Page 38 - Talented Astrologer • Volume 2 Number 1 • Winter 2019

But these terms were only ever used in reference to the planets. Signs or houses were never described as the
“Lord” or “ruler” of anything.
In the grammar of the language of
astrology, it’s all about the planets. The planets function as both the nouns and the verbs. A planet will
always be the subject of a sentence. The signs modify the expression of the planets, so they’re adjectives and adverbs. Houses are prepositions and prepositional phrases. From a practical perspective, “Scorpio” or “the Second House” can never be the subject of a sentence. The subject of the sentence is the planet that rules the sign or the house. Once you’ve
identified the planet that is in charge of the question, you can evaluate that planet, including its sign and house connections, to find the answer.
All other symbolic connections were called significators.
Astrologers sometimes refer to these as “natural rulerships.” According to The Book of Rulerships by J. Lee Lehman, Mercury rules (signifies) commerce, bankers, perjury, saffron, and windy weather; Mars rules (signifies) cinnamon, discord, epilepsy, manual dexterity, prison, and steel; and Leo is associated with back pain, convulsions, heat, houses near chimneys, and rocky places.
The natural rulerships come from the fields of horary astrology (answering questions), mundane astrology (world events, weather prediction), and medical astrology. Mars will never represent cinnamon in a natal interpretation, but that might be relevant in medical astrology, or perhaps in a lost object horary question. While there are several reference books that list natural rulerships, the best-known being The Rulership Book by Rex Bills, J. Lee Lehman’s The Book of Rulerships is the only one that cites the classical references and sources for the natural rulerships. Of course,
38 Talented Astrologer