How to Get Creative Direction from Your Business’s Astrology Chart
Did you know that your book, podcast or business has its own astrology chart? Yep! Just like you have a moment of birth, everything you create has a moment of inception and therefore an astrology chart that describes its essence. In this blog post, I teach you how to create a birth chart for your latest project and what you need to look at in order to get creative direction ASAP. Your project’s birth chart can tell you about its unique pace and flow, its tone, its appearance, its ideal audience, its strengths and weaknesses, and more!
Pro Tip: Separate Yourself from Your Project
Let’s back up a little bit. Why can’t you just use your own astrology chart for creative direction? Well, it’s not wrong to do that. I use my own birth chart all the time to inform my personal creative flow and routine. But when I’m trying to tune into a particular project and get to know its own desires, its own flow, and its own rhythm, I need to use the project’s birth chart for that. If you’re only using your personal birth chart to make decisions about your business or creative projects, you're probably missing a lot of vital information.
Plus, it's really important, whether it's a creative project or a business, to separate your life from the life of the project. You are not the business. You are not the project. The business and the project are separate entities from you. This might be hard to grapple with, especially if you're a personal brand, but it's a really important energetic shift. Ideally, you want to stop “funding” your projects or business from your own vital force. Recognizing that the project has its own lifeline and its own chart can help you make this distinction. You don't want the project to be some type of energy vampire that sucks you dry, right?
How to Get an Astrology Chart for Your Project or Business
In order to calculate an astrology chart for your project or business, you’ve got to know its birth details. An accurate astrology chart requires a birth day, time and place. It’s easy to identify a person’s birth details, but it can get a little foggy when you’re discerning the birth details of a project because you have many more moments to choose from. Starting a business or creating a new project is often a collection of many small moments. So how do you pick the “right” moment? First, try to release the idea that there’s a “right” moment. But you do need to pick one. I suggest picking the moment that carries the energetic feeling of beginning in your body. For me, that often feels like excitement, or a swelling in my chest.
Option 1: The Moment of the Idea
The first option is to draw up a birth chart for the moment you first had the idea for your project or business. Now, this one can be a little tricky because we often have ideas in the shower or on-the-go. It’s not common practice to have a look at your watch when an idea passes by. However, as an official astrology nerd, I highly recommend you make it a common practice. This can be as easy as taking a screenshot of your phone’s home screen the moment a new idea pops up so that you have a timestamp. There’s no feeling quite like the feeling of a shiny new idea, and because of this, I think this option is one of the most powerful.
If you can remember the day but not the exact time, that’s okay. It’s okay to make an estimate. Was it morning, afternoon, evening, or night? If you can narrow it down to a two-hour window, that’s good enough. If you can’t do that, pull a chart for sunrise or noon.
Option 2: When You Signed the Contract
Another birth time option for a creative project is when you agreed to do the project or when you signed a contract. This may not be applicable for everyone, but if you’re like me and you work with publisher or another company, the moment that all parties signed the contract is the moment of the project’s “birth.” Now, once my next book comes out, I will change its astrology chart to reflect the publication date, but in order to get creative direction while making the project (the entire point of this blog post), I’m using the contract signing moment.
Option 3: When You Bought the Domain
I love buying domains. When I have a great idea, I usually buy the .com right away. It gives me that swelling-in-the-chest feeling, which is why the moment you buy a domain for your business or project is the perfect moment for its astrology chart. This one is easy to track because you have an email from the domain service provider that tells you not only the date, but the exact time of your domain purchase.
Option 4: When the Website Goes Live
Similar to buying the domain but slightly different is the moment your website for the business or project goes live. Again, it’s your choice and there’s no wrong choice. Pick the moment where you remember having goosebumps on your skin.
Option 5: When You Started Working on the Project
Another option, especially for a creative project, is the moment when you began to work on it for the first time. If you track your work hours, this might be pretty easy to find. However, another trick is to look at the info of the initial document. If you’re on a Mac, open Finder, right click on the file and choose “Get Info.” There will be a creation date and timestamp. Magic!
Option 6: The Moment of Incorporation
And finally, if you’re drawing up a chart for a business and you’ve registered the business name or you’ve incorporated, the time and location of incorporation will be its moment of “birth.”
So you have a chart, now what? Let's dissect a few pieces of a project birth chart and chat about what they mean so that you can get creative direction right away. To be clear, what I list below is not exhaustive, but it’s what I think is most important when getting started.
The Ascendant
The first thing I suggest looking at in your project's birth chart is the ascendant, also called the rising sign. This is the zodiac sign that occupies the first house. In natal astrology, the ascendant describes life itself. It describes the character and personality of the person, as well as their body, vitality and appearance. It's the same thing in creative or business astrology. The ascendant describes the overall personality of the project and, if it has a visual component, what it looks like. The ascendant is like the project’s “brand” and can inform everything from colors to imagery and typography.
The ascendant also describes the way other people perceive and interact with your project. How a project is perceived is outside of your control, but with the birth chart handy, you have an insider view into what other people think and feel when they look at your project for the first time.
The Ascendant Ruler
Perhaps the most important piece of your project's birth chart is the planet that rules the ascendant. This is also called the chart ruler. To find this planet, first identify the sign that occupies the first house (aka the rising sign). Then, consult the list below to determine which planet “rules” that sign.
The Sun rules Leo.
The Moon rules Cancer.
Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo.
Venus rules Taurus and Libra.
Mars rules Aries and Scorpio.
Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Pisces.
Saturn rules Capricorn and Aquarius.
In natal astrology, the chart ruler is the one planet that represents you, and in creative or business astrology, it represents the project or the business itself. So, you really want to get to know this planet. You want know everything you can about it. This is the planet steering the entire creative process and life of your project. It can describe what the project actually is, as well as some of its motivations or values. For example, a Venus-steered project is going to have very different desires, motivations and values from a Saturn-steered project.
If you’re intermediate or advanced in astrology, you can take this much further and assess the condition of your project's planetary ruler. This will help you really understand some of its strengths and weaknesses. This includes using concepts like sect, location, visibility, speed, and direction. All of these things are going to inform the health and viability of your project. For example, let's pretend that your project's ruler is retrograde. This might describe a project that takes a little bit more time to come about, or a project that has more revisions than you expected, or a project that went in a totally different direction than you intended. Is that bad? No, it's just different, and that's part of the creative process for this project.
On the other hand, maybe you have a project ruler that's exalted. For example, maybe the project ruler is Jupiter, and Jupiter is in the sign of its exaltation, which is Cancer. This might describe a project that’s well received by other people that gets lots of great feedback and praise. Or, maybe the project’s planetary ruler is in the sign of its detriment. Sure, it might describe some creative pitfalls and difficulty along the process, but it could also describe a project that's inherently designed to solve a problem or to serve a certain population that's suffering.
The Sun
The Sun is the vision holder. It's kind of like the CEO of your business or creative project. Look to the Sun for info on the bigger why or purpose of your project. If you ever forget where the project is heading or what its meaning is, look to the Sun, including its zodiac sign, house and aspects.
For example, the book I'm working on right now has the Sun in Pisces, and this Sun is conjunct Saturn. By itself, the Sun in Pisces is a project that wants to be spiritual. It's innately mystical. It also wants to do a lot. But it’s conjunct Saturn, which modifies the Pisces Sun quite a bit. Saturn helps this Pisces Sun take that spiritual wisdom and bring it down to earth. So even though this is an astrology book, the Saturn factor makes it really practical.
The Moon
The next planet I want you to check out in your project's birth chart is the Moon. The Moon sets the project’s creative rhythm. It defines its natural fluctuations and pace. Understanding your project's Moon sign can give you clues on how to develop a nourishing routine around the creative process.
It's also going to tell you how the project feels nourished, loved and paid attention to. That might sound kind of funny, but if you don't already talk to your creative projects like a separate entity, I encourage you to try it. For example, when I was really stuck with the book a few months ago, I wrote it a letter and asked it a few questions about how I could treat it better. And it answered! For example, my book project has a Virgo moon. That tells me that this book wanted me to commit to working on it a little bit every day at the same time. Predictable, consistent effort is nourishing to Virgo. And so that’s what I did. I didn’t pressure myself to do writing marathons because that’s not how this particular book wanted to flow. Again, your project’s Moon sign will tell you how the project feels nourished and cared for, and when a project feels nourished and cared for, it's going to flow out of you with more ease.
Mercury
The next planet I want you to check out in your project's birth chart is Mercury. Mercury can describe the tone of voice the project takes. This is where projects really take on a life of their own because the project's Mercury may be very different from your natal Mercury. I encourage you to allow the project's Mercury to express itself in its own unique way.
Mercury’s zodiac sign might describe the type of words that the project uses and the pace at which it communicates. Is it staccato? Is it slow and meandering? Is it sugarcoated or very blunt? Mercury can also describe the content of the project, or the greater message that the project is interested in sharing.
The Descendant
Opposite the ascendant is the Descendant. This point is found in the seventh house. Just like you did with the Ascendant, determine which zodiac sign occupies the seventh house. The sign that occupies the seventh house might describe your ideal client or the ideal audience for your project. This sign’s psychology, strengths and weaknesses can describe your ideal receiver's pain points, what they worry about, and what they love. This is super important info for you to know as a creator, because if you're strategic, you want to solve these problems or deliver these delights with your project.
Understanding your project's Descendant can help you position and market the project for your ideal people. For example, I know that right now I’m talking to Aries people because Aries is the sign occupying my business’ seventh house. These are people who are passionate, who have big ideas, and who love to start things but aren’t great at finishing them. Knowing this allows me to create content and services that are centered around helping creative people finish their projects with astrology.
The Midheaven
The last place I want you to look in your project's birth chart is the Midheaven. There's a little bit of overlap here with the Ascendant, but for the purposes of this blog, the Midheaven represents what the project recognized for publicly. What’s its public persona? Is it known for being funny? Is it known for being of service? Is it known for being caring? Is it known for being brutally honest?
I also think of the Midheaven as the “visibility point” of your project or business. The Midheaven is the highest point in the sky at the moment of the project's inception, and so it represents its most public and outward-facing component. If you're at the point where you're ready to release a project or open a business, I highly recommend timing this event with the Midheaven for best results.
Business vs. Project
And finally, I want to leave you with just one fine point about the difference between a business and a project chart. You might have a business that does a lot of projects. In this case, I recommend that you have multiple charts that you reference for different things. For example, as a business owner, I want you to have an overarching business chart that you use to make high-level decisions about its direction. But maybe within your business you want to write an eBook or create a course. I suggest creating a separate birth chart for each of these projects so that you can get information about their unique creative rhythm and process.