Astrologer Chani Nicholas Read Me My Birth Chart, and It Kinda Blew My Mind

From Oprah Magazine

• On January 7, O's resident astrologist Chani Nicholas released her debut book You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance.

• This week, Chani stopped by the O offices. Senior writer Samantha Vincenty shares what she learned from her own chart—and Chani's tips on how you can read your own birth chart.

At some point over the last two years, a vast constellation of astrology meme accounts have come to dominate my Instagram feed. While the Babylonians were interpreting the zodiac over 2,000 years ago—and the birth of Princess Margaret helped bring horoscopes into mainstream popularity in the 1930s—in the year 2020, astrology is definitely having a moment.

During a visit to the O, The Oprah Magazine offices in New York City, Chani Nicholas—who happens to be our official astrologist—sat down with our team to help us learn how to read our birth charts. During her visit, she noted that this growing fascination exploded around the same time certain events put us in a period of national and international upheaval. "I think we're in a time of extremes," she told me. "It feels very tenuous, like our survival and our way forward is very unclear. So we need to know that we're gonna be okay. Astrology can't tell us that for sure, but it can put us into context, and it can put world events into context."

This idea of putting our own worlds into context—using astrology as a tool to explain ourselves...to ourselves—is a major theme of Chani's new book, You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance.

"Your astrological makeup is a neutral reflection of your life, much like a mirror," she writes in the introduction. What follows is a guide to birth chart analysis—with a self-help bent. "I wanted to write a book that was going to give people who needed the permission and license to find their purpose, and be of service in the world," she told me.

I jumped at the chance to get a reading from Chani: Friends of mine who count themselves among her 313,000 Instagram followers swear by her skills, and my own casual interest in astrology hadn't much evolved since the high school days of camping out in the Barnes & Noble aisle to study my crush in Linda Goodman's Love Signs to see if we were compatible. In addition to learning more about my own chart, Chani also shared with me the "three keys" to understanding your birth chart—and how you can delve into yours today.

First: Here's what you need to find your birth chart.

Ahead of our session, Chani asked for three pieces of information: My birthday, the exact time of my birth, and the place I was born. This information tells astrologers precisely where the planets were positioned at the time a person entered the world—so an accurate birth chart depends on getting the details right. "Even an hour can mean the difference between one rising sign and another, as the sky moves all day long," Chani explains, adding that if your parents don't remember or you don't have a copy of your birth certificate, you can always call the hospital you were born to ask for birth record details.

Once you have this trio of data, it will generate a birth chart that looks something like this—whether you visit your local astrologer or enter it into the birth chart calculator tool on Chani's website:

Confusing, right? Fear not—a good astrologer can help you sort out every planetary aspect of this wheel.

And yes, what you likely know as your zodiac sign is your sun sign—but it's more complicated than you think.

"When the sun is well placed in our chart, it brings with it a boundless, generative, generous, courageous, magnanimous, and glorious self confidence," Chani writes in her book. "When the sun is not well placed, it struggles to manifest itself."

Chani maintains that like everything in your chart, this is actually neutral news—not potential bad news that means you're inherently limited or doomed. It's all in service of getting to know yourself and your life path better.

Like most people, I know my sun sign; what I didn't know was that it, and most of my birth chart, sits in the 10th house of career. (The same goes for most of my OprahMag coworkers, she says—which means we make a great team!) My frothy Leo moon apparently offsets the intensity of my Scorpio-heavy chart.

"The power that you have, the impact you have on others, is quite phenomenal," she told me—making me think about my new role as a mother more than anything.

Chani clarifies that when she says career, she's not exclusively referring to a job: "Sometimes what we do is for money, and sometimes we do other things as our actual personal career. Sometimes they're the same thing; sometimes they intersect, and other times they veer." It makes me think of what Oprah has said about the difference between a career and a calling.

But your rising sign—or ascendant sign—is also very important.

Scanning your daily sun sign forecast—what most of us know as our main zodiac sign—is great, but Chani says studying your rising sign is worth a deep dig. "The rising sign is what we want to be known for, and our motivation for living this life," she says. "It's the sign that's rising up over the eastern horizon the moment you take your first breath. It's the most personal part of the chart, more specific than your sun sign or moon sign."

Uncovering which planet rules your rising sign is just as important, according to Chani. "That's the planet that steers the direction of our life, and its nature tells us a lot about what drives us and what motivates us, too." My own rising sign is Aquarius, I learned. "It's a sign that says, 'I'm here to be known as an intelligent human being,'" Chani tells me— which is a very nice way of saying I'm a lifelong know-it-all (searingly accurate).

The planet that rules Aquarius is Saturn, and Saturn sits in the 8th house of my chart. The ruler of the ascendant in the 8th house rules money, collaboration, death, mental anguish, and grief. As such, Chani says those with this aspect make good producers, managers, grief counselors, mental health professionals, death doulas, and exorcists(!!). These are all fascinating to consider, though I must admit I'm not plotting a career switch to the dark arts anytime soon. (And I am absolutely terrible with money.)

Next, dive into what your moon sign says about you.

As Chani puts it in You Were Born for This, your moon sign "represents your physical and emotional needs, your history, your relationship to nurturing and being nurtured, and your relationship to your parent or main caregiver." The qualities in our moon sign, she says, are how you live your life's purpose—and they also reveal how your needs are met. It speaks to the soft underbelly of the soul, if you will.

Chani tells me that since my moon is in Leo and it's sitting with Jupiter, I have a gregarious fun streak—and, as the planet sits in my seventh house of relationships and partnerships, she reiterates that my chart is telling her that partnering with people is a major theme in my life.

Now that you know your sun, rising, and moon signs, here's how to read your birth chart—and understand the meaning.

Chani suggests getting a reading from a trusted astrologer once a year, or "whenever you feel like you need it—but not too often." (For the record, when it comes to assessing your zodiac compatibility with potential significant others, "Do not touch someone else's chart" is her advice.)

Seeing my chart nail very specific parts of your personality was eerie, but fun. And my reading gave me food for thought in terms of where I want to direct my energy and aspirations going forward, particularly what forming partnerships might look like. While Chani reminds us that astrology is a tool—and not a be-all, end-all guide to your life—I can't recommend the experience enough.

While your sun, moon, and rising signs do speak volumes about you, there's so much more to learn. Here are five great astrology books that will help you explore how the planets' positions in your chart influence what makes you tick; with some dedicated self-study, your friends will soon be asking you to read their charts, too.

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