Читать книгу Astrology For Dummies - Rae Orion - Страница 31

IN THIS CHAPTER

Creating your chart the old-fashioned way

Assembling your birth information

Getting your chart online for free

Considering astrological software

Assessing apps

Wandering around the web

What could be more fabulously arcane than an astrological chart? Well, lots of things: alchemical sigils, kabalistic diagrams, magical amulets — you name it. But this book isn’t about them. It’s about astrology, which may seem esoteric at first glance but actually is not. That’s because an astrological chart, for all its mysterious-looking symbols and mandala-like shape, has nothing mystical about it. It’s a simple representation of the real world — a picture, in streamlined form, of the solar system at the time of your birth. The interpretation may be complicated and nuanced, but the image itself is straightforward.

To visualize the cosmos as it was when you were born, imagine standing on the Earth at that precise instant. Imagine, too, that you’re facing south and looking at a gigantic clock face that has been superimposed on the sky. To your left, in the nine o’clock position, is the eastern horizon. That’s your Ascendant. If you were born around dawn, that’s where the Sun is. If you were born around midday, your Sun is high in the sky in front of you, near the twelve o’clock mark. To your right, in the three o’clock position, lies the western horizon. If you were born around dusk, that’s where your Sun is. And if you came into this world around midnight, when your part of the world was dark and the other side of the planet was awash in daylight, your Sun can be found near the bottom of your chart, somewhere around the six o’clock spot.

If you happen to know the phase of the Moon at your birth, you can locate it in a similar way. Were you born under a new moon? Then your Moon and Sun are in roughly the same place. Born under a full moon? Then the Sun and Moon are opposite each other — 180° apart. If one is rising, the other is setting.

The point is this: Your natal chart is neither a metaphysical construct nor a mystical diagram. It’s a stylized map of the heavens that shows the Sun, the Moon, and the planets at a precise moment in time from a specific place. The astrologer’s task is to interpret all that information. But first, you have to get an accurate copy of your chart.