sunsign vs rising sign vs the planet that has the most influence on your chart

What is more apparent in a person's personality? Their rising sign, sun sign or what is the planet that has the most influence in their natal chart? And let's just say a person has lot's of strong influence in their natal chart, then, how would it play out in real life? And let's say the planet that influences your natal chart, does it prevent you from exhibit the traits of your sun sign if the planet is too different?

love-thinking said:

What is more apparent in a person's personality? Their rising sign, sun sign or what is the planet that has the most influence in their natal chart? And let's just say a person has lot's of strong influence in their natal chart, then, how would it play out in real life? And let's say the planet that influences your natal chart, does it prevent you from exhibit the traits of your sun sign if the planet is too different?

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It is different for everybody. And it is different in different ages of one's life.

The rising sign is what makes the first impression. People first see your appearance, body language and initial introductions and make their first impressions from there.

Behind that and shining through is the Sun and Mercury, the social persona and general personality influences. If someone sticks around for a few hours they will see those influences and their first impression will change somewhat, for better or for worse.

But if they really get to know you then they will see all of the other influences. If they play tennis with you they may see your Mars competitive self or the whiny Moon victim self. If they feel romantic towards you they may activate your Venus/Mars/Moon/Neptune influences and see you jn a whole new light.

It is different for everyone and it matters in which part of life you are dealing with. I am very different at work as opposed to at home etc.

love-thinking said:

What is more apparent in a person's personality?
Their rising sign,
sun sign

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keep in mind that
every rising sign has its ruler
and the ruler of any rising sign could be in any of twelve different signs
so that's an additional factor to consider

and
every sun sign has a ruler as well
and equally the ruler of any sun sign could be in any of twelve different signs as well
these variables mean each natal chart is completely unique to the individual

love-thinking said:

or
what is the planet that has the most influence in their natal chart?

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not all astrologers are in agreement
regarding how to determine which planet has the most influence in a natal chart

love-thinking said:

And let's just say a person has lot's of strong influence in their natal chart,
then, how would it play out in real life?
And let's say the planet that influences your natal chart,
does it prevent you from exhibit the traits of your sun sign if the planet is too different?

Click to expand...

In order to determine answers to those questions
for the reasons already outlined
each natal chart requires separate individual assessment
Each natal chart is completely unique to the individual so generalisation is unreliable

I also think that different parts of the personality are more or less prominent at different times of life. I am an Aries Sun and certainly when I was a teenager I think anyone who have guessed that, even though I'm also a Cancer rising. My rising was totally eclipsed (for the time being) by my Sun. I was loud, pushy, listened to punk rock, and generally acted pretty aggressive. And suddenly when I got to about the age of 18 my Cancer rising became much more pronounced. I became soft, gentle, and a lot more shy with people. Nowadays I'm more evened out, in the sense that I know how to be aggressive without being annoying, and I also know how to be gentle and giving without giving too much.

Without going on for too long about myself, I'll get to the point. There's no absolute to anyone's personality or natal chart. There are many different parts that make the whole. External influences/transits can trigger different parts of our charts and those things express themselves through us in one way or another. That's my overall take on this.

I think if you spend time observing yourself, studying the planets and signs you could see what sorts of energies speak most prominently through you.

All three are important in differing measures.

Personally I think the rising sign, since it influences how the Sun and Moon and everything is placed. Sun in, say, Taurus is fine, but if the rising sign is known then sun could be in 10th, 7th, or 2nd house.

midspringwind said:

I also think that different parts of the personality are more or less prominent at different times of life. I am an Aries Sun and certainly when I was a teenager I think anyone who have guessed that, even though I'm also a Cancer rising. My rising was totally eclipsed (for the time being) by my Sun. I was loud, pushy, listened to punk rock, and generally acted pretty aggressive. And suddenly when I got to about the age of 18 my Cancer rising became much more pronounced. I became soft, gentle, and a lot more shy with people. Nowadays I'm more evened out, in the sense that I know how to be aggressive without being annoying, and I also know how to be gentle and giving without giving too much.

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That may have to do with progressions. I just looked at your chart, midspringwind, and saw that your natal sun is at 7 degrees Aries. In secondary progressions, which are used the most, the sun progresses approximately one degree each year--secondary progressions are a year for a day, in which your progressed chart when you're one year old matches the sky when you were one day old, and so on throughout your life.

Your progressed sun transited to Taurus when you were about 23. That doesn't mean you're now a Taurus instead of an Aries, but it places a Taurus layer over your basic Aries sun message. Your core personal growth message is still Aries--assert yourself, rise to challenges, be a warrior or pioneer, to name a few things that could go with Aries--but a Taurus message is now layered on top of that. Aggressive without being annoying, gentle and giving without giving too much, is a perfect match for Taurus layered over Aries.

midspringwind said:

Without going on for too long about myself, I'll get to the point. There's no absolute to anyone's personality or natal chart. There are many different parts that make the whole. External influences/transits can trigger different parts of our charts and those things express themselves through us in one way or another. That's my overall take on this.

I think if you spend time observing yourself, studying the planets and signs you could see what sorts of energies speak most prominently through you.

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Exactly. And everyone's response to their own birth chart is individual. People with very similar birth charts--twins, for instance--can have very different personalities because they're making different responses to that chart. It's not just your chart, it's what you do with it. Just like your skeleton provides the basic structure for your body, but it doesn't determine whether you're fat or thin, active or sedentary, what color your hair or eyes or skin are, what you do with your life, any of that.

love-thinking said:

What is more apparent in a person's personality? Their rising sign, sun sign or what is the planet that has the most influence in their natal chart?

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Could be any or all of those things, and there are other influences, too. If there are any planets in the first house (or conjunct the AC from the twelfth), they get layered onto the ascendant, so the native "looks" a lot like those planets--which might change the flavor of the ascendant very much, if the planets on it are quite different from the sign. Anything aspecting the ascendant, sun, and/or moon throws its influence in there, too.

I think how readily the sun "shines" in the personality has a lot to do with how similar, or not, the ascendant is to the sun sign. If sun and rising sign are the same, the native will probably identify very much with textbook sun sign astrology (unless there are other influences that shade that in a different way). If sun and rising sign are different but share a lot of similarity, ie same modality, there's likely to be easy and apparent manifestation of the sun. But if the sun sign and rising sign are very, very different, that person probably won't "look" very much like their sun. Also, if the sun is placed in a house that's very different from the indicators of its sign, then the native is probably going to look and feel very different from what sun sign astrology will say.

I'm a Leo with a Sagittarius moon, in grand trine with Jupiter in Aries. Read that, and you might think I'm a very outgoing, happy-go-lucky, living large, impulsive type. But I have Capricorn rising. Anyone who knows sun sign astrology only is probably not going to think I'm very Leo--and I didn't think so, either, til I learned more about my birth chart. And my sun is in the eighth house, which has a very different message from Leo. So I'm a case of all of those things manifesting but not necessarily in the way people might expect.

love-thinking said:

And let's just say a person has lot's of strong influence in their natal chart, then, how would it play out in real life?

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If everything in their chart is a focalizer, the native is a focalizer in their society. In some way, they're deeply in tune with the zeitgeist around them. In some way, they have a profound influence on their society. They might become a very famous person, or they might simply be a presence that's felt especially strongly by the people around them.

love-thinking said:

And let's say the planet that influences your natal chart, does it prevent you from exhibit the traits of your sun sign if the planet is too different?

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It wouldn't prevent your sun sign traits from coming out, but if that planet is in a more obvious house than your sun (say, that planet is in your first or tenth house, while your sun is in the fourth, eighth, or twelfth), the other planet's influence will probably be more readily apparent to others, while the sun's influence might be more felt by you than seen by others, or not seen so easily until people get to know you.

However, aspects might bring even the hidden placements closer to the surface. If your sun is, say, in the eighth house and trine your ascendant, it plays an important part in drawing people to you and in how you yourself interact with the world, even though it's in a "hidden" house.

Osamenor said:

That may have to do with progressions. I just looked at your chart, midspringwind, and saw that your natal sun is at 7 degrees Aries. In secondary progressions, which are used the most, the sun progresses approximately one degree each year--secondary progressions are a year for a day, in which your progressed chart when you're one year old matches the sky when you were one day old, and so on throughout your life.

Your progressed sun transited to Taurus when you were about 23. That doesn't mean you're now a Taurus instead of an Aries, but it places a Taurus layer over your basic Aries sun message. Your core personal growth message is still Aries--assert yourself, rise to challenges, be a warrior or pioneer, to name a few things that could go with Aries--but a Taurus message is now layered on top of that. Aggressive without being annoying, gentle and giving without giving too much, is a perfect match for Taurus layered over Aries.

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And to add to this... I went back and looked again because you said the transformation happened around age 18, which was before your sun progressed to Taurus. My guess is moon progression may have been involved there. Without seeing a progressed chart, I'm just making an educated guess here... but the progressed moon spends two years plus some months in each sign. Based on my estimation, it looks like your progressed moon transited to Taurus when you were around 18, and before that, it had been progressing through Aries for the last 2 1/2 years, give or take.

Since moon is your chart ruler, you are likely to be especially responsive to the moon's transits and progressions. If it was transiting militant Aries during your aggressive teenage rebellion phase, it might have contributed to sparking that, then given you the gentle and grounding influence of Taurus when it progressed to Taurus. And, there were likely other transits going on at the same time that contributed, but it would take a transit chart to show that.

Osamenor said:

And to add to this... I went back and looked again because you said the transformation happened around age 18, which was before your sun progressed to Taurus. My guess is moon progression may have been involved there. Without seeing a progressed chart, I'm just making an educated guess here... but the progressed moon spends two years plus some months in each sign. Based on my estimation, it looks like your progressed moon transited to Taurus when you were around 18, and before that, it had been progressing through Aries for the last 2 1/2 years, give or take.

Since moon is your chart ruler, you are likely to be especially responsive to the moon's transits and progressions. If it was transiting militant Aries during your aggressive teenage rebellion phase, it might have contributed to sparking that, then given you the gentle and grounding influence of Taurus when it progressed to Taurus. And, there were likely other transits going on at the same time that contributed, but it would take a transit chart to show that.

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Wow, that's really interesting. I love Taurian-Moon energy, haha... and that was a nice period. The Moon in Taurus transit is a time of the month I always look forward to.

Do you know of a good progressed chart generator? I'd like to see what "phases" I'm going through now.

About two years ago I went through a phase where I cried at EVERYTHING. Especially at work, when too many people would get around me I'd feel totally overwhelmed. I'd get exhausted from trying to keep my emotions under control. And usually I'm a fairly grounded person. I thought it could have been because for my Solar return chart, the Moon was in Pisces. But maybe my Moon was progressing through Cancer.

Things get kind of complicated when you take in all of these factors!

midspringwind said:

Do you know of a good progressed chart generator? I'd like to see what "phases" I'm going through now.

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The extended chart section on Astrodienst has a natal + progressions option. You can cast your chart for today's date to see where you're at now, and if you want to know for sure where your progressions were two years ago, five years ago, etc., you can cast charts for then.

The `transformation' which occurred around the age of 18 could well have been brought about in part to the first Moon's Node return, which occurs at the age of 18 years 7 months (for us all). Other factors in the chart may have made this time more noticeable, because often the nodal return on its own does not stand out. Any changes which occur as a result can often be subtle, but there is generally some kind of decision which is made about the life direction.

I find it almost impossible to answer the OP's question, since there are so many overlying factors which influence personality, including the life experiences a person has, and how these experiences determine how they view the world around them, and people in general.

For instance, I have Sun and Mercury in Leo. People who know me well are fully aware of this, and expect me to act this out in their presence.
However, in meeting someone for the first time, my Capricorn Asc provides a barrier to new people seeing beyond that (and my Cancer Moon supports that). Not only that, my chart ruler is in the 8th house, and I have Sun-Pluto conj, so I usually project a wary, privacy-at-all-costs Scorpio persona.

All of the chart influences are important. I also suspect that most of us use different parts of the chart in different situations, depending on what outcome is desired - whether that be anonymity, protection, friendliness, openness, aggression, confidence, etc, etc.

love-thinking said:

What is more apparent in a person's personality? Their rising sign, sun sign or what is the planet that has the most influence in their natal chart? And let's just say a person has lot's of strong influence in their natal chart, then, how would it play out in real life? And let's say the planet that influences your natal chart, does it prevent you from exhibit the traits of your sun sign if the planet is too different?

Click to expand...

even though I think the big 3 are important, I do think that the most important thing to look at when it comes to how you're perceived is the ruler sign of the most loaded houses your planets fall in.

love-thinking said:

What is more apparent in a person's personality? Their rising sign, sun sign or what is the planet that has the most influence in their natal chart? And let's just say a person has lot's of strong influence in their natal chart, then, how would it play out in real life? And let's say the planet that influences your natal chart, does it prevent you from exhibit the traits of your sun sign if the planet is too different?

Click to expand...

It is changeable person to person.And it is changeable to aspects to aspects.I personally give importance to the planets who makes much aspect in chart,or give importance the houses which is fulled by many planets.But that also does not mean other houses will not take role on the life of individual.

lightdepth said:

even though I think the big 3 are important, I do think that the most important thing to look at when it comes to how you're perceived is the ruler sign of the most loaded houses your planets fall in.

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My most loaded house is the eighth, which has its cusp in Leo. If that hypothesis were correct across the board, I would be perceived as very Leo, because that's where my sun, the ruler of my most loaded house, happens to be. But, see above: I am not so Leo-like in appearance. Eight house Leo sun, Capricorn rising... people like that, like me and R4VEN, are like a mix of Leo and Scorpio.

R4VEN said:

The `transformation' which occurred around the age of 18 could well have been brought about in part to the first Moon's Node return, which occurs at the age of 18 years 7 months (for us all). Other factors in the chart may have made this time more noticeable, because often the nodal return on its own does not stand out. Any changes which occur as a result can often be subtle, but there is generally some kind of decision which is made about the life direction.

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Interesting. After I first read that, many hours ago, it dawned on me that I, too, experienced some transformation at age 18--not such a drastic personality change, I don't think, but definitely big change. I chalked that up to going away to college. However, it really felt, at the time and also in hindsight, that the real activity didn't start until the spring semester. Fall semester seems to have been a waiting time.

Since my birthday is in August, I had just turned 18 when I started college. I had my lunar node return approximately the following March. Things really were moving forward for me by then. And... I had a sudden realization just now... at both my lunar node returns (I've experienced two so far), I had someone come into my life who was very Scorpionic, in one way or another. My north node is in Scorpio.

In both cases, those people were catalysts for something with a very Scorpio theme happening to me. In the second case, it definitely made a great change in my life--and in a good way, it was a kind of change that I really wanted and needed. In the first case, it was an interesting and memorable adventure, but did it really change me? I'm not sure.