Astrology lesson to me and you: the ascendant transposed to the thema mundi

The ascendant is the exact time we are born, and all 12 signs rise through the day, so it's possible we can be any of them, regardless of the day we were born. The Sun is the easiest marker to identify in a chart because the sign it's in is easily discovered if you know your birthday. The ascendant is trickier because you have to know the time of day you were born, and most people don't know this, nor can it be looked up in an ephemeris like the planets, but this is more than %99 of the world knows. Everyone knows their Sun sign, and some know their Moon sign, but not many. The great Hellenist astrologer Vettius Valens said that the Sun, Moon, and ascendant, are one's all," but the Sun and maybe the Moon are all that most people about their essential placements, and have no idea these planets are placed in the horoscope depending on the time of day you were born, your ascendant.

In astrology, there is something called the natural chart and the thema mundi, and they are both blueprints. The natural chart is used by modern astrologers with the ascendant in Aries, and the thema mundi used by the Hellenists, with the ascendant in Cancer, and Aries in the 10th house. The Hellenists didn't think of the signs as character types like we've been taught to, and took the chart more as literature, but the only literary analysis that exists in modern astrology is thinking of the signs independent of the chart, and the way they make up the human race. The Hellenists were more inclined to look at the chart as a literary map, but not to see outside of it into archetypal thinking that was psychologically based. A chart is literature to a Hellenist with events waiting to unfold like we were in a movie. It's a psychological text to a modern, with a series of complexes to solve, and has no literary value.

My first step in unraveling the mystery of identity was to be clear that we are our ascendant, the time of day we're born. A friend called the ascendant the hallmark of the accidental, or the outcome of our life, and we are our outcome, with our essential nature lurking in the background, so we are our ascendant, the most private part of a chart. I took the ascendant and thinking of it as a modern personality superimposed it onto the thema mundi, mixing and blending traditions.

Aries rising = Ambitious
Taurus rising = Good natured
Gemini rising = Undone
Cancer rising = Alive
Leo rising = Money
Virgo rising = Brotherly
Libra rising = Domestic
Scorpio rising = Married
Sagittarius rising = Reckless
Capricorn rising = Oppositional
Aquarius rising = Shady
Pisces rising = Philosophical

Now I'm going to play the same game with the natural chart, or the one the moderns use as a blueprint for the meaning of astrology.

Aries rising = Alive
Taurus rising = Money
Gemini rising = Brotherly
Cancer rising = Domestic
Leo rising = Married
Virgo rising = Reckless
Libra rising = Oppositional
Scorpio rising = Shady
Sagittarius rising = Philosophical
Capricorn rising = Ambitious
Aquarius rising = Good natured
Pisces rising = Undone

One of the bigger quandaries a student (me) has learning the thema mundi after years of modern thinking is that he tries to superimpose the meanings of the signs onto the thema mundi so that "Sagittarius" as an archetype is no longer on the cusp of the 9th house of travel, philosophy, and God, but the 6th house of bad fortune, service, and accidents. It's a bit unnerving for a modern to think of a freewheeling Sagittarian burdened with the personality of a timid Virgo.

I'm mostly into superimposing the ascendant onto the thema mundi but I'm not so pure as not to get fucked up by an assignation, or two. I still have a hard time seeing Scorpio ascendants as fun, since I was taught to think there was nothing fun about the sign Scorpio... deeply darkly romantic, but not fun. Fun fits Leo as the ruler of the 5th house much better, but I'd also say that 'money' is just as valuable an assignation to me. I was taught that the 5th house was about fun sex, and the 8th house about serious sex, so think of the 5th house as a Fleetwood Mac song, and the 8th house as black magic. The Hellenists didn't think of sex as having anything to do with the 8th house, except that it was associated with death, or the release after an orgasm. The 5th house is topically related to children in both systems, and would therefore be more directly related to sex, with Mars ruling the house in the thema mundi, and Venus in its joy, the lovers of the zodiac. In the natural chart the Sun rules the 5th house and I'm not sure what that planet has to do with sex.

The key is to remember that you are your ascendant, and to say it like a mantra. You may think you are a Virgo because your Sun is in Virgo, but if you were born at around 10 am you are probably a Libra rising, and this is the secret to your personality. It will literally make you a Libra, with the planets subservient agents to the greater plan of the Libra. If you superimpose the Lot of Fortune, one of the key points in a chart for the Hellenists, configured by counting the degrees between the Sun and the Moon (the father and mother), and counting from the ascendant (you), to find how you'll be remembered, or how you'll be known, your Fortune.