The chart itself

Natal chartalso: birth chart

A map of the sky at the minute and place you were born: where each planet was, which sign it was in, and which part of the sky it occupied as seen from your birthplace. Drawn as the wheel on page two of your reading.

Why it matters: everything in your reading is read off this map. Two people born the same day in different towns, or two hours apart, get different maps.

Zodiac sign

One of twelve 30° segments of the sky's circle: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. Every planet in your chart sits in one of them. The outer ring of the wheel shows the signs.

Why it matters: the sign describes how a planet expresses itself. "Mars in Capricorn" is drive that plans; "Mars in Sagittarius" is drive that leaps.

Placement

A planet's position: its sign, its house, and its exact degree. "Venus at 10°28′ Scorpio in the 4th house" is one placement. Your reading cites the placement behind every paragraph.

Why it matters: this is how you check a claim. If a paragraph names a placement you can find in the table on page two, it was written from your chart, not from your Sun sign.

Degree and arc-minute° and ′

Each sign is 30 degrees; each degree is 60 arc-minutes. "19°36′ Taurus" means 19 degrees and 36 minutes into Taurus. Your placements table shows every planet to the arc-minute.

Why it matters: the degree decides whether two planets form an aspect, and how tight it is. It is also the part a Sun-sign horoscope never has.

Retrograde℞

A planet that appeared to move backwards through the sky on the day you were born (an effect of Earth's own orbit). Marked ℞ in your table.

Why it matters: astrologers read a retrograde planet as turned inward: its themes are worked out privately and over time rather than expressed outright. The reading says so wherever it applies.

The Big Three

Sun sign

The sign the Sun was in on your birthday. The only placement most people know, and the one every horoscope column uses. The Sun changes sign roughly once a month.

Why it matters: the Sun is read as your core: what you are here to become, what you keep returning to. One placement of eleven, so it is a starting point, never the whole story.

Moon sign

The sign the Moon was in at your birth. The Moon changes sign every two and a half days, so people born the same week often have different Moons.

Why it matters: the Moon is read as what you need to feel safe, how you react before you think, and what home means to you. The Love & Romance edition leans on it heavily.

Rising signalso: Ascendant, ASC

The sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at the minute you were born. It changes every two hours or so, which is why the birth time matters more than anything else you enter.

Why it matters: read as the face you show first and the way you meet the world. It also sets the houses, so a wrong birth time can move every planet into a different house. The birth-time note on page two tells you how much yours can move before this changes.

Midheavenalso: MC

The highest point of the sky at your birth, at the top of your wheel. Its opposite, at the bottom, is the IC.

Why it matters: the Midheaven is read as reputation and calling: what you are known for and the direction you grow toward over a lifetime. It is the backbone of the Career & Calling edition.

Descendantalso: DSC

The point opposite your Ascendant, on the western horizon. The start of the 7th house.

Why it matters: read as the qualities you look for in a partner and what you tend to meet in others. Central to the Love & Romance and Couples editions.

The planets

Astrology uses the word "planet" loosely: the Sun and Moon are counted as planets, and so are a few calculated points. Each one is read as a different part of a person.

Mercury

How you think, learn and talk. Its sign shows your style of mind; its house shows where you do most of your thinking.

Why it matters: in a career reading, Mercury is your voice and your method. In a couples reading, Mercury contacts show whether you two talk easily.

Venus

What you find beautiful, how you attract, and how you show affection. Also money and taste.

Why it matters: the centre of the Love & Romance edition. Venus's sign is how you love; its house is where love tends to find you.

Mars

Drive, desire, anger, and how you go after what you want.

Why it matters: read as your engine. In a career reading, how you work and compete; in a love reading, how you pursue. Mars in a hard aspect to Saturn is one of the most common "engine meets brake" tensions in a chart.

Jupiter

Growth, confidence, luck, and the appetite for more. Takes about twelve years to go round the chart.

Why it matters: where Jupiter sits is where things tend to come easily, and where you can overreach. Jupiter's transits (see below) mark the expansive seasons in your Year Ahead.

Saturn

Discipline, limits, responsibility, and the work of a lifetime. Takes about 29 years to go round, so its "return" at 29 and 58 is a well-known milestone.

Why it matters: Saturn's placement shows where life asks you to earn it slowly, and where mastery eventually pays. It is the honest friction in almost every chapter, and the long-term glue in a couples reading.

Uranus, Neptune, Plutothe outer planets

Slow movers (84, 165 and 248 years round the chart). Uranus: change, independence, the unexpected. Neptune: imagination, idealism, blur. Pluto: depth, power, transformation.

Why it matters: because they move so slowly, their sign is shared by a whole generation; their house and their aspects to your personal planets are what make them yours. Their transits are the big, slow weather of a Year Ahead.

North Nodealso: Lunar Node

Not a planet: the point where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. The South Node is directly opposite.

Why it matters: read as direction: the North Node points toward the growth your chart is built for; the South Node toward the habits that feel familiar and hold you back. Central to the Life Purpose edition.

The twelve houses

The wheel is divided into twelve areas of life, numbered anticlockwise from the Ascendant. Which house a planet falls in depends on your birth time and place, which is why we ask for both. Each house is read as a department of life:

House cusp

The line where one house begins. The twelve cusps are listed on page two; the four strongest (Ascendant, IC, Descendant, Midheaven) are called the angles.

Why it matters: a planet within a degree or two of a cusp is read in both houses; a planet on an angle is read as unusually visible in the life. The reading says so where it applies.

Rulere.g. "the ruler of your 7th house"

Each sign has a planet that rules it (Mars rules Aries, Venus rules Taurus and Libra, and so on). The planet ruling the sign on a house cusp is that house's ruler; the planet ruling your Rising sign is the chart ruler.

Why it matters: an empty house isn't a blank. Astrologers read it through its ruler: "your 7th house is Capricorn, so Saturn, in your 2nd house, says partnership and money are linked for you."

Aspects

An aspect is a particular angle between two planets. The coloured lines in the middle of your wheel are aspects: teal and blue for the easy ones, red for the tense ones. Your ten tightest are listed on page two.

Conjunction0°

Two planets in the same place. Their meanings merge.

Why it matters: the strongest aspect. Mercury conjunct Neptune, for example, reads as a mind that imagines as easily as it reasons.

Trine120°

An easy, flowing angle. Talent that comes naturally, sometimes so naturally it goes unused.

Why it matters: the trines in your chart are what you're good at without trying. The reading names them, and sometimes asks whether you're using them.

Sextile60°

A gentle, helpful angle; an opportunity that needs a nudge.

Why it matters: milder than a trine. Read as a resource you can reach for.

Square90°

A tense angle: two planets pulling in directions that don't easily combine.

Why it matters: squares are where the effort and the growth are. A reading with no squares would be flattery; yours keeps them in, and reads each one as a tension to work with, not a flaw.

Opposition180°

Two planets facing each other across the chart. A see-saw: the themes take turns, or get played out between you and other people.

Why it matters: often shows up as a pattern in relationships, because one end of the see-saw tends to be handed to a partner.

Orb

How far from exact an aspect is. "Moon square Saturn, orb 1.8°" means the angle is 1.8° away from a perfect 90°. We allow up to 8° for conjunctions and oppositions, 7° for squares and trines, 4° for sextiles.

Why it matters: the tighter the orb, the stronger the aspect. Your closest aspects are listed first and carry the most weight in the chapters.

Patterns

T-square

Two planets in opposition, both square to a third. The third planet (the apex) takes the pressure of both.

Why it matters: one of the strongest engines a chart can have: restless energy that only settles when it is channelled through the apex planet. When your chart has one, it gets its own section.

Grand trine

Three planets each 120° apart, forming a triangle of easy flow.

Why it matters: real talent, with a tendency to coast. The reading names the gift and the risk.

Stellium

Three or more planets in the same sign or house.

Why it matters: that area of life carries unusual weight. Four planets in the 5th house, for instance, make romance and creativity central to the whole chart.

Element balancefire, earth, air, water

Each sign belongs to an element. Counting where your planets fall shows the temperament of the chart: fire (initiative), earth (practicality), air (ideas), water (feeling).

Why it matters: an imbalance is often the clearest thing a chart says. In a couples reading, two charts with opposite balances explain a lot of the "same argument".

Time, dates and transits

Transit

A planet's position now (or on a future date) compared with your natal chart. "Saturn conjunct your Midheaven, exact 2 August 2026" means Saturn, moving through the sky today, reached the degree your Midheaven occupies at birth.

Why it matters: the whole Year Ahead section is transits. They describe the weather, not the destination: what a period tends to support, with the dates it is exact. Nothing in a transit says what will happen.

Exact date

The day a transit reaches its precise angle. Because planets loop backwards and forwards (retrograde), a transit often has two or three exact dates months apart; the reading lists all of them.

Why it matters: the window between the first and last exact date is the whole season. The first pass raises the theme, the middle one works it, the last settles it.

ReturnSaturn return, Jupiter return, solar return

When a planet comes back to the place it held at your birth. Jupiter every 12 years, Saturn every 29, the Sun every birthday (the solar return).

Why it matters: returns are the natural chapter breaks of a life. The Year Ahead flags any that fall in your window.

Birth-time sensitivity

The note on page two: how many minutes your birth time can move before the Rising sign, the Midheaven sign, or the house of the Sun or Moon changes. We recalculate the chart minute by minute to find it.

Why it matters: it tells you which lines to trust. If your time is from a birth certificate and the note says the chart holds for 30 minutes either side, everything stands. If it says the Rising sign changes four minutes later, treat the house-based chapters with care, and re-run the chart if you find a better time (it's free).

Couples terms

Synastry

Comparing two charts: the aspects between one person's planets and the other's, and where each person's planets fall in the other's houses.

Why it matters: this is what the Couples edition reads. "Maya's Moon trine Tom's Venus" is a synastry aspect: her needs and his affection flow easily.

Biwheel

Both charts on one wheel: one person's houses and planets inside, the other's planets on the outer band, with the connections between them drawn across the middle.

Why it matters: it lets you see at a glance where the two charts touch, and in whose house each contact lands.

House overlay

Where one person's planet falls in the other's houses. "Tom's Sun in Maya's 10th house" means Tom's core lands in the part of Maya's life about career and reputation.

Why it matters: overlays explain what each person activates in the other's life, which is often different from what they activate in each other's feelings.

Composite

A third chart made from the midpoints between the two people's planets: the relationship's own Sun, Moon, Venus and so on.

Why it matters: read as the character of the relationship itself, as distinct from either person. Your Couples reading quotes the composite core on the chart page.

How it's calculated

Swiss Ephemeris

The set of planetary tables we calculate from, built on NASA's planetary data and used by professional astrology software.

Why it matters: your chart will match a professional astrologer's chart of you, to the degree. The full method.

Tropical zodiac

The zodiac that starts at the spring equinox, used by Western astrology. (Vedic astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, which is offset by about 24°; signs come out differently.)

Why it matters: if you've seen your chart elsewhere and the signs differ by one, the other chart was probably sidereal. Ours is tropical, like most Western readings.

Placidus houses

The most widely used method of dividing the sky into twelve houses. Other systems (Whole Sign, Koch, Equal) draw the lines differently.

Why it matters: house boundaries can differ between systems, so a planet near a cusp may sit in a different house in another astrologer's chart. The signs and aspects don't change.

Universal TimeUT

The world clock that planetary positions are tabulated in. Your local birth time is converted to UT using the time zone and daylight-saving rules in force on your birth date, at your birthplace.

Why it matters: an hour's error here moves the Rising sign by half a sign. Historical daylight-saving rules are the most common source of wrong charts elsewhere; we apply the rules of the actual date.