Astrology is a multifaceted concept that can be hard to wrap your head around. You might be wondering “what’s the difference between my sun and moon sign?” or “why does my venus sign matter?” Or, maybe you didn’t even know there were signs other than your sun sign, and you’re just realizing that there’s more than one sign. Well, don’t worry, because after this post, I guarantee that you will understand the basics of astrology without feeling overwhelmed.
Astrology is defined as the “study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world.” Simply put, this means that astrology is an interpretation of astronomy. When you were born, the position of the planets in the sky created your birth chart, creating a zodiac sign and a house for each planet, which we will go more into later. These signs are thought to be a “blueprint” for your character. This link offers more information if you are interested.
Sample Natal Chart of the Sky at your Birth
AstroTwins. “Natal Chart.” AstroStyle, 2018, astrostyle.com/astrology-birth-chart/.A
There are 12 zodiac signs, and each of them is named after a constellation. Here is a chart showing them and their dates:
Kirkland, Rosario. “Star Sign Dates.” Zodiac Sign Dates, 21 Sept. 2017, zodiacsigndates.net/star-sign-dates/.
As I said before, each planet has a sign. These dates correspond to your sun sign, or the zodiacal position of the Sun at your time of birth. For example, I was born on July 9, so I am a Cancer. Your sun sign is the one that the most people know about. It describes your basic personality traits. Each sign has distinctive traits that you can read about here. However, your sun sign isn’t the only sign. After all, how can you group everyone on Earth into just 12 groups?
The second most important sign is your moon sign. It describes your deepest emotions, or the ones that you don’t share with anyone. For example, if you were a moon Scorpio, you would feel the traits of a sun Scorpio. So, you would be intense, driven, and emotional on the inside.
The third most important is your rising sign. This sign describes your first impression on other people. For example, if you are a rising Aries, people might see you as passionate and argumentative at first. Your sun, moon, and rising sign make up your basic character.
You have a sign for every planet in the sky. Each planet has a sign that rules it, and the traits of the sign match up with the meaning of the planetary sign. For example, your mercury sign is about your communication and intelligence, and it is ruled by Gemini and Virgo. Both of these signs are inquisitive and acute, which matches up with Mercury. For a full explanation of each planet and their ruling signs, click here.
All in all, astrology is about learning about yourself and others. With a little bit of research, you could have realizations about who you are and hopefully understand your flaws better. I believe that the more you research into your natal chart, the better you’ll understand yourself.
To find your natal chart, you need your time of birth, place of birth, and date of birth. Then, go to this website and simply fill out the blanks.
Astrology World 
Dear Yiwei,
Thank you for writing about Astrology because I have always wondered what the signs really mean. I love how you presented the information in way that was easy to understand and easy to interpret. I am a scorpio, and I always love reading the descriptions about my character that I find online. I have sometimes found that the character descriptions about me are completely false, but sometimes they are completely true. I’ve never been able to fully understand why. Overall, I have always been amazed by Astrology so thank you for sharing your knowledge about the topic.
Thanks,
Sonia Bhattacharya
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Hi Sonia, I’m glad that you learned from the post! I agree that some things you read about your sign are completely false while others are completely true, which is most likely because everyone is unique or because the source of information isn’t accurate.
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Hi, Yiwei! Thank you for enlightening me. Now I can finally understand what Suchira is talking about (haha) and I know what it means to be a double Aries. To be honest, I’m not sure to what extent I actually believe that the position of planets influences our personality, but it seems like a fun and interesting concept to me. Kind of like Buzzfeed quizzes — I don’t believe them but I still take them. I’m wondering: Do you actually believe astrology influences who we are, or do you also take it with a grain of salt? Regardless, great post! I appreciate the clarity of the information.
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Hi Anushri! To answer your question, I take everything astrology related with a grain of salt. I think that it’s a great tool for learning about ourselves, but I keep in mind that not everything will apply to me or other people. I try not to define myself or others based off of it, and it’s mostly for fun.
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Hey Yiwei,
This was such an informative post! I’ll admit, I was one of those people who didn’t know anything other than a brief explanation of sun signs, but I am really glad I know more about astrology. I love the way you formatted your post, it was a clean look and the images fit in really well. The way you word everything is incredibly easy to understand, and that’s coming from someone who knows little to nothing about astrology. Now that I have been introduced to the topic and have some general information, I am looking forward to hearing more about astrology.
Thanks for writing such a nice post!
-Sally Parampottil
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Hi Sally, thank you for the feedback! I tried to target my post to beginners, and I’m glad that you learned more about astrology! In the future, I’ll have more opinionated posts with different aspects of astrology, so hopefully those will be interesting to you as well.
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Yiwei,
I really enjoyed learning more about astrology from your post. I have always seen things about the different signs online, but never really understood what it meant. To be honest, I didn’t even know that the signs were related to different constellations, or that it went into more detail after that, like the sun and moon stuff. Your post convinced me to look more into my sign, and to see if it just might teach me a little more about myself. Thank you for sharing your expertise on the topic. I look forward to learning more about astrology in your coming posts!
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Hi Emma! I’m glad that you decided to look into your sign because for me, doing so made me realize some of my weaknesses. I also think that astronomy is a super interesting aspect of astrology that not a lot of people fully understand, so maybe I’ll do a post on it later!
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Hey Yiwei,
I loved reading your blog about astrology because I really enjoy looking into my astrological sign. I also like how you included hyperlinks that have in-depth details about the traits and ruling planets for each sign. I am an Aries and I totally agree that I reflect the personality traits most commonly seen in an Aries. I am very impatient and adventurous, which are two main traits that an Aries has. I think it’s so cool that a person’s behavior and personality can be predicted by looking at the alignment of the stars and planets. I can’t wait to read your upcoming posts.
– Dhanu Navaneethan
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Hi Dhanu, thank you for the great feedback! I also reflect the personality traits of an Cancer, such as being emotional and caring. It’s also super cool to learn your friends signs and learn more about them, especially if you learn their moon and rising signs too.
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Dear Yiwei,
This post was very informative and captivating on the idea of astrology. The wording of the post fits in perfectly with the piece and this combined with the use of enhancing pictures made the post even more enjoyable to read. Previously, I only knew the surface of what these signs were and their meaning. I will definitely read the future posts to find more information on my sign and others.
Thank you,
Joshua Chio
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Hi Joshua, I’m glad that this post was informative for you! This post was meant for beginners, so hopefully you can take this knowledge and expand on it with future posts!
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Hey Yiwei,
Thank you so much for this informative post on astrology. I feel that more and more people are starting to turn to astrology in order to aide them in some life issues and people like you are crucial in society. However, I was wondering whether there was a specific methodology or scientific concepts that back up the findings of astrology. For example, what makes a cancer more likely to be patient or something similar to that. Overall, I enjoyed your post and can’t wait for more!
Sincerely,
Shrika Eddula
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Hi Shrika, thank you for your feedback! Astrology is based off of science (astronomy), but the interpretation of it isn’t. It’s considered a pseudoscience because it hasn’t been confirmed in an experiment, so there aren’t scientific concepts to back it up. The methodology is based on patterns of where the planets are located in the sky when you were born. I’m not sure what gives each sign their specific traits, but if you want, I can look more into it and maybe make a post about it.
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Hey there Yiwei!!
This is fascinating! I didn’t realize that there were so many different signs. I understood that each person had a zodiac sign, but I didn’t realize that each sign “ruled” and planet!! I’m a capricorn, and I went to your link and read all about Saturn, and I was totally intrigued. I can’t wait for your next upload!!
Jamie Welsh
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Hi Jamie! I’ll be sure to include more links in the future for further reading if you’re interested, and I’m glad that you found it interesting!
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Hi Yiwei!
It was so interesting to read through your post and learn about the ins and outs of astrology. Before reading your post, I only knew what my sun sign was, and what that entails. Although after learning about the other facets of astrology, including the sun and moon signs, I truly believed I gained a deeper understanding of what astrology encompasses. I also really like how you included what determines the signs, and how the position of the earth relates to the process. I look forward to reading more posts!
Zeal
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Hi Zeal, I’m glad that this post was informative for you! I think that people are critical of astrology because they don’t know how it relates to astronomy, so I wanted to include that in this post. Thanks for the feedback!
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Hey Yiwei,
What lead me to click on your blog was the title, I have recently been very interested in learning about the signs and I thought that this was the perfect way to learn more! I was defiantly not disappointed. I usually just look on Instagram to see things about my sun sign and I never even knew there was more. It was so interesting and when I went to the links I learned even more. I never knew that the concept of astrology could relate to me. I’m so glad I read your post and learned so much about it. I was looking deeper into it and I seem to actually relate to the rising and moon signs as well and I thought that was so interesting to find that this could match my personality so well. I’m learning more and more about myself everyday.
Sapna
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Hi Sapna, I’m so glad that this post was interesting for you! I agree that it’s crazy how relatable moon and rising signs are. I also look on astrology instagram accounts, and they’re very entertaining and have taught me the traits of other signs!
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Hi Yiwei,
Your blog was really interesting to read, and I learned so many new facts and information about astrology. always knew what astrology was, and it really intrigued me. However, I never knew the details and what different things mean in astrology. Reading your blog really educated me about astrology, and I now what sign I am. Thank you for the great experience!
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Hi Deepika! I’m so glad that this post was able to teach you the basics of astrology, and I’m glad that you found it interesting! Hopefully you can learn more about astrology and yourself as this blog progresses.
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Hi Yiwei,
This was a great post for an astrology novice like me. I did not know much about the sun and moon deal, so now I’m interested in finding out all my moon details. Are you going to do a detailed post on that?
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Hi Mr. Orlopp! I completely forgot to mention how to find you own natal chart in this post, but this is my favorite website for doing so: https://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php. All you need is your birthday, time of birth, and place of birth.
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Yiwei,
Astrology has always been such an interesting topic to me! I love how informative your post was and I really want to know more about this topic! I really like how you implemented so many different aspects and possible interpretations of different types of astronomy. The hyperlinks helped me learn so much about the topic, and it was overall one of my favorite blogs! Before reading your blog, I was only aware of my zodiac sign. I didn’t know so much more was involved. I will definitely be back for more!
Thank you,
Aryaa Kolhe
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Hi Aryaa! I’m glad that this post was informative and thanks for the great feedback! I’ll be sure to continue elaborating on the different aspects of astrology in my future posts.
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