you may be transferred to something else: a spouse, a companion, an institution, a church, corporation, or political movement, a cult, etc. In short, any individual or structure likely to take on the mother’s duty of caring for and nurturing the vulnerable aspects of an individual. To be more down-to-earth, the mother figure corresponds to the habits which were learned and then definitively incorporated into the individual’s identity as you gradually became acculturated and progressed toward social independence. As a result, a strongly “lunar” personality often finds it difficult to adapt and is uncomfortable outside the secure setting of familiar routines. Closely tied to your past, you may be unwilling to detach yourself from it and embark on your life as an individual in the here and now. You still identify somewhat with your inner child and may display a child’s capricious behavior, indulging in moodiness and indecision. Your passivity may make you easily influenced, your sensitivity makes you subjective, and you hesitate to open up and lay your soul bare. In your daily life, psychic activity will rule. Your imagination, memory, sensitivity, sensation, and sentiment nearly overwhelm your psyche.

Alice Perrin:

Pluto is the planet of transformation. It rules the sign of Scorpio, the sign of death, redemption, and divine mysteries. Pluto’s energy is mysterious. Its discovery in 1932 associates it symbolically with the creation of the nuclear bomb and the development of psychoanalysis. In ancient mythology, Pluto was considered to be associated with all the aspects of the underworld – Hades, the Greek name for Pluto, was the god of shell. Today, the underworld is synonymous with the Mafia, and the two share many characteristics. Pluto occupies an important place in the horoscopes of great mystics and spiritual beings, as well as in the theme of certain dictators and tyrants, among them the most ruthless and greedy for power. In psychological terms, Pluto corresponds to the transmutation of instinctive energies into energies which are accessible consciously by the individual’s ego. This transmutation, which is never completely controllable, induces a power complex. On the social level, it might be symbolized by the nuclear disaster, the failure of Western man to master the energy of the atom – a power complex gone awry. On the individual level, Pluto is expressed either in a “power complex,” in which instinctive energy is completely transmuted into a personal resource, or as a “failure complex,” in which certain inhibitions prevent the instinctive energy from being transmuted.

According to Greek myth, Mercury (or Hermes, whose name derives etymologically from the piles of rocks which marked trails and guided travelers) was the messenger of the gods. He carried orders from Olympus to the mortals on Earth. The child of the illegitimate union of Zeus with Maia, Mercury was born “unknown to the immortal gods” and had to win his place among them by trickery, cleverness, and cunning. This is why he became the vagabond deity of travelers and wanderers. He is the instinctive foe of the settled who see him as an outcast roaming on the outskirts of society: a pariah, a thief, and a swindler. As ruler of the sign of Gemini, the Twins, he symbolizes the brother—the alter-ego who teaches us as much as we teach him and is associated with adolescence, a period of intense intellectual discovery. Mercury thus symbolizes lively, sparkling wit, mobility in any form, mental exchange, and interaction. As a result, a person strongly ruled by Mercury is quite likely to be clever and skillful. If Mercury is “afflicted” in one’s chart, their intellectual velocity may sometimes become mere mental hyperactivity. In any case, these skills are a great resource in the social realm. You communicate easily and effectively, orally or in writing. Your ability to unite and transmit would be a good resource in diplomatic or commercial endeavors.

Alice Perrin reads the article.

According to traditional astrology, the area ruled by Sagittarius is associated with dreams, distant journeys, and studies such as religion, philosophy, priesthood, and spiritual guidance. More specifically, astrology can be interpreted as demonstrating that an individual’s life and consciousness gravitate around two fundamental principles: the self (the Ascendant) and others (the Descendant). In life, everything begins with us and proceeds outward, but it is reflected, experienced, and renewed by our relations with others. Indeed, once you grow beyond the subjective field of your ego and reach adulthood, you must be able to adapt and modify your abilities in such a way as to fulfill a specific function in the outer world. The reference framework you use to judge your worth is not only your personal life, but the huge complex of values, principles, and laws which regulate life in a community.

The ninth house rules this much broader framework, which includes law as well as philosophy, psychology, science, religion, mysticism, occult studies, etc. An individual with a great deal of activity in this area of their astrological chart will probably feel a strong desire for personal expansion. An idealist, you will seek out experiences which reveal knowledge and meaning to you and give you a better indication of your purpose in living. The difficulties you are likely to face will be hidden behind what appears to be success. They may arise from your expansiveness, which is sometimes uncontrollable, or disproportionate. Although at the outset, your ambition and desire for personal development are a source of strength, they later become powerful enough to cut you off from yourself. If you identify too strongly with the flattering self-image reflected by the community, you may gradually begin to neglect your personal essence. Because this perverse tendency to confuse form with function is reinforced by modern society’s emphasis on packaging and advertising, you are likely to lose yourself completely. A state of expansion could be expressed as a psychic inflation (a loss of oneself in an abstract ideal, or a delusion of grandeur) or as a partial loss of yourself due to over identification with your personal mask (or persona). This house thus reveals that nothing is more difficult than failure in a period of success. Ambition, which may be a compensatory personal over evaluation, sometimes transforms understanding, a principle of cohesion and love, into personal power.

The second house is an area of the sky which is especially important to Alice Perrin. In the following paragraph, we shall explain the general meaning of this fact.

According to tradition, this area is related to the sign of Taurus and the principle of possession. It thus rules over personal resources, both in material terms (money, wages, assets, real estate, stocks and bonds, etc.) and in physical terms (the body, health, etc.), as well as in the psychological and sociocultural realm (various individual skills, talents, and gifts). When this area is important in an astral theme, it does not mean that you will be rich; however, it does indicate that you will have a certain wealth in any one of the domains mentioned above. You are likely to be puzzled about the best choice for the use and management of this wealth you possess. In other words, the management of your resources like money and personal possessions is liable to raise complex issues for you, and you will have to make a determined, active effort to resolve them. As a result, you will have to make a conscious, articulate decision about the value you place upon work. In relation to life’s material demands, you must realize that efficiency and productivity are required, regardless of your choice of career or lifestyle. Extravagant spending or impulse purchases might lead you to ask yourself how to optimize your personal budget, the amount of personal energy you invest to provide for your material needs. How can you obtain the highest yield from the energy you devote to your work, the wages you earn, and the value of the assets you can use the money to acquire? Providing for one’s own needs is insufficient. It is also important to esteem and respect oneself as a constructive worker, without identifying wholly with the work and its remunerative aspects. It is likely that at certain times in your life, you will be tempted to see money and wealth as ends in themselves; in this case, you may find the loss of money, even symbolically, painful. Generally, overly possessive, selfish, or overly materialistic behavior might be signs that you are still unable to conceive of the psychological budgetary equation described above, an equation which life demands that you resolve.

The first house is an area of the sky which is especially important in Alice Perrin’s theme, because it contains several planets, including the one which rules her rising sign. In the following paragraph, we shall explain the general meaning of this fact.