My Astrological Journey: Part 2- Learning The Wheel Chart...
Let me start off by saying that reading an astrological birth chart is extremely difficult when you have been trained, and me without training, had to teach myself how to understand how to read them. I see now why my sister made me start out by reading my own chart- they are highly individualized, and being a Gemini it is easier if I start by analyzing myself in order to know others.
I was getting into a different world than I previously lived in when it came to astrology. Up till now I had just scratched the surface of understanding what the zodiac signs were and how they related to one another. Reading a natal birth chart required skills that I hadn't used before in order to see the life energy one was dealt with as they come into this world. These charts are made like a circular clock- in the outer circle they have 12 houses that all have individual meanings corresponding from Aries to Pisces but have differing starting points in the same sequential series, you have the planets that are located within the twelve houses that take on a similar and yet different energy, and the inner circle is where you read the lines to see how each of the planets interact with one another. My brain didn't know where to start and this made my head hurt something awful.
Breaking the chart down I looked for something that I could understand, focusing on my Sun Sign of Gemini. According to the model that I was looking at for a reference, besides my own chart, I noticed that I had two houses that were Gemini; not just one. My twelfth and first house were Gemini. That my placement of my sun sign was in the twelfth house and not the third house (Gemini is the third zodiac sign) as the model one had put it. This confused me greatly but I kept on going. My chart also showed that I had houses that were empty and some that were sharing two signs within their one house. Lastly, seven out of the nine planets had a Rx next to them- Mars and Venus being the exceptions.
Turns out that all of those things had a specific meaning and were important aspects of my chart. As I began to google things on the computer it became rather obvious that this information was over my head. Finding out things like Rx means that the planet is in retrograde at the time of my birth (from Earth the planet looks like it is moving backwards), that a twelfth house Gemini is odd compared to a normal Gemini (I take on the qualities of a Pisces), That my Rising sign (the way that the world views you) is in Gemini, my Moon is in Taurus, and three houses that are blank.
Visually, a natal chart has everything that you need in order to discern the type of personality that person is born with. You can see the relationships between mom, dad, siblings, grandparents, and social interactions. Trauma that occurs within their life, careers, money, romance, the emotional side of yourself, the things that one hides in their mind, their hopes as well as their dreams if one so desires to look for it.
Slowly, I began to look up my houses and saw that I wasn't normal for lack of a better word. My perspectives on things were skewed in such a manner that people mistook it as odd behavior when in actuality I just saw the world using different colored glasses. The retrograde planets in their signs revealed that I had many memories of my past lives- some horrendous, others tragic and some great ones where I lived out my passions. When I matched them to the houses however, I saw things that I wouldn't have wanted to see. There was a sadness to my chart that made me reconsider how wonderful my childhood was, that I was lonely and alone at times that I needed others, my father trying to stamp out my 'weaknesses' by telling me what I did wrong versus praising what I did right, my mother being a 'wound that would not heal', attracting ill tempered men who only wanted to objectify me and control me; abuse me and much worse, and that I had the capability of manipulation in many areas to get the things that I needed in life. In order for me to learn in this life I had to learn through experience; not just being told that I couldn't do something because...
The inner circle, where the lines that tell you how the planets are interacting, was the toughest part of all to comprehend. This had an altogether foreign energy to me. It was unique from where I had come from in my understanding of energy; there were six different ways that the energy could manifest known as Aspects: Conjunction (where the planets are next to one another and bring out both planets energy), Square (hard energy where its either one or the other), Opposing (hard energy that when confronted is forced to go on another path; usually comes out as a Square of the two planets), Sextile (energy flowing freely with positivity), Trine (harmony and ease), and Quincunx (tension between the two planets). An example of this would be: Sun Conjunct Mercury, Pluto Square Venus, Sun Opposing Moon, Neptune Sextile the Moon, and Jupiter Quincunx Saturn.
According to the lines I had a 5/11 issue: that the majority of my planets fall within the fifth house and the eleventh house causing a see-saw effect within me; that I had a battle between my innocent playful side (fifth house) and the seriously quiet adult side that can be controlling (eleventh house) or it could be taken as a fight between caring for others versus being detached, having friends or being a loner, being the life of the party or becoming the smartest person in the room, being loved or hated... all of these 'issues' applied to me coming in the form of opposition. Meaning that they were manifesting as a 2/8 issue: coping by having nice things, a place to call my own, quiet time in solitude, retreating to nature, eating food as a comfort tactic (second house), thinking about sex and other things considered to be 'dark', using other people's possessions, surviving by living off of others, taking an affinity to all things psychological, and finding the deeper meaning in life (eighth house).
Most of these things I didn't want to know about myself at the time. My life sounded pitiful and I did not want to feel that way. Many of the not nice things in my chart came to fruition and left me with a sense of numbness. When I found the book, The Instant Astrologer, the author had done something that I hadn't thought of: combined psychology with astrology and Lyn's information gave the issue and then showed ways of combating such issues. It taught me even more about astrology that I again, hadn't paid attention to in my previous readings. Things called hemispheres, modes or modality, the breakdown of how to arrive at the information by hand and synchronicity of looking up two charts in one.
After my new discoveries I went to my sister to tell her what I had learned about myself. She was pleased to know that I went above and beyond what she thought I was doing and showed me her version of how she reads the charts. I followed her way of reading charts till it no longer suited me. Somewhere along the line I stopped seeing the charts and began to feel them; certain people's charts began to make me sick while others made me feel happy. I went from viewing the natal charts intellectually to understanding them intuitively; that is I got more of a general picture in my head than spat out all of the verbal information that I used to. Instead of going through every little detail I began to see the whole chart as one cohesive thing, discussing the chart as an overview then picking out individual points to bring up.
Currently, I use the big three method when giving astrological readings: Looking at the Rising, Sun and Moon to get the basis of the person's chart. From there I use the Ping-Pong method of going from planet to sign to ruling planet (i.e. Sun in Gemini which is ruled by Mercury so then I look at Mercury and what sign he is in...) till I cannot go any further. Then I go over any trends that occur or repeating patterns that can be seen, the nodes (the karma of your previous life and the karma of this life) and answer any of your questions in regards to an area of your life.
It's been twenty years since I started this journey... learning more and more as day passes something that I previously didn't know about astrology. I now have programs that help me create the charts and can edit the program to add more information to make it more of 'my own.' Most people blow it off, rambling about how it's fake and unfounded but when you do come across someone that knows what they are doing you will then understand how much work and effort goes into becoming an Astrologer.