Birth charts are complex representations, depicting the positions of our solar system’s sun and planets at the exact time a person is born. Understanding them requires a little bit of experience and practice, but astrologers believe that three key celestial bodies can reveal a great deal about someone’s core personality. Most casual astrology focuses only on sun signs, but the ascendant and moon signs lend additional vital details to form a more well-rounded view of an individual.
A Quick History of Western Astrology
Western astrology owes much of its philosophies and methods to the ancient Babylonians, who first created the practice and ascribed meanings to the sun, planets, and constellations. Blogging for Kepler College, astrologer Emma Wilson explains how they mapped the first zodiac system. Some of these concepts and symbols remain unchanged to the present day, even after their ideas were modified by the Egyptians and Greeks.
Yet while the earliest methods focused mostly on divination, the Egyptians and Greeks were responsible for developing horoscopic and natal astrology. It is through these two forms that sun and planetary positions became regarded as important influences on an individual’s destiny and temperament.
The Significance of Sun Signs
When people talk about birth charts, they usually mean the zodiac constellation in which our sun was present at the time of their birth. While each constellation is ruled by a different celestial body, modern astrologers look to the sun’s position to determine an individual’s fundamental personality. Mystica Astrology discusses the sun’s astrological significance, disclosing that it’s thought to symbolize a person’s basic self-identity, view of the world, and deeper archetypal essence. At this site, Emma Wilson also provides detailed explanations for each zodiac sign’s meaning.
Understanding Your Moon Sign
Newspaper and magazine horoscopes typically focus on offering advice and guidance to readers based on their sun signs. However, moon signs are believed to reveal even more aspects of an individual’s personality. That’s because the moon is seen as representing the emotional component, pointing to deep unconscious needs as well as instincts, ancestral influences, the past, and family dynamics.
How these factors play out is determined by the zodiac sign in which the moon was present at the time of an individual’s birth. For example, Cafe Astrology describes a moon in Aries as intense, passionate, impulsive, and temperamental. The moon spends anywhere between 48 and 60 hours in each zodiac sign during a given month. Since it can transit between birth charts during the course of a day, it’s possible for two people born on the exact same date to have different moon signs.
The Impact of Rising Signs
The rising sign, or ascendant, is believed to add even more nuance to an individual’s character. Cafe Astrology refers to it as the “mask” we wear when encountering others, containing our natural reactions, defenses, and coping mechanisms. According to AstroStyle, your ascendant can affect your attitude and appearance as well as others’ perception of you. Because it lends traits from its zodiac sign into your personality, this can potentially cause others to perceive you as a different sun sign.
Rising signs change every two hours, so determining them requires an exact time, date, and place of birth. That’s also why two people born on the same day in the same city won’t necessarily have the same ascendant. In fact, even siblings who are born only a few minutes apart can end up with different rising signs.
What Are Your Signs?
While modern science insists that the positions of celestial bodies don’t influence our daily lives, astrology remains fashionable even today. With curiosity an essential component of human nature, we remain fascinated by the movements and possible meanings of the stars and planets in our heavens.