Interpretations

Testimonials

Electionals

Horaries

Instruction

Books for Sale

Mini-Interpretations

Payment

Newsletter

Message Board

FAQ

Links

Forecasts

Home

Like this site?

Tell a friend!

FOR JOHN SMITH AND JANE DOE

by Brian Habit

The Composite Chart

The whole of a partnership is more complex than the sum of the personalities that are involved. The personality of a couple doesn’t necessarily follow logically from the personalities of the individuals that are involved. Besides the visible “you” and “me,” there’s also the invisible “us.” A composite chart gets at this invisible us by describing the unique chemistry that occurs when two people pair off. It’s a synthesis of their respective birth charts, basically derived by taking the “average” of the charts and set up using the place that two people met each other as the birthplace for their relationship. The composite chart indicates the sorts of experiences that can help strengthen—and weaken—a partnership. It indicates the kinds of situations in which two people could drive each other crazy, and those that they prefer to be in, as a twosome.

Let’s take a brief tour of key points in your composite chart.

NOTE: When I use the word “you” or “your” in this section, I will be referring to the two of you together, or something that relates to the two of you as a couple.

In your composite chart, the Sun lies in Aquarius in the 7th house. The Sun symbolizes your identity, self-image, and ultimate source of vitality as a couple. As in your individual charts, the Sun is in Aquarius, so your identity as a couple, like your identities as separate people, depends on you having healthy Aquarian experiences: moments that encourage you to innovate, to think and act independently, based on what rings true for you. Such experiences can help you stretch toward the ultimate goal of Aquarius, which is to become a true individual (in this case, a truly individualistic couple).

Unlike in your individual charts, however, the Sun sits in the 7th house of intimacy. You’re meant to draw a lot of your vitality from 7th-house experiences: relating closely as a couple to other couples or other individuals; interacting with the general public; acting as a team of educators, or counselors, or advisors, or consultants; turning to such helpers yourselves. Such experiences could have a healing vitalizing effect on your relationship. You can learn from other people’s mistakes or realizations by “comparing notes” with them. Your growth depends on getting input from other people. The Sun relates to leadership, so take the lead to seek this out. Others can help you see yourselves more clearly, but if you skip seeking them out because of your pride, that could trip you up.

You have the Moon in Libra in the 3rd house. This reinforces the Sun in the 7th house, since that is the natural territory of Libra. The Moon represents your instinctive emotional responses, temperament and subjectivity as a twosome. The 3rd house pertains to the way that you think about and interact with your immediate environment. With your Libran Moon in the 3rd house, you especially need to foster a pleasing arrangement of separate elements in your everyday environment, in your neighborhood, or city, or region of the country. You need to do it in your routine ways of thinking and learning, buying and selling, training, speaking and writing, and otherwise communicating (for example, through visual images or movement). It’s in that part of your life that you most need to satisfy your craving for harmony. It’s where you need activities that encourage you to express your hospitality or artistry with imagination and sensitivity. They help the two of you feel safe and sound, at ease in your environment. 

If you make the best of your sensitivity, then you act like sympathetic counselors, nurturing diplomats, or imaginative artists, both with each other and with other people. You advise others on how to resolve personal or social problems. You use your charm and social skills to advance the causes of peace and justice, but you don’t manipulate people in the process. You’re honest about your intentions or your motives. You build social bridges by drawing on your ability to empathize with others, and you conduct yourself with civility and poise. Even in moments of conflict, you maintain your composure. You use your ability to see situations from other people’s perspective in a masterful way. You express your aesthetic sensibilities and your social skills through the way that you apply your mind and communicate with your immediate environment. Your contributions make the world a more harmonious, more just, or more aesthetically appealing place. You continually probe the world for more information, either verbally or intellectually, without expending emotional energy trying to protect any preconceived notions from change. You’re willing to tolerate perceptual ambiguity and uncertainty. Taking such an approach allows you to have clear, accurate, unbiased perceptions.

Your Ascendant lies in Leo. It symbolizes the persona or social style of your relationship, the manner in which you approach the world in general as a pair. With Leo rising, you need to cultivate a playful, creative style, one that conveys a sense of joy to others. You need to act playfully, spontaneously, and self-expressively. You have the potential to impress others and brighten their lives. You also have the potential to burn a path through life, bullying others to satisfy your own ego. The choice is yours. If you do Leo badly, you try to elicit love and appreciation from others by impressing them, rather than making yourself vulnerable and asking for it directly. You might rub them the wrong way by seeming arrogant and condescending, like you’re trying to order others around. People may misconstrue your self-confidence and pride as a feeling of superiority, and then they may either ignore you or try to bring you down a peg or two. On the other hand, if you do Leo well, then you trust in the world by acting playfully and dramatically, expressing warmth and producing something that is beautiful, thought-provoking, original, or imaginative. You live in the moment. You express our childlike delight in the world.

So far, we’ve seen that you have the Sun in airy, mental Aquarius, the Moon in social, fair-minded Libra, and a fiery, spontaneous Leo Ascendant. Put simply, we can think of you as a revolutionary with the soul of a romantic, wearing the mask of a performer. That invisible “we” that exists when the two of you get together is an energetic thinker and communicator, but not necessarily comfortable getting into the potentially “sticky” territory of feelings.

Mercury sits in Capricorn in the 6th house, the house of responsibilities. Mercury represents your thinking, communicating, and intellectual activity as a couple. The 6th house pertains to your work and other ways in which you assume responsibility, build skills, and serve others as a couple. In Capricorn and the 6th house, Mercury needs serious, demanding, goal-directed pursuits in order to be adequately stimulated mentally. That’s what you need as a couple. How could you accomplish this? Take a class together on some subject that interests you both. Learn a craft together, such as making pottery.  Learn solid communication skills. Read a book on them, or go to a workshop. Learn public speaking or take a writing class together. Learn about financial planning or investing together. Take on a serious responsibility together, something that you could both willingly commit to, such as volunteering for the same organization or running a business, perhaps one involving a Saturnian subject (older people, business, politics, etc.). For example, you might help build simple, affordable, low-cost housing with other volunteers and homeowners as part of Habitat for Humanity. Do some strenuous moving around together, such as running or hiking or mountain climbing. Just be careful that you don’t become workaholics, pushing yourselves too hard, either in relation to each other or in relation to the rest of the world.

You have Venus in Pisces in the 8th house. Venus indicates your way of relaxing and having fun, how you relate socially, and your aesthetic tastes and values. The 8th house pertains to your approach to sexuality or other traditionally taboo, emotionally-charged topics. It also pertains to your approach to resources that belong to others or that you share with or receive from others. To feed our Venus, hang out with Piscean types of people: idealists, poets, writers, musicians, gentle selfless givers, mystical types. Spend time on Piscean activities: movies, romantic getaways, dancing, swimming, spiritual or religious pursuits. Pisces can find reality hard to swallow, so be careful not to undermine your own satisfaction by wandering from one activity to another, dropping something once it becomes challenging. Don’t get your hopes too high about possibilities for pleasure, without first considering whatever might be the down side about them. This also applies to ventures in which you lend or borrow money.

Mars lies in Libra in the 4th house. (Technically, Mars lies late in the 3rd house, but it’s so close to the 4th house that I consider it to effectively operate through that area instead.) Mars represents your territoriality, drive, and assertiveness as a pair. The 4th house pertains to your home and family (including both your own parents and each other’s parents), private life, and root feelings, including your greatest fears and fantasies about yourselves. With Mars in the 4th house, you need to make sure that you have adequate outlets for your fighting spirit and energy so that you don’t pick fights with each other. Make a commitment to each other to fight for peace and fair outcomes, like anti-war activists, or diplomats, or dispute mediators. Do this with both each other and, as a pair, when you interact with others. Don’t try to “stuff” your anger or resentment. If you do that, then it’s just likely to seep out as irritability or come out in a more powerful blow-up later. On the other hand, don’t needlessly antagonize each other either. Instead, aim to speak up politely but clearly when you’re angry. Assert yourselves while respecting each other’s rights. Channel physical energy into stylized activities, such as dancing or martial arts. If you share a home, fill it with artistic, social or political activity. Play hosts for dance parties, musical jam sessions, political planning meetings, or charitable events. Pour some of your energy into home aesthetics: renovation or beautification, landscaping or gardening, collecting fine art or antiques. Draw on your social skills or artistry in connection with buying, selling, improving or managing real estate.  

You have Jupiter in Gemini in the 11th house, the house of goals. Jupiter symbolizes your sense of expansion and opportunity as a couple. The 11th house pertains to your goal-setting and the individuals, groups or movements that might help you achieve your goals. For you to maintain faith, hope and a positive outlook, you need to make a strong response to the 11th house. Aim to join forces with educational, scientific, spiritual, or technical people and groups. They’re most are likely to appreciate what you have to bring to group endeavors: your exuberance and showmanship, intelligence and cleverness, and interest in spiritual or humanitarian issues. Perhaps you join a religious or philosophical organization. Act like visionary, benevolent networkers; charming storytellers; or exuberant journalists. Draw on your ability to come up with clever ways to combine people, ideas, or information to enrich others’ lives. Aim to entertain, train, or inform people through the written word, the spoken word, or some other medium. Run enthusiastically to wherever the action is, for example, by traveling to be on the scene of current events as they unfold in various parts of the world.

You have Saturn in Leo in the 1st house. The 1st house represents the face that you present as a pair to the world. Leo in the 1st house suggests a playful, live-in-the-present style, a style that is ardent and lavish. Saturn, however, greatly tempers this with the virtual opposite: self-control, goal-directness, seriousness, practicality, austerity. To feed your ambition and sense of reality as a couple, look for activities that represent the intersection of creativity and effectiveness. Both Saturn and Leo can be executive, so you might start a business together, such as a restaurant. Perhaps you could organize gala social events for serious causes, play a leadership role in a community organization, or become politically active together. You might also try putting in long, satisfying hours creating something entertaining, such as writing novels, performing, or making artwork. In your drive to “get ahead,” be careful not to exploit others for your material or social advantage, and don’t cut yourself off from receiving helpful support from other people, by acting proud and overly independent.

Uranus lies in Scorpio in the 4th house. Uranus represents your individuality as a twosome. You’ll need to come up with some creative outlets for your intensity and individuality, so that you don’t get into explosive power games with each other, trying to shock or provoke each other, especially if you live together. Uranus is associated with cutting-edge technology and electronics, so you might start a website together about some subject that you both feel passionate about. If emotional or psychological issues arise that threaten to throw a monkey wrench into your relationship, you might try some innovative or unconventional techniques to sort them out. Both Uranus and Scorpio have an otherworldly quality to them, so you might take up astrology or some other occult interest, or get a telescope and do some stargazing together. 

You have Neptune in Sagittarius in the 5th house. Neptune symbolizes your idealism and imagination, your compassion and your awareness of higher power or something that’s deeper than your personality or ego. The 5th house pertains to how you express yourselves romantically or in other creative, self-expressive ways, such as hobbies, entrepreneurial activities, or recreation. Neptune can be unrealistic, and Sagittarius can be impulsive. Be careful that you don’t jump into creative pursuits, or approach romance, or get into investment schemes based on unrealistic expectations. Don’t get onto your high horse, in such a fervor to claim moral or philosophical superiority that you breeze right by looking at the facts as they are. Neptune can be lyrical and rhythmic and associated with water, and Sag is high-spirited, so you might enjoy yourselves by going dancing, ice-skating or swimming. Neptune is compassionate, and Sag often enjoys animals, so you might also get a pet or do some volunteering related to animals.

Pluto lies in Libra in the 3rd house. Pluto represents your urge to transform yourselves or do something “important” as a couple. With Pluto in the 3rd house, part of your destiny as a couple involves shaking people out of their rigid truth-denying mental outlooks. It involves communicating in such a way that you help others open up their minds, and eyes, and ears enough to accurately observe what’s going on around them. When people silently agree to ignore “an elephant in the living room,” it catches your attention in a big way. If Mom’s drinking constantly, or if your best friend is withdrawing more and more from the world, you see it, and you’re inclined to say something about it. Or at least that’s your natural instinct. To play this special role, you’ll have to say or do things that shock people, that make them squirm, at least at first. You’ll have to bring up subjects or point out facts that are “just not talked about.”

To put your Pluto to good use, first plan to work through some of the trickier aspects of your own thought processes and communication with each other. Once you get to the point that you can talk about difficult subjects with each other, withhold dwelling on your darker thoughts or ripping each other to shreds, then turn to helping others, like a therapeutic communicator or a passionate mover and shaker. In order to have a therapeutic impact on others, you first have to broach difficult subjects by cutting through the veneer of what’s considered “polite,” so you do that. You bring up touch, taboo subjects, like a person who writes a book about rape or drugs, or a cartoonist who tackles the topic of child abuse or homosexuality. Maybe you do some speaking or writing with people about some difficult experience in your own lives and how they might cope if they have similar experiences themselves. If you go through trying times as you learn to function as a couple, then maybe you write about that process with a touch of humor. Like passionate movers and shakers, you could become catalysts for positive change, doers who makes things happen. If you do that, then you communicate your passion and enthusiasm to others, whatever your interests might be. Maybe you become political activists. Maybe you work to root out corruption or discrimination, or you dedicate yourselves to helping people in life-and-death situations. Even if it comes at a great personal cost, you’re willing to take a stand, like a person who testifies against a murder and then starts a new life elsewhere, through a witness protection program. Pluto believes in profound transformation, so there may be a subversive element to your communication. Maybe you write for an underground magazine, or you challenge prevailing attitudes in performance art or in film production.

You have an Aries Midheaven. The Midheaven represents your aspirations and career or other public pursuits. With your Aries Midheaven, you need to develop your capacity for bravery in your public life. Bravery doesn’t mean fearlessness. It means acting in spite of fear. Confront your inner fears or meet people with bold directness. Conquer some physical challenge, or fight for some cause. And do it in very visible ways, ways that are so visible that someone who knows you by your reputation but not by personal contact would pick up on it. You can expect for life to help you along in this bravery-building process. Stressful situations, including scary internal or external struggles, are likely to crop up in your public life or in connection with your aspirations.

When it comes to developing your bravery in the eyes of the public, it doesn’t matter so much what you do. What really matters is how you do it. Assert your rights, especially if others try to infringe on them, but also respect their rights. Sharpen your will by fighting worthwhile battles. With an Arian Midheaven, you need to show the world just how pioneering and independent you can act, in order for you public identity as a pair to reflect well who you really are when you go home each night. If people encourage you to stay in positions of authority or prominence, but doing so would mean that you’d have to follow someone else’s orders or coordinate your actions closely with others, then you need to pass. Such roles would probably leave you feeling trapped or alienated from your public life. You need public pursuits that embolden you and allow you to call the shots.