How to read a (wheel) Birth Chart
Looking a a wheel chart can be really intimidating at first. I (and other more experienced astrologers) recommend using Astro Dienst (I explain how to pull your chart up using that site on this page) and staying away from certain sites that might have nicer looking charts or plainly list your placements instead of using the wheel chart, mainly because some of them calculate your chart WRONG, which means you may have been looking up the wrong placements for yourself!
Another thing to consider is that your birth chart is packed with an insane amount of information that can't all be included in a simple list of your placements.
So if the best way to read your chart is the wheel chart, where do you start? It looks so confusing! We've all been there. Here I'll show you what each piece represents.
**I won't be getting into the actual meanings of each component on this post, so if you're a complete beginner, click here for an introduction to astrology!
The first piece of this puzzle is the planets. The planets (and asteroids, calculated points, etc) all have their own symbols and they will appear scattered throughout the chart, close to the outer circle.
If you're not sure which symbols represent which celestial bodies, here's a key to use for reference!
The next important piece is the signs. This one is pretty easy to identify, especially if you already are somewhat familiar with the zodiacal glyphs. The zodiac signs, ecliptic belt, whatever you prefer to call it, is represented by the thinner outer circle. The signs are ALWAYS in counterclockwise order, and the sign on the far left horizontal line will always be your rising sign.
Example: If you have Cancer rising, your chart will look like the chart below (Cancer on the far right, then next, moving counterclockwise, is Leo, then Virgo, Then Libra at the bottom vertical line, and so on.
Another example: If you have Virgo rising, Virgo will be on the far left horizontal line, then, moving counterclockwise, Libra is next, then Scorpio, then Sagittarius on the bottom vertical line, then Capricorn, and so on.
The next important pieces are the houses. The houses are pretty easy to identify. They're the lines meeting in the middle of the chart and then fanning out to meet the inside of the outer ring that represents the zodiacal belt. Each house is usually numbered towards the center of the chart so that you know which is which. While the starting point of the signs can change for each different rising sign, the order of the houses ALWAYS stays the same. The 1st house is ALWAYS on the far left, then moving counterclockwise, the 2nd house is next, then the 3rd house, then the 4th is at the bottom of the wheel, and so on.
While we're talking about houses, I'll tell you about the angular points. These are crucial points in your chart. If you've calculated your chart before and you know your rising sign, you already know at least one of these important points! Your rising sign is determined by the degree of your ascendant. Your ascendant (sometimes abbreviated as ASC or AC) is the horizontal line on the far left side of the wheel that we've been talking about. This is why the order that the signs are in for your chart are determined by your rising sign. So if you're a Pisces rising, then Pisces will be on the ascendant/on your 1st house/on the far left horizontal line. If you're a Taurus rising, it will be Taurus on the ascendant, if you're a Scorpio rising, it will be Scorpio, etc.
Now, the point exactly opposite the degree of your ascendant/rising, is called your descendant (sometimes abbreviated DSC or DC). The other two angular points are your Midheaven (also called Medium Coeli, sometimes abbreviated MC) at the top of your chart, and your Imum Coeli (abbreviated IC) at the bottom of your chart.
NOTE: The position of your MC/IC axis is depends on the house system you use!! In house systems like Placidus (usually is the default for most chart calculators) use the ASC/DSC and MC/IC axis to mark the beginning of your angular houses (1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th houses). BUT other house systems like whole sign houses will show the ASC/DSC axis somewhere inside of the 1st and 7th houses, and the IC/MC axis can land anywhere in the top and bottom halves of your chart.
The IC/MC also really depends on the latitude you were born at, because if you were born closer to the poles / further from the equator, your IC/MC may be closer to your ASC/DSC axis than to the actual very top portion of the wheel chart. But most charts' IC/MC aren't too far off from the 4th/10th houses, so here are some example of how that axis would look in whole sign houses.
So taking what we just talked about, the chart seems a little less confusing! Just to show you how to read a planet's position, in the example chart below (this chart is called the Thema Mundi or the "chart of the universe"):
The Moon is in Cancer in the 1st house, the sun is in Leo in the 2nd house, Mercury is in Virgo in the 3rd house, Venus is in Libra in the 4th house, and so on.
Now the last basic piece of the wheel part, and probably the most confusing part, is the aspects. The aspects are all of those different colored, different patterned lines running throughout the entire chart. Some people try to memorize the color and the pattern of each aspects so that they know exactly which aspect they're looking at, but you could also just count the number of signs between the two planets (2 signs apart is a sextile, 3 signs apart is a square, 4 signs apart is a trine, etc.). Once you're more familiar with the signs' relations to each other, the aspects will be easier to read just based off of seeing the signs and degrees involved.
Those are the basics of reading a wheel chart! I hope this makes it easier to understand what you're looking at!
If you're not too sure on what all of the significations of all of these things are, check out my blog where I have lots of posts talking about all of this!
