The Birth chart

One of the most common questions from skeptics is, "If astrology is true, how could it possibly describe everyone? Not all (inject sign) are alike." That is where the birth chart comes in! The sun sign is the most basic description of a personality type. It is where the Sun was located at the time of your birth. Compare it to times when you have to "describe yourself in a few words." The birth chart acts as your personal blueprint, it is a snapshot of where all the planets were, and what they were doing the moment you were born.

Say there are two people, both born on January 3rd in New York, NY. Person A was born in 1984 at 10 am and person B in 1985 at 11:35 am. Both Capricorns, they share a sun sign but have different birth charts. The planets have mostly moved since 1984 giving person B a different set of planet locations.

The Birth chart, what's it made of?

The birth chart is comprised of many parts and requires some specific information to calculate correctly. One would need to know the day, month, year, exact time and place of birth. Don't know all of that? That's okay too, charts can be done with less information, but for accuracy it's important to have all the details. Think of it as the ingredients to that special pie that only you know how to make. Miss an ingredient or two and it's still a pie, but not as special as it could be. One of my favorite descriptions of the birth chart comes from the book Secrets from a Stargazer's Notebook. The author Debbi Kempton-Smith refers to the birth chart as, "A big pizza pie divided into twelve pieces." In astro talk, these pieces are referred to as houses. There are twelve of them in total and each house has a specific meaning and purpose.

Before we get to that, I'd like to address the Rising Sign, also known as the ascendant. The first house is also the home of ones Rising sign. The rising sign is the first impression we give. Have you ever heard someone say, "you are hilarious, you seemed so serious when I met you" or "you are so quiet, that night we met you were talking a mile a minute." Those are perfect examples of how the rising sign works. It is who we are to the world, the faces and roles we play, the way people see us at first, or the way associates and strangers see us.  The rising sign isn't all superficial though, it can be a wonderful tool to use in conjunction with your sun sign. For example, meet Sara : She is a quiet Cancer who loves to stay home and has friends over more than she goes out. Her rising sign is Leo, the complete opposite of a home body. She looks like a Cancer except for the fact that she is an eccentric dresser and loves to wear lipstick everywhere. Sara is comfortably using her Leo ascendant to an extent. But to get the maximum benefit she could tap into that lion energy and become the life of the party instead of leaning against the wall and talking to the people she already knows.

How do you find out your rising sign? This is where those details come in handy. With all the ingredients to the pie, one can find their rising sign sitting high and mighty at the first house in their chart. The rising sign changes with the hours throughout the day, making it possible for people born the same day to have different ascendants. Imagine two babies born on February 3rd, one is born at 10 am and one at noon. Baby A and baby B are both Aquarius but baby A is an Aries rising and baby B is a Gemini rising. Both grow up and use that Aquarian genius and become inventors. Baby A invents a new innovative fitness clothing line and baby B invents a new way to communicate and surf the web faster than ever before. See how that worked out? Aquarians are known for their great ideas, with an Aries rising baby A was interested in movement therefore drawn to fitness. And baby B with a Gemini rising was naturally drawn to communication and technology.

The rising sign can also affect the way we look, move, talk, and the way we want to be treated. In combination with your sun, the ascendant gives you your own individual style of expressing your sign. The sun sign is the cake and the rising sign is the type of icing on top.

Stay tuned for part two of this entry! I will continue to discuss the 12 houses and what they each mean.

Our individual road map: And how I got started

I started my journey into astrology land in high school. I was fed up with the newspaper horoscopes and the run of the mill descriptions in the available books. I reached a point where I raised my fists in the air, shaking them madly and declaring "There must be more to this! And I'm going to discover what that is!"

And thank goddess I sure did. When college came around I didn't have much time to study astrology, I was working on theater homework and criminal psychology papers instead. But I always made some time to sit by the lake with a book, a pen and paper to take notes. Astrology my dear, I always found time for you. Over the years I learned the beauty of our individual road map that is the birth chart.

The beauty of astrology is simple to me, once you begin you are an eternal student. There are so many layers! So much to learn when every tiny little thing, every degrees, every aspect means something. Now, how can that be a crock of bull? If so, it's one hell of a painstaking crock of bull don't you think?

The challenge of learning something that requires so much time and effort (thanks to my mars in Scorpio) excites me. I realized over the years just how excited I get when I meet an astrology newbie, how happy I am to explain what it is and how it works. Honestly, I'm pretty much a dork about it all. After all this time of denying myself a platform, I'm feeling that lioness roar and I'm ready to ramble about what I love to the public. Let's open up our 9th houses and get this road trip started!