Charles Bukowski’s birth chart
Born 16 August 1920, in Andernach, Germany, at 22:00 (Rodden AA).
Leo Sun · Virgo Moon · Taurus rising
Charles Bukowski’s zodiac sign and chart, in brief
Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany, on 16 August 1920, a Monday. Their zodiac sign was Leo, with the Moon in Virgo and Taurus rising. Charles died on 9 March 1994, aged 73. The birth time, 22:00, comes from Astro-Databank with a Rodden rating of AA, which means it was taken from a birth certificate or birth record.
By element the count is four fire, three earth, three water and no air. Across cardinal, fixed and mutable signs the split is one, five and four. Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune all fall in Leo. Virgo holds a stellium, three planets in one sign: Moon, Venus and Saturn. Closest of the aspects is the opposition between Venus and Uranus, 1.7° from exact. Uranus was retrograde. The Moon was a waxing crescent.
StarMap's dataset holds 22 other people born on 16 August, among them Madonna, James Cameron and Steve Carell.
See the sky the night Charles was born: the stars over Andernach, Germany at 22:00, drawn as a star map with the date and the place beneath.
Charles Bukowski’s Sun, Moon and rising sign
Sun sign
Leo
23° Leo 38'
A Leo Sun shines. For Charles Bukowski that suggests warmth, generosity and a need to be seen for who they really are, running through much of what they do. This placement grows by learning that the light is not diminished when it is shared.
Moon sign
Virgo
29° Virgo 44'
A Virgo Moon feels by fixing. When something is wrong, Charles is likely to look for the practical cause and to calm down by tidying, planning or being useful. The lesson of this Moon is to accept help without a to-do list attached.
Rising sign
Taurus
7° Taurus 06'
With Taurus rising, the first impression of Charles is calm, grounded and unhurried. People tend to relax around them and to assume that someone so settled is not going anywhere.
The chart wheel
Drawn for 22:00 on 16 August 1920, with the eastern horizon on the left. How to read a chart wheel
Placements
| Sun | 23° Leo 38' | House 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Moon | 29° Virgo 44' | House 6 |
| Mercury | 5° Leo 05' | House 4 |
| Venus | 5° Virgo 47' | House 5 |
| Mars | 18° Scorpio 26' | House 7 |
| Jupiter | 27° Leo 44' | House 5 |
| Saturn | 12° Virgo 15' | House 6 |
| Uranus | 4° Pisces 06'℞ | House 11 |
| Neptune | 11° Leo 44' | House 5 |
| Pluto | 8° Cancer 23' | House 3 |
| North Node | 9° Scorpio 33' | House 7 |
| South Node | 9° Taurus 33' | House 1 |
Charles Bukowski’s planets, sign by sign
Each planet by sign and house: what the placement is traditionally taken to mean, not a claim about Charles Bukowski’s private life.
Purpose for Charles Bukowski is probably tied to creating and being seen doing it, and a Leo Sun's vitality rises the moment there is an audience, even an audience of one. The tension is losing steam when no one is watching. The giveaway is often the extra effort that goes into something the moment someone notices them making it.
With the Sun in the fifth house, self-expression, romance and creative play are probably where Charles feels most alive, and holding that side back tends to leave them flat. The placement asks for a stage of some kind, even a small and informal one, or that natural warmth has nowhere to go.
The Moon in Virgo runs towards order, and a messy space or an unfinished list can unsettle Charles's mood more than most people would guess. Small, useful tasks are calming. The trouble can start when Charles's own needs become another chore to get right instead of something to enjoy.
The Moon in the sixth house ties the sense that all is well to daily routine, and an unpredictable schedule can leave Charles more rattled than the problem itself warrants. Small, dependable habits, kept even loosely, calm them faster than anything else.
Mercury in Leo gives Charles a mind that thinks in confident, story-shaped terms and communicates with warmth and a bit of flair, drawing people in even when the subject is dry. Attachment to being right can make Charles more persuasive than accurate. A simple update, in their hands, can become something closer to a performance.
Mercury in the fourth house turns the mind towards home, family and origins, and for Charles conversations with family may carry more weight than usual. Mercury here is associated with a way of thinking shaped early, in ways a person goes on discovering as an adult.
With Venus in Virgo, Charles is likely to love through small, practical acts of service and to value competence and reliability in a partner. People with this Venus tend to be hardest on those they love most, and can mistake giving notes for giving care. They may try to fix a partner's problem before simply listening to it.
Venus in the fifth house can bring romance, creativity and pure enjoyment alive for Charles, and is associated with falling for people and projects with visible enthusiasm. Playfulness may well be one of Charles's most attractive qualities, drawing people in without much effort.
In Charles's chart, Mars in Scorpio acts with focus and intensity, and its anger, when it surfaces, tends to be controlled, cutting and hard to forget. The risk with this Mars is holding on to a grievance well past its useful life. A calm exterior gives little warning before a sharp response.
Mars in the seventh house is associated with directness in close relationships, and Charles probably says what they think rather than letting things simmer. Mars here brings energy and frankness into partnership, so disagreements tend to be aired, not avoided.
Jupiter in Leo
27° Leo 44' · fifth house
growth and excess
Jupiter in Leo grows through creative confidence and a willingness to take up space. For Charles the overreach may be overselling their own contribution or expecting more credit than a situation calls for. There is a natural showmanship here that lifts a room, and occasionally a story that grows a little in the retelling.
Jupiter in the fifth house brings a sense of plenty to Charles's creativity, romance and play, and the placement enjoys these parts of life fully, without holding back. Charles is likely to be at their most generous and most confident around the things they love doing.
Competence is what Saturn in Virgo builds discipline around, often driven by a fear of not yet having done enough to deserve rest. Charles may feel like a fraud even when the track record says otherwise. The usual result is someone quietly excellent at something long before they will admit it out loud.
With Saturn in the sixth house, Charles takes daily responsibilities seriously, sometimes to the point of being harder on themselves than the job requires. Saturn here keeps up a discipline over years, long after others would have let it slip.
Uranus in Pisces
4° Pisces 06' ℞ · eleventh house
freedom, generational
Charles has Uranus in Pisces in common with a generation. That generation transforms spirituality, art and collective imagination, often blurring boundaries that earlier ones kept firm. In one person it may be noticed as an openness to ideas that resist neat categories.
Uranus in the eleventh house gathers an unusual, wide-ranging group of friends around Charles, who feels most alive contributing to causes that set out to change something. Belonging matters to them, but strictly on their own terms, and they resist any group that asks them to blend in.
Neptune in Leo
11° Leo 44' · fifth house
imagination, generational
Neptune in Leo is the imagination of an age group, not of Charles alone. It dreams in terms of fame, spectacle and larger-than-life self-expression. The trace of it in one person is a pull towards performance as a way of feeling real.
For Charles, romance and creativity may carry a dreamlike, sometimes idealised quality, and Neptune in the fifth house can fall for a fantasy as easily as for an actual person. Artistic expression, in whatever form, probably gives Charles's imagination somewhere solid to go.
Pluto in Cancer
8° Cancer 23' · third house
power, generational
Pluto in Cancer dates Charles to an era rather than describing one person. Those born in it live through deep transformation of family, home and nationhood. What an individual may carry is intensity around belonging and who counts as family.
With Pluto in the third house, Charles's mind is drawn to what lies underneath a conversation, and they rarely settle for the tidy, surface version of an explanation. Words can be a way of exposing what other people would rather leave hidden, even when that makes things briefly uncomfortable.
Aspects in Charles Bukowski’s chart
How the planets stand to each other, tightest first.
Venus opposition Uranus
1.7° separating
Charles Bukowski may want intimacy and still feel a reflex to protect their freedom the moment things seem too certain; that is the tension of Venus opposite Uranus. Naming the need for space early tends to work better than acting on it as sudden distance.
Venus sextile Pluto
2.6° applying
This sextile promises intimacy without unnecessary drama, with Charles's affections and depth working side by side. Relationships tend to deepen at a comfortable pace, with no crisis or dramatic turning point needed to get there.
Saturn sextile Pluto
3.9° separating
No crisis is needed to bring out Charles's resilience, because discipline and depth are on working terms in this sextile. Long, steady effort tends to be rewarded in ways that build quietly over time, not all at once.
Sun conjunction Jupiter
4.1° applying
Charles's identity carries a natural optimism and a generous sense of scale, so they tend to think bigger than the room requires. Confidence comes easily with the Sun conjunct Jupiter, and the discipline worth building is matching that optimism with follow-through.
Sun square Mars
5.2° separating
Impatience, or a habit of picking fights that did not need picking, can come from the clash between Charles's sense of self and their drive to act. With the Sun square Mars, a pause between the impulse and the action turns this friction into determination they can use.
Moon sextile Mercury
5.4° applying
Feelings and thoughts are on speaking terms for Charles, so talking through whatever is going on inside comes more easily than average. Think of it as self-awareness without the hard work, at its most useful in ordinary, everyday conversations.
The rest, listed without a reading. Those between Uranus, Neptune and Pluto hold for years at a time, so everyone born while one holds shares it.
- Uranus trine Pluto4.3°
- Jupiter opposition Uranus6.4°
- Venus conjunction Saturn6.5°
- Mercury conjunction Neptune6.7°
- Mars square Neptune6.7°
Leo Sun and Virgo Moon, like Charles Bukowski
Also born on 16 August
How this page is made
Planet positions are computed with the astronomy-engine ephemeris and checked against Swiss Ephemeris. Birth dates and places come from Wikidata; the birth time comes from Astro-Databank and is shown with its Rodden rating. The readings describe what a placement is traditionally taken to mean. They are written by StarMap for reflection and entertainment, not as statements about the person’s private life. New to charts? How to read a birth chart.
Birth data: Wikidata, Astro-Databank (BC/BR in hand). Birth time rated AA on the Rodden scale. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on the file page).
StarMap is for entertainment and self-reflection. It does not predict health, money or legal outcomes.