The Ascendant/ Rising Sign in The Natal Chart.

The Ascendant is representative of your birth; it is that moment when the first breath is taken. Symbolically we have left the womb of the Great Mother in the 12^th and we have become a self, a new life, born at the Ascendant. As the Ascendant is the ruler of the first house – it is very much about how the self-projects itself, into its immediate environment, immediately around the person. At the Ascendant we do not find the complete inner authentic self of the person. It is about being seen for the first time. Our Births are our first appearance ever! A long waited appearance that is received with all the excitement and enthusiasm that a natural Fire House can dish up.

The Ascendant is not an isolated lonely point in the chart. It is part of a mathematical set of points which is called The Cross of Matter. The Ascendant is one side of an Axis which represents the Horizon. The Ascendant is East and the other side of the Axis – The Descendant is West. The MC/IC Axis is The Meridian and The Nadir. Together they form The Cross of Matter, which is Symbolic of our incarnation upon the earth as a human. The Ascendant represents dawn, the MC represents noon, The Descendant represents dusk and the IC represents midnight. The Ascendant is also called The Rising Sign because it is the sign rising on the horizon in the east at dawn on the day of your birth. The Ascendant cannot be calculated without a time of birth.

The Cross of Matter emphasises a Mode: Cardinal: actively seeks & initiates (Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn), Fixed: slowly but surely achieves their aims (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius), Mutable: goes with the flow (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces). When the two Axes of The Cross of Matter are in different Modes it is called a Dissociated Cross ( also called: 'out of sign') which indicates that there is an interruption to the natural flow in the Chart due to the Axes being at cross purposes to each other.

The Ascendant /Rising Sign is like your front garden, it’s your street appeal, it’s how you present yourself, it’s what strangers at the shops think you are like, just by looking at you! When you meet someone for the first time and make an impression upon them – that’s your Ascendant in operation.  When you hear people say that they really liked someone the first time they met but as they got to know them, they really didn’t get along at all or you hear the opposite they couldn’t stand each other but as they got to know each other their relationship blossomed. Both scenarios describe the initial impression given by the Ascendant. ‘Getting to know someone’ is the Sun & Moon followed by the rest of the chart, unless they didn’t get along that is.

    

The way we dress and style ourselves is associated with the Ascendant. We may arrive naked as newborn’s but we are quickly wrapped and covered by the midwives. What we wear when we are going out is determined by the Ascendant – what you wear to work is the 6^th and 10^th Houses because the boss has rules about that! Your favourite weekend attire, the clothes that you’re comfortable in, the ones that portray the real you to others; are guided by the Sign of the Ascendant. It is also your hair colour, makeup or none, clean shaven or bearded, jewellery and adornments or not, piercings, tattoos, cosmetic plastic surgery and anything else that portrays your persona is The Ascendant.

The Ascendant is our first line of defence! We use it to protect ourselves. Like the great walls built around towns & cities in past days to protect the population, or the fences around our residences, or the front doors of our homes – these are the barriers that must be passed by others before we let them into our personalities. This is why the Ascendant is often described as a mask – the mask we put on in order to protect ourselves, in order to deflect others from our true character until we deem them to be safe! Then and only then do we let them into our lives.

The manner in which you start things is firstly governed by the Sign, Mode & Element of the Ascendant. The initial beginning of an activity, endeavour or enterprise begins at the Ascendant, it gets the follow through (or not) from the rest of the chart. The Cardinal Cross will start things with fervour and enthusiasm and once it’s up and running they delegate so they can go start something else. The Fixed Cross starts things slowly and sticks with it, with determined persistence, The Mutable Cross starts things because it came up right in front of them and they thought why not!

The Ascendant is therefore the logical place to start when reading a chart, as it sets up the whole chart. The initial assessment of how a person presents themselves to the world, protects themselves from the world, how they dress, how they accessorise themselves, how they portray themselves to others and how they start things are all summed up by the Sign of the Ascendant.