The sky, frozen at your first breath

What each chart body carries

Astrology groups the Sun and Moon with the eight planets for interpretation, even though astronomically they are a star and a satellite. AsterNym calls the ten together the chart bodies.

☉

Sun, your core self: identity, vitality, what you are here to become.

☽

Moon, your inner life: feelings, instincts, what you need to feel safe.

☿

Mercury, your mind: how you think, speak, learn and connect ideas.

♀

Venus, your affections: how you love, what you find beautiful, what you value.

♂

Mars, your drive: how you act, assert, desire and fight.

♃

Jupiter, your growth: where you expand and what you trust.

♄

Saturn, your discipline: where you meet limits, duty and mastery.

♅

Uranus, your rebellion: where you break patterns and need freedom.

♆

Neptune, your dreams: imagination, longing, and where edges blur.

♇

Pluto, your depths: power, transformation, what refuses to stay buried.

The four angles: ASC, DSC, MC and IC

Four abbreviations sit around the edge of your wheel. They aren’t planets. They are four directions in the sky at the moment you were born, fixed by your exact time and place: where the ecliptic met the eastern horizon, where it met the western one, and the two points where it crossed your meridian. They are why a birth time matters: the planets move very little in an hour, the Moon by up to 0.6°, but these swing right around the chart.

ASCAscendant· east, the left of the wheel

The exact degree rising over the eastern horizon as you were born, your rising sign. Read as how you meet the world and how the world first meets you: your manner, your instincts on arrival, the face people meet before they know you. It also sets the whole house system: your rising sign becomes the first house.

DSCDescendant· west, the right of the wheel

The point setting in the west, exactly opposite the Ascendant. Read as what you meet in others, the qualities you notice, need, and tend to partner with, including the ones you have not yet claimed as your own.

MCMidheaven· the upper meridian

Medium Coeli. The degree where the ecliptic crosses your local upper meridian at the birth moment. It is not the point overhead, and under Whole Sign houses it is not the start of the 10th house. Traditionally associated with public role, reputation and direction.

ICImum Coeli· the lower meridian

The degree exactly opposite the Midheaven, where the ecliptic crosses the lower meridian. Traditionally associated with home, roots and private foundations.

ASC and DSC are always exactly opposite each other, as are MC and IC. Each pair is one axis seen from both ends. You may see the Ascendant written as AC and the Midheaven as Medium Coeli; they mean the same thing. Without a birth time we cannot place any of them, so an untimed chart shows no angles rather than a guess.

The twelve houses

Signs describe how a chart body acts; houses describe where in life it acts. AsterNym uses Whole Sign houses, one of the earliest attested house systems: your rising sign becomes the first house, and each following sign becomes the next house. The 10th house begins at 0° of the tenth sign from your Ascendant. Your MC is calculated separately and usually falls in the 10th Whole Sign house, though it can land anywhere from the 8th to the 12th. The further from the equator you were born the more often it leaves the 10th: near 60° north it sits outside the 9th, 10th and 11th in roughly one chart in four.

1

self, body, how you arrive

2

money, possessions, self-worth

3

mind, siblings, the local world

4

home, family, roots

5

creativity, romance, play

6

work, habits, health

7

partnership, marriage, open rivals

8

shared resources, intimacy, transformation

9

belief, travel, higher learning

10

career, reputation, public life

11

friends, community, the future

12

the inner world, rest, what is hidden

You may see the 4th and 10th houses labelled elsewhere as your mother and father, and just as often labelled the other way round. We don’t assign parents to houses; here is why the tradition disagrees with itself.

The five major aspects

Aspects are the angles planets make to each other, the lines across the middle of the wheel. They describe how your drives cooperate or collide.

Conjunction, The two drives operate together. Their meanings blend and intensify.

Sextile, An easy, friendly angle. The cooperation shows up once you make the first move.

Square, A friction angle. The tension irritates, and worked with, it builds real strength.

Trine, The easiest angle: talent so native you may not notice it is rare.

Opposition, Magnetic opposites, a see-saw that wants balance, often lived out through other people.