Glossary
The vocabulary, in plain English.
Astrocartography has jargon; the map shouldn't need a decoder ring. Every term, defined the way we'd explain it across a table.
- Ascendant (AC)
- The point rising on the eastern horizon — planet lines here color identity and presence.
- Aspect
- An angular relationship between two planets — the support or strain that conditions how each one expresses.
- Astrocartography
- The practice of mapping where on earth each part of a birth chart is strongest.
- Birth time
- The clock time of birth — it decides how much of the map can be computed honestly.
- Chiron line
- The wound and its medicine — places that touch old hurts and teach you to tend them.
- Composite chart
- A chart for the relationship itself, built from the midpoints of two or more people's charts.
- Davison chart
- An alternative relationship chart cast for the averaged time and place between two births — the composite's lesser-used sibling.
- Descendant (DC)
- The setting point opposite the Ascendant — planet lines here color relationships and the people you draw.
- Essential dignity
- How well-placed a planet is in its zodiac sign — a key input to how that planet's lines read.
- Hero place
- One of the strongest power places on a chart — the handful the map surfaces first as featured cards.
- Houses
- The twelve sectors of a chart, anchored to the angles — where in life a planet does its work.
- Imum Coeli (IC)
- The anti-culminating point opposite the Midheaven — planet lines here color home, roots, and private life.
- Jupiter line
- Growth, opportunity, fortune — the traditional 'lucky' line, where doors tend to open with less shoving.
- Lilith line
- Black Moon Lilith — instinct, refusal, the unedited self; places where the domesticated version of you stops cooperating.
- Line crossing
- A point where two planetary lines intersect, blending both planets' themes at that location.
- Local space astrology
- A different locational technique: compass-direction lines radiating from a place, rather than zones on the world map.
- Mars line
- Drive, action, conflict — high-energy places that reward ambition and punish idling.
- Mercury line
- Communication, learning, commerce — busy-minded places where words and ideas move faster.
- Meridian
- The north–south circle through the top and bottom of the sky — home of the MC/IC axis, and the steadiest part of a chart.
- Midheaven (MC)
- The culminating point at the top of the sky — planet lines here color career and public role.
- Moon line
- Home, emotion, belonging — places that get under your skin and feel like they remember you.
- Natal chart
- The positions of the planets at the moment and place of your birth — the source data for everything else.
- Neptune line
- Dreams, spirit, dissolution — soft-focus places where imagination rises and edges blur.
- North Node line
- Direction of growth — places aligned with where the chart is headed rather than where it's comfortable.
- Orb of influence
- How far from a line its influence is felt — the default here is about 600 miles, fading with distance.
- Paran
- A latitude band where two planets sit on angles at the same moment — a subtle crosscurrent that runs east–west around the whole globe.
- Planetary line
- A line on the world map where one planet sat exactly on one of the four angles at your birth.
- Pluto line
- Depth, power, regeneration — places that excavate, and don't return you unchanged.
- Power place
- A named location where lines concentrate strongly enough to matter — a pin on your map.
- Relocation chart
- Your full birth chart recast for one specific place — the close-up where astrocartography is the survey map.
- Resultant magnitude
- A 0-to-1 measure of how aligned a group's planets really are — the number that decides whether a composite signal is real or noise.
- Saturn line
- Discipline, structure, consequence — the line people fear, and the one that builds things that last.
- Solar return
- The chart for the moment the Sun returns to its birth position each year — and a classic reason to spend a birthday somewhere specific.
- Sun line
- Identity, vitality, recognition — places where you tend to be seen, and to have the energy to be worth seeing.
- Synastry
- Reading two charts against each other — the aspects between your planets and another person's.
- The four angles
- Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven, Imum Coeli — the four sensitive points a planet can occupy in astrocartography.
- Transit
- The current sky moving over your fixed natal chart — the timing dimension astrocartography adds location to.
- Uranus line
- Awakening, disruption, freedom — places that break routines and re-deal the cards.
- Venus line
- Love, beauty, pleasure, taste — the most-searched line in astrocartography, and the most misread.