Show some dignity!

The concept of essential dignity is related to what are signs, what are planets, and the relationship between them.

Signs are qualitative divisions of a very important section of the celestial sphere; they mean qualities.

Planets are bodies, with appearance and independent motions; they mean people, objects, animals, events, beings. 

Now, the Cosmos is hierarchical, and things tend to have “equivalents” in the different levels of reality. For example, we have the signs and the Zodiacal constellations, which have some connection in their significations.

The signs and the planets have this kind of similarity.

Some signs are the translation of some planets’ qualities in their level; or, what is the same thing, some planets are the embodiment of certain sign qualities in their own level. 

This connection means that some signs are more congruent with certain planets’ essential nature than others. This is expressed by the notion of essential dignity.

Every planet has one or two signs in which their nature is maximally similar to the qualities signified by the signs  -- and, therefore, in which this very nature is best expressed.

These signs are called the planets’ houses or domiciles, or their signs (the planets are said to be the rulers of these signs).

The Sun (Leo) and the Moon (Cancer) have one each; Mercury (Gemini and Virgo), Venus (Libra and Taurus), Mars (Aries and Scorpio), Jupiter (Sagittarius and Pisces), and Saturn (Capricorn and Aquarius) each have two of them.

For the five ones with two houses, a sign is called diurnal and the other nocturnal – not because they’re not dignified there all the time, but because one of them seems to be a reflection of its more diurnal, evident, active, qualities, while the other is more related to its nocturnal, inconspicuous, passive qualities.

That is, Libra is the diurnal house of Venus – related to Venereal qualities best seen in people’s communication and interactions, and to diplomacy, to discourse. Taurus is the nocturnal house of Venus – related to qualities of Venus in itself, relaxation, comfort, things more fitting to a fixed sign of earth.

The Sun is always diurnal in its qualities, and the Moon, nocturnal, so they don’t have this distinction.

So, when a planet is in one of its signs, we say it has the dignity of house, domicile, or sign.

The planets also have other relationships, less complete, with other signs.

In what we call their exaltation, they have some affinity, but the qualities involved seem to be an exaggeration.

Each of the planets has one sign as its exaltation (The Moon, Taurus; Mercury, Virgo; Venus, Pisces; the Sun, Aries; Mars, Capricorn; Jupiter, Cancer; Saturn, Libra), and when they are in one of these signs, they have the dignity of exaltation – which is similar to the dignity of house, but a bit less strong and with this “exaggeration” involved.

For example, Venus in Pisces is exalted because the qualities signified by the mutable sign of water can be understood as, for the lack of a better word, muse-like, and the Muse is an exaggeration of Venus.

Or the qualities of Jupiter fit well in Cancer, if we exaggerate his own significations a bit and think of them of Super Jupiter, as the Santa Claus of the planets.

 This is why we say the planets are exalted in these signs. They are according to their nature, although not exactly fit

It’s not hard to understand that, if the signs have this relation with these signs, the ones opposed to them – being qualitatively contrary to them – are places in which the planets are maximally “impaired” in the manifestation of their qualities.

We call this essential debility. The debility opposed to house is detriment or exile; the one contrary to exaltation is fall.

There are other dignities (triplicity, terms or bounds, and faces). Each of them poses a different theoretical issue in their conception, each of them is the source of quite a few disagreement between astrologers, and they would need another texts to explain them.

What we must remember of them is: 1) they’re much weaker than house and exaltation (and terms and faces are much weaker than tripliticy); 2) they do not have opposing debilities attached to them; and 3) terms and faces are restricted to a section of the sign.

There are also some minor points on the subject that would merit explanation (do the nodes have exaltation? Do Arabian parts have dignity/debility? What is the exaltation degree?), but that’s for another day.

In short, essential dignities are so called because their related to the planets’ essence; their nature. This has to do with how they manifest themselves in relation to closeness to their essence, so to speak. Mars is more martial in Aries, Scorpio, then in  Capricorn, then in signs of water, then in its terms and faces, then in signs in which it has no dignity (in which it is peregrine), and then in Cancer, and, at last, in Libra and Taurus, it is the less martial possible.

It has no relation in theory (although in practice it must have) to what we name accidental dignity.

Accidental dignity is related to how this planet, regardless of its conformity with its own essence, is strong or weak in terms of capacity to act. But that’s also a subject for another time.

Hope it was useful. Any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. See you soon!