In honor of Valentine’s Day, and Venus and Mars’ meet up a couple of days later on the 16th, we’re going to discuss synastry, the art of interpreting relationships through astrology.
Imagine all of us walking through life with invisible images of our natal charts hovering over our heads, like halos, maybe. If you feel like it (why not?), imagine them sending off colors or energies that correlate to your life or soul or however you want to conceptualize it.
Now imagine your invisible natal chart interacting with the invisible natal charts of everyone you come into contact with, from the most casual and superficial of encounters — the baristas, gas station clerks, or fellow subway riders of our daily routines — to the most consequential — spouse, boss, best friend, parent, child.
Just as aspects are formed within the natal chart itself, with planets forming various types of relationships, from helpful and supportive to difficult and undermining, and just as transits of the planets in the sky form relationships with different parts of our chart at different times, our natal charts form aspects with the charts of everyone we interact with.
You know that person at work who just rubs you the wrong way? Or that someone (you know who;) who sets your heart aflutter? Or that friend who you just love to hang out with? Odds are that their natal charts are interacting with yours in ways that bring about the various experiences you have when you’re around them — irritation, flirtation, friendship.
The key to understanding synastry is to understand that aspects between natal charts represent a kind of permanent transit that activates whenever these people interact.
In practice, synastry is quite simple: you simply arrange one chart atop another in a bi-wheel, so that the zodiacal signs overlay. Then you see what aspects are formed between the planets and important points (Ascendant, Midheaven, etc.) in each chart.
Looking at the charts overlaid this way will also show how one partner fits into the other’s chart and life. If you have Gemini in the fifth house of romance, creativity, children, and fun, for example, and someone’s Venus falls there, that’s a good indication that you might have a fruitful romantic or artistic relationship. Switching the charts allows you to flip the script and see the reverse, where you fall into their chart.
Astro-seek.com has a free “love compatibility calculator” which will do all of this for you and includes interpretations for the aspects formed between the charts, for better or worse (pun intended). However, as they state at the top of the interpretations, you shouldn’t take any one interpretation (which is generated by a computer, let’s not forget) as an indicator on its own.
The fact is, there are many successful relationships that have challenging aspects. As astrologer John Green, author of Do You Love Me? The Astrology of Relationships, discussed on The Astrology Podcast, romantic relationship have a way of highlighting qualities that we lack in our own charts and lives by embodying them in another person.
Unlike friendships, in which easy, fun, and supportive aspects (trines and sextiles) tend to predominate — there’s a reason we like to hang out with our friends, after all — romantic relationships can bring out the more extremes of experience, from ecstatic to challenging, represented in astrology by the hard aspects (conjunctions, squares, and oppositions).
Opposites attract, as the saying goes.
What Can Synastry Do?
Before you get all excited and think that we’ve just discovered the holy grail to relationship success — the idea that there might be someone out there whose chart interacts *perfectly* with yours — it’s important to take a step back.
Synastry is best at describing relationship dynamics, how you get along together, not how the relationship will (or won’t) work out. For clues about that, look at the individual birth charts and the story they tell about that person’s relationships. Look at the seventh house, in particular:
the sign coinciding with the seventh house, where the Descendant (point opposite the Ascendant) is located
any aspects within 3 degrees to the Descendant
the ruling planet of the seventh house, its location, condition, and any aspects it forms
any planets located in the seventh house and their condition and aspects.
Also look at Venus and Mars in the chart: their location, rulers, condition, and any aspects they form.
We are, after all, individuals who come together with other individuals in relationships. We bring all of our own baggage from our pasts, welcome or not, to every relationship. As many couples counselors will advise, sometimes the best help for a relationship is for the individuals to work on their own issues.
Aspects Are the Key
While it’s helpful to see where a partner’s planets fall within your chart — (if their Leo stellium falls in your Leo tenth house, for example, you might have met through your career) — it’s most helpful to look at the aspects formed between planets in your charts, especially the personal planets.
The personal planets — sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars — move quite a bit most of the time from month to month, while the (traditional) outer planets Jupiter and Saturn are somewhat slower. The modern outer planets — Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto — move so slowly that anyone born within the same generation will have similar placements, making them somewhat irrelevant if the partners are about the same age. (Though keep in mind that someone roughly the same age as you will activate any difficult configurations involving the slower moving planets in your chart since their placements are similar).
If there’s a large age difference, however, looking at the outer planet aspects between charts can be helpful, since they will show the generation gaps between the two people, where they either vibe or don’t.
In general, for synastry, aspects should be fairly close, within 5 degrees, to be considered influential, although any aspect by sign can be considered to be operative, if only in the background. Conjunctions (planets in the same sign), squares (90 degrees), and oppositions (180 degrees) are considered most dramatic, whether in a positive fashion if benefics are involved, or a more challenging way, if malefics are part of the equation. The soft aspects, extiles (60 degrees) and trines (120 degrees), are more enjoyable and easier, showing parts of the relationship that go well without effort, shared interests, or points of connection.
Composite Charts vs. Relationship Inception Charts
When I first learned about synastry, back in the day, composite charts were all the rage. Composite charts are symbolic charts created by merging two natal charts together, so to speak, by finding the midpoints between both planets. If Person A has the sun in Scorpio and Person B has the sun in Pisces, for example, their composite sun is in Capricorn, at a degree that is exactly halfway between their sun degrees.
Because of their symbolic nature, composite charts have placements that couldn’t happen in natal charts, where, for example, Venus is never more than 60 degrees from the sun.
Although composite charts can capture the “feeling” that a couple projects, over the years, I’ve moved to looking at relationship inception charts instead, if they’re available. This type of chart is cast for the moment when the relationship began or became serious. This can be the wedding date (with the time adjusted for when the vows were said), or another significant event in the couple’s life, such as a dinner date during which they decided to move in together, for example. Of course, sometimes there isn’t a moment that the couple remembers in which the relationship became committed, so in these cases a composite chart could potentially be helpful.
Overall, I’ve found relationship inception charts to be useful in showing the longterm trajectory of a union, since they represent a specific moment in time when something began, in this case a committed relationship. You can also treat relationship inception charts as any other natal chart, applying transits, progressions, and time lord techniques for further insight.
What’s Your Sign, Baby?
The thing is, there’s a grain of truth to the old sun sign pick up line. Some people’s suns will be more compatible with yours than others. It’s just that, as with so much of popular astrology, which has been watered down for so long for mass consumption, there’s much much more to the story. Which is why the old sun sign compatibility guides often fall apart when you encounter someone with a “compatible” sun sign but a difficult aspect between their Saturn and your Mars, as just one example.
As that timeless philosopher of love, Paula Abdul (Gemini sun, Libra rising, Capricorn moon), once sang (along with a handsome cartoon cat), Opposites Attract. How do you make the opposition work? Turn it into a dance: “a two steps forward / a two steps back.” I’d forgotten about the tap dance bit — classic!
Happy Valentine’s Day!