Chart shapes: bowl, bucket, locomotive, splash
Seven named distributions, and a scheme where most charts do not cleanly fit any of them.
4 min read · Published 29 August 2026
The short answer
Chart shapes describe how the ten planets distribute around the wheel. The seven standard patterns are bowl, bucket, bundle, locomotive, seesaw, splash and splay. They were formalised by Marc Edmund Jones in the twentieth century. The scheme's weakness is that many charts do not fit any pattern cleanly, and which one a practitioner assigns often depends on judgement rather than a rule.
The seven patterns
| Shape | Distribution | Traditionally read as |
|---|---|---|
| Bundle | All ten within about 120° | Highly focused, specialised, narrow but deep |
| Bowl | All ten within about 180° | A sense of something missing; self-contained |
| Bucket | A bowl plus one planet opposite — the handle | The handle planet becomes the chart's outlet and focus |
| Locomotive | All ten within about 240°, with an empty third | Driven, self-propelled, led by the leading planet |
| Seesaw | Two groups opposite each other | Balancing opposing demands; awareness of both sides |
| Splash | Spread evenly around the wheel | Broad interests, many directions, risk of dispersal |
| Splay | Irregular clumps with no even spread | Strongly individual, resistant to categorisation |
The bucket is the one practitioners find most useful, because it identifies a single planet as the chart's outlet — a specific, actionable reading rather than a general temperament label.
The arithmetic problem
Ten planets on a 360-degree wheel, with several tightly constrained.
Mercury never strays more than about 28 degrees from the Sun, and Venus never more than about 47. So three of the ten are always clustered. That alone makes a genuine splash — even distribution — close to impossible, and makes bowls and bundles more likely than chance would suggest.
The outer planets move so slowly that everyone born within a few years shares their positions. So a substantial part of a chart's shape is determined by birth era rather than by anything individual.
The result is that shape distributions are not what a random model would predict, and any reading treating a shape as personally distinctive is partly describing a cohort.
Where the scheme came from
Marc Edmund Jones formalised the seven patterns in the twentieth century, in the same body of work that produced the Sabian symbols.
It is a genuinely useful piece of visual thinking: looking at a chart's overall distribution before diving into individual placements is good practice, and gives an immediate impression that reading placement by placement does not.
Whether the specific meanings attached hold is a separate question, and the answer is the usual one — no study, no evidence, a coherent scheme assembled by one person in one century.
How to use it sensibly
- Look at the shape first, before individual placements. The overall impression is worth having and takes seconds.
- Notice genuine emptiness. A large empty region is a real feature of the chart regardless of what you call the shape.
- Find the handle if there is one. A single planet opposite a cluster is the most actionable thing the scheme identifies.
- Do not force a classification. If a chart sits between two shapes, that is information, and picking one to have a label is exactly the wrong move.
AsterNym computes stelliums and aspect patterns and states the thresholds used to identify each, which is the same discipline applied to a related question.
Common questions
- What are the chart shapes in astrology?
- Seven patterns describing how the ten planets distribute around the wheel: bundle, bowl, bucket, locomotive, seesaw, splash and splay. They were formalised by Marc Edmund Jones in the twentieth century.
- What is a bucket chart?
- A bowl pattern — all planets within roughly half the wheel — plus a single planet opposite, called the handle. Traditional reading treats the handle planet as the chart's outlet and focus, which makes it the most actionable of the seven shapes.
- Why are some chart shapes more common than others?
- Because Mercury never strays more than about 28 degrees from the Sun and Venus never more than about 47, so three planets are always clustered. That makes an even splash nearly impossible and bowls and bundles more likely than chance would suggest.
- Are chart shapes reliable?
- The thresholds are conventions rather than derived boundaries, so charts near an edge can be classified either way. There is no evidence for the meanings attached, though looking at overall distribution before individual placements is reasonable practice.