h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, if a broken line is a 0 and a whole line is a 1, you'll find the numbers 0 to 63 in binary if you sort them that way. The traditional sequence isn't that, but some other pattern.

*enters and is pleased to see that the bots have kept the place tidy and healthy*

*adjusts her turban and robe covered with tiny moons and stars*

*finds a comfortable upholstered wicker papa-san chair and makes herself comfortable*

Have a look at all the charts I put up, not just your own. It's worth it to observe the different patterns the important points make.

So all of my points are on one half of my chart while yours, for example, are spread fairly equally across your chart.

Why is that?

It looks as if I may have to ask you to do my chart again, Lil. If you don't mind, that is.

I can't figure out how you tell which/what the rising signs are...is it the ones that are clustered around your "birth" sign? And why is it that mine is so very lopsided?!

Thanks for posting that again, Lil, although I don't have the foggiest clue what anything means.

The rising sign is on the cusp (beginning) of the first house. The houses go counter-clockwise, starting on your left. If you think of right-to-left as a horizon, the line going left is the Ascendant. The space right below that, until the next line (cusp) is the first house.

Why, you might wonder, is the rising horizon to the left? Isn't that west? The trick is to think of yourself as looking ~through~ your birth chart, from the earth toward space.

Here's the technical definition of the Ascendant: it's an imaginary line of latitude that starts at your place of birth, but instead of wrapping around the planet it heads straight out into space and intercepts the "plane of the ecliptic". (Astrology has been around since before the earth was round. )

The ecliptic is an oval band populated more or less evenly by the signs of the zodiac as seen from earth. If you fill that imaginary band you have a solid flat imaginary plane which intersects the earth. Where that intersection occurs depends on the time of day. We calculate it for the time of day when you were born.

Hence knowing your Ascendant depends on knowing the time and place of your birth.

Hypatia's chart shows a Libra Ascendant with Neptune rising, or conjunct the Ascendant within a couple of degrees. In other words, if that imaginary line went through the ecliptic and kept on going, it would find itself close to Neptune.

Too much information?

Uh, yeah, actually. Because I can't even figure out where it starts!

MR, http://www.bonitovalley.com/astro/houses.htm shows the houses and where to start. That web page is now accessed from the index page (The 12 Houses). I've also added a link to the astrology project from the offsite atelier page the link for which is on A304354.

To answer your question, Witty as to why we have different patterns on different charts: the planets all move at different rates. Mercury circles the sun about 3 times a year, while Pluto takes around 248 earth years to complete one lap. This means that the planets constantly change position in the chart relative to each other, forming new patterns and breaking old ones. Hence my metaphor in the other thread of the birth chart as a flash photo of a bullet.

We're born and immediately start becoming, growing and changing. So does our chart. Astrologers turn to solar returns and secondary progressions as a way of observing how we evolve over a lifetime.

Some chart patterns have names like "splay" (points all over the place) or "bucket" (all points on one side except one) and so on.

The distance in degrees of a circle from one planet to another is called an aspect, when those distances equal 0, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120 or 180 degrees (to name some). These are described on the basics page. Aspects define a special relationship between the two points so related.

Neptune is special in Hypatia's chart because it conjoins the Ascendant. Things Neptunian therefore influence her childhood and primary persona. You can also see a big blue triangle, which is called a grand trine, in her chart, in which no less than 3 points are interrelated at roughly 120 degrees apart. Four points, actually, since the Moon and Saturn are partile (nearly exactly conjunct) at one corner of the grand trine.

The Moon is pretty much the fastest mover in the chart, incidentally: the sun moves about 1 degree per day, but the moon zips around the entire chart in about 30 days. Makes sense when you think about it.


Chloe, would you bring me a glass of wine? No, make that a bottle and a glass. The 1983 Mouton Cadet. Anybody else care for wine?

I'd love some, thank you.

*sits in on cushion and sips *

Oh yes please *grabs and takes a swig*

Is the ascendant your sun sign? I was expecting aquarius but my chhart says pisces so maybe they arent the same. *confused*

It is 4.23am here, perhaps I should think about this at a less ungodly hour?

This used to be the only time you could do accurate science, telling time by the stars!

The sun sign is the sign that you'll find your sun in, and that might be in any house in the chart. Which house your sun is in depends on what time of day you were born. In Hypatia's chart the sun is in the 8th house (look for the blue circle with the dot in the middle), and the sign is Taurus. If you were born during daylight, the sun is in the top half of the chart: after sunset, the sun is in the bottom part.

Hypatia was born in the afternoon, so her Taurus sun is in the upper right quadrant of the chart. You progress counter-clockwise through the signs and houses, 9 through 12 and back to 1, and find that her Ascendant has to be libra.

You may also notice that the houses are irregular in size: that is, they don't all start at 20 degrees of the sign or whatever. The further north you're born, the further away from the equator, the greater the distortion. This is called declination. It can be so extreme by the time you get to 51 degrees North (London) that houses may contain more than one sign. At the equator, all houses are the same size.

*sips * Please don't feel that any question is too stupid to ask. This stuff is dense.

Hi Mystic Lil, don't take that turban off too quickly

Having a look at my chart, I've worked out the sun sign (taurus) the rising sign (aquarius) and the moon sign (scorpio) - hmm sun and moon opposite, either just brand new moon or the fading light of the old moon.
There are three symbols on the chart that I couldn't work out from your additional pages.
There is one in black at about between 10 and 11 o'clock that could best be described as a pair of headphones.
Between 2 and 3 o'clock there is a Vx symbol
At about 11 o'clock there is an arrowhead and a thicker line between the 9th and 10th houses

Thanks Lil. I have printed everything off and will try to make some sense of it. But my plate is pretty full right now. I'm having to actually work at work. How unfair is that?

It's all fascinating. I've been trying to think of a mental exercise to begin to help stave off senility. This looks like a lot more fun than crosswords. Besides, my mother does crosswords.

If the sun is opposite the moon, the moon is full. Just like real life.

The thick line between the 9th and 10th houses is the MC (medium coeli), or midheaven. 12 o'clock high. It's not pointing straight up because of declination. The 10th house represents public affairs, such as your job, your career. For some people public life or having a career is everything, and for others it's a matter of indifference. In more traditional times men haven't had a choice about this (nor have women, oppositely!), and so the MC has been considered an important point in the chart. For me, it all depends.

Vertex -- it's one of the so-called esoteric points, as if astrology weren't esoteric to begin with. Here's an article about it with some explanations.

http://www.lynnkoiner.com/astrology-articles/the-vertex-in-the-natal-chart

So the Vx is this vertex point and what is the one that looks like a pair of headphones?

And thanks again

The headphones, I like it. That's the north node. Directly opposite is the south node, represented by upside-down headphones. They are also known as the dragon's head and tail respectively. If you create an imaginary plane to represent the moon's orbit, these are the places where the moon plane would intersect the plane of the ecliptic.

They are called karmic points, and here's an excellent description of what they purport to stand for:
http://www.cafeastrology.com/northnodesouthnode.html

and if you're sill curious, here's much greater detail:
http://www.astrologycom.com/nodes.html

is there an easy key to be found somewhere of all the symbols?

*says the girl who can't make heads or tails of anything*

Lil, can you recommend a good book for beginners? One that is actually intelligible?