Reading your natal chart: the big three

A natal chart can look like a page of hieroglyphs: a wheel, twelve slices, a dozen symbols and a web of lines. Astrologers read all of it, but almost everyone starts in the same place, with three placements known as the big three: your Sun, your Moon and your Rising sign.

The Sun: where your energy goes

The Sun sign is the one you already know, the one from horoscope columns. It is set by your birthday, because the Sun moves through one sign roughly every month.

The Sun describes your core: what you are here to grow into, where your energy naturally goes, and what makes you feel most like yourself. A Leo Sun wants to make and share and be seen; a Capricorn Sun wants to build something that lasts; a Pisces Sun wants meaning and connection beyond the everyday.

It is the centre of the chart, but it is not the whole person. That is why two people with the same Sun sign can feel so different.

The Moon: what you need

The Moon moves fast, about 13° a day, changing sign every two and a half days. So your Moon sign depends on your birth date and, near a sign change, on your birth time.

The Moon describes your emotional life: what you need to feel safe, how you react before you have time to think, and what comforts you. A Taurus Moon wants steadiness and good food; a Gemini Moon wants to talk it through; a Scorpio Moon feels everything deeply and keeps most of it private.

If the Sun is who you are becoming, the Moon is who you are when you are tired.

The Rising sign: how you meet the world

The Rising sign, or Ascendant, is the sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon at the moment you were born. Because the whole zodiac rises over the course of a day, the Rising sign changes about every two hours. You need an accurate birth time and place to know it.

The Ascendant describes how you approach new situations and how people tend to read you at first. It is the front door of the chart. Someone with a Sun in Cancer and Aries rising may come across as direct and quick, and only later show the softer Cancer underneath.

The Rising sign also sets up the twelve houses, the slices of the wheel that describe areas of life like home, work and relationships. That is why a chart without a birth time has no houses.

How the three work together

Read them as a sentence: "I am a [Sun], I need [Moon], and I meet the world as [Rising]."

• Sun in Aries, Moon in Scorpio, Gemini rising: quick to start, deeply private in feeling, curious and talkative on first meeting.
• Sun in Virgo, Moon in Leo, Libra rising: careful and useful at the core, needs warmth and appreciation, gracious and easy to be around.

Where the three agree, the trait is strong. Where they pull in different directions, that is often where the interesting tension in a person lives.

If you do not know your birth time

You can still read your Sun sign with confidence, and usually your Moon sign too. On VESTA, a chart without a birth time is labelled approximate. We show the Moon as approximate and leave out the Rising sign and houses rather than guess.

Birth times are often on the long-form birth certificate or in a hospital record. A parent's memory of "early morning" is a start, but even twenty minutes can change the Rising sign.

Where to go next

Once you know your big three, the next layer is the personal planets: Mercury (how you think), Venus (what you love) and Mars (how you act). After that come the houses and the aspects, the lines between planets. Your VESTA chart shows all of them; the big three are simply the best place to begin.