WHAT EXACTLY IS A BIRTHCHART?

A birthchart is a unique arrangement of astrology’s primary

elements: signs, houses, and planets. Even though there are only about three dozen words in astrology’s
vocabulary, when we add the laws of grammar and syntax they combine in nearly endless ways. A
birthchart is a particular combination, taken to represent the individual. Physically, a birthchart is simply
a map. It shows the way the sun, moon, and planets were arranged in the sky at the moment a person
was born. Let’s take a guided tour of a chart we will analyze later in detail. The figure on the next page is
the chart of a person born on October 9, 1940, in northwestern England, at about six-thirty in the
evening. The hieroglyphics spread randomly through the chart represent the sun, moon, and planets.
These symbols are called glyphs. Like shorthand, they save us a lot of writing. They are: The horizontal
line that runs across the middle of our sample chart is the local horizon. Everything above it was in the
visible half of the sky when the man was born. Everything below it was invisible, beneath the earth. For
reasons we will soon see, the left end of that line represents the east. It is just the opposite of the way
maps are normally set up. In the English autumn, six-thirty in the evening is just after sunset. If this map
is accurate, we should find the sun just below the western horizon, having just gone down. And that is
exactly what we see: the sun’s glyph—the circle with the dot in the center—lies on the right side of the
birthchart, just below the centerline, precisely where we would expect to find it. The familiar crescent
symbol of the moon lies in the upper left quadrant of the chart: the moon shone brightly in the evening
twilight, halfway up in the eastern sky. Little else was visible. Other than the moon, only dim Mercury
shone in the half of the sky we can see—and Mercury was low in the west, probably lost in ground haze.
All other planets were hidden below the horizon. The twelve pie slices that stand out so prominently are
the houses. (In the inner ring you can see numbers that correspond to each house.) In our example, the
sun lies in the sixth house. That is just a fancy way of saying that it was a little below the western
horizon. To say a planet is in the ninth house or the tenth house places it high in the sky. In the third or
fourth houses, it is far below the horizon. Everything else you see in our sample birthchart has to do
with signs. Those numbers and symbols you see around the outer rim of the chart show where the signs
were at the moment our hero took his first breath. (For the detectives among you, this is your first clue
to our hero’s identity; he is not a woman.) Like planets, each sign has a glyph: Look over on the extreme
left side of the chart, near where we found the moon. You see the number 25, followed by the glyph for
Aries. That tells us Aries was rising over the eastern horizon when the man was born. Specifically, the
25th degree of Aries—each sign is thirty degrees wide. The other numbers around the outer rim of the
birthchart tell us where the signs were in relation to the houses at the moment of the man’s birth. What
does that mean exactly? Later we will investigate it in detail. For now, visualize the signs as great regions
of space marked by stars. As the world turns, they appear to rise and set. At one moment, Aries might
be rising. Twelve hours later, Aries would be setting, and the opposite sign, Libra, would be rising.
Although it varies minute by minute, a particular degree of a certain sign always lies at the beginning of
each house. In other words, each sign is somewhere. It may be above the horizon. It may be below it.
Those numbers and glyphs around the edge of the birthchart tell us exactly where each sign lies. All
signs are the same size—30 degrees, or 1/12of the 360 degrees of the circle. Not so the houses. They
vary in width, although for convenience most birthchart blanks show houses of the same size.
Occasionally, a house that happens to be wider than 30 degrees gets lined up with a sign in such a way
that the sign is completely swallowed—it does not touch either house cusp (beginning) at all. This is
called an interception and is the case with four signs in our sample chart. Look, for example, at the
twelfth house. It begins at 25 degrees of Aquarius, completely swallows Pisces, and does not end until
we get all the way to 25 degrees of Aries, which is the cusp of the first house. Each planet falls into both
a sign and a house. We can tell its house position just by looking— which pie slice does the planet
occupy? To determine the planet’s sign, consider the notation right next to it. In our sample chart,
Venus lies in the sixth house accompanied by the symbol for Virgo. That tells us that Venus is in the part
of the sky we call Virgo—specifically, in Virgo’s fourth degree. Knowing it is in the sixth house lets us
know that at the instant of the man’s birth, Virgo had rotated below the western horizon, carrying
Venus with it. Some people confuse signs and houses at first. A good way to keep them separated in
your mind is to remember that houses are linked to the local horizon, while signs are linked to space
itself, As earth spins in space, signs appear to spin around the earth. And because planets are out there
in space as well, they too appear to spin along with the signs, rising in the east and setting in the west.
We register that rising and setting as changes in the house positions of the signs and planets, a factor
that describes their positions only from our particular viewpoint on earth, seen in reference to the local
horizon. The houses on the birthchart, in other words, are simply empty slots—each planet and sign
passes through all of them as it appears to spin around the earth every twenty-four hours. Why Is East
on the Left? Ever notice that the sun is always in the southern sky? We think of it as rising in the east
and setting in the west, but it is really always south of that line, at least until we get down toward the
equator. That is because up here in the northern hemisphere, we are “on top” of the planet—and to see
the sun we need to look “down,” to the south. Our Australian friends, on the other hand, need to look
up, to the north. In the southern hemisphere, claiming a house has “southern exposure” won’t attract
anyone. That just means it always faces away from the sun, toward Antarctica. In our hemisphere, the
sun is more or less due south when it reaches the peak of its daily arc. So the uppermost point on a
birthchart is a southerly point, not a northerly one. Southern-hemisphere charts look the same, but the
mathematics underlying them are slightly different. Australian readers can still use this book. With south
on top, birthcharts are constructed “upside down” That seems awkward at first—but the only
alternative is to have planets above the horizon represented on the bottom of the chart. That is even
worse, so we just have to get used to some upside-down thinking. The natural inversion of the birth map
puts east on the left and west on the right. So planets rise on the left side of the chart. We call that point
the ascendant. The opposite point, the right end of the horizon line, is where they set. It is called the
descendant. Midheaven is the name given to the high point of the birth-chart—where the sun is around
noon. And the astrological nadir is the opposite point, where we would find the sun around midnight.
Planetary Motions In the course of a day, the sun, moon, and planets all rise and set once. In other
words, they move through each of the twelve houses. That happens only because the earth is spinning
on its axis. It has nothing to do with any motion of the planets themselves. But the planets themselves
are in motion. They are careening around the sun. If we compare their positions each night with those of
nearby stars, we see small changes. Put your thumbs together and spread your hands out at arm’s
length: that is a little less than the moon’s motion against the stars in twenty-four hours. All the others
move much more slowly. But they do move. If we followed planetary motions over a period of years, we
would discover that they all stick to the same track. They move from Aries, to Taurus, to Gemini, and on
through the familiar sequence of “birth signs.” We never find Venus in Cassiopeia or Mars in Orion. That
is impossible. They are not on the track. This track is called the ecliptic and it is divided into twelve equal
segments. Those segments are the signs. Signs bear the names of constellations but don’t really
correspond to them. This is a complicated issue, and we don’t need to be concerned with it now. For
now, it is enough to remember that planets move in relation to the backdrop of stars and we measure
that motion as changes in their sign positions. Most planetary motions are erratic. Mercury stays in each
sign for about a month, but that can vary widely. In that length of time, the moon passes through all
twelve signs, while distant Pluto has barely moved at all. It may even have lost ground. When the
Englishman in our sample birthchart was born, it was six-thirty in the evening on the ninth day of
October. At that time the sun is in Libra—we know that from the date alone. The sun stays in Libra until
around October 21. The sun’s sign position is not affected by the time of day, but knowing that the
clocks read six-thirty in the evening does tell us something significant: that Libran sun had just set. In
other words, it lies in the sixth house. Had the Englishman been born a few hours later, the sun would
have been much farther below the horizon. The sun would still be in Libra. But now it would lie in the
fourth house instead of in the sixth. During that short period of time, the sun’s motion through the signs
is inconsequential. But its motion through the houses is enough to completely alter the shape of the
birthchart. That is why the time of birth is such a critical factor in astrology. The date alone would be
enough to establish the relationship of signs to planets, but we need the time in order to add the crucial
birthchart element of the houses. Signs have a fixed relationship to one another. Taurus always follows
Aries, Gemini always follows Taurus, and so on. When one moves, the others move too, and in a
predictable way. It is as if we were spinning a wagon wheel with numbered spokes. If we know where
spoke number seven is, we can locate eight and nine with no trouble. When the sun set on that October
evening, Libra was setting too. At that time of year, the sun and Libra are a package deal. Where we find
one, we find the other. But we know more than that. With Libra setting in the west, Aries—the opposite
sign—must be rising in the east. And Pisces, the sign immediately before Aries, must have just finished
rising. And Taurus, the following sign, must be just below the eastern horizon, getting ready to come up.
It works just like the wagon wheel. And that is the birthchart. Our guided tour of astrology’s basic tool is
over. If you have absorbed the last few pages, nothing in our sample chart should be a mystery to you
any longer. As simple as this sky map is, no more sophisticated model of the mind has ever been
devised. As we weave together the meanings of the signs, planets, and houses, a tapestry emerges that
encompasses all the aspirations and shadows, all the hilarity, all the horror of human life And each
combination of symbols, each birthchart, is unique. Like no religion, like no system of psychology,
astrology paints a portrait of the individual. Yet the birthchart is only a map of the sky. Such a simple
thing. Its symbolism does not arise out of the pet theories of any man or woman. It stands beyond
personal prejudices, beyond the mythologies of any culture. Its foundation is far deeper, far more
primal. Astrology is rooted in nature, just as we are.