Reading a natal chart, where to begin?

Astrology can be extremely overwhelming at the onset of your stargazing career.

Figuring out something as simple as the first step can really be a lot.

in this *very basic* breakdown, I will outline how to get started with the bare bones of the practice.

preface:

You'll want to know the birthdate, year, location and exact time of birth of the native you're reading for and find an online astrological calculations system.

If you're serious about your astrological journey, I recommend investing the 40.00 USD to purchase the Astrogold software as it is a highly useful tool and you can use it forever.

Step one- The system:

You should be using a whole sign housing system for natal and transits readings.

The practice of astrology dates back almost 3000 years.

With its origins rooted in ancient Mesopotamia, where we find various forms of astral omen divination, and spreading like wildfire throughout the Mediterranean, Middle East, India and Egypt.

The Hellenistic tradition began the "Fixed Tropical Zodiac" which was arranged as a mathematical approximation of the heavens, inspired by Platonic principles, using the unequal constellations as loose markers for the fixed and equal 30-degree, symbolic quadrants, meant to be viewed from a geocentric standpoint (obviously)

This Tropical Zodiac housing system is broken into 12 equal portions that follow the yearly path of the Sun and cycles of the Moon.

These portions are tethered to the unchanging points of the solstices and equinoxes.

• 0 Aries begins at the spring equinox

• 0 Cancer begins at summer solstice

• 0 libra begins at fall equinox

• 0 Capricorn begins at winter solstice

  
  

Blank Tropical Zodiac

The planets circumambulate the zodiac in a counterclockwise direction, (except when they are retrograde)

This is called counterclockwise motion is called "secondary motion"

The wheel itself moves clockwise throughout the day, as the earth turns on its axis, this is called "primary motion" and shows the rise, culmination and set of the planets in a 24-hour period.

disclaimer:

Signs have no natural correspondence to any one house.

Conflating the twelve houses to the twelves signs is a modern astrological misrepresentation.

Often referred to as the "12 letter alphabet"

Aries has no natural correspondence with the first house, nor Taurus with the second, nor Gemini with the third, so on and so forth.

Unless the rising sign is Aries then the houses have nothing to do with the zodiacal order from Aries and are colored only by the signs of the specific nativity, the planets within them and their house topics.

primary and secondary motion

2. Step two- Identifying the rising/ascendant sign:

The rising or ascendant sign is the sign that was doing just that at the time of your birth, rising over the horizon in the east. This symbolism is pretty obvious, the individual coming from primordial darkness into life and light- paired with the sign that was rising from the "darkness" and "underworld."

The rising sign is the most personal placement of the native in question.

It represents appearance, personality, psychology and things usually within the native's control. This house is often called the "helm" of the chart.

The Rising sign also sets the stage of the entire natal chart, and each house will be filled in zodiacal order from the ascendant (going counterclockwise)

3. Step three- Determining if the chart is a day or night chart:

You'll want to see if the Sun is above the ascendant degree or below the descendant degree to determine whether the chart is a day or night chart, this will tell you which groups of planets are "of the sect in power," which means they are able to express themselves in a way that is powerful or beneficial to the native or chart in question.

IE:

• cold Saturn is warmed in a day chart

• fiery Mars is cooled in a night chart- making their malefic impact less malefic

• Venus enjoys the calm, relaxation and social activities found in the evening and is thus a nocturnal planet

• Jupiter enjoys the active energy of the day and thus functions best in a day chart

• the Moon is obviously a nocturnal planet

• the Sun obviously a day planet

• and Mercury can go either way depending on whether it is in a morning star or evening star position. (Setting before the sun, evening star; rising before the sun, morning star.)

It doesn't detract or change a planets sect if they are in the top or bottom portion of the chart, the only determining planet of sect is the Sun.

red axis shows first and seventh house cusps, red arrows show ascendant and descendant degrees (degrees vary by chart)

4. Step four- Determining the house and sign position of each planet:

for this step you'll want to either know how to identify the planetary glyphs or have a reference sheet.

look to ech glyph and see which sign and which house the planet is in.

Each planet rules two signs of the zodiac, a masculine or yang, diurnal sign and a feminine or yin, nocturnal sign, except the Sun and Moon, which only have one sign or temple each and are thought to be inherently yin and yang, mother and father of the zodiac.

• Mars rules over the masculine temple of Aries and feminine temple of Scorpio

• Venus rules over the feminine temple of Taurus and masculine temple of Libra

• Mercury rules over the masculine temple of Gemini and the feminine temple of Virgo

• Moon rules over the feminine sign of Cancer

• Sun rules over the masculine temple of Leo

• Jupiter rules over the masculine temple of Sagittarius and the feminine temple of Pisces

• Saturn rules over the feminine temple of Capricorn and the masculine temple of Aquarius

5. Step five-- Meanings of the signs, planets and houses:

I'm going to go into an actual in-depth description of these elements in an upcoming blog

for now, we will just cover the absolute basics:

• First house: self, body, personality, psychology

• Second house: money, finances, things that support the native

• Third house: local community, short distance travel, communications

• Fourth house: roots, family, home, behind the scenes, private life

• Fifth house: sex, art, self-expression, children

• Sixth house: illness, service, subordinates, pets

• Seventh house: relationships, marriage, intimate partnerships

• Eighth house: loans, debt, other people's money, inheritance, esteem of others, death

• Ninth house: higher education, religion, spirituality, occult studies, foreign travel

• Tenth house: career, notability, public perception, reputation, work

• Eleventh house: alliances, friends, benefactors, patronage, hopes

• Twelfth house: enemies, self-undoing, mental illness, isolation, loss of control

• Sun: arch of the life, "plot" of the life, interests, driving force, fathers, kings, heads of state, vitality, will

• Moon: reactive, receptive nature, "set" of the life, karmic environment, circumstance, mothers

• Mercury: intellect, communications, speech, travel, fluidity, transmission

• Venus: friends, sisters, love, relationships, comfort, beauty

• Mars: power, strength, heroism, martyrdom, drive, force, severing, injury

• Jupiter: expansion, good fortune, abundance, wisdom, blessings

• Saturn: restriction, dispersion & crystallization, darkness, obstacles, delays, setbacks, outcasts, misanthropes, hard labor, endings

• Aries: cardinal fire - yang Temple of Mars - Sun exalted - Venus detriment

• Taurus: fixed earth - yin Temple of Venus - Moon exalted - Mars detriment

• Gemini: mutable air - yang Temple of Mercury - Jupiter detriment

• Cancer: cardinal water - yin Temple of the Moon - Jupiter exalted - Sturn detriment - Mars fall

• Leo: fixed fire - yang Temple of the Sun - Saturn detriment

• Virgo: mutable earth - yin Mercury - Mercury exalted - Jupiter detriment

• Libra: cardinal air - yang Temple of Mercury - Saturn exalted

• Scorpio: fixed water - yin Temple of Mars - Venus detriment - Moon fall

• Sagittarius: mutable fire - yang Temple of Jupiter - Mercury detriment

• Capricorn: cardinal Earth - yin Temple of Saturn - Mars exalted - Moon detriment - Jupiter fall

• Aquarius: fixed air - yang Temple of Saturn - Sun detriment

• Pisces: mutable water - yin Temple of Jupiter - Venus exalted - Mercury detriment

I will go more into the qualities of the signs in forthcoming post.

Planetary Temples

6. Step six- The aspects:

Aspects are how planets testify to one another and about the life of the native.

Each planet casts aspectual rays in the form of:

• Oppositions - of the nature of Saturn - 180 degrees - difficult

• Squares - of the nature of Mars - 90 degrees - difficult

• Sextile - of the nature of Venus - 60 degrees - beneficial

• Trine - of the nature of Jupiter - 120 degrees - beneficial

• Conjunction - when the planets are joined together - this can be beneficial of difficult depending on context.

  
  

aspectual rays can be viewed both by degree and to the whole sign house the ray is hitting.

The symbolic reasoning for the nature of the aspects in "baked into" a schematic called the Thema Mundi, the mythical natal chart of the universe. I will do a deep dive of that at another time, for now we'll keep it simple.

aspectual rays

I think I will leave this short introduction off here. With these basic principles you can begin putting things in together to start your delineations.

Please comment questions and requests for further information and explanations.