Up to now every planet has been read on its own. In a real person nothing works alone: your drive gets in the way of your caution, your taste pulls against your need for novelty. Aspects are how a chart shows those conversations.
The zodiac is a circle of 360 degrees. Take any two planets and measure the gap between them. When that gap is close to certain numbers, astrologers say the planets are in aspect, meaning they affect each other.
There are lots of aspects in the books. You only need five:
You'll get a very long way with these five. The others are fine print, and you can pick them up years from now if you want to.
Here's where lesson 2 comes back. Signs that sit a trine apart share an element: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn are all earth. So a trine joins two planets that speak the same language, and things flow between them with little effort. Sometimes too little, since easy things don't always get used.
A sextile links elements that get along, like water and earth or fire and air. It's friendly, an opening you have to walk through. A square links signs of the same mode but clashing elements, like Taurus (fixed earth) and Aquarius (fixed air). Both are stubborn, and they want different things. That's friction, and friction is also what gets people moving.
An opposition is a seesaw. The two planets pull at each end, and the work is finding a balance point instead of swinging between them. A conjunction fuses two planets into one mixed voice. Whether that feels good depends on which two are stuck together.
Planets rarely sit at exactly 90 or 120 degrees apart. The orb is how far off the exact angle they are. Maya's Venus and Jupiter are 4.5 degrees off a perfect trine, so we say the trine has an orb of 4.5.
Different astrologers allow different orbs, often up to 6 or 8 degrees for the big aspects and a bit less for the sextile. The rule that matters more: the tighter the orb, the louder the aspect. Under about 3 degrees, you'll feel it in the reading. At 6 degrees, it's more of a background hum.
A quick way to spot aspects without doing the math: count signs first. Venus in Taurus and Uranus in Aquarius are three signs apart, so they might be square. Then check the degrees. Venus is at 9.3 and Uranus at 3.4, a gap of about 6. A square, but a loose one.
Three of Maya's planets sit together in Pisces in house 11. Her Sun is at 24.3, Mars at 22.1 and Saturn at 27.1. Sun and Mars are 2.1 degrees apart, Sun and Saturn 2.8, Mars and Saturn 4.9. That's a tight conjunction of three.
Read it one pair at a time. Sun with Mars: her sense of self and her drive are fused, so when she wants something, she wants it with her whole identity. Sun with Saturn: her sense of self comes bundled with duty and self-judgment. Put those two together and you get a person who pushes hard and then asks whether she's earned it.
Now remember the sign and house from lessons 3 and 4. All of this happens in soft, mutable Pisces, among friends and groups. So the push may go into other people's causes more than her own, and the self-judgment may show up as "I should be doing more for them." As one sentence: Maya works hard and quietly for the people around her, and she rarely lets herself feel it was enough.
Saturn sextile Neptune, orb 0.1. Almost exact. Saturn is structure, Neptune is the dream. A sextile lets them cooperate, so there's a real talent here for giving shape to ideals. One caution, though. Both planets move slowly, so everyone born within a few weeks of Maya shares this aspect. It counts for more in her because Saturn is also stuck to her Sun.
Venus trine Jupiter, orb 4.5. Venus (her chart ruler, from lesson 5) in Taurus, Jupiter in Capricorn. Earth to earth, easy flow. Jupiter enlarges whatever it touches, so her taste and warmth come with generosity and good luck in what she chooses to love. The easy side of a trine applies: she may take this for granted.
Venus square Uranus, orb 6.0. Venus in steady Taurus wants comfort and the familiar. Uranus in Aquarius wants surprise and freedom. With a square, they don't blend. She may love her routines and then, now and then, blow one up for no reason she can name. At 6 degrees this is quieter than the others, but it's worth a line.
Maya has no oppositions among these. That's fine. Not every chart uses all five.
You already know the planet sentence from lesson 3. An aspect sentence just joins two of them with a verb that fits the angle.
Venus square Uranus comes out like this: Her steady taste pushes against a need for sudden change, so she might keep the same haircut for years and then cut it all off one afternoon. That's a usable sentence. It's concrete, and it leaves room for her to recognize herself in it or not.
Find your tightest aspect: the one with the smallest orb that includes the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus or Mars. Write it as a sentence using the four steps above. Then ask yourself honestly whether you recognize it.