What is a birth chart?

When you were born all of the planets were positioned in various places in the sky amongst the zodiac.  Most people know what their Sun sign is, but not everyone realizes you also have a Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (it’s a planet in my book). Each planet rules over a certain area of who we are and knowing your sign means you know how that planet energy works for you.

You also have your houses. At the moment you were born which ever sign is on the horizon becomes the first house, your rising sign. From there you get eleven more. Each house cusp will be in a Zodiac sign. The houses act like an arena for energy to take place. Each house’s archetype corresponds to each sign. The first being Aries, second being Taurus, and so on.

When you draw up your houses you will notice that some have planets while some do not. Where you have a planet is where those planets preform the most. If there’s no planet, that’s okay. Just focus on the sign cusping the house.

Here is an example of Kanye West’s birth chart.

To create your own birth charts, go to astro.com, select free horoscopes and then chart drawing, ascendant. From there enter your birth information and you have your chart. If you don’t know your time that is okay, you just won’t be able to find your houses.

If you look at the table underneath Kanye’s birth chart you will see which signs his planets fall in. While he is a Gemini Sun, someone who is good with words and is always working on something to keep his hands and mind busy, he also has a Pisces moon. This means that emotionally, he is very sensitive and empathetic. He also finds emotional security in solitude.

You may also find that in your chart you have a little r next to a planet like Kanye does next to Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. The r means that when you were born those planets where in retrograde- appearing to move backwards. This means that for you those planets’ energies operate in an internal, more backwards way. This isn’t the end of the world though, it just means that you have to learn to balance that energy at a different level than others. Kanye’s Pluto is retrograde meaning that his transformations and his controlling nature is internalized. He is always renovating himself and may have a tendency to control his own self out of fear.

You can also tell which planets are in which signs by looking at your actual chart, but you have to be familiar with the symbols first. If you look for the symbol Mercury (it looks like Venus with devil horns) you will see it falls in Taurus (the symbol looks like a bull). This means that Kanye is very careful with his words and his thoughts. He puts a lot of thought into what he decides to say (unless he’s intoxicated of course) and once he commits to something he sticks with it. His mind may work a little bit more slowly than his Gemini ego, but it provides him with the stability to see some of his Gemini projects through.

He said in an interview after his most recent fashion line released that as he watched North learn to finish sentences he realized that he needs to finish his sentences too. That’s his Taurus Mercury reminding him to slow down and finish what he wants to communicate before moving on to something new, allowing him to produce the incredible work that he does.

To read the houses you can look at the table. Underneath the planets and their signs it will list the sign cusping six of the twelve houses. To find the other signs you just flip the sign for the corresponding house. For example, Kanye’s second house is in Leo which means his eighth house will be in Aquarius. The second house is your sense of self-worth. Kanye gets his value from his ego, his children, and what he can create from his heart. This could be why many people view him as egotistical, however that has been changing since having North and getting involved in more projects besides music. On the opposite end is the eighth house which rules the dark parts of life. Because Kanye has Aquarius here he feels comfortable talking about these parts of his life. He is able to detach himself enough to share his experiences with others. Think of the work he has put out after his mother’s death and his depression. After he got familiar with the darkness the eighth house can bring, he started to incorporate those themes into his music to share with the world.

You can also read the houses by using the chart. If you look at the horizontal and bolded line sitting in Cancer and Capricorn you will see what is known as the ascendant and descendent. When Kanye was born Cancer was rising on one horizon and Capricorn was setting on the other. The numbers counterclockwise to each house cusp tell you the house number, so the ascendant is the first house of self-assertion. This means that Kanye approaches the world in an emotional way. He is private, only truly opening up to those closest to him. The descendent is the seventh house of relationships. Having Capricorn, Kanye has a lot to learn from relationships, but carries the practicality to make things work. He may be a bit demanding from time to time, but it is geared towards growth.

To tell which planets fall in which houses you first find the planet you want to look at, for this example we’ll use Kanye’s Sun. From the planet, go counter clock wise until you find the house cusp. Kanye’s Sun is sitting in his twelfth house of the subconscious. This means that for Kanye to truly understand his ego and his identity he must look within. After his mother passed, Kanye exiled himself to Hawaii where he was able to sort out some of the troubles in his life. After getting a better understanding of himself, Kanye produced Dark Twisted Fantasy which deals with themes of the ego that he may not have been able to connect with if it was not for his seclusion. The twelfth house is ruled by Neptune which has a tendency to paint a mist over what it touches. This means that a lot of people see Kanye’s ego as something other than what it truly is. Maybe because of his second house in Leo, people pick up on pride rather than empathy and the truly good intentions that Kanye has. Neptune disguises his intentions as something else that not everybody can see past.

There are some instances when a planet will sit really really close to a house cusp, but not quite be in that house. If you look at both Jupiter and Neptune in Kanye’s chart you will see they both sit quite close to the twelfth and sixth house cusp, but are still in the eleventh and fifth respectively. These can be treated a couple of different ways, so I suggest trying out each and figuring out what fits you the best. The first option is to just interpret the planets as the houses they are in. This means that Kanye has an expansive quality to his hopes and dreams and his humanitarian urges. Kanye also has more Neptune deception added to his ego meaning people still struggle to see him for who he is. The second option is to just interpret the planets as the houses they are closest too. This means that Kanye has an expanded subconscious and can be prone to mental illness caused by outside stressors. The third option is to blend the interpretations for both houses. Personally, I can see both interpretations in Kanye. No option is better than the other, it just depends on what feels best for you.

That’s the basics for how to identify your planets and houses. I’m currently offering readings if anyone is interested, just check out my readings page. I plan on making more posts to help interpret different placements, but in the meantime google is a great resource. All you have to do is google the planet and the placement and read people’s interpretations until you have a good idea of what that energy means for you. Feel free to ask me for help, too.

~positive energy