Learn How to Interpret Your Birth Chart

Are you new to astrology?

Do you want to know how to interpret your own natal chart?

And are you willing to put some effort into learning?

If your answer is "yes" to all of these questions, then here's how I recommend you get yourself off to a successful start.

1. Get a Copy of Your Birth Chart

Do this for free at www.astro.com. (You'll need your birth time.)

2. Get a General Overview of Astrology

Read the beginner series from The Mountain Astrologer. It includes:

• Signs
• Modes and Elements
• Planets
• The Birthchart as a Map
• Houses
• Rulerships/Dignities
• Aspects
• Cycles
• Transits and Progressions
• Lunations, Nodes and Eclipses
• Chart Synthesis
• Applications and Types of Astrology
• Special Q&A section

3. Read a Book/Take a Class

If you want an understandable, inspiring first book about growth-oriented natal astrology, read “The Inner Sky” by Steven Forrest.

If you want to take a class, try that. Some classes are taught in person, and some are taught online. I have taught a Natal Astrology I class online in the past, but I have no idea when I’ll teach it again, and I don’t know whose class to recommend at this point. However, you might use the syllabus from my class to help you decide whether to take a particular course. When I taught that class in the past, I used “The Inner Sky” for the textbook, and if I teach the class again, I expect to continue using that book.

4. Have Fun with It!

Astrology is part memorization and part creativity. As you spend time learning material and committing it to memory, don't forget to include your more poetic, right-brained side. Keep your learning fun. Use your whole brain.

Use your logical left brain to memorize the important basics, and use your imaginative right brain to apply them creatively. Two halves of your brain are much better than one!

Draw on whatever types of sources help the symbols come to life for you.

If you're familiar with myths, draw on those.

If you're familiar with popular songs, draw on those. (For an example of how to bring the planets to life through the use of popular music, read “Singing with the Planets”) If you're familiar with famous figures from literature or history, then draw on those. For instance, suppose you want to wrap your brain around an aspect in your birth chart: the Sun in Scorpio in the 9th house trine the Moon in Pisces in the 12th house. imagine your Sun in Scorpio in the 9th house as an international spy. Imagine your Moon in Pisces in the 12th as a hippy from the 1960's. James Bond meets Janis Joplin, say. What happens when the two talk to each other?

5. Start with Your Sun, Moon and Ascendant

To understand your birth chart, start with these three. I consider them the very core of your natal chart. Look at the Sun, what it represents, which sign your Sun is in, and which house it's in. Do the same thing for your Moon. Then look at your Ascendant (or rising sign).

6. Look at the Rest of Your Chart

Look at your Mercury, its house and sign, and aspects to your Sun/Moon/Ascendant. Repeat this for all the planets.

If your Sun, Moon and Ascendant combination suggests one approach to life, and another part of your chart suggests a different approach, emphasize the first approach more than the second. However, all of your chart matters. We all have some contradictory interests and needs. Try to satisfy all of yours, to one extent or another.

7. Bounce Your Interpretation Off Someone Else

Post a message on a message board. Pair up with someone else who is at the same level, and trade off time looking at each other's charts. Unfortunately, I have made my own message board read-only until I am ready to replace it with a higher-quality one, one that will prevent hacking and spamming. However, to post messages, you might start at the Astrology Zone board. And you want to explore other such boards, too.

8. Look at Transits to Your Birth Chart

Transits (predictive symbolizes of astrology) trigger the creative and destructive potential that your chart indicates. First get a solid feel for your chart. Then look at transits to it. If you skip the natal astrology and try to go directly to the predictive astrology, it will not make much sense. Do first things first, and you'll come out ahead in the long run.