Glossary

The words, defined once

Every term the blog and the app lean on, in plain words, with where each one comes from. None of them is a forecast. Several of them are very old.

Natal chart

A map of where the Sun, Moon and planets were at the exact moment and place of a birth. Astrology reads everything else from it. For a company, the birth is usually its first trade. Financial astrology, explained.

First-trade chart

A natal chart cast for the moment a stock first changed hands in public, or a network produced its first block. It is how financial astrology gives a ticker a birthday. Every birth chart we have.

Sun sign

The zodiac sign the Sun was in at birth, the one people mean when they ask "what are you". It changes about once a month, so it is shared by roughly a twelfth of everyone.

Moon sign

The sign the Moon was in at birth. Astrology reads it as the private mood behind the public face. The Moon changes sign every two and a half days, so it needs a more exact birth date than the Sun does.

Element

Every sign belongs to one of four elements. Fire (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) starts things, Earth (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) builds them, Air (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) talks about them, and Water (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces) has feelings about them.

Quality (modality)

Every sign is also cardinal, fixed or mutable. Cardinal signs open a season and like to go first, fixed signs hold the middle and do not budge, mutable signs close it and adapt.

House

The chart is cut into twelve houses, each a department of life, starting from the horizon at the moment of birth. Houses need a birth time and place, which is why a missing birth time costs you them.

Second house

The house tradition reads for income and what you own. Its sign, and the planet that rules that sign, are the chart's money signature.

Ascendant (rising sign)

The sign rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. It changes every two hours or so, which makes it the most personal point in a chart and the one that needs an accurate birth time.

Ruling planet

Each sign has a planet that rules it: Mars rules Aries, Venus rules Taurus, and so on. A house is read through the planet that rules the sign on its cusp.

Aspect

An angle between two planets. The classic ones are the conjunction (together), the sextile (60 degrees), the square (90), the trine (120) and the opposition (180). Squares and oppositions are read as friction, trines as ease.

Conjunction

Two planets at nearly the same point in the sky. Astrology reads it as their themes fusing, for better or worse. Jupiter and Saturn meet every twenty years or so, and the financial press notices every time.

Transit

Where a planet is today, read against where it was in a natal chart. Transits are how astrology dates things: a day when today's sky touches your birth sky is a day tradition marks.

Retrograde

A stretch when a planet looks like it is moving backward across the stars, because Earth is overtaking it or being overtaken. Mercury does it three or four times a year. Tradition reads it as a time to review, not to launch. Mercury retrograde, explained for your wallet.

Sidereal zodiac

The zodiac measured against the actual stars, used in Vedic astrology. It sits about 24 degrees behind the Western (tropical) zodiac, which is why your Vedic Sun sign is often the one before your Western one. Vedic astrology and money.

Nakshatra

One of 27 lunar mansions in Vedic astrology, each about 13 degrees wide. Your nakshatra is the one your Moon sat in, and Jyotish reads it more closely than your Sun sign. Vedic astrology and money.

Life Path number

Numerology's headline number: add every digit of a birth date and reduce to one digit, keeping 11, 22 and 33 whole as master numbers. It is read as the character of the whole life. Work out yours with the calculator.

Master number

In numerology, 11, 22 and 33 are not reduced to 2, 4 and 6. They are read as the same number with more voltage, which numerologists enjoy and the people who have them enjoy more. Numerology and money.

BaZi (Four Pillars)

Chinese astrology's birth chart: four pairs of characters for the year, month, day and hour of birth, each an element and an animal. The year animal is the one on the restaurant placemat. BaZi, the Four Pillars.

Day Master

In BaZi, the element of the day you were born, and the part of the chart that stands for you. Everything else is read by how it feeds, drains or fights your Day Master. The element your Day Master controls is its classical wealth element. BaZi, the Four Pillars.

Human Design type

A 1990s system blending astrology, the I Ching and the chakras into five types: Manifestor, Generator, Manifesting Generator, Projector and Reflector. Each type has a strategy for making decisions. Human Design and money.

Sephirah

One of the ten spheres on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. NatalWealth maps your name, through gematria (letters as numbers), to the sephirah it lands on. Kabbalah and wealth.

Tzolk'in day sign

The Maya ritual calendar runs 260 days: twenty named day signs and thirteen numbers. Your day sign is the one you were born on, and it is one of the seven votes in your archetype.

Money archetype

NatalWealth's name for how you move with money. Seven traditions each vote on four questions: move first or wait, this year or the next ten, one thing or many, out loud or in private. Sixteen answers, sixteen titles. All the archetypes.

Window

A day on your NatalWealth calendar when your chart and the sky line up the way your tradition likes. It is a date to review a decision you already meant to make. It is not a signal, and our own tests found no return effect. The receipts.

Jupiter return

When Jupiter comes back to where it was at your birth, about every twelve years. Tradition reads it as a season of growth and optimism, which is also a good description of anyone who just turned 24. Jupiter, Pluto and billionaires.

Saturn return

When Saturn comes back to its birth position, around ages 29, 58 and 87. Astrologers read it as a structural review of your life. Most people call it their late twenties.

See all of these in your own chart

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