When people tell you their zodiac sign, it is the placement of your Sun they are referrring to. The Sun sign, while important, is only one twelfth of an individual's astrological make up. There eleven other planets or factors, usually in different signs, that make up the whole individual astrologically.

Besides the Sun, there is the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, the Ascendant, and the Midheaven. Depending on your time and place of birth, all of these factors can fall in any of the twelve signs of the tropical zodiac, so that you may have as many as twelve different signs in your make up, all of them equally important.

Most people average five to seven signs in their chart with some of them more emphasized than others. For example, you can have the Sun in Aries and Mercury Venus and Ascendant in Taurus, so that Taurus will be the stronger influence in your chart. Signs are energies and the planets are the vehicules they express through. Certain signs express better through certain planets depending on rulership.

Ideally, all of your planets should be in their home signs giving you the best of all signs, but this is all but impossible given our current cosmological set up. The Sun, for example, should be in Leo, the Moon in Cancer, Mercury in Gemini, Venus in Taurus, and so on. This will give you the best possible characteristics. Next best is to have all the planets in their own element or even gender, but even this is difficult. Some like to try to get the best chart through dual rulership and the seven traditional planets but I do not advocate this any longer. I firmly believe that every sign has its own unique ruler.

The Sun sign is not even the most obvious factor in a person's astrological make up. Usually, the Ascendant(representing Earth) combined with the Midheaven(representing Heaven)is more obvious, followed closely by the Moon. Lots of planets in one sign can also stand out. Planets in the same sign element or gender as the Ascendant are more highlighted than the others, as well as the signs they are in.

People think that just because the "modern" invisible planets(Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto) are farther away and take so much time to go through the signs that they they do not have any personal meaning. This is false. They have as much significance or influence as the faster moving bodies, only more spread out across larger age groups, thus making them "generational".

It is better to have your planets spread out in as many signs as possible giving you a more rounded-out personality or being. Too many planets in a sign is excessive, and while it can make you a specialist, it will also make you highly unbalanced. There is no one sign better than any other. They are all important and necessary. The same applies to the planets.

So when someone says you are a Taurus or a Virgo, he or she is only pointing to a particular part of you, namely your Sun or ego, but you are far more than this astrologically. The planets show that you are a twelvefold being, with many signs emphasized, which makes us all far more complex and interesting.