Where to start when astrology interests you

There used to be a sign-up confirmation at this address. Nothing is signed up for here any more, and nothing is sent out; this page has no need of an address of yours. What it carries instead is probably what you were looking for anyway: where to begin once astrology starts to interest you.

Start with the sky, not the book

Before you read about yourself, go and look at what all this is about. You need no equipment, only a few clear evenings and a spot from which you can see a stretch of sky.

Two observations carry all the rest. The first: the Moon and the bright planets always keep to the same line across the sky — the same one the Sun runs along. Sometimes they sit further forward on it, sometimes further back, but they never leave it. That is exactly why the sky can be divided into twelve sections at all: there is only a single strip to put in order.

The second: the Moon is fast. In an hour it moves on by roughly its own diameter, in a day by a good 13 degrees; a sign of the zodiac therefore takes it a little more than two days. On top of that it rises about 50 minutes later each day. Anyone who keeps an eye on it for four weeks has seen the underlying beat that all of this is about.

What a birth drawing contains

A drawing of that kind records the directions in which the Sun, Moon and planets were to be found over one particular place, in the minute of a birth, and what angles they formed with one another in doing so. It holds no further details. Everything you later read by way of descriptions is derived from it, by rules that are set down in writing. For a start that is the most important thing to know: there is nothing here that has to be believed in advance, only a procedure whose steps can be demonstrated on request. What the celestial bodies stand for is gathered on the Planets page; how the procedure is built as a whole is set out under Astrology.

Three things to write down before you read anything

First, your birth data, as exact as they can be had. The day and the place you know; in Germany the time is not on the short certificate but in the register of births, which is kept by the Standesamt, the registry office of the place of birth. On request you get it from there in writing.

Second, a short timeline of your own life: six to eight years with one keyword against each. A move, a break-off, a beginning, an illness, a meeting after which something was different. That takes twenty minutes and it is the only material in the whole matter that nobody but you has.

Third, your question. A single one, in one sentence and as unceremonious as possible: why you fall silent in large gatherings, why you put decisions off for so long. The material is endless; one question makes it finite.

And then three entries, not thirty

Have a drawing worked out from your data; there are free programs for it, and the same three details are asked for everywhere. What then lies in front of you is more than is of any use at the start. Take from it the sign of the Sun, that of the Moon, and the one that was coming up on the eastern horizon in the minute of your birth. Leave the rest where it is.

These three you read not as a profile, but alongside what you wrote down beforehand. Does a description touch a place on your timeline? Does your question appear in it at all? Either one is a usable result — but you will notice it only because the timeline and the question were already on paper. What the twelve signs describe is set out under the Zodiac signs; what sets the rising sign apart from the other two, under the Ascendant; how the signs are sorted among themselves, under the Four elements.

What nobody needs at the start

A paid write-up, for one. A long text about you is of little use as long as you cannot judge where its sentences come from; after a few weeks you read the same text differently anyway. Nor a daily announcement of what sort of day today will be — that comes down to ticking things off and not to understanding. You will find material to practise on at the free horoscopes, and an order in which to go on learning under Becoming an astrologer.