Placements
Planet, sign, degree: the grammar of a chart.
A placement is where a planet stood in the zodiac when you were born. Read it like a sentence: the planet is the part of you, the sign is the style it works in, and the degree is its exact spot.
Read it like a sentence
Venus in Taurus reads: your way of loving (Venus) works in a steady, sensual way (Taurus). Try any combination below.
Fast planets, slow planets
Planets move at very different speeds. The Moon crosses a sign in about two and a half days, so people born a day apart can have different Moons. Pluto stays in a sign for over a decade, so everyone in your school year shares it.
That is why the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars are called personal planets, Jupiter and Saturn social planets, and the outer three generational. The faster the planet, the more personal its placement.
What each planet stands for
Every planet is a part of you with its own job. Tap one to read more.
What the degree adds
Each sign spans 30 degrees. Early degrees show the sign young and raw, middle degrees settled, late degrees mature and ready to turn into the next sign. A planet at 29 degrees often carries a sense of urgency, as if it were finishing something.
Most astrologers treat this as nuance, not a rule. The sign matters far more than the degree.
Retrograde, explained
Seen from Earth, planets sometimes seem to stop and move backwards for a while. They do not really reverse: Earth is overtaking them, like a faster car passing a slower one on a curved road.
Astrologers read a planet retrograde at birth as energy that turns inward. A retrograde Mercury often thinks twice before speaking; a retrograde Venus may take time to trust what it wants. It is not bad luck, just a second pass.