Birth Chart Symbols Explained for Beginners

A constructed table line reads Venus, 14, Libra, 20, retrograde, 5: Venus at 14 degrees 20 minutes of Libra, retrograde, in the fifth house, or about 194.33 degrees around the full wheel.

A birth chart is drawn in glyphs, small pictographs that stand for planets, signs, aspects and other points. They exist because a wheel with ten planets and twelve signs would otherwise be crowded with words. Each glyph is shorthand, and with a little practice the wheel starts to read like a sentence.

You meet glyphs in three places: around the wheel, in the table of positions beside it, and in the aspect grid. Glyph shapes vary a little between fonts and programs, so a symbol on your chart may look slightly different from one described here. Each table shows the glyph as your screen draws it in brackets, next to a description of its most common form.

Most sign glyphs picture the animal or object behind the sign. The signs run in the table in zodiac order, starting from Aries.

Aspects, the angles between planets, have their own symbols, and so do a few other points. Of these, the quincunx glyph varies the most between fonts.

The retrograde mark describes motion, not a separate planet. A planet marked this way appears, from Earth, to move backward through the zodiac for a while. It is an optical effect of the changing positions of Earth and that planet, like a car being passed on a highway seeming to slide back.

The Sun and Moon never carry the mark. Mercury is retrograde three or four times a year for about three weeks each time, Venus about every 19 months, and Mars about every 26 months. Astrologers read a retrograde planet as working more inwardly or slowly, and they disagree about how much weight to give it. The mark is a note on the planet’s motion, not a fault.

Take a constructed line: the glyph of a circle on a cross (♀︎), then 14, then the glyph of a line over an arch (♎︎), then 20, then an R with a slash (℞), then 5. Read it in order. The first glyph is Venus, the second is Libra, and the 20 is minutes of a degree. The R is the retrograde mark, and the final 5 is the house number.

In words: Venus is at 14 degrees 20 minutes of Libra, retrograde, in the fifth house. A minute is one sixtieth of a degree, so 14 degrees 20 minutes is about 14.33 degrees, and around the full wheel the position is 180 plus 14.33, or about 194.33. Check numbers like these in the table, not on the wheel, because glyphs on the wheel are often nudged aside to avoid overlap.

Nobody has to memorize all of this at once. Keep a printed table beside the chart and learn in layers.

1. Start with the Sun, Moon and Mercury through Saturn, the seven you will meet most often.
2. Add Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, and learn the retrograde mark.
3. Learn the signs in groups of four, one element at a time, tying each glyph to its image.
4. Learn the five aspect marks by their shapes: circle, asterisk, square, triangle, two circles.
5. Cover the labels on a chart you know and try to name every glyph. Check the table, then repeat a week later.

Glyphs on the wheel are often nudged aside to avoid overlap, so take exact positions from the table, and remember the retrograde mark is not a fault.