Five Techniques to Assess Aspects

I’m going to show you five techniques from Abu Mashar for assessing aspects in a chart. Feel free to use a chart that you are familiar with, like your own natal chart, to try them out.

The Tenth House

Most astrologers describe the midheaven as having the largest influence on a person out of all of the angles.

On Not Being A Stereotypical Aquarius

There’s a certain romantization of the Aquarius—if you are an Aquarius, detriment Sun, the thinking goes, you must be so cool, so avant garde, and so performative in yourself that you must become your performance. But Aquariuses are just people who don’t know who they will be.

Toxicity and Salvation

Feeling like it is possible to seclude yourself away from everything and everyone who is toxic is a kind of alienation.

The Ninth House

There’s a lot of good things in the ninth house—dreams of the future, self belief, and recognition. When you work with the ninth house, the best way to start is to ask yourself about your relationship to these things.

The Eighth House

There is a sense of lack of control with the eighth house. What do we tend to do when we anticipate lack of control? We tend to hang onto things tighter. That’s the eighth house.

Love as Supernatural Study

Love is supernatural, which means that it exists as both consequence and miracle. We love the same way we breathe—without thinking and miraculously.

2022 Yearly Horoscopes

There’s no such thing as going back to 2019 ideas of “normal.” There is no such thing as going back to before a loss. However, we get to grow bigger around our grief anyway.

The Seventh House

Firmicus calls the seventh house Dysis, who was goddess of the sunset. The seventh house is a deeply yellow house where all things come to rest.

The Sixth House

The best way to describe the sixth house is that it is the place of needed interdependence. It opposes the twelfth house, which is the place of isolation.

On Not Being a Stereotypical Capricorn

Capricorn is made up of contrarian bones. They’re one of the most quietly and infuriatingly wacky people out there.

The Fifth House

There is no self correction in the fifth house but there is control. Pleasure is an automatic process but it eludes you when you have no control over your environment or decisions.

Wound Fetishization

We don’t solve the issue of wound fetishization by making better representations. We do it by realizing that people in pain don't just need visible validation. We need a great deal of other things as well.

The Fourth House

There is loss in the fourth house but there is a sense of return as well.

Jung Hoseok Natal Chart Analysis: Beautiful Anti-Hero

To really talk about Hobi, we have to talk about Venus.

Venus, Freaks, and Choosing Unbeauty

There’s an inherent freakishness to inhabiting femmeness, a certain form of understanding your body from the outside, that becomes voiced and satirical when you understand yourself to be a freak.

December 2021 Horoscopes

Self expression isn’t just about adding decor or about getting stuff. It’s also about getting rid of things.

Mars in Cancer

What Mars in Cancer fears the most, I’ve realized, is that they’re not concerned with the question of whether they can do it—they’re most concerned with the question of whether or not they will have to do it alone.

Seasonal Synastry

Sun sign synastry is as simple and as complex as the seasons. The seasons are about change and they’re about presence.

On Not Being a Stereotypical Sagittarius

Maybe you’re a Sagittarius and you’re paranoid about desire. You’re paranoid about the question of whether your dreams will come true or not.

The Third House

For those of us who are burdened with the task of translation (and, with it, treason), for those of us who must translate our own bodies, the third house is not about conducting measured rituals with store bought products. It’s about the terror of the body and becoming familiar with that terror until it is no longer normalized.