How to read a birth chart.

1. The ring: twelve signs

The outer ring is the zodiac, the circle of sky the Sun appears to travel through in a year, cut into twelve equal slices of 30°. Each slice is a sign. The signs are not the constellations you see at night; they are a calendar of the sky, starting at the spring equinox with Aries.

Each sign has an element and a mode. Elements say how a sign moves: fire acts, earth builds, air thinks, water feels. Modes say when: cardinal starts, fixed holds, mutable adapts.

• ♈︎Aries Fire · Cardinal
• ♉︎Taurus Earth · Fixed
• ♊︎Gemini Air · Mutable
• ♋︎Cancer Water · Cardinal
• ♌︎Leo Fire · Fixed
• ♍︎Virgo Earth · Mutable
• ♎︎Libra Air · Cardinal
• ♏︎Scorpio Water · Fixed
• ♐︎Sagittarius Fire · Mutable
• ♑︎Capricorn Earth · Cardinal
• ♒︎Aquarius Air · Fixed
• ♓︎Pisces Water · Mutable

2. The symbols: ten planets and a node

Each symbol marks where a planet stood at birth. Astrology reads each planet as a part of the personality. The fast ones (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) change sign every few days to weeks and are personal to you. The slow ones (Jupiter, Saturn) shape how you grow and where you work. The very slow ones (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) stay in a sign for years and describe your generation more than you.

The small number beside each symbol is its exact degree within the sign, 0 to 29. A ℞ means the planet appeared to move backwards at that time, which astrologers read as that energy turned inward.

3. The big three

If you learn three placements, learn these. The Sun is who you are becoming and what fuels you; it is the sign people mean when they ask yours. The Moon is how you feel and what you need to feel safe; it runs your days more than the Sun does. The rising sign, or Ascendant, is the sign on the eastern horizon at the minute of birth: how you come across before people know you. It needs the birth time.

4. The lines: aspects

A line joins two planets that sit at a particular angle apart. Those angles are called aspects, and each one describes a relationship between two parts of you.

• Conjunction, 0°, gold. The planets are together. Their meanings fuse into one strong note.
• Trine, 120°, and sextile, 60°, blue. The planets cooperate. Talents that come so easily you might not notice them.
• Square, 90°, and opposition, 180°, rose. The planets pull against each other. Friction, tension, and most of the growth in a life.

Lines are drawn only when the angle is close to exact; the allowance is called the orb. A thicker line means a tighter orb and a stronger effect. A chart with many rose lines is not a bad chart; it is an eventful one.

5. The houses: where it happens

With a birth time, the wheel is turned so the eastern horizon sits at the left. The circle is then divided into twelve houses, numbered inside the ring, each an area of life: 1 self and body, 2 money and values, 3 communication, 4 home and family, 5 creativity and romance, 6 work and health, 7 partnership, 8 intimacy and shared things, 9 travel and belief, 10 career and reputation, 11 friends and future, 12 rest and the inner life. A planet in a house says where that planet’s energy shows up in daily life.

StarMap uses the Placidus house system, the most common one in the West. Without a birth time there are no houses and the wheel starts at 0° Aries.

6. How to read it in order

1. Big three first: Sun sign, Moon sign, rising sign.
2. Then the tightest line. StarMap lists aspects tightest first; the top one is the loudest theme in the chart.
3. Then any house holding several planets. That area of life is busy.
4. Then the planet with the most lines. It is the hub everything else talks to.
5. Leave the generational planets for last; they matter most when they are tightly connected to a personal one.