What Your Birth Chart Says About Your Writing Style
How to illuminate your creative strengths and uncover authentic expression through your birth chart.
Our natal charts often reveal our passions, desires, and talents. If you’re developing your writing style or seeking new inspiration, your chart can illuminate your creative strengths and areas for growth and experimentation. By examining the aspects and placements in your chart, you can uncover qualities that resonate with your inner voice and guide you toward a more authentic expression of your craft. Additionally, astrology offers insights into the people we naturally attract or repel, helping us connect with our readers and audiences on a deeper level.
Charts should be interpreted holistically, so instead of listing every possible indicator of success as a writer, I’m going to highlight some key considerations that will help you reflect on your personal writing journey through the lens of astrology.
The Law of Attraction: Who’s Reading Your Work and Why?
If you want to know who’s reading your work, what they’re like, and why they’re attracted to your writing, look to the 7th and 11th houses of your chart. These two houses represent your relationships with others, so the archetypes associated with their zodiac signs, and planets within the houses, can offer insights into the nature and qualities of the people you encounter.
The 7th house is associated with long-term, one-on-one committed relationships – like your dedicated readers who adore every word of that 1,000 page novel you spent 10 years writing. There’s a special dynamic between the writer and the relationships represented by the 7th house, the concept of opposites attract is relevant because the 7th house opposes the energy and themes of the first house, which represents the self, identity, and how we present ourselves to the world – Me vs. the Other is at play with this house. If you understand the polar energy of your Ascendant or Rising Sign, you gain insight into the inner world of your most loyal readers.
The opposition between the 1st and 7th houses symbolizes the idea that our understanding of ourselves (1st house) is often clarified and deepened through our interactions and relationships with others (7th house). This balance and integration of the self with others, is essential in forming meaningful connections.
One of the most interesting aspects of polar sign relationships is the natural dynamic tension that exists. While opposing energies can be challenging they also provide opportunities for growth. Tension pushes individuals to consider perspectives outside of their natural inclinations and develop a more nuanced understanding of themselves and their relationships.
As writers, we should challenge our readers to think differently, broaden their perspectives, and appreciate diversity—anything less diminishes the mysterious and exotic appeal that comes from embracing the richness of our unique experiences and voices.
Groups of people, organizations, our broader social communities, and networks are represented by the 11th house. While 11th house relationships are less committed and more casual—think social media followers—studying this house can provide insights into effective marketing strategies, social causes that may inspire your writing, and the collective impact you can make through your words. Read about featured poet, June Jordan, in this week’s Astro Shots below. Her life serves as a powerful example of someone who has truly mastered the themes of the 11th house.
Here’s a summary of the relationship houses and their role in helping you understand and connect with your audience.
7th House Sign and Planets: This placement helps you understand your dedicated fan base or audience and reveals insights into your relationships with others. By examining the 7th house, you can also explore how these dynamics constructively oppose and balance the qualities and challenges of your 1st house, leading to deeper self-awareness and growth in your interactions and writing.
11th House Sign and Planets: This placement reveals the nature of your influence on larger groups, networks, and peers. It offers insights into how you can effectively engage with social media and marketing, and understand the dynamics of your broader social connections.
Own Your Space: Write What You Know
It goes without saying, but if you’re drawn to a certain topic or area of life, write about it! There’s a reason certain things attract our attention in life and the more exposure we have with it, the more experience and credibility we develop. With that said, sometimes we are “so” familiar with something that we take it for granted. We think, “oh, everyone knows how to make a lasagna, or take care of a garden, or navigate the experience of relocating from one side of the country to another.” Or worse yet, “yes, I have experience in a few areas of life, but no one would care what I think – there’s hundreds of other people already writing about my topic.”
Our lives and our natal charts are unique. Not one us is a replica of another and our experiences and emotional connections to a topic are what differentiate our writing from each other.
If you need help objectively looking at your life and considering where you’ve likely accumulated some wisdom that would be valuable to another person, here’s a list of chart placements to reflect on.
House Location of the Ruler of Your Ascendant or Rising Sign: The house where the ruler of your Ascendant (Rising Sign) is located highlights the area of life that plays a central role in your experiences. This placement often reveals where you have deep insights, personal stories, and valuable lessons to share. It can also guide you on how to navigate challenges and maximize rewards in this life sector.
Stellium in a House or Sign: When three or more planets cluster in the same house or sign, your energy and interests are deeply aligned with the archetype of that zodiac sign or the themes of that house. This concentration of planetary influence can serve as a hidden superpower or wellspring of inspiration for a writer. Exploring the significance of a stellium can reveal the genres that resonate with you or refine the tone of your writer’s voice.
South Node House Placement: The South Node represents innate talents and gifts you bring into this world. The sign and house where your South Node is placed often reflect areas where you feel comfortable and intuitive. While it’s important to push beyond your comfort zone, the South Node can help you harness your natural strengths to establish expertise in a particular field. Embrace what feels familiar and repurpose it creatively to forge something new and impactful.
Emphasized Element in Chart (Earth/Fire/Water/Air): The dominant element in your chart can offer valuable insights into your writing style and preferences. For example, a strong fire emphasis might indicate a passion for writing inspirational and motivational content, while an earth emphasis could suggest a preference for practical topics like financial trends or culinary experiences. Exploring and experimenting with writing styles of less represented elements in your chart can also be a creative and enriching challenge.
Make Lemonade from Lemons: Transform Struggles into Creative Inspiration
Many of us have blind spots when it comes to recognizing our strengths especially when our strength is in an area where we’ve consistently failed or struggled many times over. Broken relationships, health issues and physical suffering, or challenges and frustrations with work, are often areas in our lives we prefer to move through as quickly as possible and purge from our memories.
But if you’re someone who has navigated these challenges, and come out the other side, you’ve built expertise – you’ve learned how to let go, how to move forward despite financial and emotional upheaval, learned to suffer with dignity and rise above your circumstances, and most of all, you’ve learned compassion for yourself and for others who are suffering.
Our charts can help us view our experiences with suffering and pain from alternate perspectives. Identifying challenging aspects and planetary energies in your chart, can provide insight into where you have the greatest potential to truly impact another human being on an authentic and deep level. This takes courage and a willingness to reflect on the trauma you’ve experienced in life but if you can face your suffering, disappointments, humiliations, and other undesirable experiences objectively, and become vulnerable with your readers, you have the power to transform those painful experiences into something inspiring and life-giving for someone else.
Here are some powerful chart placements and considerations to help you reflect on your life experiences and start embracing your scars as evidence of your strength and resilience.
House Location of Mars, Saturn, Pluto or the North Node
Mars: Where you struggled with impulsiveness, impatience, anger, or excessive risk-taking….but have now learned to focus your passionate energy on improving your health, championing a cause, courageously saying what needs to be said to support growth and freedom.
Saturn: Where you may have fallen into the depths of despair, entertained self-criticism, and burdened yourself with guilt….but have now learned to create supportive structures in your life, developed the discipline to constructively improve yourself and accept your limits, and embraced responsibility to fulfill your commitments and preserve your integrity.
Pluto: Where the familiar, the expected, the predictable has suddenly collapsed and burned to the ground.…leaving you with nothing. Until you realized you were handed a new beginning. A reset on life that you didn’t ask for or know you needed….but now your life has new purpose and meaning and your soul has been reborn – like the phoenix rising from the ashes.
North Node: The uncharted territory you’ve avoided most of your life for fear of failure and ridicule.…but have now learned to experiment with, to explore and try on new experiences, new styles, a new voice – and have recognized the success that comes from taking risks and putting in extra effort.
