What is astrology?
📊 Astrology is the art of interpreting charts that show the layout of the sky generated for a specific moment in time. It is much more than just zodiac signs.
🎭 Astrological interpretations have two main goals: analyzing personality and innate tendencies, and predicting future events.
⭐ For this purpose, special charts called cosmograms (synonyms: horoscopes, birth charts, astrological wheels) are calculated.
The example chart:
They are snapshots of the sky at a chosen moment. They show:
- 🪐 The positions of the 10 planets. The Sun and the Moon are considered planets only as a kind of simplification. The Earth is not included in traditional astrology.
- ♋ Their placement against the zodiac background.
- 📐 Houses: a mathematical division of the sky into twelve parts, shown on the chart as sectors numbered from 1 to 12.
- 🏠 Aspects: lines connecting planets - they show the angles between them.
Planets represent different parts of the psyche.
For example, Mercury represents the intellect. Venus represents love, Uranus is a revolution, change.
Zodiac signs give planets their character and describe how their energy is expressed.
Example: Cancer is an emotional, domestic sign. Venus in Cancer = romantic love, urge to lean on someone, appreciation of family.
Houses represent the areas of life where planets and signs manifest.
Example: the 2nd House is about money. Venus in Cancer in the 2nd House = love of luxury, need for material security, family ties treated as wealth.
Aspects (angles) connect planets with each other, blending their meanings and forming a complex network of relationships within the chart. Of course, the planets are always at some angle to each other, but only certain values are taken into account by astrologers: conjunctions (0°), sextiles (60°), squares (90°), trines (120°) oppositions (180°). They check whether two planets are at those specific angles, and if they are, it’s said that they are in "aspect".
Example: Venus in aspect to Uranus = unconventional relationships, love of avant-garde, changes of feelings.
💭 By combining meanings of planets, signs, aspects and houses, the astrologer tries to describe the person as precisely as possible.
☄️ These are the basics. There are many additional objects, points and divisions that can be added to the cosmogram, increasing the difficulty and detail of the analyses.
🧩 True astrology is complicated and works like a logical puzzle. It’s not about asking “what’s your zodiac sign?”. In every person’s chart, all signs, planets, and houses are active. The real question is: at which moments of life do you express each of them?
💩 It should NEVER be used to judge anyone based on their "main" zodiac sign only, as many so-called “astrology fans” do, whose knowledge ends with signs at birth. By the way: there is no such thing as the "worst" zodiac sign.
Every zodiac sign has its good and bad sides. Only analyzing the whole birth chart can reveal specific tendencies. Asking about your birth (Sun) sign only, like "I’m a Gemini, what does it mean?" is as general as asking "I’m blonde, what does it mean?".
Real astrology is complex, beucase people are complex.
🔮 Astrology can also be used to try to predict events - both in the lives of individuals and in the fate of nations or global occurrences.