Chart Workshop ✦ Dawn Bodrogi ✦ The Inner Wheel
The Chart Workshop is supposed to be the section that teaches you how to do it — so here are some suggestions for students and novices.
I have said this before and I will never stop saying it: learn your house meanings — not just the mundane ones, but the psychological and esoteric meanings. Learn how the houses are connected, how one flows into the next.
— Dawn Bodrogi
Foundations for New Students
Learn your house meanings — not just the mundane ones, but the psychological and esoteric meanings. Learn how the houses are connected and how one flows into the next. For example, the 12th house is about endings, but so is the fourth — what’s the difference? This question is the heart of chart synthesis.
Learn to construct a chart by hand. Get a book from the library and learn to do it once, at least. We need to know that we aren’t dealing in abstracts — we’re dealing with three-dimensional models. Understanding it in a physical way helps you understand the symbolism and the terminology.
Understand what the Midheaven represents — and why angles are calculated from it. Understand the difference between sidereal time and local time.
Learn the terminology: ecliptic, heliocentric, horizon, directions on the chart (the East is on the left). Know what a phasal relationship is. Know the difference between applying and separating aspects and how they manifest.
Master the basic aspects first. In the beginning, set your aspects for Ptolemaic only and see how far you can get. The same goes for angles and points — you’re not going to get much from the Nodes or the Vertex if you don’t really understand the main angles.
Understand basic geometry and number theory. Know why a triangle is more steady than a square, why the number four represents matter.
Study other subjects. Astrology will make a lot more sense if you understand literature, philosophy, basic psychology, religious symbolism, and comparative mythology. We’re dealing with a symbolic language that crosses all cultures. Sometimes a well-chosen literary reference is a shortcut to understanding that no lengthy explanation can match.
If you want to be really daring — throw out the outer planets. If you really know your stuff, you don’t need them. The same information will come by other routes if you use old rulerships: Mars for Scorpio, Saturn for Aquarius, Jupiter for Pisces.
First Steps for Chart Synthesis
Everyone has to find their own way in to interpreting a chart — but it’s always a good idea to first try to get a general feel of what kind of person this is, without getting bogged down in planet details. Here is a working sequence.
1. Elements — Too much water? No air? (No matter how much Mercury may be emphasised, a person without air will not have the detachment of a person with air planets.) Is the chart balanced?
2. Dominant aspect — Someone full of squares needs action and is very different from someone dominated by trines or oppositions. Look at major planets only.
3. Modality — A dominant cardinal person has a different energy from dominant mutable. Are most planets in angular, succedent or cadent houses? It matters.
4. Most-aspected planet — Look to see which planet gets hit with the most aspects. This is a hot spot.
5. Planets on angles — That planet will be on show. What are the angle rulers and what houses are they in? This is particularly important with mutable signs on angles, where there is a double Mercury/Jupiter emphasis.
6. Sun and Moon combination — Does it agree, or do they fight one another? What phase is the Moon in? Conjunctions alter the Moon and Sun personality a great deal. Other aspects show the struggle to incorporate those planetary energies into the basic sense of Self.
7. Chart Ruler — What planet rules the Ascendant? That planet is the pilot fish, and often represents a person’s default way of being. Particularly helpful if there are no planets conjunct angles or in angular houses.
You’ll have a good picture of who this person is even before you get to the Sun, Moon, and chart rulers. Happy charting.
Free Resource
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The Foundations Book by Dawn Bodrogi
The synthesis approach Dawn outlines here — elements, aspects, modality, chart ruler — is the framework her Foundations Book develops in full for natal charts and synastry.
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Learn how the houses are connected — how one flows into the next. This is the beginning of everything.
Dear Dawn,
In case of dispositers of sun and moon and angle rulers, do we give equal importance to co-rulers of the sign? Like lets say, in synastry they mention the importance of conjunction to the chart ruler, does this include co-ruler of the ascendant?
I am a sun aquarius and aquarius ascendant, so is saturn as important as the dispositer of the sun and the chart ruler as uranus?
Thank You.
My Ascendant ruler (also south node ruler) Moon is in 29 53 Sagittarius. Does it say something? Chart ruler in an anaretic degree? should I pay attention to it?
Do you give 29 th degrees importance? Some say the planet is confused, some say it is saturated with the sign qualities and is dying to move on to the next? How does it actually play out in real life?
Thank you!
When a planet enters a sign, it’s like a new moon. It’s erratic, unpredictable. It doesn’t know how to use those sign energies yet, and may use them in a very unskilled way. It may go to extremes. By the time it’s in the middle of the sign, it wants to test those energies and see if they fly–again, a strong influence, but slightly undisciplined. By the time it gets to the end of a sign it knows what it’s going. It’s skilled, ready, and works quickly and efficiently. I don’t think it’s dying to move on, I think it wants to express what it is to the best of its abilities. Anything in the 29th degree may express itselfs in extremes, but they won’t have the erratic energy of the early degrees. It will be more constructive.