How to Read a Birth Chart for Beginners: A Simple Guide

A birth chart looks intimidating the first time you see one: a wheel cut into twelve slices, scattered with symbols and criss-crossed with lines. It's easier than it looks. A chart has only four ingredients, and once you know them you can read the basics of any chart, including your own.

What a birth chart is

A birth chart, also called a natal chart, is a map of where the Sun, Moon and planets were in the sky at the moment you were born, as seen from the place you were born. Astrologers read it as a symbolic portrait of personality.

To generate one you need three pieces of information:

• your date of birth
• your time of birth, as exact as you can get it
• your place of birth

Many free chart calculators online will draw the wheel for you. If you don't know your birth time you can still read most of the chart, but the rising sign and the houses depend on the time, so those parts will be unreliable.

Ingredient one: the signs

You already know these. There are twelve zodiac signs, from Aries to Pisces, and each has a recognisable style. In a chart, the signs describe how something is expressed. Think of them as adjectives.

Ingredient two: the planets

The planets are the what. Astrology counts the Sun and Moon here too, which makes ten bodies. Each stands for a part of you.

• Sun: core identity, what you're growing into.
• Moon: emotions, needs, what makes you feel safe.
• Mercury: how you think and communicate.
• Venus: what you like, how you relate and show affection.
• Mars: drive, how you go after things, how you get angry.
• Jupiter: growth, optimism, where things come easily.
• Saturn: discipline, responsibility, where you work hardest.
• Uranus, Neptune, Pluto: slow-moving planets that astrologers link to change, imagination and transformation. They stay in one sign for years, so you share them with most people your age.

Every planet in your chart sits in a sign. "Mars in Gemini" means your drive, the planet, works in a Gemini way, the sign: quick, verbal and restless.

Start with the Big Three

Before you look at all ten, learn three.

Your Sun sign is the one you already know, set by your birthday. It describes your central character.

Your Moon sign is the sign the Moon was in when you were born. It describes your inner, emotional life, the side close friends and family see.

Your rising sign, or ascendant, is the sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at your moment of birth. It describes first impressions and how you come across to people who've just met you. The rising sign changes roughly every two hours, which is why an accurate birth time matters.

When someone says "I don't relate to my sign," the explanation astrologers usually offer is that their Moon or rising sign is very different from their Sun.

Ingredient three: the houses

The wheel is divided into twelve houses. If planets are the what and signs are the how, houses are the where: the area of life in which that energy shows up.

1. First house: self, appearance, first impressions.
2. Second house: possessions, values, what you consider yours.
3. Third house: communication, siblings, everyday learning.
4. Fourth house: home, family, roots.
5. Fifth house: creativity, romance, play.
6. Sixth house: daily routines, work habits, service.
7. Seventh house: partnerships and one-to-one relationships.
8. Eighth house: shared resources, intimacy, change.
9. Ninth house: travel, beliefs, higher learning.
10. Tenth house: career, reputation, public life.
11. Eleventh house: friends, groups, hopes.
12. Twelfth house: solitude, the hidden and the subconscious.

The first house begins at your rising sign, and the rest follow around the wheel anticlockwise. A house with several planets in it is one astrologers would call a busy area of life. Empty houses are normal. Everyone has them, and an empty house doesn't mean that part of life is missing.

Putting planet, sign and house together

This is the core skill. Combine the three into one sentence:

Planet (what) in sign (how) in house (where).

For example, Venus in Capricorn in the seventh house: affection (Venus) expressed in a serious, committed way (Capricorn) in the area of partnership (seventh house). An astrologer would read that as someone who takes relationships seriously and shows love through reliability.

Do that for each of your planets and you have read your chart.

Ingredient four: the aspects

The lines across the middle of the wheel are aspects. They show the angles between planets and are read as conversations between them. Five are worth knowing at first.

• Conjunction: planets close together. Their energies blend.
• Sextile: about 60 degrees apart. Friendly and cooperative.
• Square: about 90 degrees apart. Tension that pushes you to act.
• Trine: about 120 degrees apart. Easy flow.
• Opposition: about 180 degrees apart. A pull between two sides that asks for balance.

Don't try to interpret every line at first. Look for aspects involving your Sun and Moon and start there.

A five-step method for your own chart

1. Generate your chart with your date, time and place of birth.
2. Write down your Big Three: Sun, Moon and rising.
3. List each planet with its sign and house.
4. Turn each one into a "what, how, where" sentence.
5. Note which houses are busiest and which aspects touch your Sun and Moon.

That's enough to give you a real first reading, and it usually takes under an hour.

Mistakes beginners make

• Trying to learn everything at once. Big Three first. The rest can wait.
• Reading one placement in isolation. A chart is a whole. One placement tells you very little by itself.
• Taking it as fate. A chart is a symbolic language for thinking about yourself. It doesn't decide anything for you.

Want to work through it on paper?

Birth Chart Decoder — The Beginner's Workbook takes you through these steps with pages to fill in for your own placements. It's an instant-download PDF.

Astrology is offered here for entertainment and self-reflection. It isn't a substitute for professional advice.