Christopher Renstrom - Rise and Shine: An Astrological Guide to How You Show Up in the World

The Rising Sign is one of the most important features of your astrological chart. It ranks right up there with the Sun and the Moon. But unlike the Sun and the Moon, the Rising Sign is not a planet. Its a demarcation line. It marks the fixed point on the eastern horizon where night becomes day so that whatever zodiac sign was rising there at the time of your birth becomes your Rising Sign.

Your Sun Sign describes who you are. Its everything that you know about yourself to be true. Some of these characteristics youre proud of. And others? Maybe not so much. Nevertheless theyre the personality traits that you identify with the most.

Your Moon Sign describes your emotional life. Its how you really feel about things deep down inside. The planet of habits, memories, and dreams, the Moon remembers you even when youve forgotten yourself. The Moon is also where you turn to when you feel unsafe.

Your Rising Sign is the face of your astrological chart. Its not a mask, a persona, or a role that you play. Its your faceand its every bit as spontaneous, expressive, and reactive as your physical face is.

Think about your face for a moment. Your face makes you recognizable as you. No two faces are exactly alikeeven with identical twins. Each persons face is so individual and distinct that facial recognition is now the standard for unlocking your smartphone and authenticating payments. But who sees your face more during the course of a dayyou or other people? Its other people. Now that might be hard to believe in an era of selfies and Zoom calls, but its still other people who meet your gaze, sheepishly avoid eye contact, or dont even look up as you walk past because they dont know you from Adam. Like your face, your Rising Sign is continually registering the faces of others and responds accordingly. It decides what to reveal and what to conceal, independently of the rest of your horoscope.

We all have a pretty good idea of what our face looks like and what we hope to convey by it, but its others reactions to our expressions that influence our interactions. How many times has your thoughtful frown been misinterpreted as sullen and off-putting or your smile regarded as inviting when youre actually just being polite? Your Rising Sign is on show for everyone to see and it knows it. Its the first glimpse others get of you, and that includes your voice and demeanor. Everyone wants to make a good impression but oftentimes we can be in the dark about the signals we send or the vibes we put across. All of this is bound up in the zodiac sign people meet first, and not the one you truly are.

There are two ways of telling timea calendar and a clock. The calendar tells you what day it is while the clock tells you the hour, and thats precisely what the Sun Sign and the Rising Sign do. The Sun Sign will always tell you the time of year that someone was born while the Rising Sign will tell you the time of day. Heres how it works.

In Astrology we work with a 360-degree circle that is divided into twelve signs just like our calendar is divided into twelve months. This circle is called a horoscope.

The Earth orbits the Sun in a counterclockwise direction. The Earths orbit around the Sun gives us the seasons. Now in Astrology, everything is seen from the Earths point of view so its not the Earth that orbits the Sun, but rather the Sun that orbits us. As the Sun moves through the signs in a yearthe Sun is in Aries in April, Taurus in May, Gemini in June, and so onyou will see it move in the direction mapped out on the figure below. The Sun in a zodiac sign will always tell you what time of year it is.

The Earth orbits the Sun in a counterclockwise direction so the order of the signs is counterclockwise.

As the Earth orbits the Sun, it also rotates on its axis. The Earths rotation on its axis gives us day and night. The side that faces the Sun is day, and the side that faces away is night. The Earth rotates on its axis in the same counterclockwise direction, from west to east, yet the Earths rotation is also what creates the illusion of the Sun moving in a clockwise direction. This is why the Sun rises in the morning on the left, moves across the sky, and then sets on the right at night. Remember that everything in Astrology is seen from the Earths point of view and thats how the Sun looks to us in the sky during the day.

The Earth rotates on its axis from west to east, creating the illusion of the Sun moving clockwise.

Lets say that you were born on March 23. An Astrologer would immediately know that you are an Aries because the Sun is in the astrological sign of Aries from March 20 to April 18. But lets say that you were born at seven thirty in the morning. Then the Astrologer would hazard a guess that youre probably an Aries Rising because you were born around Sunrise. That would make you an Aries/Aries Rising because the Sun in Aries is rising over the horizon line on the left. Anyone born at Sunrise has their own zodiac sign rising.