Venus and Mars are too often overlooked as not being major personal placements. For both men and women,  Venus and Mars are major aspects of one's personality. In terms of the personal placements (Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Midheaven, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto [Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto are both personal and meta-personal]), Venus and Mars most resemble the Ascendant. Venus, Mars, and the Ascendant do represent an automatic (unconscious) aspect of oneself, but most importantly they represent an intentional (conscious) aspect of self-projection and personal values and desires (remember that the Ascendant is associated with letter one, and therefore Mars). In fact, Venus is often said to  represent 'values', while Mars is often said to represent 'desire(s)'; Venus, Mars, and the Ascendant all represent values and desires. Venus and Mars represent a conscious attraction to ways of being, other people, departments of life, and 'things' of life. For example, Venus and Mars in Aries and the first house would represent a valuing and desiring of (1) being independent and self-motivated, (2) confident and tactless people, (3) self-discovery and the fulfillment of personal desires, and (4) working for oneself and physical activity.

In The Inner Planets, Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas write of the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars) as being "the foundations of what psychology calls the ego, the sense of personal self" (back cover). If i were to look at placements other than the Sun and Moon that represent the ego, I would say that together, the Ascendant, Venus, and Mars indicate the conscious ego (with Mercury being an important, but minor aspect of the personal ego). Understanding one's Ascendant, Venus, and Mars (as well as, of course, the Sun and Moon) is the key to understanding someone's conscious values and desires. The difference between the Ascendant, Venus, and Mars group versus the Sun and Moon, is that, while all five represent personal values and desires, the Sun and Moon are significantly deeper and therefore more deeply authentic than the previous three placements. With the Sun, the emphasis is on its being strongly conscious and unconscious; with the Moon the emphasis is on its being strongly unconscious, and thus it also comes to represent conscious desire; and with the Ascendant, Venus, and Mars the emphasis is on their being primarily conscious, although they are also automatic or unconscious.

Contrasting the Ascendant, Venus, and Mars with the Midheaven illustrates the conscious and also unconscious nature of the first three. Remember that the Midheaven represents a conscious aspect of oneself, but not really an unconscious, or deeply inherent, aspect of oneself. The qualities of one's Midheaven do not flow out of one's being with any real authenticity (initially), but one continually projects these qualities to others anyway and then comes to possess them more truly. With the Ascendant, Venus, and Mars, one has a good degree of authentic resonance with their qualities (from day one), and one does project them out of some inner depth; at the same time, one also very consciously values and desires the qualities of one's Ascendant, Venus, and Mars--and it is the intentional appreciation and attraction that is the most important attribute of one's Rising, Venus, and Mars signs.

Here is an optional approach: The Ascended Master Hilarion explains that Venus and Mercury are what he calls "overlays," which means that they are chosen by the soul to add qualities to the new incarnation which would not otherwise be present to such an extent. In other words, the soul may or may not have such qualities already, but the placements of Venus and Mercury represent qualities that the soul intentionally chooses to add to it's new vehicle of self-expression and self-discovery (to him, the Ascendant and Midheaven function in this same way, but he does not explicitly call them "overlays"). One's Venus and Mercury placements, then represent an interesting way of looking into the soul's intentional purpose for its new life. One can ask oneself, "What would the soul be seeking out of the choice of this Venus or Mercury placement?" Is it seeking to balance or exaggerate certain qualities? Is it making things easier or setting up a challenge? Hilarion says that any aspect between Mercury or Venus and the Sun that is within three degrees indicates that the Mercury and Venus qualities are already a part of the soul or higher self, and that they are being intensified even further through their overlay effect in this lifetime.

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