Where do I start learning astrology?

Start with the three building blocks of every chart. The planet says what is acting, the sign says how it acts, and the house says where in life it shows up. Learn the planets, signs and houses first, then the aspects between planets, and you can read any placement in your own chart or someone else's.

First Steps in Astrology

A birth chart is a map of the sky at the moment you were born, drawn from the place you were born. It looks like a code at first: a circle, twelve slices, a scatter of symbols and a web of lines. It is not a code. It is a small set of ideas, combined over and over, and once you can read those ideas you can read any chart, yours or anyone else's.

This section teaches those ideas one at a time, with a picture for each. Nothing here is good or bad. Every placement has its gifts and its shadow, and the aim is to understand how an energy works so you can choose how to live it.

1The twelve signs, coloured by element
2The twelve houses, the areas of life
3The planets, where each one stood
4The Ascendant, the sign rising in the east

The parts of a birth chartHuman Design Zone

How to read a placement

Almost everything in a chart comes down to one sentence. The planet says what is acting, the sign says how it acts, and the house says where in life it shows up.

Venus in Leo in the 2nd house

Planet whatVenushow you love and what you value

Sign howLeowarmly and visibly

House where2nd housein money and what you value

How you love and what you value, warmly and visibly, in money and what you value.

Human Design Zone

Learn the planets, the signs and the houses, and you can read every placement in that one shape. The aspects, the lines between planets, then show how the placements talk to each other.

See your own birth chart

Every sign, planet and house you just read about, placed exactly as the sky stood when you were born.

Create your Natal Chart Free, takes 2 minutes

Where to start

Read in this order, and each part rests on the one before it.

The basics: what a birth chart is, reading the chart wheel, planet, sign and house, your big three, polarity, rulership, how to read a whole chart and the glossary.
Elements and Modalities: the two qualities every sign is built from.
Signs: the twelve ways of acting.
Planets: the energies that act.
Houses and Angles: the areas of life, and the four points that anchor them.
Aspects and Aspect Patterns: how the planets relate.
Dignity: when a planet works with ease, and when it asks more of you.
Timing: how the sky keeps moving across the chart you were born with.

Every lesson, topic by topic, is on the School of Astrology page.