The Ascendant

Think of how strangers describe you after five minutes. The energy you walk in with, your style, your pace, the way you meet a new situation. That is often your Ascendant more than your Sun sign. It is the doorway through which the rest of your chart comes out.

The Ascendant is where the eastern horizon cut the zodiac at the moment you were born: the sign that was rising, like the Sun at dawn. It is the most personal point in the chart, and the one that changes fastest.

What the Ascendant describes

• Your approach to life and new situations.
• Your instinctive style and temperament.
• Your presence, and often your body and appearance.
• The first impression you make.

The angles are the most personal points of a chart. Two people born on the same day share most of their planets' signs, but if they were born a few hours apart or in different places, their angles differ.

Where the word horoscope comes from

Here is something most people never hear. The word horoscope originally meant only this point: the hour-marker, the sign rising in the east that marked the hour of birth. In ancient astrology the rising sign was the starting point of everything. A chart without it was considered incomplete. Sun-sign horoscopes, by comparison, are less than a century old.

What is rising in your chart?

Your Ascendant and Midheaven, calculated from your exact birth time and place.

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