You’ve got two wheels, a grid of aspects with forty or fifty lines in it, and no idea which line matters. Most people start at the top of the grid and read down, and by line twelve every contact seems equally important. Here is the order I use instead: Moons, then Saturn, then Venus and Mars. It takes about twenty minutes, and a pencil helps.
Why the aspect list overwhelms beginners
A full synastry grid between two people can easily list dozens of contacts between the ten planets, plus angles. Read in the order the software prints them, you get Sun-Mercury, then Moon-Neptune, then Mars-Pluto, with no sense of weight. Everything sounds like fate.
The usual mistake is treating each aspect as a separate verdict. A chart is closer to a conversation: a few contacts set the daily tone, and the rest add color. So the job at the start isn’t to read everything. It’s to find the contacts that describe how the two of you feel on an ordinary Tuesday.
That’s why I begin with the Moon, move to Saturn, and leave Venus and Mars until the end. Attraction is the part everyone checks first, and it’s the part that tells you least about whether the relationship is livable.
Before you start, write down both birth times. If either is a guess, ignore the Moon’s exact degree and angle contacts, and use only its sign.
Step one: where the two Moons sit
What it produces: a one-sentence description of how each of you needs to be soothed, and whether the other person can do it.
Look at each person’s Moon sign, then at any aspect between the two Moons or between one Moon and the other’s Sun, Venus or Saturn. Conjunctions, trines and sextiles usually read as ease: you recognize each other’s moods. Squares and oppositions between Moons often read as one person wanting space while the other wants contact. That reading is conventional, not a law, and a Moon square can sit comfortably in couples who simply argue openly.
Write your finding as a sentence: “She settles by talking it through; he settles by going quiet.” If you can’t write it, you haven’t finished the step.
The usual mistake: reading the Moon sign as a personality label. A Capricorn Moon isn’t “cold.” It’s someone who tends to feel safest when things are handled. Also check orb: I’d trust a Moon contact within about five degrees much more than one at eight.
Step two: Saturn contacts and what they ask of you
What is produced: a list of places where one feels measured, restricted, and/or steadied by the other.
Locate all angles of contact between one person’s Saturn and another’s Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars or personal angles. While readers and writers are welcome, beginners should beware of Saturn’s contacts. I find that in couples that stay together there are some Saturn links due to the nature of the role of Saturn, Commitment and Responsibility. It all depends on the direction of the question. You might appear critical or serious to them if your Saturn is on their Moon. If they are on your Moon, then you might feel judged by them.
Question each contact and ask, “who is carrying the weight and is it being acknowledged? Rather than structure, Saturn with a trine or sextiles from other planets typically tends to feel like structure. Saturn is one when it’s all alone, without any soft before it, duty.
Typical error: interpreting Saturn square as a bad omen. Whether or not it is a problem depends whether the person receiving the blow is also being warmed some place else in the chart.
Step three: Venus and Mars, last rather than first
What it creates: the candor of attraction and its expression and, in step one and two.
Next look at Venus-Mars contacts in both directions, and for Mars-Venus and Venus-Venus. A Venus Mars conjunction or trine is – in the textbook sense – chemistry, but not a strong foundation. Mars to Mars squares can express friction in our approach to pursuing each other’s interests, as if we’re trying to heat up one another, or irritate our way to victory.
Compare it to your Moon sentence and your Saturn list. Chemistry on top of a Moon opposition, and a heavy contact with Saturn, is not the same chemistry as is being formed between another Moon trine.
The standard error: taking substituted steps as an entire “chart”. The ones people take screenshots of are good Venus-Mars contacts while the ones they say the least about are the ones that are not.
Getting a second pair of eyes on your own chart
After three steps you should have three things on paper: a Moon sentence, a Saturn list, and a short note on attraction. If they point in different directions, that’s normal, and it’s usually where beginners get unsure. One contact reads two ways, orbs sit at the edge, or you can’t tell whether a Saturn contact is helping or pinching.
That’s the point to have someone else look. Any astrologer worth talking to will want your three notes and the chart itself, not just a list of aspects. Astrologers will talk through a real synastry chart with you, which is far more useful than rereading the same paragraphs of interpretation until they blur.
Bring specific questions: “Is this Moon square softened by anything?” is better than “Are we compatible?” And bring your birth-time confidence, because it changes which contacts can be trusted.
What a single chart cannot tell you
Synastry reveals the ways that two charts come into contact. It doesn’t reveal any information about either person’s behavior in stressful situations, their desires in their lives, or whether they’re I am not sure that they’re ready to go into a relationship! Maturity, circumstances and choice are beyond the chart and two people with the same contacts may lead very different lives.
It is also not a foretaste of marriage or of a long life. None of this – even relevant as highly as it is credited – is the deciding factor and the one who claims otherwise is the one who’s telling more. Progressions will offer another perspective and a composite chart will offer yet another perspective, but neither one of them will supplant conversation.
The 3 notes are not final judgments, but questions you’ll ask an individual. Ask him if the Moon sentence is true when he is upset. The chart provided a starting point for listening.
