For over two decades, I was reading my horoscopes wrong.
Like most people, I was taught to look up my sun sign. “I’m an Aries,” I’d say confidently when someone asked me my sign. And while I do deeply identify with my Aries nature — the fire, the initiation, the instinct to move quickly — something always felt a little off when I’d read horoscopes written for Aries. Sometimes they landed. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they felt oddly disconnected from my actual lived experience.
It wasn’t until later in my astrological journey that everything clicked.
Horoscopes are written for your rising sign — not your sun sign.
And once I understood that, astrology stopped feeling vague and started feeling aligned.
The Sun Sign Isn’t the Whole Story
The sun sign is important. It represents your life’s purpose and how you shine. It’s why we tend to identify with it so strongly — it feels personal and familiar.
But the sun is only one part of the chart.
If astrology were a story, the sun would be a central character — not the setting, not the storyline, and not the direction the plot unfolds.
That role belongs to the rising sign.
What the Rising Sign Actually Represents
Your rising sign (also called the ascendant) is the sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at the moment you took your first breath. But I want to gently strip away the technical language here, because when you’re learning astrology — especially as a tool for self-understanding — the symbols and calculations aren’t the most important part.
Here’s how I explain the rising sign to my clients:
Your rising sign describes how you move through the world,
what motivates you to take action,
and the lens through which you experience life.
It’s the orientation point of your chart. Every planet, every house, every transit is interpreted through the rising sign. This is why horoscopes are written for it — because astrology is timing-based, and timing unfolds through the houses, which are determined by your rising sign.
In other words:
Your rising sign sets the stage for your entire life experience.
Why the Rising Sign Feels So Accurate
While I identify with many Arian qualities, my rising sign describes how I am motivated in a much more embodied, day-to-day way.
It reflects:
- How I approach new situations
- What instinctively drives my choices
- How I implement my energy when I’m moving toward something that feels meaningful
The rising sign speaks to the why behind your actions — not just who you are at your core, but motivates you to move toward becoming yourself and your life’s purpose.
This is why so many people say things like:
“I don’t really feel like my sun sign.”
Often, it’s not that the sun sign is wrong — it’s that the rising sign is louder in your lived experience.
The Rising Sign & Your “Reason for Existence”
This is where the rising sign becomes deeply existential.
Your rising sign isn’t about performance or personality in a shallow sense. It’s about orientation. It reveals what pulls you forward, what feels necessary to engage with, and what gives your life a sense of momentum.
It answers questions like:
- What does it feel like to exist as me?
- What kind of energy do I naturally lead with?
- What motivates me to get up and engage with the world?
When people feel lost, unmotivated, or disconnected, I often find that they’re trying to live solely through their sun sign — without honoring the rising sign as the vehicle through which that purpose is expressed.
Ignore the Chart (At First)
Here’s something I tell my clients that often surprises them:
Ignore the symbols. Ignore the lines. Ignore the wheel.
When you are beginning to understand yourself — who you are and what motivates you — none of that is important at first.
Astrology is not meant to be intimidating or hierarchical. You don’t need to “earn” your understanding by decoding glyphs or memorizing planetary dignities.
The rising sign is something you feel before you analyze it.
It shows up in your instincts.
In how you initiate.
In how you respond to life before you’ve had time to think about it.
That’s where the real learning begins.
Start the New Year With Clarity
As we step into a new year, this is the place I always invite people to begin — not with resolutions, not with pressure to reinvent yourself, but with understanding how you are actually designed to move through the world.
Your rising sign is the starting point of your chart. It sets the tone for how you initiate change, how you meet new cycles, and how you orient yourself toward what’s next. When you understand it, you stop trying to motivate yourself in ways that don’t work for you. You stop comparing your path to others. You stop forcing clarity — and instead, you begin from a place of alignment.
This is exactly what we explore in a one-on-one natal chart reading together. We’ll look at your rising sign as the foundation, and then gently layer in the rest of your chart so it actually makes sense — not as symbols on a page, but as lived experience.
To support you in beginning the year with clarity and intention, I’m offering $50 off a chart reading for a limited time. This is an invitation to slow down, listen to yourself more deeply, and understand what truly motivates you to exist and move in the world.
If astrology has ever almost resonated but not quite landed — this is where we begin.
And more often than not, it’s where people finally feel seen.
Use code NEWYEAR50 for $50 OFF your reading through January 24th. Only 7 spots available this month.
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