Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Astrology for Beginners: Learn to Read Your Birth Chart
    Astrology for Beginners: Learn to Read Your Birth Chart
    Astrology for Beginners: Learn to Read Your Birth Chart
    Ebook250 pages4 hours

    Astrology for Beginners: Learn to Read Your Birth Chart

    By David Pond

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Simple Astrological Guidance for Self-Development and Conscious Living

    Concise and direct, this easy-to-use guide provides everything needed to uncover the secrets of your birth chart and reveal amazing insights about your true nature. You'll gain an incredibly expanded understanding of yourself—and others—with this book's extensive information and examples.

    Professional astrologer David Pond introduces you to the most important topics of astrology, including the zodiac signs, planets, houses, aspects, and more. He then builds on the basics to teach you how to interpret your astrological chart and those of the people in your life. From planetary patterns and Sun signs to retrogrades and cusps, this book brings the stars down to earth so you can study astrology with ease.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLlewellyn Worldwide
    Release dateFeb 8, 2020
    ISBN9780738758350
    Astrology for Beginners: Learn to Read Your Birth Chart
    Author

    David Pond

    David Pond (Olympia, WA) is an astrologer, author, speaker, and international workshop leader. He is the author of six previous books on metaphysical topics, including Chakras for Beginners and Astrology and Relationships. David has a master's degree in experimental metaphysics and has been practicing astrology for over thirty-five years. He also consults with clients regularly.

    Read more from David Pond

    Related to Astrology for Beginners

    Titles in the series (46)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Astronomy & Space Sciences For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Beyond Your Star Sign

      Dec 9, 2019

      Beyond Your Star Sign
      1 min read

    • Article

      A Q&A With The PLANETS

      Oct 10, 2018

      A Q&A With The PLANETS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Astrology App Set To Disrupt 'Mystical Services Sector'

      Mar 20, 2019

      Any entity created on this planet comes into the world with a star chart, dominated by a sun sign, reflecting the motion of the spheres above at its moment of birth. Facebook, for instance, is an Aquarius, while Google, Snap and Netflix are all Virgo

      4 min read

    • Article

      Your Astrological Day Planner

      Jul 2, 2020

      Your Astrological Day Planner
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Mystical Magician

      Apr 25, 2019

      The Mystical Magician
      8 min read

    • Article

      Soul Growth And Your Age

      Nov 4, 2020

      Soul Growth And Your Age
      7 min read

    • Article

      Lunar Living

      Jun 13, 2018

      Words KELLY SURTEES Modern astrologers identify eight different phases within the longer monthly Moon cycle. As the Moon moves through her phases, she changes shape and size, sometimes waxing or growing, other times waning, shrinking or staying hidde

      6 min read

    • Article

      Written inTHE STARS

      Dec 1, 2022

      Written inTHE STARS
      3 min read

    • Article

      Horoscope

      Nov 26, 2020

      Can you feel the times are changing? Because they definitely are. Energies are in flux. Before 2020 ends, the astrological landscape will look very different. Happily, the planets are aligning positively, so make a list of your top three goals and pu

      2 min read

    • Article

      Try Your Hand at Astrology

      Mar 24, 2022

      Try Your Hand at Astrology
      8 min read

    • Article

      What Is My Soul Path?

      Jul 6, 2021

      The North Node and the South Node of the moon aren’t physical bodies, but two points that mark the crossings of the Moon in its orbital path. They hold a special vibrational frequency and give us clues to what we’ve encountered in other lifetimes and

      2 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Dec 23, 2021

      Book Reviews
      3 min read

    • Article

      Secrets To Success

      Oct 11, 2017

      Words KELLY SURTEES Jupiter is a lucky, helpful planet. Jupiter’s path through the sky provides clues as to how and where you’re ready to grow. On October 10, 2017, Jupiter enters transformative Scorpio for a 12-month cycle that brings fresh energy a

      7 min read

    • Article

      Horoscope

      Dec 9, 2021

      Here’s some good news and a bit of a warning: there could be some amazing things happening for you now. Just be careful that you don’t push too hard to get what you want. You could end up alienating the people you need to help you move from where you

      2 min read

    • Article

      Horoscope

      Apr 7, 2022

      Astrology isn’t always as straightforward as you might hope. Your chart currently has a conundrum in it. On the one hand, you’re entering possibly the most sociable time you’ve had for literally years (and this would be true even if we weren’t emergi

      3 min read

    • Article

      ARE YOU A Good Match?

      Jan 8, 2020

      ARE YOU A Good Match?
      2 min read

    • Article

      Find your Destiny

      Jan 29, 2024

      Find your Destiny
      3 min read

    • Article

      Horoscope

      Sep 23, 2021

      Aries are famous for having a quick temper. Do you relate? Right now you’re in an important once-every-two-years cycle where it’s time for you to sort out any issues between you and the most important people in your life. Don’t attack, but do make “c

      2 min read

    • Article

      Horoscopes

      Nov 22, 2020

      I’m betting you have a few wishes that you’d like to make on a lucky star, right? Good news: this week your Wishing Zone is being triggered. So if you follow your dreams, they could actually come true now. The week also looks good for your social lif

      2 min read

    • Article

      Horoscope

      May 4, 2023

      Are you ready? Because this is big! It’s time to dig deep and confront your deepest desires, especially when it comes to sex and/or money. These are not easy subjects to grapple with, but transformation is on the horizon thanks to this week’s full mo

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Journey to Your Inner Space

      Jan 21, 2021

      A Journey to Your Inner Space
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Astrology for Beginners

    5/5

    8 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Astrology for Beginners - David Pond

      About the Author

      David Pond (Olympia, WA) is an astrologer, author, speaker, and international workshop leader. David has a Master of Science degree in experimental metaphysics and has published eight previous books on metaphysical topics, including Llewellyn’s Little Book of Meditation, Astrology and Relationships, Chakras for Beginners, and Chakras Beyond Beginners. David has been practicing astrology for over forty years and consults with clients, helping them work with their astrology to find meaningful and fulfilling lives and to strate-gize through times of transition.

      Llewellyn Publications

      Woodbury, Minnesota

      Copyright Information

      Astrology for Beginners: Learn to Read Your Birth Chart © 2020 by David Pond.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      As the purchaser of this e-book, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

      Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

      First e-book edition © 2020

      E-book ISBN: 9780738758350

      Cover design: Shannon McKuhen

      Interior art: Llewellyn Art Department

      Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Pond, David, author.

      Title: Astrology for beginners : learn to read your birth chart / by David

      Pond.

      Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn Worldwide,

      2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "Learn

      how to read your birth chart according to the signs, planets, aspects,

      houses, and other astrological basics"—Provided by publisher.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2019035857 (print) | LCCN 2019035858 (ebook) | ISBN

      9780738758206 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738758350 (ebook)

      Subjects: LCSH: Astrology. | Birth charts.

      Classification: LCC BF1708.1 .P66 2020 (print) | LCC BF1708.1 (ebook) |

      DDC 133.5—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035857

      LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035858

      Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

      Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

      Llewellyn Publications

      Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

      2143 Wooddale Drive

      Woodbury, MN 55125

      www.llewellyn.com

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      To all those seeking greater understanding in their lives through the study of astrology

      —may the stars be with you!

      contents

      List of tables and figures

      acknowledgments

      introduction

      One:

      The Birth Chart

      Two:

      The Signs of the Zodiac

      Three:

      The Twelve Signs

      Four:

      The Planets

      Five:

      The Houses

      Six:

      Aspects

      Seven:

      Retrograde Planets and

      Intercepted Signs

      Eight:

      Chart Interpretation

      Appendix One:

      Write Your Own Astro-Story

      Appendix Two:

      Astrological Keywords

      glossary

      recommended reading

      tables and figures

      Tables

      Table 1. Signs, Planets, Symbols, and Orbits

      Table 2. Signs, Elements, Qualities, and Polarities

      Table 3. Signs and Their Planetary Rulers

      Table 4. Orbs

      Figures

      Figure 1. The Cycle of the Four Elements: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water

      Figure 2. The Three Qualities: Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable

      Figure 3. House Cusps

      Figure 4. Hemispheres

      Figure 5. Quadrants

      Figure 6. Angular Houses

      Figure 7. Succedent Houses

      Figure 8. Cadent Houses

      Figure 9. Major Aspects

      Figure 10. Grand Square

      Figure 11. T-Square

      Figure 12. Grand Trine

      Figure 13. Kite

      Figure 14. Mystic Rectangle

      Figure 15. Stellium

      Figure 16. Bundle

      Figure 17. Bowl

      Figure 18. Seesaw

      Figure 19. Tripod

      Figure 20. Splash

      Figure 21. Splay

      Figure 22. Funnel/Bucket

      Figure 23. Locomotive

      Figure 24. House Cusps and Interceptions

      acknowledgments

      I

      would first like to acknowledge my sister, Lucy Pond, who introduced me to the wonders of astrology when I was a young man. She was my first astrology teacher and I will be forever grateful to her for opening the gate to what has turned out to be my life path. I would also like to thank the many clients over the years who have shared their innermost world with me, allowing me to learn from them how astrology has manifested in their lives.

      Editing a book on a topic as complex and filled with as much jargon as astrology proves to be no small task. In this regard, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Andria Friesen, owner of Friesen Art Gallery in Ketchum, Idaho, for her willingness to wade through the first draft of the manuscript with the eyes of a beginner to help me see it from the perspective of someone new to astrology.

      Finally, I would like to acknowledge my wife, life partner, and chief editor, Laurie. Along with being there with me as we have built our astrology practice together step by step, her contributions to bringing this book to completion are immeasurable. From her willingness to discuss and offer feedback on the beginning stages of the writing to helping edit each stage of the manuscript with her exquisite eye for detail, her invisible, loving attention has helped shape, form, and refine this book.

      introduction

      introduction

      As you begin your study of astrology, you are opening a door to a greatly expanded understanding of yourself and others. Astrology is the language of the stars and the stories they tell. Your study of astrology will teach you the alphabet of this celestial language so you can read the language and discover the stories your birth chart can tell you about yourself and your connection to a much larger reality than you were previously aware of. As you begin your studies, all of the symbols may seem totally abstract and void of meaning. But as you delve deeper, you will realize that what you’re studying already exists within you. It will start to sound familiar as your awareness shifts from out there to in here and you begin to realize that astrology is giving you a map for understanding what is already going on within you.

      As you learn about your own personal astrology, you will immediately become aware that you are connected to the universe in ways you never could have imagined. You will begin to see the deeper meaning of your life and feel more aligned with a greater sense of purpose. As you become more aware of the specific details of your astrology chart, you will begin to understand why you are the way you are—your strengths and where you should expect success in life as well as your weaknesses and vulnerabilities and how to overcome them. Your astrological chart can reveal your emotional needs, your natural intellectual tendencies, what you value in a relationship, how you can best assert yourself, what types of interests would be rewarding and enriching to pursue, how you deal with authority issues, and where you need to develop self-discipline to be successful. It can also show you how to develop your spiritual resources of intuition, vision, and transformation to align with your soul’s purpose.

      Yes, your birth chart can reveal startling truths about your character and even the root causes of persistent challenges that keep recurring in your life, as well as what you can do to resolve those conflicts within yourself. For all that astrology can illuminate about your true nature, the one important issue it cannot reveal is what choices you will make with your free will. We are not puppets being pulled around by planetary strings; we all have free will to make choices. Astrology shows what you have been given to work with but not what you have done with it. Both the high-road and the low-road options are available to you every day, and what choices you make are entirely up to you.

      What Astrology Can Do

      I have worked with thousands and thousands of people with their astrology charts over the last forty-plus years, and one thing I’ve learned is that I can never look at a person’s birth chart and assume I am going to know everything about the individual. The chart shows the core patterns a person is born with and a range of potential expressions.

      I have grown to believe that each birth chart is appropriate for the person living that chart. It’s as if this astrological pattern you were born with was somehow arranged by you and your soul as to reflect the appropriate lessons for you to learn in this lifetime. I cannot prove the validity of this perspective, but I like to approach astrology with this attitude. From this point of view, there are no good or bad charts, no good or bad signs, no good or bad aspects. Each birth chart is made up of the planets, signs, houses, and aspects that reflect the appropriate patterns for that individual to work with in this life. This attitude would be important to adopt before you share your astrological knowledge with others. Invariably, when other people find out that you are studying astrology, some will want to know what you can tell them about their signs and charts.

      As you begin your studies, it is likely that you will have your favorite and least favorite signs, based on your experiences with people of those signs. This is natural, but keep in mind that each sign has its beauty and every planet has a healthy function. You will want to hold this attitude as your standard and a measure of when you are ready to share your astrological knowledge with others.

      The more you study astrology, the more you will find the beauty in all the signs, even the ones you have resistance to at first. Otherwise you run the risk of falling victim to the old adage A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you could end up passing on your negative experiences of certain signs and give naive individuals a negative view of their astrology. This would be most unfortunate, as we want everybody to see their highest potential in their birth chart rather than leave with a negative feeling about themselves. So first challenge yourself to find the beauty in each of the signs before imparting your knowledge to others and you will be honoring a great creed for sharing information with others: First, do no harm.

      What Astrology Cannot Do

      We are going to spend most of this book exploring what astrology can do for you, but I think it is important to discuss what astrology can’t do at the start. We have already discussed the importance of allowing for free will, and the limitations of what astrology can do stem from this freedom of choice. I would also like to stress another important issue that comes from my experience. In all these years, there has never been a single challenging planetary placement or aspect in a chart that I have not seen someone handle masterfully and create a healthy, fulfilling life, even with charts that are typically considered difficult. The point is that there are no inherently bad charts (or aspects within them) that cannot be worked with to find a healthy path.

      Your birth chart doesn’t limit you, although it is true that every chart has some challenging aspects, just as every life has its challenges. Your astrology doesn’t cause challenges in your life, but it certainly can reveal the specific nature of the core issues that you may face along the way—and, most importantly, what you can do to resolve those issues. There is always a way! We don’t want to look at challenging aspects as limiting. It is healthier to look at them as tests. Pass the test and you have greater freedom.

      Sixteen-year-olds want to pass the test to get a coveted driver’s license because much greater freedom and mobility will be available to them by doing so. Looking at challenging aspects with this same attitude is helpful: pass the test and you will have greater freedom in your life, without the hindrances that were previously troublesome. We could say that there is a skillful and an unskillful way, a high road and a low road, for dealing with all the aspects in your astrology chart; and the difficult aspects in your chart reveal skills you need to, and can, develop to master the challenges.

      Another limitation of astrology that comes from free will is that a chart cannot reveal the level of consciousness a person is operating on, nor how far a person has come on their evolutionary path of awakening. A chart doesn’t reveal how much self-development work an individual has done, such as seeking counseling to resolve issues or pursuing consciousness training of various sorts, like taking up meditation to train oneself to work through issues inwardly at the source. Doing some inner work opens up a world of opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable.

      Yes, your birth chart stays with you your entire life, reflecting the core themes you will experience, but you can get more skilled at working with those dynamics over time. Once you resolve the conflicts in your chart, you will be free to use the same energies in any way you choose. You will evolve.

      The person who has done some inner work is better prepared to work through the issues that a birth chart reveals, because that is where the work with astrology takes place—in here, not out there. We study the planets out there, but they represent a constellation of forces within our own consciousness. Learning to see the issues we are dealing with externally as manifestations of issues going on within our consciousness is the golden key to resolving them. This is the high road of using astrology: to see the issues, problems, disappointments, frustrations, and so forth that we might be dealing with in the outer world as having their source within our own consciousness—and then figuring out what we can do to resolve those issues.

      Searching for the inner source of outer problems gives you something you can work with and have control over—your own consciousness and how you choose to respond to life. When you see others and conditions in the world as the causes of your happiness—or your frustrations—you have essentially outsourced the conditions of your well-being to sources you have no control over whatsoever.

      This is one of the key benefits of studying your birth chart—it gives you the map for knowing yourself from the inside out.

      Being a professional astrologer has been a wonderful career for me, giving me the opportunity to help people find their true path and a fulfilling lifestyle, just as it has done for me. I am quite delighted to write this book to teach you how to read the language of astrology so you can discover more about your true nature through your birth chart. You needn’t be a professional astrologer to benefit from studying your chart. With what you will learn from this book, even as a beginner, you will gain valuable insights into why you (and others) are the way you are—so let’s begin!

      [contents]

      one

      The Birth Chart

      When you look at a person’s birth chart , also called a horoscope or a natal chart , it will always be made up of the same core components, uniquely arranged in each individual chart:

      • The signs of the zodiac

      • The houses (the twelve pie-shaped divisions of the circle, numbered one through twelve)

      • The planets (including the Sun and the Moon)

      • Aspects (the lines you see in the center of the wheel, connecting various planets at different geometric angles)

      In this book, we will start with a discussion of the signs, followed by the planets, houses, and then aspects. We will then cover chart interpretation, and

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1