Love & Astrology, Part 3: No Planets Connect, But They Do

What might be an explanation for two people connecting with no obvious astrological “compatibility?” Suns & Moons don’t match. Venus & Mars are ignoring each other. Seems like nothing directly connects. How come they seem to get along? Why is that Sagittarian in a good relationship with that Capricorn? Does astrology work or not?

I have found so-called “incompatible” people can do just fine if they have the same rising sign. When the signs on the house cusps match up on two people’s charts, and their houses align, they will understand each other’s motivations, if not each other’s methods. And once again, I bring up the notion of “complementary” as an alternative to “compatible.”

First a visual aid to imagine: an astrological chart looks a little like an aerial view of a pie cut into 12 slices. Each slice is a house. A house represents a particular area of a person’s life. Quick, simplified examples: the 10th house is about career & public image; the 7th house is one-to-one relationships, marriage & partnerships; and the 4th is home, mother & deep roots. (You can look up a complete, and more thorough list, on the Internet.) If there is a planet in any particular house, it adds emphasis to the subject matter, or issues, of that house.

And every astrologer hears, at some point, “But I have no planets in the ________ house. Does that mean I will never have ________?”

It helps to know planets are not the only indictors. Typical Western astrology uses 10 planets. There are 12 houses. Do the math. Some of the houses will be planet-less. But each house has a sign on its cusp. There are signs on the cusp of every house, and the traits and qualities of that sign symbolizes a person’s approach to the issues of that house, even if there are no planets involved. So an “empty” 10th house, with Taurus on the cusp, will signify a person seeking a steady, solid, money-making career. And if the Sagittarian and the Capricorn I mentioned above both have a Taurean 10th house, they will have similar career goals, though they may use very different methods to achieve those goals.

So their relationship might work because they have a common ground in their general goals throughout the houses of their charts (and their lives, of course). The issues they might have between them are the methods of accomplishing those goals, but they are heading in the same direction. One might be driving a flashy sports car, while the other is in a high-mileage economy compact, but they are on the same road heading in the same direction. And common goals can sometimes override differences. Even better, two people with common goals but different methods of execution could educate and inspire each other.

This is what I see as the major benefit of complementary over compatible. Compatible people might both like French cuisine, but complementary pairs might both be gourmets, with one loving Thai & Italian, and the other into Indian & Japanese, and together they expand each other’s horizons.