These are high-level and generalized summaries, but this still provides an in-depth primer into the foundations of astrology for the curious souls. This should hopefully give you a good idea of the astrological language as well as serve as a portal for you to go deeper into the world of astrology if you're feeling pulled to learn about your own birth chart.

Importantly, you could spend a year just learning about any one of the points here. The planets alone, for example, are perhaps the most important archetypes to understand and there's thousands of years of human history and mythology to discover to understand the depth of the archetypes. So again, this is just a summary.

 

An Overview

The planets are what is being expressed or characters in your life (the “what”). These are the most important.

The 12 houses are areas of life (the “where” or the “place”). Everything in life is ruled by a house. 

The 12 signs are energies (the “how”). They wrap the planets up and flavor them.

The 4 angles are the major themes in life (the self, family, relationships, and career).

The 5 major aspects are energetic tension, push, pulls, and/or friction. This is the synthesis of interconnected energy and how they work together.

The chart ruler steers your direction in life. This is your guide!

 

The Planets & Luminaries - The Gods Above & Below

The Luminaries

Sun: the self; vitality; ego; consciousness; yang

Moon: changing mood; nurture; inner emotions; yin

The Personal Planets

Mercury: the mind; thinking; communicating

Venus: union; pleasure; art; beauty

Mars: action; will; ambition; power

Jupiter: optimism; wisdom; law; teachers; spirituality

Saturn: restrictions; responsibilities; time; structure

The Outer Planets

Uranus: genius; liberation; individuation

Neptune: fantasies; imagination; spirituality; subconscious

Pluto: transformation; power; deepest subconscious

 

The Zodiac Signs - A Basic Overview

Sign: Planetary ruler | modality | element | polarity | simple archetype example

Sextile (60° away): Expressing and using this energy is a natural and innate gift.

Trine (120° away): Expressing and using this energy is a superior natural and innate talent.

Square (90° away): Produces tension but productive. Type of tension needed to make real action and grow.

Opposition (180° away): Push-pull energy and a heightened polarity in the chart between opposites of the same modality.

Conjunction: Technically not an aspect, but when planets are right next to each other in a tight conjunction, these energies work closely together and are neither inherently ease or tense (depends on the planets involved and positions).

There are so many more equally interesting aspects. These here are just the Ptolemy aspects or the "major aspects."

 

The Houses / The Places

The Chart Ruler - Your Steer Captain

The Chart Ruler is based on your rising sign and is the planetary energy guiding you in life. If you are an Aries rising, for example, then you can say you're going through life as a Martian archetypal manner and Mars is charting your course.

These are the traditional rulers but you can reference the modern ones as well.

 

The Angles - The Axes of Life

Ascendent (AC): What was rising on the horizon when you were born. Your rising, you sense of self, the lens through which you operate and how you go through life.

Descendent (DC): What was setting on the horizon when you were born. The opposite sign of your sense of self.

Midheaven (MC): The highest and brightest point in the sky when you were born (more to that technically but that’s the summary version). Your public image and the mark you want to leave in the world.

Imum Coeli (IC): The lowest and darkest point in the sky when you were born. Your inner secretive world, roots, and resting place.

 

Other Important Considerations

Dominate Planet: The dominate planet has a significant influence in your chart and is the planet with the most number of aspects being made to it as well as in strong planetary condition.

Lunar Nodes (Rahu/Ketu or North/South Node): The soul‘s unconscious desires, attachments, or evolutionary path that bring us to (or back to) the physical to harmonize. The Lunar Nodes are one of the most important factors of an astrology birth chart from my perspective. 

Stelliums: Any cluster of 3 or more planets in a sign together is an area of concentrated and heightened energy (if they are all outer planets or are asteroids, I wouldn’t count that).

 

How?

Everything is energy.

Eternity can only be realized through fragments of time.

Everything is interconnected and relative to each other.

Everything is cyclical (cycles within larger cycles within larger cycles - the hero’s journey within the hero’s journey).

The universe is more magical, fractal, and interesting than a material world would like to believe.

98% of our DNA is unexplained by scientists who call it “junk DNA”, “dark matter genome” or “non-coding DNA” that has no true biological function. More recently, scientists realized how ridiculous that sounds and are beginning to think this 98% non-coding DNA provides instructions to the 2% of protein-building DNA they do understand. You are more than a physical protein block and your birth chart is the doorway to knowing who you truly are. Your chart is your mysterious and energetic dark matter genome begging to be uncoded with a little love. A seed with a story to tell. 

 

If you contemplate on the how and understand what astrology is showing us, you realize it's far less about memorizing and regurgitating definitions. 

 

-Susan Reis / The Cyclical Seed