Introduction to the natal chart
tags: chart, introduction
The astrological birth chart is a map of the sky, as seen from the earth, at the moment of birth. An astrologer can read that map as a kind “energy map” showing the energies of that all-important moment in time— the moment of your birth.
How do you read the map?
An astrological chart is like a clock.
The “numbers” on the clock would be the signs of the Zodiac. The planets are the hands of the clock that tell you what time it was when you were born. Was it Ram time (Aries)? Crab time (Cancer)? Balance time (Libra)? Or some other time?
If astrology is like learning a language, the planets are the verbs, and the signs are adverbs. Venus shows how you love. Venus in Cancer “loves” “nurturingly.” The signs are like the numbers on the clock. They are like a stained glass window that the light of the planets filters through.
Each of these clock hands, the planets, moves at a different rate. The Moon takes only 2.5 days to get through one sign, one hour of the clock.
Some go fast— for example, the Moon moves through one sign in 2.5 days and circles the chart every 27 days. Others move much more slowly— for example, Pluto can take up to 2 decades to get through one sign, and takes 250 years to circle all 12 signs.
If shown on the chart, the Earth would be in the middle.
Here’s the part that can be tough to grasp: You are living on a planet that rotates on its axis 360 degrees each day. Each day you can watch the Sun cross the sky. Likewise, in the chart, the planets rise and set, the sky appears to be moving around us. In our clock example, the “second hand” would be the face of the clock itself!
This is kind of hard to get at first. Astrology is geocentric— that means earth (us) in the middle. And from our perspective, the entire sky, the entire Zodiac, the Sun, Moon, and all the planets move across the sky, day after day.
To get a sense of this, run 12 charts for the same day. Start at midnight, then 2 a.m., then 4 a.m., then 6 a.m., and so on until you get to 10 p.m. (or you can just download this pdf file-- and don’t say I never gave you anything.)
Flip the pages on your charts, and you’ll see how the Sun and planets move across the sky, but they do not change signs. Watch the sign on the ascendant and other house cusps shift roughly one sign every two hours.
You’ll see the Moon moving roughly one degree (the bold number) every two hours. The Sun, Venus and Mercury move roughly one degree per day, and other planets move more slowly.
See? If we’re the frame of reference, the sky is moving around us. And this is how the “chart of the moment” changes over time.
Using our clock example:
Now it is not only important that the big hand is pointing to 3 (Libra: preoccupation with fairness)— is it pointing up toward 3 (10th house- preoccupation with fairness in working life) or down toward 3 (4th house- preoccupation with fairness in the personal life)? Or some other house? That too is significant.
This is why it’s ideal to have an accurate birth time— the rising sign, or zodiac sign coming over the eastern horizon, changes every two hours. Throughout the day, planets move through the various houses.
What if I don’t know my birth time?
There is still much good information to be found without the time of birth, so don’t despair if you don’t know it. You can see from the example charts that even though the planets move through all the houses in 24 hours, they move through the signs much more slowly. The Sun moves at the rate of one degree per day, so even without a birth time, it is still possible to pinpoint the location in the Zodiac of the Sun and the planets with accuracy. The Moon is trickier, since she moves at the rate of 12 degrees per day.
Ready to see your chart? Here’s another tutorial explaining how to get your chart online.
Comments:
- Introduction to the planets
- The Sun: ego
- The Moon: feelings
- Mercury: the messenger
- Venus: the love goddess
- Mars: the warrior
- Jupiter: growth
- Saturn: limits
- Uranus: the enlightener
- Neptune: compassion
- Pluto: power
- Who's Your Valentine? A look at Venus
- Planetary Rulership in Astrology
- Retrograde planets and Karma
- Which planet rules your world?
- Chiron: the wounded healer
- Retrograde planets
- Solar and Lunar Eclipses
- Mercury Retrograde
- The New Moon
- Comments from Venus Retrograde 2005-2006
- Saturn in Leo (July 2005-September 2007)
- Rules for choosing surgery dates
- Mars Retrograde (November 2007 - January 2008)
- Venus Retrograde (July 27 - September 8, 2007)
- Jupiter square Saturn and the local Fuzz
- Choosing a wedding date
- A few notes on Jupiter in Sagittarius
- Saturn in Virgo - September 2007 to October 2009
- Moon Void of Course (v/c)
If I’m reading my chart right, I’m a Pisces with Moon in Aries (?-The Moon symbol was in Aries at 18 degrees) with Scorpio (Libra?) Rising. What does this mean? I’m not sure how to locate my Rising Sign, but I thought it was the sign at 9 on a chart. Right or no? Please get back to me when you can, thank you :)
i just want to know my ascendente
I wuld like to know what my other signs are.My birthday is 17/4/1981 born in Cape Town South Afirca 11pm.
Ghaya,
I have another tutorial with instructions telling you how to calculate your chart online. Once you have a chart, you can read it to find out what other signs are prominent.
Molly, Your explanations make everything much easier to understand. Thank you for putting things in laymans(womans) terms. The sites you have referred visitors to in your site are extremely well done and i’m sure accurate. They are also easy to understand and I have learned alot so far. (Have a long way to go)
Peace & Love, Donna
Thanks Donna. xox
I didn’t know where to post this question, so I figured at the beginning! I’ve gone to an Astrologer my whole life (not like religiously or anything, but every 1-8 years, when something’s changing). I’ve always believed in it completely. Now I’m studying it, hoping to make it a career someday, and I’m losing faith! I know it’s probably just because I don’t know what I’m doing, but it seems like everything I learn doesn’t seem right, it doesn’t fit. It’s like, I’m a double Aries, and not Aries like at all (I know there’s been some discussion about that under “Aries”, and I’ve heard a new theory of an Aries Ewe vs Aries Ram). Or when something does actually make sense in my chart, I’ll find someone else with that same thing and they’ll say no, doesn’t sound right at all. Am I doing something wrong? Or is it just a matter of learning more? It seems like a person’s age should have a huge factor in chart interpretation (even outside of a progression). After studying it for so long (I’m asking you because I really love your site and you seem very knowledgeable), do you still 100% believe in Astrology? I mean as more of a Science, instead of more of an interpretive psychology or psychic thing? I was just reading where Arroyo said it seemed like 95% of what he read in most American books didn’t seem to fit either. It seems impossible to me at this point with all of the planets signs, houses, aspects, house systems, what takes precedence of what, plus that each of those things is more of an energy that could be applied so many different ways anyway. Does it really end up coming together in a LOGICAL way? That actually WORKS? Or, despite the Astrologer I’ve always gone to claims, is she really just psychic or something? Thanks for your answer in advance!
Hrmm…
Maybe this is just my opinion but I think that you’re thinking too hard about it. Hehe. I think that the sheer volume of information about astrology can be overwhelming and you have to take it one thing at a time, absorb it, move onto the next thing—let the information gradually seep in. Like any topic it takes time to really learn it and applied knowledge helps, too. At least in my experience with astrology…
Also (and this is more of a feeling I pick up from your post) I get the feeling that your issue lies more in trusting yourself and self-doubt than it does anything else. You mentioned that you always really agreed with astrology and went to astrologers over the years—but when you try to seek out knowledge on your own, you lose faith in yourself and in the information itself. You start to question everything.
Actually that sounds a lot like what I do to myself! I constantly question myself (and by extension everything I am interested in) to the point where I convince myself that I really don’t know crap and I don’t believe in anything anyway. It’s ok to have these moments of doubt, but it’s helpful to remember that they are not the whole picture. You didn’t go into too much detail about how long you’ve actively been studying astrology or how much you know.
My advice would be to try to keep moving through this phase and see what happens. If your doubts increase even as your knowledge and experience increases—then so be it. If you start to assimilate the knowledge and it makes sense to you, then great. Either way you’ll be less confused than you are now, more than likely. I have to say that I went through a similar phase (when I knew very very little about astrology) where nothing sounded right to me, but now everything makes absolutely perfect sense to me..and I mean it really clicks. Not just ‘well I guess that’s ok’. I feel like my grasp of things has increased 50 fold. It’s kind of like trying to cook when you don’t know what eggs are or how to whisk or even how to boil water. Astrology is like that, I think. It seems confusing and bogus and overwhelming until you get to a certain level of knowledge and then I feel like it is a great interactive tool.
Well, good luck to you and in answer to the final part of your question—there is always the possibility that your astrologer is very intuitive AND a good astrologer. We all possess the skills to learn and grow and use our intuition. But there is nothing that you can’t do. You may be a completely different kind of astrologer than she is, but you will be good on your own merits. Astrologers are all different. Just like musicians are different, artists are different, etc.
Excuse me for responding. I guess I needed something to respond to!
:D
Crystal,
Of course I believe in astrology. What kind of question is that?
A lot of interpretations are caricatures. Aries often gets typecast as a ride ‘em cowboy kind of character, for example. You and I know it isn’t always that way.
And there are always mitigating factors. Aries with Mars in Taurus conjunct Saturn is going to be a lot different than Aries with Mars in Gemini conjunct Jupiter.
The only way to make sense of it is to practice, read all the charts you can. Give it a few years. It really does take a long time for it to sink in. Eventually you will see the patterns. Read lots of books. I have a list of good ones on this site under “Links & Resources.”
And study transits… that’s a really juicy subject and good to follow, because it helps you get a “feel” for the planets.
Thank you both for your posts, and your perspectives! I think I was having a break down that day. :) I’ve only been really studying for like 7 months, and I’m still trying to learn the basics really well. Yet I also keep trying to read and apply a lot more advanced stuff, which obviously isn’t working very well. I hate memorizing, and I guess I feel like that’s what I need to do with the basics. I made note cards like you suggested! (I just haven’t looked at the full box again). :)
Anyway, I feel better, my faith has been restored. I think my problem is that at this point I really DON“T know crap, so I really AM wrong, which is why nothing seems to work right. I just need to study the basics more in depth and keep going, and I’m sure it will all start making more sense. I guess it’s like a seminary student going through a crisis of faith. :) I also like your suggestion of following the transits, because that’s something that I keep trying to read about, but haven’t stopped to really apply it and FEEL it. I just had a pretty powerful Saturn return, so that should have proved to me how important it is to really look at the transits.
Oh, and despite being double Aries, my Mars is in Leo (4th house) loosely conjunct (8) my Moon in Cancer (3rd house). And my astrologer said my Mars had been “blocked”, but I don’t really understand what qualifies as “blocked” (mine is square Sun, Chiron, and Asc, and sesquisquare- if that counts- my Neptune). My soon to be ex husband is doing a great job helping me to get in touch with my anger for the first time in my life.