If a hunky dude or dudette walked up and said “Hey baby, what’s your sign?” – aside from wondering if we’d time traveled back to the 1970s – we’d all know what they meant. They’d be asking what our sun sign is. Sun signs seem to be everywhere…available in the local paper and through online widgets or gadgets. We can even have our sun sign daily predictions sent to our email, phone or twitter account. But is that all there is? Is the sun sign the extent of who we are astrologically. No, most emphatically no. Or, to quote Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
The reason why is because the sun isn’t the only astrological body that was in the sky at the moment of our birth. There are nine planets – well eight planets and a dwarf planet but I’m not getting into that debate. In addition to the planets, the moon floats around up there too. Each planet and the sign it resides in also impacts who we are. But the first and most influential factor in our birth chart is our ascendant.
The ascendant, or rising sign,was rising on the horizon at the moment we were born. It sets the tone for the entire chart because that sign forms the cusp (or border) between the twelfth and first houses on the eastern horizon of the chart. It influences how we see the world and how it sees us. It’s our facade, really and it sets the tone for the rest of our lives. It does this by creating the order in which the signs progress through the twelve houses of the birth chart. Yes, we’re getting complicated here, but astrology is surprisingly complicated stuff involving calculations and interpretations of how the planets and signs interact with each other and the house in which they are located.
In order to determine what your ascendant is, you need to know where and when you were born. The reason this is important is because the earth is always in motion and the rising sign changes quickly. Even if you’re off a few minutes, your ascendant might have changed from one sign to another and the ascendant sets the placement of your first house.
So if you were born on January 1, 2010 at 12:01 a.m. in Chicago, IL then your rising sign would be Libra. The ascendant doesn’t conveniently fall at the beginning of a sign either. The child born January 1 this year has two signs in their first house of self – Libra and Scorpio because their ascendant is at 10 degrees in the sign of Libra. That child’s second house of money and resources has both Scorpio and Sagittarius and so on.
In addition to setting the placement for the signs in the houses, the rising sign is the surface impression you give to the world. Our child born in with the sun in Capricorn is responsible, mature and ambitious. They need to be productive and they think following the rules is a very good thing. Order is important…without order is chaos and for a Capricorn, chaos sucks. Capricorns are planners and they tend to be very private individuals.
So how does the Libra rising impact a Cap? Libras are all about justice and fair play – those scales aren’t there just cause they’re pretty – which they are. Libras are amiable and charming. They believe in keeping the peace so they can be very diplomatic…or they can be doormats. Libras love beauty and harmony too.
So with our Capricorn/Libra, order and harmony dovetail nicely. I’d guess their home will be beautiful but immaculate. Capricorns tend to be reserved, but with the Libra influence they are likely to be more outgoing, yet they will keep their inner selves to themselves. That need for privacy will win out. I think the ambition and the belief in justice might well combine to make for a gifted lawyer (most likely a prosecutor) who becomes a well respected judge. You see Libras love to argue. They don’t want to fight, mind you, but they love intellectual debate. Because they see both sides of every issue they can argue convincingly for either side – or both – just to make it interesting. AND because they value justice, they would want to champion the victim. This combines nicely with the high value the Capricorn places on the law. Yes, I think this child could go very far indeed.
So do you agree with my take on the Capricorn sun sign with Libra rising? If not, why not? If yes, do you have any predictions of your own for this youngster? Also, if you’d like to get your own chart created free, visit the Astrolabe web site . Nope, they don’t employ me or anything. I just like their free chart and simple chart interpretations.
