When I analyze people’s horoscope charts, they often ask, “What does it say about money?” Usually there’s either a gleam of excitement or a flash of doubt in their eyes. This tells me more than any single element of the chart might. For while there are some typical chart elements that might quickly give a clue about money, they really only scratch the surface. You have to look quite deep into the chart’s complexities to understand a person’s relationship with money.

That’s because money — like the other most common query, love — penetrates so deeply into our consciousness and is, in turn, so deeply impacted by our internal life, that the question is much more complicated than it sounds.

For example, are you someone who “spends money to make money” or do you believe, rather, that “a penny saved is a penny earned”? Are you someone who needs material things to feel secure, or does security for you come from a different place? Does a lack of self-discipline let money slip from your fingers? Does a heavy concern with saving mean you’re pinching pennies but wasting dollars? Do you spend money because you think you have to — on expensive gifts, fine clothing, picking up the check, playing the big guy?

Delving deeper, are you someone who is willing to use your talents to create wealth — material or otherwise? Have you been led to believe you don’t have talents that can generate money for you? Or have you been made to feel ashamed or afraid of your talents and so find yourself in a profession that doesn’t quite fit? The latter case is where “rising to the level of your own incompetence” tends to occur — and doing so depletes your energy and limits your financial potential. How worth it do you really feel? Be honest.

Going even deeper, is your general stance on life one of prosperity or one of loss? Do you tend to think the world will provide for your needs? Or do you fear not having enough to get by? Do you hoard things — not just dollars and cents but friendships, food, knick-knacks? Are you so protective of self or others that you’re afraid to let go, to see what comes in naturally to support you, to protect you? Or do you trust abundantly?

Indications about each of these things live in the chart, but they can’t all be summed up by what’s in your 2nd house or where Jupiter sits (the typical places astrologers look for money). Martha Sinetar says that hang-ups tend to come in constellations: For example, if you feel unworthy of career success, tones and shades of that feeling will probably show up in other areas, too.

So too with money in the horoscope chart. Money is a tool, an external entity with which we have a relationship. It can bring us value, pain, hurt, ecstasy, embarrassment, security and more. Our feelings about money, our relationship with it, where we get it, what we do with it, how quickly or slowly it comes and goes — that’s infused throughout your personality.

Which means it’s written all over your chart.

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