Clarifying the Ascendant

Clarifying the Ascendant

YOUR STARS WITHIN - ASTROLOGICAL COUNSELING

Ascendant/Rising Sign

I want to spend some time clarifying the impact of the Ascendant on the chart. Please note Ascendant and Rising sign can be used interchangeably, they’re referring to the same thing- the star on the Eastern Horizon when you were born. The Sun, Moon and Ascendant make up the core personality. 

The Moon is how you feel and how you instinctively react to your environment. 

The Sun is how you express yourself in the world, it represents the traits of how you project your being- your personality- into the world. However, it’s HOW you express it, not WHAT you’re expressing. 

The Ascendant has a lot to do with the content of what gets expressed. So the "what", the things you’re actually expressing and interested in talking about, are generally more related to your Ascendant. The way you say them is more related to the Sun sign.

Let me give a few examples:

A fiery Leo sun sign with a deep mysterious Scorpio Ascendant is going to tend to be interested in the things hidden in life; the taboo topics of sex, death, spirit etc this is Scorpio’s interests. However it will be expressed in creative gregarious ways, maybe laughing and bringing people easily out of their shells on topics that they don’t usually discuss. That’s the social gregarious Leo side.

Let’s look at an impulsive fiery Aries sun sign with a detailed technical Virgo Ascendant. The content is going to tend to be about grounded topics, things that can be touched and manipulated such as mechanics, tools or analyzed such as data or details of information. However, instead of sounding robotic or dry, that Aries is always quick with a joke and probably moving quickly from topic to topic.

How about a Pisces (water) Sun which tends to be more quiet or non-offensive. With an intellectual Aquarius (air) Ascendant. So the content will tend to be factual information and knowledge. Aquarius tends to know all sorts of odd facts and be able to put information together rather well. So this person would tend to be sharing a lot of factual and interesting information but probably in soft spoken ways. In fact people may be surprised at how much they know, because they stayed quiet during the meeting or they didn’t share that information right away. So this person probably has a way of telling you this information in a way you almost think you concluded it yourself because of how intuitive Pisces can be!

An earthy Capricorn sun with an Air, Libra rising will be a person who when they speak are probably usually trying to see both sides of things or keep discussions away from the topics that people tend to argue about. This is the Libra peace-keeping. They want to talk about Libra related topics- relationships, beauty, art. They want to stay on topics that are pleasing. The way this comes out is very Capricorn- right down to business. Maybe this person says, hey I don’t want to talk politics or I’d rather talk about something else. They tend to know where they stand but they don’t want to talk about that, instead they’d like to use their balancing energy to help others feel at peace. Now money is a topic that both Libra and Capricorn could talk about that is often challenging, because Libra is ruled by Venus which has to do with money and Capricorn is King of business. So that would be a more controversial topic maybe this person wouldn’t shy away from.

How about a Sun Gemini (air) with a Cancer (water) Ascendant. So the Ascendant again rules the content, in Cancer this is going to be all about feelings and they’re going to be very sensitive to what others say and the feelings they have about it. The Gemini is going to make them very social and talkative. So this is a person who may talk about emotional content a lot. Maybe related to themselves but maybe also like celebrity type of information, but always the emotions of things (“I can’t believe they broke up, can you imagine what it feels like!”) Again, this person may call friends to check how they’re feeling, or be quick when they see people to pick up on others feelings and chat about it. Gemini is going to keep it a little more surface level, but Cancer is going to make the person sensitive to emotional information. Gemini is very expressive so it’s possible this is a person who could cry easily and for things happening to others, just very comfortable with emotional expression.

I hope these examples give you more access to how to use the Sun/Ascendant combination.