NikithaWhen you hear the term astrology, it might bring to your mind the Sun sign of the astrology column in the newspaper or Moon sign which is used for horoscope matching for marriage.
In reality, astrology is much more than that. Let’s start with a few basics.
Astrological Terms
Birth Chart
This is the snapshot of the sky at the time of your birth. It doesn’t necessarily determine your future but acts more like a report card from your previous birth. Based on your karma from the previous birth, it provides guidance on your strengths and weaknesses and indicates the right time for certain activities.
For example, if your soul craves to be independent and you always keep working on projects which require partnership, you end up feeling suffocated. With the knowledge of astrology, if you instead shift to working on your own projects, you will feel aligned with your soul.
In a different case, if your life lesson is about learning partnership and you might find yourself repeatedly in partnership works and struggling with it, it means that you have a difficult placement to learn the lessons of partnership.
The right life lesson can only be deduced after reading the complete chart.
Native
It is a term used to denote the person who has a particular astrological placement. If you have Sun in 1st house, it can be called as for a native with Sun in 1st house.
Houses
There are 12 houses, one for each zodiac sign which is again ruled by a planet and possesses some qualities based on the ruling planet. In the below picture, the numbers 1 through 12 are the 12 zodiac signs.
Ascendant
Based on the time you were born, the horizon in the sky at that point is depicted with Ascendant. In the above chart, you can notice Asc written in the box 2. This means that native is a Taurus ascendant. When you talk about 12 house for this native, it is counted from box 2. 1st house of the native is in Taurus. 12th house of the native is in Aries.
Dispositor/Ruler/Lord
As we discussed that each house is ruled by a planet, in the above chart, the first house of the Taurus is ruled by Venus. The way it is read in the chart is that ‘Lord of 2nd house Venus is sitting in 9th house of Capricorn’.
Conjunction
When two or more planets are placed in the same house, it is called conjunction. In the above chart, mars and ketu are conjunct in the 7th house, sun and mercury are conjunct in the 8th, venus and saturn in the 9th. When you read the chart, based on the degree at which they are placed, their energy gets influenced on each other to such an extent and different planets can over power based on transit and dasha.
Aspects
According to Eastern astrology, planets from each house influence planets in specific houses from it. For Example, Rahu aspects the 5th and 9th house from wherever it is residing. In the above chart, Rahu is placed in the 1st house and aspecting the 5th house, it might not give you good sudden gains (speculation/stocks) which is a property of 5th house. Hence these natives should not rely heavily on the stock market for investments.
Now that you know how to read the basic birth chart, let’s talk about popular terms.
Sun Sign
These are popular zodiac signs you see all over the place which are based on a set of fixed dates. The Sun Sign is not an absolute determinant because they depict approximate dates(not the real placement from the birth chart) and these dates vary every year. The right way to determine where your Sun is located is by generating your birth chart.
Even after accurately finding a sign in your birth chart, that doesn’t alone determine who you are. When you are only depending on the sign, you are saying that all people born in that month have the same energy. The next level of tweak to this energy is in which house it is placed. You bring in your energy to the characteristics of the house. In the above chart, the Sun in Sagittarius is sitting in the 8th house. This means that the native expresses soul purpose through sudden transformations in the spiritual field. The next step is to determine if this energy is decreased or increased based on the conjunction of mercury and aspects of other planets on this Sun and the degree at which it is placed in this house. This energy becomes more dominant during transits and dashas.
Overall, the Sun represents the way you express yourselves. But this depends on various other factors as discussed above.
Moon Sign
Moon is the planet which talks about your non-negotiable emotional needs. The sign in which the moon is placed is referred to as Rashi in Eastern Astrology. This is also used for horoscope matching for Marriage. Similar to how the Sun sign alone doesn’t determine your future, your Rashi/Moon sign is also dependent on multiple factors. Hence it is not a wise thing to believe all the qualities mentioned for your Rashi blindly or use Nakshatra of your Rashi alone for horoscope matching.
If you would like to get a astro psychology birth chart reading from me, you may request here.
Happy learning Astrology!