How to Read a Chart Wheel

The first time you see a chart wheel, it looks like a clock someone has drawn symbols all over. It is easier than it looks, and it follows a few fixed rules. Once you know where to start and which way to turn, every chart reads the same way.

Start on the left

A chart is drawn as if you were standing at your birthplace, facing south. That puts east on the left and west on the right, the reverse of a map. The point where the eastern horizon cut the zodiac at your birth is the Ascendant, the start of the chart. It is usually drawn as a horizontal line on the left, often marked ASC or AC.

Directly opposite, on the right, is the Descendant, the western horizon. The horizontal line between them is the horizon itself. Everything above it was in the visible sky when you were born. Everything below it was under the Earth.

Near the top sits the Midheaven (MC), the highest point the zodiac reached overhead. Opposite it, near the bottom, is the Imum Coeli (IC). Together these four points are the angles.

Turn counter-clockwise

From the Ascendant, the twelve houses are numbered counter-clockwise: the 1st house just below the Ascendant, then down through the 2nd and 3rd to the IC at the bottom, up the right side through the 7th at the Descendant, and over the top to the 12th, which ends back at the Ascendant.

The signs in the outer ring run the same way, counter-clockwise, Aries to Pisces. Because the houses start from wherever your Ascendant is, any sign can fall in any house. That is why two people with the Sun in the same sign can have it in completely different houses.

The houses below the horizon (1 to 6) are the more personal, private side of life. Those above it (7 to 12) face outward, toward other people and the world.

The glyphs

Every planet and sign has its own symbol, a glyph. You do not need to learn them all at once. Start with the ones in your own chart.

A few of them carry a meaning in their shape. The Sun Sun is a circle with a point at its centre, a self with a core. The Moon Moon is a crescent, something that reflects and changes. Venus Venus and Mars Mars are the same circle with a cross below or an arrow pointing out: one receives, the other goes after.

Reading degrees

Each sign covers 30 degrees, and a planet's position is written as a degree within its sign. "Sun 15 Leo" means 15 degrees into Leo, halfway through it. "Mercury 2 Virgo" means just inside Virgo. Charts often add minutes too, written as 15°20', the 20 being sixtieths of a degree.

A small R next to a planet means it was retrograde at your birth: seen from Earth, it appeared to move backwards for a while. That is an optical effect of the orbits, and astrologers read it as an energy that turns inward.

The lines in the middle

The coloured lines across the centre are the aspects: the angles between pairs of planets. Each line joins two planets that sit at a meaningful distance from each other.

On this site, blue lines (trines and sextiles) show energies that flow easily, red lines (squares and oppositions) show energies that create friction and drive, and plum marks a conjunction, two planets blended together. A chart with many lines is not "busier" in a bad way. It simply has more conversations going on. See aspects for how to read them.

See your own birth chart

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

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Putting it together

When you open a new chart, read it in this order:

1. Find the Ascendant on the left, and note its sign.
2. Look at the top: the Midheaven's sign.
3. Find the Sun and the Moon: which sign, which house.
4. Notice where the planets cluster. A crowded area of the wheel is a part of life that gets a lot of energy.
5. Then look at the lines, starting with the ones that touch the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant.

That is already a first reading. The article How to Read a Birth Chart walks through a full one.