Someone in the local (tropical) astrological Meetup community recently asked me about the significance of planetary dignities and their application in the chart. My response went something like this:<\/p>\n
A natal planet in dignity (own\/exalted sign, directional strength, etc) offers the opportunity to exhibit its best qualities, while a weak planet (debilitated, combust, etc) may well manifest its poorer qualities.<\/p>\n
For example, Saturn offers a full spectrum of characteristics: mature, organized, stable, conservative, ambitious, persevering, constructive, contemplative, solitary, morose, frustrated, lethargic, taciturn, pessimistic, alienated, repressive, depressive, etc, etc.<\/p>\n
A person with an exalted Saturn in the 12th house may leave home to enter a Zen monastery, because Saturn\u00e2\u0080\u0099s solitary nature finds an exalted form of expression via contemplation. A person with a debilitated Saturn in the 12th may leave home to go into alcohol\/drug rehab because Saturn\u00e2\u0080\u0099s same solitary nature has sought expression via the insular activity of substance abuse.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Mars like to fight. A person with own\/exalted Mars in the 7th may take up professional (contact) sports, which is a socially-approved form of aggressive behavior, while the person with debilitated\/combust Mars in the 7th may be a wife-beater or a tavern brawler.<\/p>\n
These examples from a pair of malefic planets can as easily be applied to the benefic planets. Any good astrology book will suggest a full range of behaviors for the planetary archetypes. Once we understand that every behavior has its flip side of the coin, we can then relate it to the strength\/weakness of the planet in question.<\/p>\n
We must be careful not to get distracted by the word \u00e2\u0080\u009cexaltation\u00e2\u0080\u009d which implies something very lofty. In fact, a planet in its own sign is actually stronger than a planet in exaltation. That\u00e2\u0080\u0099s because a king is truly a king in his own castle, whereas a visitor may be treated (exalted) like a king, but at the end of the day, obliged to defer to the house ruler\/dispositor.<\/p>\n
The whole spectrum of planetary strength\/weakness is vitally important in chart analysis, and we ignore it at our peril. But we must also factor in malefic\/benefic status. Consider this: we can nuance\/spin things all we want, but in a black-and-white world, Saturn is a malefic. If we were to personify Saturn, we might call him a rogue.<\/p>\n
If we take criminals for an analogy, exalted Saturn is a refined and charming thinking-man\u00e2\u0080\u0099s crook, like Clooney, Pitt & Co in Ocean\u00e2\u0080\u0099s 11\/12\/13, while a debilitated Saturn is an in-your-face unpredictable and out-of-control hood such as portrayed by Joe Pesci, or the lieutenants of The Sopranos.<\/p>\n
Although it\u00e2\u0080\u0099s never quite as simple as I\u00e2\u0080\u0099m illustrating here, the distinction between strong\/weak planetary influence is a very fundamental one in being able to describe, first, the characteristics of a client and, second, the outcomes of such character. After all, Character is Fate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Someone in the local (tropical) astrological Meetup community recently asked me about the significance of planetary dignities and their application in the chart. My response went something like this: A natal planet in dignity (own\/exalted sign, directional strength, etc) offers the opportunity to exhibit its best qualities, while a weak planet (debilitated, combust, etc) may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,26],"tags":[324,327],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":655,"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.navamsa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}