BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF ASTROLOGY What is a chart, and more...

CHART
A chart is the astrological picture of the sky at the time and place of a certain event.

The horizontal line crosses the meridian of your place at the centre of the picture (the place where YOU are or where the event took place).

Everything below the horizon is invisible at the time.

Everything above the horizon is visible, what you see when you look out of the window.

(With the exception that only the old 7 planets Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can be seen with the blank eye)

MORE EXPLANATION OF DRAWING
When you are born in the middle of the night the sun is not visible and therefore below the horizon.

When you are born in the middle of the day the sun is visible and high above in the sky and... in your chart.

A birth at daybreak will produce a Sun at the ascendant (in the east).

When you were born at sunset the Sun is on the western part (on the descendant).

PLANETS
In a chart you usually find Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Northern Node and sometimes Chiron, Vertex, Eastpoint or planetoids or supposed planets such as Vulcanus. All of those object in the chart represent a function.

MEANINGS
Sun: life, heart, will, living, health, vitality, ego

Moon: emotion, caring, mother, habits, community, popularity, the people, family, the intimates, house (where you are with your close ones), change (periodically)

Mercury: learning and talking abilities, trade, communication, brothers/sisters (siblings), neighbours, school

Venus: taste, sympathy, love, comfort, being happy, beauty, art, money or wealth, women, female hormones, rest, ease

Mars: energy, work, production, sex, pain, wound, attack, war, acting on your own, men

Jupiter: wisdom, higher education, growth, success, travelling (everything that makes you better and wiser), horses (and what else you travel with)

Saturn: adult, parent, aging, responsibility, restriction, depression, limitations, steady, long-lasting things, divorces, departures,

Uranus: excitement, news, rebel, contra, change, electricity, modern things, extravagant things (such as astrology:), rhythm, surprises (pleasantly or not)

Neptune: mist, wrong, deviation, ideals, beliefs, falsification, cons, mistakes, giving it up, dreaming, illusions, inspiration, music, riddles, disappearances, anonymous people, addictions

Pluto: strength, courage, the price you pay, the prize you get, pain, daring, complications, problems, challenges, the immense change, reorganisation, genes

Nodes: (said to represent karma), relationships, bounds, networks

Ascendant: the way you present yourself or the way others see you (those you have one to one contact with), the way you use to do 'it'.

MC: your imago, your goal in life, the way you use to 'aim for it'

ELEMENTS AND QUALITIESThe signs were presented as a fire, earth, air or water sign and as a cardinal, fixed or mutable sign. Fire, earth, air and water are elements. Cardinal, fixed and mutable are qualities.

Fire: energy, vitality, enthusiasm, confidence

Earth: stability, being able to earn your living, material side

Air: communication, interaction, relations

Water: senses, moods, influence and tolerance


Lack of fire = lack of energy or confidence, no control over aggression

Lack of earth = lack of stability, no way to settle down

Lack of air = lack of reason, you just cannot be reasonable sometimes

Lack of water = lack of empathy, not being able to control emotions adequately

Fire + air = extravert

Earth + water = introvert

Fire + earth = creation

Fire + water = emotion

Earth + air = logic

Air + water = sociability


Cardinal = the signs that start up things, take initiatives

Fixed = the signs that hold on, stick to it, settle it

Mutable = the signs that spread it by word or travel, nervous and busy