Reading Your Birth Chart
This lesson discusses how read your birth chart. If you don’t have your chart yet you can pick it up free at astro.com or become a Premium Member here for the price of a coffee and bagel. You’ll also unlock exclusive extras. Or, you can just have the coffee and bagel.
The Twelve Houses
Houses are the twelve segments you see on your horoscope wheel. Each rules one of twelve departments of your life, from sex to money. Your personal birth chart is like a birthday cake, with twelve slices. Each slice shows a different area of your life and personality.
House systems are a way of dividing up the horoscope wheel into slices – all describing what matters most to you, which could be your career, your lover, your child or your cash.
Each house system reflects the life, times and personality of the astrologer who introduced it. They are all different. Each astrologer favoured a different recipe. But – it’s all cake. House systems are a matter of taste. You will slice up the horoscope wheel cake to suit your own needs. Chocolate or vanilla?
The Placidus House system is very common in astrology. It was made popular by a 17th century Italian monk. I’m not entirely sure Placidus ever shook hands with a woman.
I like the Natural House System, because we don’t know who invented it – man or woman. What we do know is, it works. It looks elegant. And it shows how you change the world, and the world changes you.
Here’s an example:
Were you born between 1960 and 1969? You have Neptune in Scorpio in the Eighth House, the sign which rules banks.
When slow, stuck Saturn went through Scorpio and the Eighth House in 2012-2015, you experienced the Global Financial Crisis. The global Credit Crunch was personal for you. It was your credit card or mortgage. You also helped to make the crunch happen. Micro-macro. That’s how this house system works.
Scan your personal birth chart now. Some houses, or slices of the wheel, will look busier than others.
The law of averages says you should have around three factors in one sign and house. If you have more than three, this sign/house defines you! It shows who you are and what your life is about. It shows what we call a stellium. A cluster of chart factors in one sign.
If it’s empty, don’t panic. It just means that you are not defined by that area of life. If you have nothing in Libra and the Seventh House, it doesn’t mean that you won’t have lovers – it just means they don’t say who you are. Each house with a stellium is like a stage where you act out your performance and your story.
Aries and the First House
- Your armor – your wardrobe!
- Your body and how short/tall/fit/unfit you are
- Your reputation – Your title and name
- How you attack and defend yourself
Taurus and the Second House
- Your money
- Your possessions
- Your business
- Your charity
- Your property
Gemini and the Third House
- The internet – The mail
- The media – from television to newspapers
- Your way with words, ideas and images
- Commuting and short-haul travel
Cancer and the Fourth House
- Your home
- Your family
- Your hometown and homeland
- Your patriotism
- Your property investment
Leo and the Fifth House
- Activities which adults and children share
- Children
- Young Adults, 20+ years your junior
- Leadership, mentoring and guidance
- Playing King or Queen in your world
Virgo and the Sixth House
- Your body
- Your daily routine and lifestyle
- Food, drink, doctors, drugs, healers, fitness
- Your work ethic
- Service and duty to others (even the cat)
Libra and the Seventh House
- Marriage – Partnership
- Duels, feuds, battles, wars and rivalries
- Equality between genders, races, classes
- Fairness, justice and what is ‘law’ or legal
Scorpio and the Eighth House
- Legacies, wills and life insurance
- Mortgages and all agreements until death
- Sex
- Power Vampires
Sagittarius and the Ninth House
- Travel
- Education and Academia
- Foreign people and countries
- Beliefs of all kinds
- Publishing, from digital to traditional
Capricorn and the Tenth House
- Career – Status – Success
- Social mountaineering – Rank, title and honors
Aquarius and the Eleventh House
- Friends
- Social media
- People power and good causes
- Group psychology and the hive mind
- Societies, associations, clubs and teams
Pisces and the Twelfth House
- Secrets
- Roles you play behind the scenes
- Your subconscious mind
- Your astral body for dreams and astral travel
- Psychic ability and mediumship
What to Do Without a Birth Time
If you don’t know your birth time or your mother can’t remember (or is no longer here to help) then use 12 noon. If you do that, don’t pay any attention to the Midheaven (MC), Immum Coeli (IC), Ascendant (AC, also known as the Rising Sign) or DC (Descendant). They will probably be wrong. Sorry, but I would rather you skipped them, then worked with the wrong MC, IC, AC or DC.
If you have no birth time and are using 12 noon, when you spot any horoscope factor right on the edge of a sign, at either 0 degrees or 29 degrees, also handle with care.
It may be correct, but if you are using a 12-noon birth time, it could be the sign before, or after. I would ignore those too. You don’t want to assume your Moon is Virgo if it’s Leo!
Your Midheaven or MC
If you have an accurate birth time (to the minute) then you will have your Midheaven or MC exact. It shows you your highest achievement, in this lifetime. This may be your job. It may be something else.
Steve Jobs had the MC in Gemini. His birth time is accurate, so we know for sure. Steve Jobs was the man who gave us the Apple computer and also the iPhone. Gemini is the sign which rules communication – it has done so for over 2000 years, when people were using quills, not laptops.
What are the chances of Steve Jobs being born with a Gemini MC? They are eleven to one. Yet – he was.
Did Prince Use Astrology?
On the subject of the MC, we have to ask if Prince used astrology. He was born with the MC in royal Leo. His true role on this planet was to be ‘King’ to a younger generation. That’s typical of the sign of the lion. He was born at exactly 6.17pm on June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis.
If you have that same kind of precision about your time, place and date of birth then you can figure out your MC too.
Did he randomly choose Prince as a name and make puns about Purple Reign/ Purple Rain or did he have his horoscope done? His Leo MC suggests he was either accidentally psychic or a stargazer gave him some advice.
It’s well-known that musicians like astrology. Bryan Ferry and Sting – even one former member of The Smiths that I happen to know – all take it seriously. That coat of arms you see on old Queen album sleeves? Look carefully and you will see the band’s Sun Signs in the design.
Maybe Prince was a musical stargazer, too.
The MC can be a remarkable guide to your true calling, if your mother was right about your precise time of birth (when the cord was cut). The reason that musicians all have a different MC sign and house, despite being in the same job, is that the MC shows your higher purpose or soul mission, and not necessarily your career. It’s your core achievement.
In next week’s lesson, I’ll review stelliums – your dominant signs, and how they define who you are, what matters most and how you will ultimately live your life.
Extracted from 2020 Astrology: Your Five-Year Horoscope Guide by Jessica Adams. Available on Amazon.com
Images courtesy of Unsplash.