Here's Why You're Probably Reading Your Horoscope Wrong
You can probably relate to your Sun sign. You know, the one you find in most outlets that maps to a range of dates, like July 23 - August 22? Or the typical answer given to What's your sign? "Your sign" is the part of the zodiac that was aligned with the Sun on the day you were born. In your birth chart, it represents your animating force. In many ways, it is your essence. But it’s probably not the sign you should scan for when you check your horoscope.
Newspaper horoscopes first became popular all the way back in 1930, when a horoscope for Princess Margaret went as viral as one could back then. But here's the thing. While newspapers have evolved a great deal in the last century (hello, internet!), most publications are still printing short Sun sign horoscopes as if there's still only room for a superficial sentence or two on a physical, printed page.
Casual readers who scan these soundbites through the lens of their Sun Sign may unwittingly be missing out. Because predictive astrology – a.k.a., what's going to happen to you today according to your horoscope – relies on an entirely different sign altogether: your Rising sign. Read on to reveal why, when it comes to real astrology, the precise minute you were born really matters.
WHY YOUR RISING SIGN MATTERS
Your rising sign, a.k.a. Ascendant, sets up your entire birth chart, which looks like a wheel divided into 12 pie slices, called houses. Your first house – the house in which your ascendant is placed – represents you as an individual. Each subsequent house represents another specific area of life, and the schema is fixed; everyone's second house is about money, and so on and so forth. But the queue of zodiac signs filling each of these houses can only be determined by your ascendant. And if you want to use astrology to gain useful insights as to what the future holds, this is step one!
Text Celeste to get your rising sign and a full personal horoscope
For instance, let’s say you were born on August 1, making you a Leo. From June 2025 - June 2026, Astrologers will be talking nonstop about the planet Jupiter, which will be transiting the sign of Cancer – something it does only once every 12 years. Jupiter is the most positive planet in Astrology, and while its signature properties – abundance, expansion – can be downright overwhelming when in the wrong mix, Cancer happens to bring out its very best. Everyone stands to enjoy this energetic shift. Though some, much more than others!
But back to you, a Leo. Your defining traits include charismatic self-confidence, instinctual generosity, and, of course, great hair. Nobody can take that Leo riz away from you! Yet, if you read the Leo horoscopes, you’ll be led to believe that the magic of Jupiter in Cancer is taking place in your 12th house, the one associated with intuition, endings, and the unseen. And maybe it is, if you were born at 7 a.m. in New York, making you a Leo rising.
But if you were born at 11 a.m. in California, your ascendant lands squarely in Libra, meaning the magic is actually taking place in your 10th house, the spotlight of your chart, which speaks to fame, public honors and recognition, plus your career, if work is your thing. In the case of the latter, this is the kind of Astrology that makes you uniquely lucky. You get this extremely promising Jupiter transit for a full year on one of the most important angles in your chart. We call that, blessed.
Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Substack, LinkedIn – anything you do in public or online, really – these are 10th house endeavors. If growing an audience is something you want for yourself – and you are a Leo, after all – you simply could not ask for more favorable astrological conditions than this upcoming Jupiter transit. But you only read your Leo horoscope, so instead of buying a vlogging camera and getting serious about posting every day, you focused on your inner world, under the mistaken impression that it was time to lay low, with Jupiter transiting the most introspective part of your chart. Oops.
HOW TO FIND YOUR RISING SIGN
First things first: find out your birth time and city! The best and most reliable way to do this? Check your birth certificate. (However, if you were born before 1955, the hospital may not have documented this piece of information.)
If for any reason your birth certificate is not helpful here, you can try asking a parent or another relative. From here, there are dozens, if not hundreds of free online tools you can use to cast your chart and identify the sign in the first house—including simply texting Celeste. Once armed with your rising sign, you’ll be well on your way to ensuring you never miss out on your real horoscope again!
