Traditions
One birth moment, read four different ways.
Third House’s own chart, cast in Los Angeles, drawn the way each tradition draws it. They disagree about where the zodiac begins, what a house is and which bodies count, and all of that is legitimately correct, because they’re different instruments and we give you each one faithfully.
01 · Tropical zodiac
Western
Carried from the Hellenistic world through Persian, Arabic and medieval European hands, and given its psychological voice in the twentieth century.
- Sun
- 19°36′ Leo, 4th house
- Rising
- 26°17′ Taurus
- Mercury
- 4°20′ Leo, opposite Pluto by 0°26′
Reads first: the Sun, Moon and rising sign, and every between the planets. Times life by transits, the sky now against the sky then.
02 · Sidereal zodiac
Vedic Jyotiṣa
India’s living tradition, reckoned against the fixed stars instead of the seasons, so most planets land about a sign earlier than in a Western chart.
- Lagna
- 2°03′ Taurus
- Moon
- 19°30′ Cancer, in Ashlesha
- 3rd house
- Sun, Moon, Mercury and Jupiter
Reads first: the lagna and the Moon’s . Times life by dasha periods, and this chart opens in Mercury’s.
03 · The first horoscopes
Hellenistic
Worked out in Greek, in the Mediterranean world of some two thousand years ago, and the source of the twelve houses and most of the words astrology still uses.
- Sect
- A night chart, so the Moon leads
- Chart ruler
- Venus, at home in Libra, 6th
- Lot of Fortune
- 2°09′ Gemini, 2nd
Reads first: , then each planet’s condition. Times life by annual profections.
04 · Four pillars
BaZi 八字
Chinese astrology built from the calendar itself: year, month, day and hour, each a heavenly stem over an earthly branch. That’s eight characters, and no wheel at all.
- Day master
- 丁 Ding, yin Fire, or with the day turned at 23:00, 戊 Wu, yang Earth
- Year
- 丙午 · the Fire Horse
- Fire
- 5 of the eight characters, or 4 with the day turned at 23:00
Reads first: the and the balance of the five elements. Times life by ten-year luck pillars.
Why we don’t blend them
It would be easy to compute one chart and dress it up four ways, and it would also be worthless, because the techniques aren’t interchangeable and one tradition’s method under another’s name produces confident nonsense. So a Vedic compatibility report here scores the eight kutas of guna milan, a Hellenistic report won’t cite Pluto, and a BaZi report won’t draw a wheel. Every choice we made is written down, and we’ll share it if you ask.
Which should you read?
If you’re new to astrology, start with Western, the vocabulary everything in English is written against. To know when, try Vedic for its dasha periods. For something stricter and more rule-bound, Hellenistic. For temperament and the shape of a working life, with no zodiac at all, BaZi. Or read one question in two of them and watch where they disagree, which is usually the interesting part.
Your own birth moment, four ways.
One set of details, and every tradition calculated by its own rules.