Common questions relating to Astrology: Part – 2

Birth Chart: When we create a birth chart, the date and location help us decide where the planets are and tells us how the zodiac signs and the planets line up. What we do not know is where the houses are. A chart without a birth time is as if someone threw away the inner circle and just sprinkled the planets on the bigger wheel with the zodiac signs. This is what you would call a solar chart rather than a natal chart.

Solar Chart: In a solar chart, we will put your sun sign in the first house. Therefore, if you know from your birthday that you are a Virgo, then we would spin the inner circle around so that Virgo (from the outer circle) is in the spot where someone’s first house belongs. Then Libra would naturally fall into the second house, Scorpio into the third, Sagittarius into the fourth etc. When you read a generic sun sign forecast, this is what they are using to make the predictions. It can be accurate in a generic sense, but it is not detailed and not personally accurate, because we do not know where your houses really are supposed to be. When we use solar charts for compatibility purposes, we can tell you if you have similar or different spending habits, but we cannot tell you which financial topics you will argue about.

For example, let us say that the solar charts show that the man is going to be fiscally conservative and the woman is going to be fiscally irresponsible. In a solar chart compatibility reading, we can only tell you that much. But if we had the birth times and the real house placements then we could tell you that his fiscal conservatism is in the areas of his chart where gambling is and her natal chart shows that her fiscal irresponsibility is in the extended family areas of her chart. Now it is easier to warn the couple that she may be tempted to give away money to her siblings or that she is extremely generous with her family during birthdays, weddings, and holidays. We can also predict that he is not likely to be one to gamble or to take undue risks with his money. They still could have some occasional money debates, but they at least know when and where it is likely to show up. This makes it easier for them to judge their levels of compatibility. They could decide that their financial differences are not necessarily so serious after all.

Rising Sign: Your birth time tells us where the “horizon” is in your personal picture of the sky at the moment of your birth. The “horizon” is that invisible line that goes across the face of the clock passing through numbers 9 and 3. The birth time tells us where that line is on your personal clock/chart. The spot where the number 9 is on a normal clock is where the Rising Sign (the horizon of your chart) is placed on your natal chart. By giving an astrologer your birth time, you are in essence telling him which way is up when he hangs your clock on the wall. It is also like telling us which way is north when we are trying to read your personal map. For example, someone with an Aries Rising will have the outer wheel/zodiac sig Aries sitting over the spot where the number 9 would be on a normal clock.