Practical Magic: A Beginner's Guide to Crystals, Horoscopes, Psychics, and Spells - Nikki Van De Car 2017

Creating Your Natal Chart

For a real, in-depth natal chart—one that calculates angles of ascension and how the signs and planets interact with each other—go to the professionals (and there are lots of websites that will do your chart for free). But you can dive in yourself for just a taste and to take a look at how the signs influence the houses.

On the opposite page you will find a chart, with three concentric circles, divided into twelve equal slices.

Determine your ascendant sign. This sign is whatever was rising over the horizon on the date and at the exact time of your birth. Find it by looking it up in an ephemeris (a chart that tracks the positions of celestial bodies at any given time) or by looking it up online. Position this information at eight o’clock on your chart. This is your First House (The House of Self).

Follow the natural order of the signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces) as you fill in each of the remaining eleven spaces. So if you had Aries in your First House, you would put Taurus in the Second House, Gemini in the Third House, and so forth.

For more information on the significance of your natal chart, see here.