Astrology basics 01
What is a birth chart?
The sky at the moment you were born, and why it works as a mirror, not a forecast.
A birth chart represents the exact positions of the astrological signs, the planets and other points at the moment of our birth. Through these positions, we can understand certain personality and psychological characteristics of an individual.
A mirror, not a forecast
Birth chart analysis is not a tool for predicting one’s future, but rather a psychological outline of one’s personality, with which one can interpret life more easily. Reading your personal horoscope analysis is like looking at yourself in a mirror for the first time. It is not the planets that influence us — it would be better to say that the positions of the celestial bodies reflect our personality.
Read it as a whole
You need to look at your chart as a whole, which you combine by studying individual parts. All the elements in one’s chart are interrelated; only from the whole combination can you extract the right analysis for your chart. That is why you should read your analysis several times.
What it takes to draw one
To calculate a birth chart you need three details about the person it belongs to: date, time and place of birth.
A birth chart is calculated for the exact time and place of birth. Half an hour either way can make a difference in a birth chart, so check the time of birth before anything else.
If nobody knows the time, the chart is drawn for noon, the usual choice in that case. The rising sign and the houses then cannot be known for certain, because they depend on the exact minute. The houses explains why.
How a chart is drawn
A birth chart is a flat map. Around the outside runs the circle of the zodiac, divided into the twelve signs. Inside it are the planets and the other important points, each where it stood when you were born, and the twelve houses.
Lines across the middle join the planets that stand at certain angles to one another. These are the aspects.
Every position is marked with its own symbol. The glyphs beside the headings in these chapters are the same ones the book draws your chart with. The next chapter goes through the parts one by one.
Your birth chart reading
Your whole chart, read in one book
The book goes through every planet, every house and every aspect in one birth chart, the way these pages explain them, but about you.
Marsa wrote every word. Your chart decides which of them you get.
See the books →See it in your own birth chart
Enter your birth details and we calculate your chart precisely, with every planet this guide describes in the sign and house where it stood. You get the chart wheel and a short reading as a PDF, by email.
It is free, and there is nothing to pay at any point.
Five details, and the birth chart is yours. If you do not know the exact time of birth, that is fine — the link below sets it to the standard value.