The Inner Planets in Love
Venus in Love
Venus in the natal chart shows how you give love, how you receive love, and what you expect in terms of behavior in partnership. Aspects to Venus can make or break a relationship-the nature and intensity of aspects to Venus determine how the love nature of one partner either harmonizes or conflicts with the love nature in the other. Venus in both sexes is the attracting factor, though it is typically a stronger force in a female's chart. Venus is about aesthetics, social interaction, sexuality in all forms, affection, art, love, and harmony.
Moon in Love
The Moon in the natal chart is your inner self, your past, your unconscious, and your soul. The memory of the Moon is long and significant in relationship-it represents your need for security, for comfort, for the smooth and familiar flow of intense emotion. The Moon and its aspects between two people are equal to Venus in its power to make or break a connection. If two people cannot be their true selves with each other, there is really no basis for a relationship.
Mars in Love
Mars in the natal chart shows your drives, energy, and self-assertion as well as how you handle pressure and conflict. Mars in partnership helps to determine whether or not there will be any relationship at all-someone has to make the first move. Mars is about sexual energy and the expression of this energy can either excite or repel the object of desire. Mars is typically a stronger force in a male's chart, although this is slowly changing and moving towards equality between the sexes (as is Venusian energy).
Sun in love
Sun in the natal chart represents life, and if the Moon is the Past, then the Sun is the Present and Future of a being. The Sun, like fire, can be good or bad-it can offer life-sustaining warmth, or it can burn life up quickly in the form of ego. In partnership, the Sun is the warmth and respect you have for each other. It is generosity and can shine its light on a partner-either giving that much needed warmth, or exposing the partner to fierce, unrelenting rays.
Mercury in Love
Mercury in the natal chart is how you communicate, how you think, how you listen and interpret. Some astrologers believe that Mercury is a neutral planet when it comes to love, but I disagree. Mercury is quite important, for if two people cannot communicate effectively the relationship will falter. What one person says can be interpreted three different ways by three different people--if your loved one doesn't understand what you are saying, you will feel alone-even when you're together.
The Outer Planets in Love
Jupiter in Love
Jupiter in the natal chart is about philosophy, expansion, travel, society and spirituality. In relationship, Jupiter can either help or hinder a partner's need for development. Jupiter aspects are about growth, of each individual and of the couple. If one partner feels restricted or that their beliefs must be the same as those of his or her partner, trouble will arise. However, if both partners generally have the same outlook, Jupiter aspects can make for all types of growth, particularly spiritual and philosophical.
Uranus in Love
Uranus in the natal chart is detached intuition, electricity, originality, and the longing for freedom. Uranus has much to do with society and friendship, and when Uranus is in strong contact between two people, there will be high energy (electrical sparks), and personal evolution for both people will become a priority. Uranus can get sticky when ego and emotion gets involved-but he is a great help in setting the partners on course, and waking them up from seeming slumber. Where Uranus treads nothing will ever be the same again.
Karmic Planets, Chiron, and the Nodes of the Moon in Love
When the karmic planets, Chiron, and the Nodes of the Moon are in contact with the personal planets or angular points of both individuals in the partnership chart, the relationship is not new. The two souls meet again. Other karmic indicators include the Vertex, Part of Karma, and the Part of Fortune being in contact with the personal planets and points, and having numerous planets in the 1st, 4th, 7th, 10th and 12th houses of each others natal chart.
Saturn in Love
Saturn is often called the Lord of Karma. I define karma as energy that has developed, for good or ill, between two people in their past lives together. This energy need is an unconscious projection that draws the past to us, and where Saturn and his aspects occur in partnership, there will be heavy obligations and often a sense of eternity. Saturn makes us face ourselves through our partner, and this mutual growth of two individuals, if accepted and embraced, can be the very foundation of a permanent love relationship.
Neptune in Love
Planet of illusion, healing, mystery and creativity as well as addictions, and nothing is more addictive than the feeling of 'being in love'. In relationships, Neptune has visions of unconditional, spiritual love and not just for the other individual, but for humanity in general. With important Neptune contacts between two people, you can have the ultimate union: freedom, self-less love, and spiritual evolution OR you can have the idea of exchanging sacrifice for power, the lovers can put each other on a pedestal and ignore reality, or one partner can deceive the other. Neptune is tricky, for she (my view of Neptune is feminine) can be the highest redeemer or the lowest of deceivers, depending on how each individual uses the energy. Neptune is a karmic planet, particularly of reincarnation as in Neptune's realm there is no separation--no idea of individual life. Each life flows into the next in Neptune's watery lair.
Pluto in Love
Pluto is power--hidden, secretive, behind the scenes--power that can be used for good or ill. Pluto is judgmental and exacting in his transformation. When Pluto is strong between two people, there can be power plays, dark secrets, and sexual intrigues OR there can be an intense understanding of the hidden nature of the other person. Through plutonian contacts there can be very significant spiritual transformation of one or both individuals. Pluto, being transformative and evolutionary, is a key karmic indicator in a relationship.
Chiron in Love
Chiron is our deepest wound, one that needs healing. It is only through healing our inner selves that we can access the positive karmic energy of our outer planets. We often pull to us that which we need the most, and Chiron contacts in relationship are highly charged and often painful. Love is not always that of light and fluff, and the darker connection of Chiron contacts can lead each individual to break out of the suffocating cocoon of pain and bask in the light of spirituality.
The Moon's Nodes in Love
The South node placement natally is a conglomerate of all past life activity-the energy indicated by this node's house and sign is the essence of the inner self, the soul. The North node placement is the direction the soul needs to take in this life for further evolution. This does not mean to turn away from the past, but to incorporate the useful aspects of the South node placement into the future. Any contact between the nodes, north or south, directly affects the entire nodal axis and both houses and signs in which they are placed. In a relationship, aspects between two people and their nodes can be a deciding factor in the longevity of their connection. This is a karmic indicator of utmost importance and should always be looked at as a source of conflict when a relationship is in trouble. Harsh aspects between an important personal planet (particularly the Sun and Moon) to the nodal axis may make it very difficult to form a permanent relationship. This is not to say that there are not factors that can help smooth the way for a long time (even 10-15 years), but that eventually, if the person whose nodes are afflicted in the relationship wants to move forward, the relationship must end.
