As you can see, there are labels on the rows and columns of the diagrams that should by now be familiar. You might call these periodic tables of the planetary energies, or three octaves of three notes apiece.
The planets in the first row are personal. This is a little more physically graphic with the planets than with the signs. Just as the heart chakra is the center of a person's being and life force, so the Sun is the center of the solar system. The Sun is a person's core identity, his or her ego in the sense of a centripetal force that keeps him or her directed and connected. Astrology works not through rays that extend from the Sun, Moon, and planets, but through the mirroring of the solar system within people: microcosm mirroring macrocosm. The mirror of the Sun in people is the central, harmonizing heart chakra in a static, akashic sense and the central flow of his or her life's path in a dynamic, pranic sense. If a person says "I" and points to himself, he is pointing to his heart chakra. When someone asks "How's your life been?" they are asking about this central current of the Sun.
The planets nearest the Sun are close to the creative outpouring from one's central being, just as physically they are nearest the radiance of the Sun. Also, the closer a planet is to the Sun the shorter is its year, and the faster it moves. This means that the inner planets have a high-pitched, personal vibration. They are intimately connected with personal expression and changes in life-direction. They are like filters for the radiance of the Sun, and they bubble along the surface of the life flow.
The outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, are more attuned to the infinity of space. Their vibrations correspond to the deep, low-pitched bass notes of an organ that permeate and form a foundation for a musical composition. They are closer to the no-thing of mysticism than to the day-to-day life of the inner planets. They spend hundreds of years in one circle of the Sun; they rule broad social change and broad social ego. However, as with the signs, the state of consciousness of one of these transcendental outer planets does not a spiritual state make, although these planets are sometimes closer to spiritual states than are the inner planets. The outer planets are attuned to the universal akasha of outer space, while the inner planets are more attuned to the pranic energy pouring from the Sun.
The intermediate planets in the middle rows act in a way similar to that of the signs of the zodiac's middle sector. These planets are involved with material manifestation and interaction between people and entities. Their vibrational pitch is halfway between the high-pitched piccolo of the inner planets and the deep bass of the outer. Their periods of revolution are also intermediate. Where the inner planets have periods of revolution on the order of months, the middle planets take two to twenty-nine years to complete a cycle. Within each row the planets are divided into three columns that also reflect a trinity. This trinity has been labeled Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, but this is only a rough approximation. One may think of the planetary rulers as a trinity of trinities.
A trinity that is useful for understanding the rows and columns is that of coming from a central core to the surface, spreading along the surface, then being withdrawn from the surface back to the central core. This trinity happens within our bodies through the arteries, capillaries, and veins which handles our bloodstream. The arteries split the bloodstream into finer and finer paths on the way to the surface, the capillaries exchange energy at the surface, and the veins integrate the bloodstream into larger and larger vessels on the way back to the heart. Seen in spiritual terms, this is spirit coming up to the surface of life (manifestation) and becoming individualized (Brahma), operating on the surface of life as individuals (Vishnu), then withdrawing back to unity within (Shiva). This same trinity happens in the sectors of the signs.
Each column is identified with one of the three qualities, Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable. However, the columns are different for the two different currents.
