Astrology: The Ascendant

In Western astrology, there’s a huge emphasis on the sun sign. It’s treated as the central expression of identity. I believed that for a long time, and in readings with clients, I would give a large amount of time to the sun sign.

As years (and plenty of readings) went by, I started noting a shift: that a person’s ascendant (also called the rising sign) was equally, if not more influential than, the sun sign. 

The sun is in a particular sign for about thirty days. That’s a lot of wiggle room, and makes it relatively general. The moon, on the other hand, changes signs roughly every two and a half days. That’s more specific. Then we have the rising sign, which shifts every two hours. Those are very different levels of specificity. 

The exact time of birth is needed because it determines the rising sign. Twins who are born 10 minutes apart will often have different rising signs, which changes the entire chart. The rising sign doesn’t just exist for its own sake. It also determines the astrological houses, which, along with the planets and signs, create the bedrock of the chart itself. 

The ascendant is the first thing you probably notice about a new person. If you show up to a new place with new people, your rising sign will be on display. We use our ascendant as a way to safely interact with the world around us in less than comfortable situations. For example, I am technically an extrovert. Both my sun and moon are in “extroverted” signs. But my rising sign is more introverted. When I’m quiet in a new setting, I’m observing everything closely. 

The rising sign is one of the three placements modern astrology focuses on most heavily, along with the sun and the moon. They’re said to be the foundation of a person’s personality. On that point, I agree.

Where I diverge from the majority of Western astrologers, is on how much weight to give each of the “big three” placements. Session after session, I noticed how much more people related to their rising sign than their sun sign. Looking more critically at how long each placement spent in each sign gave me concrete data that solidified what I was seeing, and I have since updated my astrology readings to reflect that. The rising sign isn’t just how you appear, it’s how you operate.