Ask just about anyone what their astrology sign is, and 99 times out of 100 they’ll know it. “I’m a Virgo” or “I’m Aquarius,” or whatever the case may be. But what they’re almost all telling you is what their Sun sign is. In other words, most people are aware of where the sun was in the sky for the month they were born. The sun takes almost exactly a year to go through all the zodiac signs, and newspaper or online horoscopes will generally include the dates the sun enters, and leaves, each sign:

– Aries: March 21 – April 19

– Taurus: April 20 – May 20

– Gemini: May 21 – June 20

– Cancer: June 21 – July 22

– Leo: July 23 – August 22

– Virgo: August 23 – September 22

– Libra: September 23 – October 22

– Scorpio: October 23 – November 21

– Sagittarius: November 22 – December 21

– Capricorn: December 22 – January 19

– Aquarius: January 20 – February 18

– Pisces: February 19 – March 20

While knowing your Sun Sign is well and good, and has something to tell us about ourselves, it only tells us a fraction of the entire picture. In fact, it reveals very little about the person we are. The Sun represents our core identity and ego. It tells us who we are at our centre, our basic drives and motivations. It’s the God energy, the animating fire of life that burns in our “solar” plexus. But it takes on the energy of the sign that it was in at your time of birth. For example, if you’re a Leo Sun, you might have traits like confidence, warmth, and a desire for attention. A Capricorn Sun may be serious, pragmatic, hard working.

The Moon, on the other hand, takes around 28 days to orbit the Earth and thus to go through every sign of the zodiac. It spends roughly two and a half days in each sign before moving on to the next sign. So it follows that knowing which sign the Moon was in at your time of birth is a little more complicated to find out than the Sun Sign. The Moon reflects your emotional nature, instincts, and inner world. It’s like the voice inside your head, guiding your feelings and responses to life’s ups and downs. For instance, if your Moon sign is in Pisces, you might be sensitive, imaginative, and empathetic, attuned to the subtleties of emotions. If it’s in Libra you may seek to have emotional balance, harmony, diplomacy.

Now let’s talk about your Ascendant sign, sometimes called the Rising Sign, and why you should know what yours is if you have any interest at all in your own astrology.

The Earth takes 24 hours to spin on its axis each day. That means that any point on the planet will have each sign of the zodiac rising one after the other in the east each day. It is easily possible to go to an online calculator to find out which astrology sign is rising in the east of where you are on the planet right now. And it is the same for the moment of your birth. If you know the exact moment that you took your first breath when you were born, and where on the planet you were born, then finding out what your Ascendant Sign is should be easy.

But what does the Ascendant or Rising Sign represent in our astrology? Well, think about it like this…:

Imagine you go to visit someone at their house for the very first time. You walk into their driveway and the house is an imposing and majestic mansion with massive Greek-style pillars and huge double oak doors. The lawn and gardens are manicured and immaculate, the house is freshly painted and there’s a polished brass bell at the door.

Before anyone answers that bell and the door is opened for you to get a glimpse of the inside, you have already formed a formidable impression of what you will find inside. You’ve even formed something of an impression of the personalities of the owner and occupants. This is the Ascendant. It represents the first impressions we leave with all the new people we meet. It has a lot to do with our personality and outward appearance. In this way, it largely influences how we interact with our environment and how people and things respond to us because of it. It is the part of our astrology chart that describes the “me” or “I am” aspect of ourselves.

But imagine your surprise when someone does answer the doorbell and you get to see inside the house, and it’s a total mess! The furnishing is old and worn, there are empty pizza boxes and beer cans lying all over the place. You go into the kitchen, and the dishes haven’t been washed for days and there are flies everywhere. Suddenly you find that the impression you formed as you walked up to the front door was entirely misleading, right? The same could be said for a house in a bad area. The lawn hasn’t been cut for a year, the paint is peeling, and the gutters are starting to detach. But you go inside, and it’s clean, organized, and tastefully furnished. Once again, the impression you formed before you entered was not quite right! It’s the same for people. Think about meeting the tough-looking guy with all the tattoos that sends fearful shivers down your spine. But the first time he opens his mouth to talk, you realize he’s a big, sensitive softy who breeds little white, fluffy Maltese Terriers and loves them with all his heart, like they were his children. Again, that’s his ascendant making the impression. The Ascendant isn’t always misleading, but it makes the first impression and contributes a lot to how we show up in the world. To the way we interact with our immediate environment. Think of it also as the rose-colored glasses that people wear when they meet us and also the rose-colored glasses that we ourselves wear and see everything in our world through. So the Ascendant is the sign that was rising in the east when we made the snapshot of the solar system at birth. The snapshot that determines who and what we are in this life. Not only is the Ascendant important for how we appear to the world, but it sets up the house system of our charts.

House system, you ask? This is how it works…

The Ascendant is always in our 1st House. The 1st House represents the “I” or “me” part of ourselves. Because it has so much to do with appearances, it also rules the body to a large degree, including body type and health. Below the Ascendant 1st House, we find the 2nd House. If you have, for example, an Aries Ascendant, then the next sign in the zodiac sequence will be Taurus, and so you’ll have Taurus in your 2nd House. The 2nd House represents how we find value in our lives. Because of this, it rules how we deal with money and possessions and material in general, including a lot to do with our senses, like our voice and our physical sense of taste. It continues that Gemini will be in the 3rd House, etc. Here are some keywords for the meanings of all the houses. There are 12 of them:

1. First House (Ascendant):

– Identity

– Self-expression

– Appearance

2. Second House:

– Finances

– Values

– Material possessions

3. Third House:

– Communication

– Learning

– Siblings

4. Fourth House:

– Home

– Family

– Roots

5. Fifth House:

– Creativity

– Romance

– Children

6. Sixth House:

– Health

– Work

– Service

7. Seventh House:

– Relationships

– Partnerships

– Marriage

8. Eighth House:

– Transformation

– Intimacy

– Shared resources

9. Ninth House:

– Higher education

– Philosophy

– Travel

10. Tenth House (Midheaven):

– Career

– Ambitions

– Public image

11. Eleventh House:

– Friendships

– Goals

– Social groups

12. Twelfth House:

– Spirituality

– Solitude

– Hidden strengths and weaknesses

These keywords provide a brief overview of the main themes associated with each house in an astrological chart. Each house represents different areas or aspects of life, and influences how planetary energies are expressed if they end up in those areas.

In my astrological practice, I have found that it is most important to know what the Ascendant is for any client whose chart I am reading and interpreting. It is the very first thing that I need to know. The Sun and Moon are also of very great importance, but if I don’t know the Ascendant, there is a lot of information missing. For example, I can’t know which areas of life will be affected by all the various planetary placements within the signs. I hope this is clear for you to understand.

If you would like to know what your Ascendant is, then I suggest you navigate to an astrology site like astro-seek.com (my personal favorite) or astro.com. Both of these have chart calculators and by entering your date, time, and place of birth, can generate an accurate birth chart for you. This will also tell you what your Moon Sign is and the exact zodiacal degrees of your Sun, Moon, Ascendant, and all the rest of the planets.

Once you have your Ascendant, then I recommend that, if you read your daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly horoscope, you read it according to your Ascendant Sign rather than your Sun Sign. This is most likely how the astrologer writing the horoscope intended it to be and will give you the most accurate information. Just bear in mind, always, that these general horoscopes do not take your personal chart into account, but are rather just generalizations for the Ascendant Sign in question. They tell you the general influence over everyone with your particular Ascendant. To get an absolutely accurate chart reading for your own personal chart, you would need to go to a proper professional astrologer (like myself, for example), who can then look at where all the planets were when you were born against where the planets are for any time in your life (or future) that you want to find out about.

It’s important to know the exact time that you were born when generating an astrology chart for yourself. It really doesn’t help to think “I was born sometime in the afternoon” or “I think I was born at night” because even being out by just a few minutes can make a big difference to the outcome and meaning of your chart. If you really aren’t sure and have no way to find out what time you were born, a professional astrologer can possibly work it out for you by asking you for the dates of key moments in your life in order to “reverse engineer” your chart for you. This will cost you a little money, but you’ll have the information for life, and so it should be worth the expenditure. I can do this for you, too. Once you have found out your Ascendant, why not google it with search terms like “Natal Aries Ascendant,” or whatever sign your Ascendant is in, for a little insight into what your personal Ascendant could mean. Otherwise, fill out the form here on DogStar Astrology to book a full personal reading from me. You’ll be amazed at what can come out of it!

Happy exploring!