Out of Bounds Planets

Out of Bounds Planets

Introduction

One less-well-known fact in astrology is that sometimes planets go beyond their normal limits. People with these in their charts can behave in an exceptional manner, occasionally showing surprising and even extreme qualities and behaviour; later we will look at what to expect if you have such a planet. In the general sense, when a planet is Out of Bounds you may look for feelings, thoughts, events and situations in your life to become noticeably out of the ordinary according to society’s ideas of normality.

OOB Planets Qualities

Conversation by Telepathy

Mars goes out of bounds on 20 April 2019, at Gemini 14, whose Sabian Symbol is ‘A Conversation by Telepathy’. It stays out until 11 June 2019, with its most extreme reach around 19th May when it has just entered Cancer. The first degree of Cancer has as its Sabian Symbol, ‘Furled and unfurled flag’, which has a lot to say about allegiances and loyalties. 

Commitment

So in mid-May we can look out for feelings of doubt about where we belong, highlighting whether or not we can make a commitment – and with Mars OOB we may expect a rather passionate, even aggressive resolution to the question!

Technicalities

In your horoscope, technically speaking, a planet’s position is given in the form of degrees and minutes of a zodiac signs. My Sun for example is at Taurus 15:38. These numbers, which can be between 0 and 30, are measuring the degrees of longitude. Another dimension of the planet’s position (up or down rather than side to side) is its declination, which is the measure of its angular distance above or below, (North or South), of the ‘Celestial Equator’. More technical explanations are on this site.

Definition: Out of Bounds

Planets are almost always found within the range between 23:27 North and 23:27 South because they circle the Earth in a band around the equator rather than being dotted about randomly. However sometime they exceed this angular distance (which is the same as the Earth’s tilt on its axis) and when they do they are said to be ‘Out Of Bounds’. For example if your Moon’s declination is ‘24:00 North’ then it is OOB.

Which Planets Go Out?

Mars and the Moon are often OOB, and Jupiter is seldom out. The Nodes and four planets never go out – Sun, Saturn, Neptune and recently discovered Chiron, which is already very ‘out there’ in its meaning and behaviour! As an example of a person with OOB Moon we can see how the celebrated Japanese artist Ruby Fumizki’s paintings are very subtle and hint at, rather than fully express, their intended meaning.

People are divided roughly equally between those with none and those with one or more. Of 100 people you would expect only 1 to have 4 planets, 3 people would have 3 planets and 20 people would have 2.

Multiple Planets

A person with three planets will very likely be seen as a real odd ball and could be innovative and creative – or rebellious and unsettling. A person with four is so rare that analysis is impracticable, but we can be sure that such a person would be seen as very weird and probably would live on the margins of society doing very unusual and creative things for which they go unrecognised.

Off Limits

The phrase itself is very descriptive. As children we would be told where we were allowed to go and which areas were off limits, and sometimes we would even see a sign saying ‘out of bounds’. A child who wandered out was a naughty child and risked penalty, especially if they did it repeatedly.

Not Good Nor Bad

Similarly with the behaviour of a person with any OOB planets – they behave to some extent in a way that society considers antisocial, disruptive or eccentric, and this can be just mildly so or extremely so, even to the level of criminality, depending on distortions of basic personality. However there is no evidence that OOB planets are essentially bad; good guys and bad guys have the same percentages, as do famous people and the rest of us. Yet whether helpful or harmful they tend to be radically different in some way, depending upon the qualities of the planet itself and also the extent of its OOB-ness.

Finding Your Planets

You can find out about some of your planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter by visiting Café Astrology, otherwise you would need some skill at reading an astrology table (it requires an ephemeris for declinations).

Qualities and Celebrities

I am including here are a few of the descriptive qualities of OOB planets, and if you want to read more about them you can check out a fuller list of characteristics on my website Sabian Mysteries.
Some celebrities with OOB planets clearly display certain of these qualities and I have recorded an example of that after the description:

Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars

Moon: great need for freedom, good emotional intelligence, strong intuition, sensitivity and understanding, having different moral values to established society. (Oprah Winfrey)
Mercury: innovative thinking, very commercially minded, ability at writing, eloquence, charismatic style of speech, can reach the audience. (Donald Trump)
Venus: grace, special charm, extraordinary appreciation of beauty, artistic talent, unusually romantic nature, ability to entertain. (Frank Sinatra)
Mars: masculine energy, leadership qualities, brimming with self-confidence and vitality, drive, courage, will to succeed. (Rupert Murdoch)

Pluto and Uranus

When Pluto and Uranus go out they are effective in shaping history because they influence a whole generation. We cannot really say what Pluto means on a personal level because it is poorly researched and anyway already well beyond our day-to-day understanding; however it will have something to do with an extreme, and possibly dangerous, inclination to push boundaries around questions of taboo like sex, death and personal transformation.

Uranus OOB Generation

To some extent this is also true for Uranus but an interesting quirk is easily identified in history. The ‘Uranus Out of Bounds’ generation, which was born within a few years around 1948, had a very powerful impact upon society when, in the late 1980s, their Uranus oppositions were also OOB. OOB Uranus is extremely eccentric, obsessed with the spirit of discovery, revolution, experimentation, and with unrestrained imagination and creativity, demanding freedom of thought and action, and displaying very rebellious behaviour.

This period was typified by social discontent and refusal to accept unreasonable constraints; it gave huge emphasis to the Alternative Culture that has had a major impact on current thinking about gender issues, climate change, racial acceptance and holistic healing methods for example. Richard Branson (Uranus), and Leonardo da Vinci (Pluto) show how they may act on the individual level.

Qualities of Out of Bounds Planets