This is the first of seven posts teaching you how to interpret your birth chart.
Discovering my birth chart is the singular event that made me into the person I am today. While the events that followed were also important, none of them were nearly as enlightening.
With that being said, I’ve seen what learning how to read a birth chart has done for me, and I want that for you.
This series will give you the foundational skills needed to interpret your own chart, and serve as a reminder that the universe always has your back.
Each post in this series will build on the previous post. While things may be unclear in the beginning, by the end, you’ll see how everything fits together.
This first post goes over how to access your chart. Future posts will teach you about zodiac signs, planets, houses, planetary aspects, rulerships, and transits.
As with everything, take what you need and leave what you don’t <3.
Accessing Your Birth Chart
A birth chart is simply a snapshot of the sky at the exact moment you were born. To calculate this you’ll need three pieces of information.
Birthdate - This determines which signs the planets were in on the day you were born.
Birth time - This determines your rising/ascendant sign which sets up the structure of your birth chart. You’ll want to be as accurate as possible when it comes to your birth time. If you’re unaware of your birth time, you’ll still be able to loosely determine your planetary placements.
Birth location - This determines where the planets are in relationship to you.
Now, that you have this information, it’s time to insert it into a chart calculator. I know applications like Co-Star can calculate a birth chart for you, however, it’s time to graduate to a real birth chart.
For this, I recommend astro.com.
Their website is quite expansive. Yet, their birth charts will give you everything you need, plus some.
Once you make it to their home page, click “My Astro” at the top right corner, then click “user profile”.
From here, you can choose to create an account or continue as a guest. This is a personal preference. I have an account because I reference my birth chart OFTEN.
Regardless, you’ll be led to this page where you’ll enter your birth data. If you’re unsure of your birth time, there is an “unknown” option.
Next, click “extended chart selection”.
From here, you’ll want to change the house system.
In the section “options for zodiac and houses”, change the house system to “whole signs” using the drop-down menu. (We’ll talk more about this in a future post).
Now you should have something that looks like this.
While this looks extremely complicated, we’ll spend the next six posts breaking this down into manageable chunks.
For now, you simply need to focus on this box.
This box tells you which sign each planet was in on the day you were born. This is all the information you’ll need for the two upcoming posts. You can disregard all of the numbers and the letter “r”.
For homework, I encourage you to see what the internet has to say about your sun sign and your moon sign.
In the next post. We’ll talk about the archetypes of all twelve signs.
Questions?
Leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help <3.