Before you enter any interpretations text relating to chart points in aspect to one another, it is important to ensure that you have selected which aspects you wish to write interpretations for. This is necessary for two main reasons:

If you alter the list of aspects that you wish to use after having written some interpretations text for existing aspects, then it is possible that some or all of this text will be permanently lost or mislocated in the file.

The size of the interpretations file varies in proportion to the number of different aspects that you wish to include. To use space efficiently, you should plan ahead to decide which aspects you intend to use, and exclude those that you will not use, and would take up unnecessary space.

You can select any combination of Solar Fire’s standard 26 aspects to use in an interpretations file. However, in most circumstances, you will probably want to write text for a small subset of the available aspects. For example, Solar Fire’s “standard” interpretations set contains text for conjunction, opposition, trine, square, sextile, quincunx, and the “transits” interpretation set also contains text for semisquare and sesquisquare.

 

Mapped Aspect Names

Solar Fire’s interpretations files use a concept of mapped aspect names. You can define a list of mapped aspect names for which you will write interpretations, and specify which of Solar Fire’s standard aspects map onto each of those mapped names. In most cases you will simply want to map each standard aspect to the same mapped name, so that the each interpretation that you are writing applies only to that one aspect.

However, if for example you map each of the conjunction, trine and sextile aspects onto the mapped name “soft” (say), and you then wrote one interpretation for the mapped name "soft" (intending it to apply to all soft aspects), then whenever any of those three aspects occur, because they are all mapped to "soft" they will all use that interpretation you wrote for the mapped name "soft".

Similarly you could map the opposition, square, semisquare and sesquisquare onto the mapped name “hard”, write an interpretation that would apply to any hard aspect regardless of what it was, for the mapped name "hard", and then the the opposition, square, semisquare and sesquisquare aspects would all use that interpretation. In this way you have created high level interpretations for all soft and hard aspects but only had to write two actual pieces of interpretation text.

 

>> To display the “Aspects to Include” dialog box

•Select Aspects to Include from the Edit menu

On the left of the screen you will see a list of Solar Fire’s 26 standard aspects, called “Available Aspects”, some of which will be marked as “Used”. On the right of the screen you will see a list of “Mapped Aspect Names”.

 

>> To determine which aspect is mapped to which name

•Click on each entry in the “Available Aspects” list - when you do so, the mapped entry in the “Mapped Aspect Name” will be highlighted automatically.

 

>> To add a new mapped aspect name

1.Optionally select the required aspect name from the list of “Available Aspects”.

2.Click on the Add button - This will add the name of the currently highlighted “Available Aspect” to the list of “Mapped Aspect Names”.

3.Optionally edit the new mapped name by typing into the edit box above the Add button.

 

>> To delete an existing mapped aspect name

1.Select the required mapped aspect name in the list of “Mapped Aspect names”

2.Click on the Delete button - This will remove the entry from the list, and will alter the current entry in the “Available Aspects” list to show it as unmapped.

Note: After deleting mapped aspect names, you will need to check and reselect all the other mapping relationships to ensure that they are still correct.

 

>> To set or alter the mapped name of available aspect

1.Select the required aspect from the list of “Available Aspects”.

2.Select the required mapped name from the list of “Mapped Aspect Names”.

Note: Selecting the “Not Used” item from the top of the list will unmap that aspect, so that it can no longer be used.

 

>> To save all your changes

1.Firstly, re-check that each aspect is correctly mapped.

2.Select the OK button. If you have made any major changes which are likely to result in interpretations text being lost, then you will be prompted to confirm your changes before you are returned tot he main editing screen.

 

Dynamic Aspects

When you are creating a set of interpretations applying to a single natal chart, or to synastry between two charts, then you normally want the interpretations for point1 in aspect to point2 to be the same as for point2 in aspect to point1, e.g. Pluto square Moon and Moon square Pluto would have the same interpretation.

However, if you are creating a set of interpretations for transits, progressions or directions to a radix chart, then you would want to supply different interpretations in each case e.g. Pluto square Moon and Moon square Pluto would have different interpretations. This case is referred to as Dynamic Aspects.

You can set the interpretation file to work in either way, with the Dynamic Aspects on or off. When the Dynamic Aspects option is off, Pluto Square Moon and Moon Square Pluto will both display the same text in the editor, so editing one of them will also affect the other. When the Dynamic Aspect option is on, they will display separate paragraphs of text, and editing one will have no effect on the other.

 

>> To switch Dynamic Aspects On or Off

•Select Dynamic Aspects from the Edit menu. This will switch he option on if it was off, or off if it was on.

Note: When the Dynamic Aspects option is on, there are more than twice as many items to write interpretations text for.