Your Most Important Aspects in Depth

A chart has many aspects, and they do not carry equal weight. In Chapter 4 Tompkins explains how to weigh them: planets close to the four angles, aspects that are nearly exact, and aspects involving the Sun, the Moon, the Ascendant and the Ascendant ruler should all be looked at first. Your Most Important Aspects in Depth reads your own chart and uses this method to pick out the most important few. Each one is read her way too: first what the two planets bring to each other, then whether the relationship is a hard or a soft aspect, because Venus and Saturn in a square and Venus and Saturn in a trine do not look the same in a person. She believes an aspect needs a legitimate outlet, so each one ends with where its energy can be put to use. Planets close to the Ascendant and Midheaven are also read separately in the report. Like the book, it keeps its eye on the relationships between planets; the rest of the chart lies outside what it reads. Tompkins says there is no moment at which one can claim to have understood a chart, or oneself; the most important aspects in your chart are a place you can begin.