The Chakra Signatures
May 2015
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Planetary Affinities for Certain Chakras
Having clarified that any planet can function through any chakra, we can also make the suggestion that certain planets will more likely point toward certain chakras, when they are appropriately placed within the birthchart. We will discuss what it means to be appropriately placed in a minute.
First, let’s consider each chakra in turn, and make a few assignments. I don’t have time to go into a great deal of detail here in my reason for making these assignments, but in my book, I do. The important thing to note here is that when one or more of the planets associated with a given chakra are in mutual aspect to each other, we have what I would call a classic chakra signature, meaning that issues and challenges related to the chakra in question are likely to be emphasized in the life of the individual soul.
I spell out the astro-logic of these classic signatures in great detail in my book, and apply them more specifically to individual birthcharts of participants in the workshop. Here I would just like to give a sense of some of the thinking behind the idea.
First Chakra
The Theosophists were not entirely misguided in assigning Saturn to the 1st chakra, as Saturn most certainly does contribute greatly to our sense of safety and protection, or lack thereof, and can thus be understood as a primary 1st chakra player.
Given that the 1st chakra is where we experience our greatest and most fundamental vulnerability in life – related to our very capacity to survive – I assign the Moon to be the second primary 1st chakra player. It is no accident that the Moon represents our relationship to mother, and to the experience of being in the womb, as this is also the primary source – in this life – of the health and vitality of our 1st chakra.
Together Saturn and Moon represent the parental influence in our lives, and it should come as no surprise that the relationship between Saturn and Moon provides an astrological measure of the relative strength and viability of the container of safety and protection afforded us at the level of the 1st chakra.
Of the transpersonals, the planet that most acutely galvanizes 1st chakra issues will be Pluto, traditionally understood as the planet of death and rebirth, and consequently a central player in all 1st chakra issues related to matters of life and death.
Although I did not discuss this in my book, I also include Ceres among the primary first chakra planets. Ceres (or Demeter in the Greek) was the goddess who withdrew the life force from the Earth after her daughter Prosperina (Persephone) was abducted into the Underworld by Hades. Obviously such an action would greatly impact not just our personal survival but the survival of our species – a consideration brought into increasing focus by climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the use of toxic pesticides on our food supply, genetic engineering, and other collective issues that threaten our survival and our health, as well as our quality of life.
When Saturn, Moon, Pluto and/or Ceres come together in a birthchart, you have a strong 1st chakra signature. Other planets can and often do also play a role in 1st chakra dynamics, but these planets are primary, and their combination is an especially potent 1st chakra indicator.
The next post in this series is House Placements of Planetary Patterns.
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