← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 116/235
Translation of light
Translation of light happens when a faster planet separates from an aspect with one planet and then applies to an aspect with another, so carrying — "translating" — the light of the first to the second. The two outer planets in the arrangement need not be in aspect with each other at all; the messenger joins them.
Sepharial's image is a negotiation: two parties who cannot meet directly, and a third who leaves the first with terms and takes them to the second. deVore describes the same thing as a conveyance of influence: some of the nature of the first planet is "imparted" to the second by the one passing between them.
How it is worked out
Three planets are needed, and the order of their speeds matters:
- Two significators — in horary, usually the ruler of the Ascendant (the person asking) and the ruler of the house of the matter (the job, the partner, the lost thing).
- A translator that is faster than both. The Moon is by far the most common translator, since she outruns every planet, but Mercury or Venus can translate between slower planets, and so on down the line.
- The translator must have just separated from an aspect to one significator and be applying to an aspect with the other, with nothing intervening.
For example: Saturn at 10° Capricorn rules the querent, Jupiter at 14° Virgo rules the matter. They are in trine, but Jupiter, the faster of the two, is already four degrees past exact and pulling away; on their own they will not perfect. The Moon at 11° Taurus has just passed her trine to Saturn and will trine Jupiter at 14° in a few hours. She translates their light, and the matter can still come about — through someone, or something, the Moon describes.
How it is read
Translation shows that a matter may be brought about by a third party: an introduction, an agent, a friend who carries a message, a chance event that links two people. Lilly tells the astrologer to look at what the translating planet rules and to describe that person from it: if it is the lord of the second house, money helps the matter along; of the third, a sibling or neighbour; of the seventh, a partner or an open opponent. Its condition matters too — a well-placed, dignified translator is a capable go-between, a debilitated one a reluctant or unreliable one.
Translation can also run the other way: a planet that carries the light of a malefic to a significator may bring trouble by the same route.
Translation and collection
Translation's counterpart is collection of light. In translation a faster planet runs between two slower ones; in collection two faster planets both apply to a slower, heavier one that gathers their light. The first is a messenger; the second, a broker or arbiter. Both are among Lilly's ways a horary question can perfect when the significators do not meet directly.
Outside horary
Some modern astrologers apply the idea to birth charts and to transits: a planet that links two otherwise unconnected planets by aspect can be read as a bridge between those parts of the person's life. It is an extension of the technique rather than its original home, and readings vary in how much weight they give it.
In a reading here
Horary readings here check, when the two significators do not perfect an aspect directly, whether a faster planet translates the light between them or a slower one collects it, and weigh the answer among the chart's testimonies.