Heard of a "Yod"? Humongous Asteroids? Icy Comets? How About a Triad? You Can Benefit Understanding One of Those!

Astrology can get complex. I personally have 3 yods. Do you even know what a yod is? Take all the planets, spin them around, thrown in major asteroids that have been out there for aeons. Don't forget the nodes and the part of fortune and then as they spin, you come up with how the spinning is affecting everyone, and also how the spinning of all the planets is affecting your natal horoscope.

Man, it is one big endless reading! And that is why astrology is complex. That is also why astrology ends up being an endless, daily reading, but also why you tend to dismiss alot of it. Its just too complex for most people's ability to consume and comprehend.

The Rising Sign - The Outer Personality

We are talking about the ability of the "conscious consumer", the average person who does not know what a "quincunx" is, to be able to appreciate astro wisdom and derive a benefit in their daily lives from that wisdom.

In the 1970's I first learned about the "rising sign". It related to the hour of birth - specifically, what sign was on the eastern horizon on the hour you were born. I learned that that particular sign indicated the outer personality - or the "public self". I quickly started determining "rising signs" in my family and my self. Of course, you have to know the hour of your birth.

The Self You Don as Your "Personality"

I saw how that affected a sun sign. The self that you don, like you don your daily clothes, is that personality that you choose to greet the outer world with. What a fascinating concept I thought. But there is the sun sign, looming so large, how does it really affect things? Then I learned about the Moon Sign.

The Moon Sign -

The Internal Self. Psychology, of course confirms the existence of our vast internal worlds, subconscious and below conscious activity that "burbles" away inside us, affecting how we think, what we manifest in our daily lives, and influencing how we see that world of ours.

Gemini Sun - Moon in Pisces. Gemini Sun - Moon in Virgo.

Our internal emotional state is often "what we hide" when we greet and interact with the world. If you have a Moon in Pisces and have a Gemini Sun, that makes a much different individual then, say, a Moon in Virgo with a Gemini Sun. Once I would be introduced to these two individuals, I would expect the first one to be be communicative, but reflective and philosophical - a talker who when they spoke had maybe an intuitive turn with lots of empathy. The second one I would expect to be talkative, but critical. With a Virgo Moon, a person who was volunteering their helpful advice to their loved ones, but might be a little edgy in their help. Intuition would probably not be a feature of their emotional life, or at least, it would not be as visible. This person would have a naive internal nature, always in a kind of "head scratching" wonder about other people's lives, and wondering why things were happening to them.

The Sun Sign - The Controller, Core, The Boss - Put The Triad Together

Now you can put the "Triad" together! The sun sign is the one that everyone knows. "I am a Scorpio". When people say that - they are saying - "My sun sign is Scorpio." To envision this in an easy and comprehensible image, put the sun sign in the middle, the rising sign on the outside, or around the sun sign, and the moon sign protected by the rising and the sun. Then, however you choose to envision that in your head, you can see the sun sign as the core self, around which the rising and moon work. That's why the sun sign is such a good basic handle to use in conversation and general apprehension of individual qualities. The rising and moon affect how the sun sign functions. All three of these constitute a triad of individuality.

The Triad of Self Understanding -

Unless you have a friend who knows their moon and rising sign, and chooses to reveal it to you, you are not likely to know these things for your friends and associates. You can choose to find out the triad with your loved ones. However, some do not know the hour of their births. In that case, astrologers make an assumption that a person was born at sun rise, and assign them a rising sign that is the same as the sun sign.

Self Understanding

SO, the triad is mainly useful for self understanding. As you go through your day, you can see how the rising sign, the sun sign and the moon operate in you, and show the personality that you call "Jim" or "Jane" or "Joe" or "Jolene". There is an old Scottish phrase that talks about this topic: "Oh the gift that God would gie us, to see ourselves as others see us." Oh the Gift that God would give us to see ourselves as others see us. Many are not aware of this dichotomy - how we see ourselves versus how others see us. Maybe this is a silent gift from the Psyche to keep us from going nuts trying to imagine how people do actually see us. And of course, this varies from individual to individual. If you grow in maturity and self understanding, you will most likely start seeing yourself in these three components and how they affect your life.

Once you determine from your mother, or your birth certificate the hour of your birth, (most people know the place of their birth) then you can obtain from a chart these three elements. It is actually quite simple. You know your sun sign because you know your birthday. Your Moon sign you can get from a chart, and your rising sign too, if you know the hour of your birth. For those of you who have had your chart done, often it just goes into a dusty drawer. Why? Its too complicated! Dust it off, go to someone, if you can't read it, and ask them: "Tell me my rising sign, and my moon sign." With the knowledge of these three, you can start to understand yourself in new ways. If you wish, you can do the same with your intimates and loved ones and relatives. As you do this kind of exercise, you will see how Individuality expresses itself.