Astrology Guide

Straight answers to the questions people ask most about astrology, the moon, tarot and numbers. Every guide is written in plain language and links to the tool that puts it to work.

Understanding Your Birth Chart

Your sun sign is one line of a much longer story. These guides explain the rest and show you how to find yours.

What Is a Rising Sign? The sign that was climbing over the horizon when you were born, and why it needs your exact birth time. What Is a Moon Sign? Where the Moon sat on your birthday, and what people mean when they call it your inner life. Sun, Moon and Rising: What Each One Means Three different signs, three different jobs. How they fit together without contradicting each other. What Is a Birth Chart? A map of the sky at the moment you were born, and a plain-language tour of what is on it. What If You Do Not Know Your Birth Time? Which parts of your chart still work, which ones do not, and where to look for the missing time. The Planets and What They Stand For Mercury through Pluto, one line each, and why the fast ones matter more day to day.

How the Zodiac Works

Dates, elements, opposites and the reasons two signs get along. The groundwork behind every horoscope you read.

Zodiac Sign Dates: When Each Sign Starts The full list, plus the reason the dates shift by a day from one year to the next. Born on the Cusp: Which Sign Are You? If your birthday lands on a boundary date, there is a definite answer and a way to find it. Fire, Earth, Air and Water The four groups the twelve signs fall into, and what each group has in common. Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable Signs The second way signs get grouped: who starts things, who holds them, who changes them. Opposite Signs and Why They Attract Every sign has one directly across from it, and that pairing is not the mismatch it looks like. How Zodiac Compatibility Works What a compatibility score is measuring, and what it cannot tell you about a real relationship. Is There a 13th Zodiac Sign? The Ophiuchus story resurfaces every few years. Here is what is behind it and why your sign did not change.

What the Sky Is Doing

Full moons, eclipses and retrogrades come up constantly. Here is what each one actually refers to.

What Does a Full Moon Mean? Why the full moon is read as an ending, and what the sign it lands in adds to that. What Does a New Moon Mean? The dark half of the cycle, traditionally read as the point to begin rather than finish. The Moon Phases in Order All eight phases, what causes them, and how long the whole cycle takes. Lunar and Solar Eclipses Why eclipses only happen at certain full and new moons, and why they come in pairs. What Is Mercury Retrograde? The optical effect behind the phrase, how often it happens, and what gets blamed on it. Retrograde Planets Beyond Mercury Every planet does it. Venus, Mars and the slow outer ones each get read differently.

Reading Tarot

How a deck is put together, how to lay the cards out, and what to do when one turns up upside down.

How to Read Tarot Cards What a reading involves from shuffle to interpretation, written for someone holding a deck for the first time. Major and Minor Arcana A deck splits into two halves that do very different jobs in a reading. Three Tarot Spreads for Beginners One card, three cards and a simple cross. Enough to answer most questions people bring to a deck. Are Reversed Tarot Cards Bad? What an upside-down card is taken to mean, and why plenty of readers ignore them entirely.

Numbers and the Chinese Zodiac

Two systems that work from your birth date rather than the sky, and what each one is looking at.

What Is a Life Path Number? The single number your birth date reduces to, and the three that never get reduced. How Chinese Zodiac Years Work Why the year turns in late January or February rather than on 1 January, and what that means for your animal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to know anything about astrology to read these guides?

No. Every guide starts from the question itself and explains any term the moment it comes up. If a page uses a word like ascendant or arcana, it says what that word means in the same sentence rather than assuming you already know.

Are these guides the same as horoscopes?

No. A horoscope tells you what a particular sign might expect over a day, week, month or year, and it changes constantly. These guides explain how the system itself works, so they stay accurate whether you read them today or in three years.

Where should I start?

If you only know your sun sign, start with the guide on sun, moon and rising signs. It shows you the three pieces most people mean when they talk about a chart, and every other guide connects back to it.