I was listening to a podcast recently, and perked up my ears when I heard the host prodding the guest to venture an opinion on the future of Donald Trump post his election loss in 2020. The guest demurred. The host tried again in a bit, this time asking which of the senior members of the Republican party would be most likely to take the moral high ground and call out Trump. Once again, the guest evaded the question. The guest was a reporter for a highly reputable national newspaper; she said she was not an opinion writer, so she wouldn’t go there.
As this went on, I realized that I was getting irked at the guest’s non-committal response. Also she was speaking in a very low voice, and sounded listless. Instinctively, I started drawing an astrological picture for the guest. Her lack of animation (at least in contrast to the host who was chatty, opinionated, and forward) made me think that there was little or no fire energy, meaning her horoscope either had very little in way of planets in the fire signs.
Being a reporter, the guest was clearly assuming a stance of sticking to the “ground truth” (facts?) which made me believe that Virgo (earth sign, factual) was somehow prominent in her horoscope. Her general reserve and reticence then brought water signs to my mind. All three water signs tend to be reserved, but she was not guarded or taciturn in the manner of Scorpio, nor was she demonstrating empathy in the manner of Pisces, which left Cancer.
As for the host, after listening to several of her podcasts, I get the impression that she has a general sense of bonhomie and good humor about her (fire sign?) and an inclination to gently but insistently push her guests (cardinal sign?) toward honest takes on the bigger picture surrounding whatever it is they are dealing with. She also has a tendency to pepper her chats with comments that draw attention to herself (Leo?) accompanied by a sideways “aw shucks” manner reminiscent of Sagittarius.
After jotting down these thoughts, I went looking for their birth date to see how my impressions matched up with their horoscope.
First, the host. This is the ephemeris entry for her birth date:
Sun is in Sagittarius and so is Mercury. Mars is in Leo. So there is that fire sense of “hail fellow well met”, and that “aw shucks” manner emerging from a Sagittarian tendency to keep things on the level, friendly-like. The Moon is shown to be in Gemini, but without the birth time and place, it might well be in the previous sign of Taurus.
Whether the Moon is in Gemini or Taurus, none of the planets Sun through Mars is in a cardinal sign. The pushiness – which I said was “gentle but insistent” – then likely arises out of the placement of Venus (gentle) in Scorpio (pushy, cornering), and also Mars (assertive) in Leo (straight up).
Now let’s take a look at the guest’s birth date planetary makeup:
The Moon would have gone into Capricorn the very next day, and not using the birth time or place, we can’t decisively say the Moon is in Sagittarius. I will return to this in a moment, but let’s take a look at the overall makeup of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Sun is in Scorpio, Mercury is in Scorpio, Venus is in Sagittarius, and Mars is in Aries. My thought after hearing the podcast was that she had little or no fire energy, but we have both Venus and Mars in fire. Why was I off?
My reasoning has to do with the luminaries, the Sun and moon, being the “guiding lights” of the personality. The Sun and Moon are the most important, foundational energies that shape and influence the personality as a whole. Depending on how consciously they are wielded by the individual, they can override or suppress other energies as needed. The Sun is in the water sign of Scorpio, which is generally taciturn and guarded.
My take is that the watery nature of the Sun sign doused the fire energies enough that I didn’t pick up on any of it – likely the guest felt this was not the forum to freely express herself (fire), so she brought the Sun to bear on the proceedings. Conversely, the fire modulated energies of Venus and Mars appeared to have triumphed over the Sun in Scorpio guardedness sufficiently that I picked up on a somewhat gentler and more forthcoming Cancer-like feel. In hindsight it came to me that the guest was trying to find a sweet spot between fiery forwardness and watery reticence, and was perhaps uncomfortable with having to struggle with this balancing act as the host kept at it.
Back to the Moon – my sense is that it is not in Sagittarius, but in the next sign, Capricorn. Otherwise the Sagittarian freewheeling fiery nature would definitely have made itself felt — it was a full half hour of chatting, not just a couple of minutes, so the Moon energy would have been out there for sure, especially in a conversational format where the give and take is off-the-cuff, instinctive. I had speculated on Virgo for the “ground truth” nature of the guest’s responses, but Capricorn is an earth sign as well, and shares the Virgo’s penchant for a no-nonsense, business like approach to issues.
Speculating on the planet-in-sign makeup of someone’s horoscope is a fun activity. But more than that, it is one of the best ways to learn how combinations of various sign modulations of energies can actually be lived by someone. Are there situations where the guest reporter wielded her abundant fire energies to be super-aggressive (Mars in Aries) in chasing down leads and stories, but also used her pleasantly friendly and warm demeanor (Venus in Aries) to get her sources to dish on developments? For sure she did, that’s how she finds success!
Playing host, if I knew the guest’s birth date and went through this analysis, I would have a much better sense of what to expect, which would make me even more prepared to get the most from the conversation. This kind of analysis is extremely useful, of course, for people you may deal with on a daily basis that are not family or friends. People such as your colleague, your boss, your customer. All you need to know is their birth date. You can even ask them for it!