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An Aquarius Midheaven, Fortune in Saturn’s Leo bound, and the 12th-house Lot of Accusation/Exile/Injury guide the final birth-time determination

Known as the “Heart of the Sky,” the Tenth House reveals profession, dignity, public standing, and the native’s worldly success

The Ninth House reveals religion, long journeys, higher learning, visions, and the pursuit of wisdom

The Eighth House governs death, inheritance, and the sorrows tied to endings and legacies

A chilling portrait of Nero’s crimes—written in the stars before they were written in history

Cancer rising, a dark countenance, and the historic letter to Hardy all help confirm Ramanujan’s exact birth time

Venus adorns the nativity with harmony, elegance, music, and the power to enchant

Jupiter’s influence brings expansion, prosperity, and the generous flow of fortune and wealth

Mars marks professions of battle and blade—soldiers, surgeons, smiths, and all who move through fire and risk

When the Sun shines strong, it lifts the native with honor, steadfast character, and enduring fame

The ancient astrologers called him the highest of planets—for Saturn governs time, toil, and the turning of fate

The Seventh House speaks of marriage, partnerships, legal disputes, and open enemies—revealing both harmony in union and strife in confrontation

In the Sixth House we find the trials of health, the loyalty or betrayal of servants, and the fortunes tied to humble work and animals

The Fifth House reveals children and joy—love, arts, celebration, and messages—showing fertility, pleasure, and honors gained through creativity, diplomacy, and the delights that light a life.

The Fourth House governs home, land, inheritance, and ancestry, revealing both the native’s roots and the ultimate conclusion of all matters in life

The Third House unveils the bonds between siblings, the nature of short journeys, and how everyday communications and neighborhood ties shape a life of connection and familiarity.

The Second House reveals how we earn, manage, and sometimes lose our wealth—through labor, legacy, marriage, or misfortune.

The First House reveals your body, mind, and character. Discover how planets and house rulers here shape your appearance, health, personality, and path through life.

In traditional astrology, planets are either benefic or malefic, symbolizing life’s blessings and challenges. Jupiter and Venus nurture growth, while Saturn and Mars bring trials. Ptolemy’s insights reveal how their elemental nature shapes our experiences through balance and adversity.

Learn how to cast your traditional birth chart for free using astro.com. Follow our step-by-step guide with Charles Dickens’ birth chart as an example!

His 1341 crowning as poet laureate and Cola Di Rienzo’s 1347 revolt are instrumental in pinpointing Petrarch’s exact birth time.

Compared to Tilak’s Mars in detriment in Libra, Petrarch has Saturn exalted in Libra in the third house. A planet in exaltation has the power of dignity, esteem, and honor. During his travels in 1345, Petrarch found Cicero’s letters to Atticus, Quintus, and Brutus. This discovery is often associated with the start of humanism in… Continue reading Saturn in Libra: Petrarch

The currents run deep with the fixed water sign of Scorpio, whose nocturnal martial nature channels elements of both its invertebrate namesake and the soaring eagle.

The development of the zodiac around the fifth century B.C. was an important milestone in the history of astrology. The path of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets around the Earth, also known as the ecliptic, was divided into 360 degrees, with 30 degrees allotted to each of the 12 signs. The signs were… Continue reading The Tropical Zodiac

The synodic cycle of the superior planets (Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) starts at the conjunction of the planet with the Sun and being Cazimi. Cazimi makes a planet very strong but it will soon move to being combust. The combust zone extends to around eight degrees and 30 minutes from the Sun. Here the planet… Continue reading Synodic Cycle of the Superior Planets

Imagine that there are twelve schools, each with three hundred students. These schools are like the signs of the zodiac, with each school specializing in different subjects and skills. The Aries school teaches its students how to be aggressive, fight, and succeed in war. The Aquarius school teaches science and is concerned with humanity. The… Continue reading Essential Dignities: The School Analogy

As day and night reach equal measure during the autumn equinox, the Venus-ruled air sign of Libra espouses the civilized virtues of balance, harmony, and coexistence.

The signs act as homes or residences for the planets. Based on the sign and degree it occupies, a planet is bestowed with or denied certain gifts, powers, or resources. This is essential dignity, a measure of the strength or weakness of a planet. Essential dignity is one of the most important techniques in traditional… Continue reading Table of Essential Dignities

Conjunct the greater benefic Jupiter in rulership, in mutual reception with the lesser benefic Venus and free from malefic rays, Leonardo’s Piscean moon promises a benevolent childhood. Placed in the fourth whole sign house in the exalted bound of Venus/Pisces and applying to the Sun in Taurus shapes Leonardo’s childhood experiences, his connection to nature and country life and the nurturing of his scientific mind.

A mutable earth sign serving as both the exaltation and domicile of Mercury, the Maiden extols the virtues of practicality, fastidiousness, and support, lending her considerable analytical talents to whatever job is at hand

Shaped by elements of Christian and ancient Greek thought, the Elizabethan worldview envisioned the universe as a balance between heavenly order and sinful chaos, with man the pivotal link in the chain of being.

Initially a student of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammed, Abu Ma’shar went from prominent skeptic to one of Islam’s greatest Medieval astrologers and was responsible for preserving and synthesizing both Persian and Hellenistic techniques and philosophies.

Endowed with the heat of the summer Sun, the fixed fire sign of Leo shines through leadership and unique self-expression, although the regal Lion may succumb to vanity and dogma.

A hard shell, grasping claws and cautious approach protect the gentle, receptive interior of Cancer, the cardinal water sign. But it is the Moon-ruled sign’s symbolic relationship to the Sun and the nourishing role of emotional care that reveal its essential nature.

Sitting on its throne in the heavens, the Sun’s movement designates day and night, light and dark, winter and summer, truth and lies, carving the ecliptic, the basis of the zodiac and the art of astrology, across the sky.

Mentally agile and curious, the mutable, Mercury-ruled air sign of Gemini gathers information, synthesizes, and reports. But at its mythological roots, this sign’s capacity to be two things at once reveals the unifying power of companionship.

Saturn turns retrograde early this month and Mercury turns direct. Both Mercury and Venus transiting Gemini and in a sextile aspect to the greater benefic Jupiter make this a very social month.

As the newly formed Muslim caliphate extended beyond the Arabian Peninsula, it encountered Persian, Hellenistic, and Indian forms of astrology, integrating them into a refined science that would reach its medieval peak in Baghdad, a city whose fortune and fate would be foretold by the stars.

The fixed earth sign of Taurus represents the forward momentum of spring, with its placid nature and capacity for creation. But while the Bull’s impulse is toward taking root and building, if its Venusian peace is disturbed it can become a destructive force not to be trifled with.

Jupiter ingresses into Aries in May, setting up a generosity with Mars in Pisces that leads to the ominous May 16 total lunar eclipse along with a retrograde Mercury.

As the luminary that rules the night, the Moon represents change, travel, the emotional or irrational soul and feminine energy, but its significations depend on its condition in the sky and its proximity to the earthly sphere.

Filled with the vitality of spring, Aries is the sign of new beginnings. While the Ram rushes forward to meet any challenge head-on, the flame of this cardinal fire sign peters out just as quickly as it is lit.

Jupiter makes his first appearance in the eastern sky in April and, with Venus also in Pisces, compassion and sensitivity are heightened this month. At the end of the month, we see the bound of Mercury/Taurus activated by the year’s first solar eclipse.

A lawyer turned astrologer turned devout Christian, Firmicus Maternus penned the eight-book Mathesis, one of the lengthiest extant works on Hellenistic astrology in Latin, giving sixteen centuries of readers insight into astrological practices during the Roman Empire.

Know to the Arabs as “Al-Rumi”, Vettius Valens gained near-mythical status in the East while his fame was largely eclipsed by Ptolemy in the West but his Anthologies remains the most important source contemporary readers have for the foundations and techniques of Hellenistic astrology.

After disappearing below the horizon for six weeks, Saturn will make a heliacal rising early this month in the sign of Aquarius. Read on to learn all the major action happening in the March skies.

The works of Hellenistic polymath Ptolemy of Alexandria outlined the Western view of the cosmos that would survive until the Copernican revolution and defined the rational-causal view of astrology still largely ascribed to today.

Beauty, pleasure, and love: the incarnation of the Greco-Roman goddess of love, Venus, the Lesser Benefic brings joy to the life of the native if well-placed, and over-indulgence if ill-aligned.

Sensitive and spiritually magnanimous, watery Pisces is represented by two fish bound by a cord, representing the duality implicit in this mutable sign.

Mounting the copper orb on Florence Cathedral’s dome, a sodomy charge and a letter from Milan’s ambassador help to ascertain Leonardo da Vinci’s exact birth time.

Merging Babylonian star worship with indigenous Egyptian astronomy and Greek mathematics and philosophy, Hellenistic astrologers crafted the fourfold technical structure of astrology that weathered two millennia to survive as the foundational elements of modern astrology today.

Speedy and unpredictable, the twinkling planet Mercury has long represented reason, commerce, and the pursuit of knowledge, and is distinct in its openness to the influence of other heavenly bodies.

Mars, the blood-red warrior, blazes across the night sky, the harbinger of death, destruction, and strife. But the lesser malefic is not all bad: if dignified, the martial planet becomes the protector of the weak, the signifier of a courageous struggle, a victory against all odds that brings many rewards.

As the Roman Empire rose, absorbing the trappings of Hellenistic culture, one writer penned the oldest surviving complete treatise on the art of astrology. Part poetics, part mathematics, Manilius’ Astronomica offers a glimpse of the core concepts and Stoic philosophy underlying both Hellenistic astrology and the beginning of modern Western science.

In the Roman Empire, knowledge of the stars could get you killed—or help you kill others. Discover how the science of reading the heavens became a powerful political tool in the Roman world.

The profound wisdom of Ea, the ancient “antelope of the ocean”, and the influence of rule-loving Saturn give this sign its staid and hardworking nature as the steadfast Capricorn climbs ever higher up the mountain peak of life.

The cold, dry ruler of Aquarius and Capricorn, the furthest of the visible planets represents limits and strife, the march of time, and the inevitability of death. But, when faced with dignity, even the darkest saturnine theme has the potential to teach profound lessons.

As the house on the eastern horizon, the first house concerns the vitality and primary motivations of the native, with planets in the first house, the houses they rule, and the placement of the ruler of the first house unlocking everything from a native’s physical characteristics to the expression of their talents.

Over three millennia ago, Mesopotamian scholar-scribes recorded the path of the heavenly bodies across the sky to decipher omens from the gods, laying the foundation for what would become Hellenistic astrology.

Like the mutable flames of a wildfire, Sagittarius blazes through life with enthusiasm and curiosity, eschewing limits to exploration as the far-sighted Archer fixes their sights on a distant future.

Magnanimous, expansive, kingly: the Greater Benefic takes many of its qualities from its namesake Jupiter, the Greco-Roman king of the gods. Abundance is key to this sanguine planet, as is power, representing the native’s fortune and success but signifying despotic attitudes or wastefulness when poorly placed.

From the flooded banks of the Nile to the brimming beaker of Science, the Water Bearer brings with it an impartial generosity and detached humanist perspective. But to reach its true potential, this fixed air sign must operate within its own structure, no matter how abstract.