Hi, everyone.  My cousin Ruth, who has become an avid reader of this blog, wrote to me that she’s not in business but is getting involved with owning and operating a farm.  This shows me it’s time to define the word business, in the context of Astro4Business Intersections.

The first definition in The American Heritage Dictionary defines business as the occupation, work, or trade in which a person is engaged.  This is pretty broad.  It says nothing about profitability, number of employees, management style, knowledge, or experience.  In this definition a house-spouse is in business, a parent is in business, an artist is in business, a freelancer is in business.

When it lists synonyms: business, industry, commerce, trade, traffic, it says that business pertains broadly to all gainful activity, though it usually excludes the professions and farming.  Looking further, we find that gainful means earning a profit; profitable; lucrative.

Wikipedia brings in a legal aspect when it defines business as a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers and Business Dictionary.com adds the financial motive when it adds that every business requires some form of investment and a sufficient number of customers to whom its output can be sold at profit on a consistent basis. 

So we’ve gone from any occupation, to a gainful occupation, to a gainful occupation that is legally recognized, plus investment and customers.

I’ve often wondered about the relationship of business to busy-ness.  Both words are derived from the same root, the Old English “bysig” meaning busy.  The Dictionary definition of busy is actively engaged in some form of work; occupied.  Its synonyms are busy, industrious, diligent, assiduous, and sedulous. (sedulous?)  It says busy primarily applies to one engaged in present activity, without definite implication of kind, continuity, or duration of activity.  It doesn’t seem to imply a profit-motive and a sense of useful productivity.

In astrology, business is primarily connected with two areas of a chart.  One of the sectors relates to day to day activities, busy-ness you could say, and generally applies to daily work, what you do every day, where you show up for work, what repetitive actions to you tend to perform.  The other sector is about the most public roles of a person, your worldly successes and failures, your status and aspirations, and your relationships with bosses and other people in authority.

All of the planets, which represent primal energies within us and all of life, have a part to play in business.  All of our skills and talents come to bear. We’ve outlined the various definitions of the planets when it comes to their business application, such as the Moon describing employees, and when someone is self-employed, a business of one, all of the planets operate within the one person.  The owner plays all of the roles:  leader (Sun), employee (Moon), bookkeeper (Mercury), marketing department (Venus), operations (Mars), wise advisor (Jupiter), and controller (Saturn).

So let’s say this as a starting point:  In Astro4Business Intersections a business is defined as the occupation, work, or trade in which a person is engaged.  It includes an interchange of goods and services for goods, services, or money.  It includes all types of occupations, from manufacturing to professions to farming.  It primarily addesses business owners, whether the business consists of one person or hundreds, although employed people can gain vocational insight from the site.  And our definition includes an intention for success, whether that success is defined financially or by other metrics.

Anything you would like to add to the definition?