Your natal chart consists of placements and aspects. This page will help you determine what these mean. Consider this a basic introduction to chart reading.
What are placements?
A placement is a planet or other chart point in a sign (Aries, Taurus, etc) and house (1st-12th). A placement sounds like this: "My Venus is in Cancer in the 8th house".
Do I need my birth time?
For planets, mostly no. For houses, definitely yes.
Planets spend a variable amount of time in each sign depending on how fast they go around the Sun, but if you know your date of birth you can determine the signs for all the planets besides the moon. The moon switches signs every few days, so being born in the morning or evening could mean a different moon sign.
Houses are based on the Earth's rotation so they change every 2 hours.
What is a Rising Sign?
Your rising sign or Ascendant is the sign at the beginning (i.e. on the cusp) of your 1st House. Therefore you need your time of birth to determine your rising sign.
What are aspects?
An aspect is a geometric relationship between two planets or points on your chart. Different degree angles have different names. (0°=conjunction; 90°=square; 180°=opposition, etc) An aspect sounds like this: "My Venus is square my Moon".
What are orbs?
Each aspect has an orb, which is a measure of how close the aspect is to exact. For example, if a square (normally 90°) is 93°, it has an orb of 3°. "Orb" can also refer to the maximum amount of variance from the exact angle that an astrologer allows for an aspect to have before they no longer consider it valid. For example, for a square, they may use a 10° orb, which means an angle that is anywhere between 80° and 100° would be considered a valid square.
Different schools of astrology have different opinions about orbs, and different software have different defaults that you can usually change. Major aspects like conjunctions, squares, and oppositions will have larger orbs, while minor aspects like sextiles or inconjuncts would have smaller orbs.
What does it all mean?
Now that you know how to figure out your placements and aspects, you can simply Google any of them like "Natal Mercury in Taurus" and get many descriptions.
The downside of this approach is that it can feel pretty random and not every description will resonate with you. Each description is based on synthesizing the symbolic meaning of the planet, sign, and/or house into an overview of what the various energies could represent. However, a generic interpretation is often different than understanding an energy more specifically as how it applies to your individual life.
Astrology is more like dream interpretation than weather prediction
Astrology is a symbolic system, not a literal one. Each glyph (symbol) stands for a multitude of meanings, and combining them into something that makes sense is an art more than a science. And just like you can look up "What dreaming about a spider means", that doesn’t necessarily tell you why you dreamed about a spider. The magic of natal astrology really happens in the space between you and the chart, where you apply these meanings to understand yourself, your struggles, and your path through this strange and wonderful world.
Learning astrology on a deeper level can be difficult but I think it is rewarding if you approach it in a way that works for you personally. You should start off knowing that everyone feels overwhelmed at first, and it doesn’t mean you can’t learn it. It just means this is a 2000 year old system that has a huge amount of detail to it. .
I recommend starting with mastering the basics: the major Planets, the Signs, and the Houses. I also created a printable PDF of the houses. These are the bedrock of all astrological interpretation.
Putting together the meaning of a planet, sign, and house can be pretty daunting, but there are a few shortcuts that you should be aware of that make it easier.
Astrology has underlying patterns to it
Each sign has an element and mode. By memorizing these, you can quickly understand certain characteristics of a sign. For example, knowing Virgo is a mutable earth sign tells you that they are practical (earth), and adaptable (mutable). From that, you can understand why Virgo is so oriented toward problem-solving. When mutability meets water (in Pisces), the emotional and sensitive nature of water creates a dreamy and intuitive sign that blurs boundaries between reality and fantasy.
