Reddit reviews Horoscope Symbols

I think it's common to get caught up in the archetypes with astrology, such as Mercury the Messenger, Virgo the Virgin etc. It's not wrong to view astrology as an archetypal system, but as I think you can see, you run into some dead ends. I suggest taking a step back from the archetype of Mercury the Messenger and take a look at Mercury's nature as a planet. It's fast, it's very changeable due to it's routine retrogrades, it's androgynous rather than masculine or feminine, and takes on different nature according to phase and zodiacal location.

Moving on to the rulership thing, a favorite analogy of mine comes from Austin Coppock, who said Mercury as ruler of Gemini is the journalist, and Mercury as ruler of Virgo is the scholar. Both Gemini and Virgo have the Mercury thing going on where they want to pick things apart and look at every detail, but Gemini wants to think/talk about it and Virgo wants to see, touch, confirm, and do it. Both Gemini and Virgo have this "figure it out" quality, but Gemini is more mind oriented and Virgo is more concrete and grounded. Both are ruled by Mercury who is going to take it all apart and put it back together again, it's just that Gemini is going to do it all mentally then talk about it and Virgo is going to literally take the thing apart and line up all the parts and write down what each one does. (I should mention that when I talk about Gemini and Virgo, I'm just using analogies to illustrate the energy I'm talking about, I'm not talking about sun signs)

Rob Hand's Horoscope Symbols is a great book for digging into these kinds of things for each planet.

Awwww u/ryhanb we have the same first book haha

First Book Astrology for Dummies

Best Book TIE between Demetra George's Astrology & the Authentic Self or Rob Hand's Horoscope Symbols

Current Book - errrrr I'm shifting towards reading a LOT more about Myth and symbol than Astrology itself. I tend to revisit and re-read some of my current Astrology books. Just finished Moon, Myth & Image for research on the lunar cycle course I'm teaching.

As far as websites, I'm not sure why you're averse to astro.com. Check out their intro.

I don't know too much astrology, but my greatest resources come from Robert Hand books (I know, not a website):

Planets in Transit - covers relationships between transiting planets
Horoscope Symbols - In depth analysis of the meaning behind planet symbols. I don't know what /r/astrology thinks of this one but it helped me develop an intuition for understanding chart symbols.
Planets in Aspect - Explains relationships between planets; sextile, square, opposition, etc...
Planets in Houses - Relationship between houses and what it means when a planet is in one.

I'd say I've only really read through the Horoscope Symbols one and use the others as references while examining charts. Unfortunately I haven't found a parallel resource online.

Best of luck!

Totally.

I didn't mean to imply that cookbook astrology isn't necessarily "real astrology". There are many people who find some value in it and it makes a great starting point for a more indepth exploration of astrology in general. There just eventually comes a point in every astrologer's life where they realize that bite-sized info bits about each facet of a placement no longer cut it and there are many astrologers (like myself) who approach astrology from a non-psychological vantage point to where it may as well be useless. There's also kind of an unfortunate history around the concept.

Some resources:
SkyScript

Horoscope Symbols

Traditional Astrology for Today

Hellenistic Astrology

Medieval Astrology Guide

Seven Star Astrology

Horoscope Symbols by Robert Hand is a classic. I highly recommend it!