Recognizing the colors in our chart: How Color and Astrology Collide

This summer during my Celtic Seership training, we were introduced to The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images, compiled by ARAS (the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) and published by Taschen.

Rhonda McCrimmon, founder of the Centre for Shamanism, was sharing a lesson with us about metaphor and how it can be helpful while we are deciphering the images presented to us during seership. The book was recommended because it could expand what the simplest of things could mean, and as a result give us more opportunities to help our clients understand what is being shown to us through our guides. One of the sections that came up was colors, which made me think about birth charts too.

Colors in the chart

When a birth chart is pulled, we see different colors for the lines inside the wheel. For many charts the main colors are red and blue. The red lines typically represent when two planets are opposite each other and when they form a 90° angle. The blue lines are when they are in like elements or complementary ones.

I feel like we can expand on that, and we should.

Color Wheel

Did you know that on the color wheel, when you combine any two colors directly opposite each other, they form the color grey?

That means red mixed with green makes grey, just like purple mixed with yellow does, or blue with orange. Fascinating, isn't it?

How does this relate to astrology?

In astrology, when two planets are opposite each other, similar to where red and green are on this wheel, that is called an opposition. Oftentimes when this type of energy is present, it can feel like a push/pull, similar to a seesaw trying to balance. To access both energies that the planets or aspects are offering, you need to meet in the middle.

In the Grey Zone

It is when you mix the two energies together just so that the grey zone appears. The energies align, and you can grab from the best of both worlds, so to speak. Living in the grey zone can feel uncomfortable at times, as can an opposition in your chart. This can happen through the planets moving in the sky and interacting with your natal chart, as well as through the ones that are with you always.

For example, I have Jupiter opposite my Sun in my natal chart. To access the grey zone between these two, I need to balance the expansive beliefs that Jupiter offers with the energy my Libra Sun offers me in my chart. I have spent my lifetime learning to blend these energies just so. That is the gift of our natal chart: time.

Likewise, as planets move across the sky, we will have opportunities to experience the grey zone as the transiting planets interact with our natal ones. In addition, we experience this as a collective at the Full Moons, the natural opposition of the Sun and the Moon.

Learning to be comfortable with the grey zone does not mean you cannot choose to lean more to one side or the other. It does mean that when you blend the energies just so, you can end up with a richer experience and new insights too.

In addition, it is said that oppositions hold the energy of Saturn. Saturn in our charts likes to teach us lessons. He feels like the foundation at times, similar to the color of stone, or grey. It is through that foundation that we tend to build things that last a lifetime. That is truly something Saturn loves to do: make things that last, and rebuild when they don’t.

There are so many colors in the wheel, though, so why stop at grey? Then I got to wondering, can we apply colors to other aspects in a chart? Could we lean on colors to help guide us in that way too?

In the Red Zone

Just as Saturn is said to hold the energy of an opposition, Mars is said to hold the energy of the square in a chart. Mars in our charts represents our passions, anger, drive, motivation and how we move our body. What inspires us and ignites us to new heights.

The first color that comes to mind is the richness of red. We wear red when we want to feel bold and be noticed. It is a color that is easy to see and recognize, which is likely why it is used for traffic lights too. Likewise, when passion is involved, the color red is usually somewhere to be found as well.

It can also be the color of frustration. As teachers, we were advised not to use red pens when correcting students’ work. Why? It becomes frustrating to the student. I know it did for me personally when I would see my papers marked up this way.

Squares are a frustration to figure out. At the First and Last Quarter Moons, we find that this frustration can also be an activation, just like the red flame off a match when it is struck. It gets us to move or push forward with something. It can offer us the courage to take that step because it just doesn’t feel right to sit still anymore.

That is Mars.

Mars needs an outlet, or like the Kool-Aid Man, he will make one! Squares in our charts are meant to be that activation, that outlet to help us figure out what is next. To use our courage to take that step and find that passion as needed. This is true in our everyday life using our natal chart, when transiting planets are forming those 90° angles, or when we have the monthly First and Last Quarter Moon activations.

The frustration could also be wanting to give something a go AND having to think it through too. Both can be true.

In the Green Zone

Venus in our charts represents relationships, finances and our values. She is also said to hold the energy of the sextile, the short blue lines in most charts.

There is an element of peace and harmony present with sextiles. It can feel like such an ease of energy that many times it is even overlooked. This comes through when I look at the color green, which makes me think of the two signs that Venus rules: Taurus and Libra.

We associate the color green with money, growth, new beginnings and grass. As in “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

The question becomes: is it?

Sometimes it takes interacting with another (how like Venus, if you think about it) to fully recognize the need to access this beautiful, harmonious blend. It is easy to get lost in the sextiles because we have such an ease of opportunity to access them.

Yet don’t we need to water the grass at our feet to use our sextile to the fullest? The grass can be just as green that way, instead of us tapping into the shadow we can sometimes also feel: green with envy. There are many ways to look at green in our lives, just like there are many ways to tap into a sextile. We just need to choose to do so.

In the Blue Zone

Trines in the chart are said to hold the energy of Jupiter. Jupiter expands all things, and at the same time will only do so when you decide you want him to.

Trines happen when planets are at the same degree in the same element. When three planets form a blue triangle in the chart, that is called a Grand Trine, because the lines are all in the same element of fire, earth, water or air. There is a calmness that comes with trines, similar to sextiles, and just like with sextiles, it is up to us to tap into them.

When I think of blue, I think of the sky and the games I would play with our children. We would look at the clouds and see what pictures we could find within their shapes. The three of us would sit under our tree for hours seeing what we could see in them.

That is a trine to me. It offers the ability to tap into the same element for a concentrated boost of information. Imagination too, just like I was sparking with our children against the blanket of clouds and the beautiful blue sky. Stopping to see and explore it is the invitation of the trine. We do need to stop to explore it, though, or, like the sextile, it can pass us by.

In the Yellow Zone

So what about a conjunction, then? If oppositions are grey, squares are red, sextiles are green and trines are blue, what are conjunctions? I offer the color yellow for that. Why? I turn to our Sun.

Conjunctions are when two planets come together at the same degree. The most common conjunctions we know of are the monthly New Moons, when the Sun and Moon come together in the same sign and degree. Likewise with our yearly Solar Returns, when the Sun returns to the same place it was at the time of our birth.

It can be a bright, shiny day when they come together, or a challenging one. It really depends on the circumstances of the event and your life at the time. Either way, it is a new beginning. A new start of a cycle, every time there is a conjunction.

I remember in the book Anne of Green Gables Anne says:

“Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it in yet?

That is a conjunction: a new day. New opportunities to learn. New opportunities to evolve, carrying the information learned from the last cycle into the next. Just like each dawning day is fresh and full of new opportunities for us, if we choose to witness them.

Putting it all together

It could be true that if you combine all the colors, grey, red, green, blue and yellow, it could look like a mess. Or…

It could look like holiday lights softly guiding your way to your destination. As a child, I used to get in the car with my family and go see how people decorated their homes with lights for the holidays. We would pause, drink our hot chocolate and marvel at it all.

That, at the heart of it, is our chart: a marvel.

It is up to us to decide we want to tap into it and use the energies present in it. That is my favorite thing to do.

To help parents understand their children’s energy in this way, so they can guide their children in the way that works best for the child, instead of what works best for us.

To help individuals do the same within their own charts. To learn what energies they have access to and be able to navigate them in a way that works with their personal timing.

To take events in a person’s life and help figure out how those activations of color can lead to a potential birth time through chart rectification.

It is up to us to decide to use these energies that the planets, and the lines that connect them, offer us. That is where free will comes in. Just like it is up to the homeowner to leave the lights up year-round or take them down when the holidays pass.

My invitation to you is to look at the colors in your chart and see what you have accessed in the past and how you access them now, so you can use them in the future too. And if you need help with that, it would be my honor.

Happy coloring!

With love and stardust,

Sarah

Hi, I’m Sarah Brynteson — mom, parenting astrologer, Celtic Seer, and the voice behind Written in the Stars. I help individuals understand their own energy through their birth chart, and I have a special love for helping parents understand their children’s energy, too. I’m a graduate of the Debra Silverman School of Astrology, a former middle school teacher, and someone who believes, deeply, that dreams become reality when we choose to make it so. I write musings about topics that feel important to me — and hopefully helpful to you as well!