12 Terms to Get You Started On Your Astro Journey
Birth Chart
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A birth chart is a representation of what the sky looked like the moment you were born from the vantage point of the exact location you were born (if you were able to see past the blue atmosphere of the day or any light pollution at night of course). This is why for your birth chart to be 100% accurate you need your birth date, time, and location. In addition to the night and day difference (which is astrologically significant), the sky will look different if you are analyzing from Baton Rouge vs looking at it from Beijing even if it’s at the exact same moment. In a birth chart you will see many symbols which correspond to different planets, points, or asteroids (collectively called placements). As such, you can have your Sun’s placement in one sign (which is the sign most people are aware of), but other planetary placements (Moon, Venus, Mercury, etc) in other signs. One reason why some people don’t feel very connected to what they know about about their Sun sign, is because they have “louder” planetary placements in other signs.
There are many different ways to analyze the sky (sidereal, tropical, vedic, placidus, whole sign, traditional, modern etc). I practice traditional astrology using the tropical astrology framework, utilizing the whole sign house system. Depending on who you ask (or the default settings of the website you calculate your birth chart on), the sign or houses your planets are in may shift slightly. In the house system that I use, there will only be one sign present in each house.
Astrological Houses
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When you look at a birth chart, you’ll see it divided into 12 sections. These sections are called houses with each one corresponding to a different area of life. Some sections will have planets, points, asteroids, housed within them and some will not. Please note, empty houses are very normal and doesn’t mean the area of life that the empty house corresponds to will be “empty” or lacking.
The “Big Three”
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In a birth chart, the seven traditional planets, the three outer/modern planets, and any asteroids or points are all assigned to a one zodiac sign. In recent years, the term “the big three” has been popularized as a way to refer to the sign of your sun, the sign of your moon, and the sign of your ascendant (aka the rising sign) as knowing these three things can cover a lot of ground even if you don’t know any other information about someones astrological make up. However, “the big three” would be more accurate if the popularized term was “the big four” as a crucial data point missing with the sun sign, moon sign, and rising sign, is what sign the planet that rules the ascendant is in (as well as the house placement for the planet that rules the ascendant, the sun, and the moon).
Planetary Rulership
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Each of the 12 zodiac signs is ruled by a certain planet. In practice this means that different planets have a magnet like pull on the zodiac signs they rule over, as well as the themes associated with house(s) of the sign they rule over and any planets existing within those houses, in a birth chart. Almost like the energy of each sign is predisposed to go towards the location of the planet it gets its power or strength from. In traditional astrology, the Sun rules Leo, the Moon rules Cancer, Mercury rules Virgo and Gemini, Venus rules Taurus and Libra, Mars rules Aries and Scorpio, Jupiter rules Pisces and Sagittarius, and Saturn rules Aquarius and Capricorn.
Using this principal, the themes of whatever house Leo (relating to creativity and self expression among other things) occupies in a birth chart, will be magnetized towards whatever house and sign the Sun is in (as will the significations of the planets residing in the Leo house). For example, if Leo is your 4th house (relating to your family, among other things) and you have the Moon (which signifies mothers, among other things) in Leo, but your Sun is in the 10th house (relating to career and public life) in Aquarius (relating to intellectualism and societal/cultural systems, among other things) you may be someone who is thrust into the spotlight by your mother either because she is a stage parent, because she is public figure and so you become one by nature of being her child, or your career (or public reputation) is related to your family in some way (working in the family business that was established before you were born, starting a business with your parent, your reputation as so and so’s child preceding you, or being the beneficiary of nepotism to begin your career). Additionally, all of the aforementioned could be occurring within the realm of academia, social work, or activism).
Dignity
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Aspects
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Element
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Modality
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Degrees
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Every zodiac sign has an associated modality. The modalities of each sign are either cardinal (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn), fixed (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), or muable (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces). Cardinal signs are initiators with the power to change trajectories from one direction to another as they correspond with the beginning of a new season (which is why Aries season is considered the beginning of the astrological new year as it closes the coldness and darkness of winter and initiates the return of light and visible life by ushering in spring). Fixed signs are the midway point of a season whose power lies in their ability to be consistent enough and stable enough to manifest a proof of concept. Mutable signs’ power is in being able to exist in the in between. As mutable signs are the last segment of any given season, they excel at being flexible, adaptable, and multifacted. Mutable signs know how to to be diversified in their efforts without losing effectiveness.
In a birth chart every planet, point, or asteroid will fall within a specific house, in a specific sign, at a specific degree of that sign. There are 30 degrees of each sign (and 360 degrees around the entire zodiacal wheel) and placements will be found from 0 degrees through 29 degrees of any given sign (there are also 60 arc minutes per degree for those who desire that level of granularity). Each degree of each sign of the zodiac has different associations. Placements at 28 degrees of Aquarius are similar but not exactly the same as the same placement but at 29 degrees of Aquarius. This is an additional reason why having an exact birth time is crucial to having the most accurate birth chart reading.
The birth chart is a representation of what the sky looked like the moment that someone (or something such as an event) was born. Though the birth chart will not change, as time goes on the planets will continue to move. As they “transit” around the zodiacal wheel, they will interact with where the planets were in your birth chart by forming aspects to them. For example, if you were born when the Sun was in Libra and the Moon was in Aquarius, you will carry your natal Sun/Moon trine signature forever. However, each year when the Sun moves into Aquarius, you will experience the transit that is the Sun in the sky making a trine with the Sun in your birth chart and the Sun in the sky being conjunct the Moon in your birth chart. It can feel like a temporary experience of what it would be like to be born with a different astrological set up (meaning you can take advantage of the significations of astrological signatures that are unavailable to you natally). Understanding transits is the beginning of understanding how to use astrology to your advantage in your day to day life.
Retrogrades are when a planet’s speed slows down so much that from the vantage point of earth, it appears to be moving backwards. All planets, with the exception of the Sun and Moon, have retrogrades as part of their regularly scheduled program occurring for varying lengths of time at varying amount of frequency with Mercury (the planet closest to the Sun) stationing retrogroade a few times a year for about a month each time, to Pluto which is retrograde for about half of any given year. When planets station retrograde, their significations can feel “off” (such as communication issues during a Mercury retrograde) in a way that will be more pronounced based on the closeness of that planet to earth as well as the sign the planet is stationing retrograde in, the house that sign occupies in your birth chart, and what aspects the retrograde planet is making to the planets in your birth chart. All retrogrades are not created or experienced equally. Many, if not most, people have at least one retrograde planet in their birtchart which is usually notated with a small “r” next to the planet’s symbol.
Planetary returns are when a planet returns to the same place it is in your birth chart. Every year our birthday marks our solar return, we have a monthly lunar return, and perhaps the most notorious return is that of Saturn when we reach our late 20s/early 30s. A planetary return tends to coincide with moments that have us doubling down on the significations of that planet in our birth chart and/or life handing us a test to see if we’ve learned the lesson that this planetary placement is meant to teach us. If we haven’t already learned the lesson, and integrated the wisdom from it into our lives, in the time it took for the planet to circle the zodiac, it could be a rough ride.
Transits
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Retrogrades
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Returns
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In addition to some planets having rulership over certain signs, planets have a relationship to (or experience of) different sign placements that can be neutral, “positive”, or “negative”. I have added positive or negative in quotation marks because there is no such thing as anything in astrology being 100% good or bad, 100% of the time, for 100% of people/events/anything that can have a birth chart. However, there are general principals about certain planets having an easier or more difficult time performing their key significations when residing in certain signs. When looking at your own birth chart, it’s important to note any planets in their domicile (sings they rule), exaltation (signs their significations are typically super charged in), detriment (signs with an opposite nature of their home sign), or fall (signs where the planet may be under resourced to perform it’s significations in a way traditionally seen as positive).
Aspects are the kinds of relationships that can be formed between planets, points, or asteroids in a birth chart. The different aspects are trines, sextiles, oppositions, squares, and conjunctions. Trines are relationships between birth chart placements of the same element. Because the elements are “on the same page” about what’s most important to them, this aspect is quite supportive and can help the planets function like partners in crime (or good deeds). Sextiles are relationships between placements that are two houses away from each other (placements in houses 1 and 3, 2 and 4, 3 and 5, etc) and will always be an air/fire or water/earth combination. These placements act like accomplices or side kicks. The Robin to each other’s Batman, the Donkey to each other’s Shrek, the Supremes to each other’s Diana Ross. These relationships aren’t as strong as a trine, but they can help grease the wheels to each other’s pursuits. Squares are relationships between chart placements that share the same modality. These aspects can feel like the planets are “squaring up” to each other and often feel like friction or tension between planets in signs that want very different things. In more “positive” squares (such as squares between planets that don’t include Mars, Saturn, or Pluto) it can feel like the planets exaggerate or inflame each other. Oppositions are relationships between placements that can feel like a tug of war as the are literally opposite each other on the zodiacal wheel. These aspects will always be a fire/air or earth/water combination. Though it can be difficult at first to hold the tension of the planets with opposite goals, learning to integrate this polarity can be very powerful. Conjunctions are chart placements that are in the same sign or that are placed within a few degrees away from each other even if they are in different signs (different astrologers will have varying schools of thought on how many degrees counts as “a few”). Conjunctions are a merging of energies between two or more things. For example if you have a Sun/Venus conjunction, it means your Sun does Sun things in a Venus way and you Venus does Venus things in a Sun way. They work together to fulfill their planetary significations and affect the house that they are co-present in.
The more exact the degrees are between any planetary aspect, the more pronounced it will be (the Moon at 10 degrees of Pisces forms an exact trine to Venus at 10 degrees of Cancer vs the planets being in the same signs as previously mentioned but the degrees being further apart).
Every zodiac sign has an associated element of either fire (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius), water (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces), earth (Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo), or air (Libra, Aquarius, Gemini). Signs within the same element have similar motives and preferred ways of doing things that are more similar to each other than to signs within other elements. Fire signs tend to be outwardly expressive, charismatic, and outgoing. Water signs tend to be introspective, value intimacy, and sensitive. Earth signs tend to value stability, tangibility, and practicality. Air signs tend to be oriented around ideas, information, and communication.