The sun is the center of the solar system and the gravitational center of the earth’s and other planets’ travels. It is the source of all warmth and life, and has been worshipped for centuries. It corresponds to the center of an individual’s psyche, and its luminous aspects are usually associated with knowledge and consciousness. As a creator of life, it is related to the image of the mother and the influence of motherhood on an individual’s consciousness and ideals. As a result, the sun’s position in a birth chart always indicates the way in which an individual will relate to your goals and ideals, what your ambitions and aspirations might involve.

Saturn is associated with the moon, which is a peripheral heavenly body because it belongs to Earth and not to the solar system. Saturn rules a security/insecurity dialectic, which is related to the psychological issues of identity and aging. Depending on the psychological context in which you are developing, you may overcome or overcompensate your identity complex and gradually acquire a strongly structured personality or remain in a state of immaturity which would probably be detrimental to your destiny.

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.

Berkeley Smith, the subject of the text, notices that the eleventh house is of particular importance to their theme.