Astrology glossary

The Formula of the Soul

Words that belong to the method of A. A. Astrogor. The method is known mostly in Russian, so the English names below are the ones Ephemra settled on and uses consistently everywhere.

Formula of the Soul

A way of reading a birth chart published by A. A. Astrogor. Arrows are drawn from every planet to the ruler of the sign it stands in and followed until they close into a loop; what the loop encloses is the core, and everything else sits on orbits around it.

Dispositor

The planet that rules the sign another planet stands in. A planet in Aries has Mars for its dispositor, because Mars rules Aries.

Dispositor chain

The sequence you get by going from a planet to its dispositor, then to that planet's dispositor, and so on. Every chain ends in a loop, because there are only so many planets.

Ruler

The planet that governs a sign. Ephemra uses the modern set, so Pluto rules Scorpio, Uranus rules Aquarius and Neptune rules Pisces.

Core — also the centre of the formula

The closed loop a chain of dispositors ends in. Read as what a person leans on and lives from — the part of the chart that needs no permission from the rest of it. A formula can have two or three cores.

Orbit

How far a planet stands from the core, counted in arrows. A planet on the first orbit points straight into the core; one on the third reaches it through two others.

First orbit — also the inner circle

The planets that point directly into the core. They are read as the nearest help the core has.

Own orbit — also culmination

A planet standing on the orbit that carries the number of its own sign. The method treats it as a planet working at full voice.

Rest zone

A single planet, moving direct, standing alone in its own sign and closing a loop with nothing else. It becomes a small core of its own, and is read as a place where a person is quietly self-sufficient.

Alienation zone

The same thing, but the planet is retrograde. Self-sufficiency at a distance from everyone — which can read as independence or as isolation, depending on the rest of the chart.

Mutual reception

Two planets each standing in the sign the other rules. Their arrows point at each other, the loop closes on the pair, and both land in the core.

Retrograde — also R

A planet that appears to move backwards against the stars, as seen from Earth. Nothing actually reverses — it is an effect of the two orbits. The method draws retrograde planets in red.

Direct

A planet moving forwards in the usual direction. Drawn in blue.

Planetary strength — also score

How well a planet sits in the sign it occupies, from nought to six, following the classical ladder of dignities. The scores are summed by group and compared between the core and the orbits.

Dignity

The standing of a planet in a sign: at home (domicile), exalted, neutral, in detriment or in fall. It is the oldest scoring idea in astrology and the one both halves of Ephemra use.

Cosmogram

The same planetary strengths drawn as a circle: twelve signs around the edge, planets placed by score, the strongest nearest the centre.

Wheel of fate

A life laid over the zodiac at seven years to a sign, starting from Aries for everyone. A full turn takes eighty-four years — the orbital period of Uranus.

Life point

Where a person currently stands on the wheel of fate, given their age.

Activation age

The age at which a planet comes in on that wheel: the age its sign begins, plus its degree divided by the speed of the wheel.

Fictitious points

Chiron, the lunar nodes, Black Moon Lilith and the White Moon. In the Formula of the Soul they only point — they never enter the core and carry no strength score.

White Moon — also Selena

An object from the Russian astrological tradition with no settled definition in the West. Ephemra computes it from a calibrated mean position and treats it as the least certain thing it draws.

The natal chart

Standard terms, used the standard way. If you have met them in any other astrology program, nothing here will surprise you.

Natal chart — also birth chart

The familiar wheel: the sky at the moment and place of a birth, divided into houses, with the angles marked and the aspects between planets drawn in.

Ascendant — also rising sign, ASC

The point of the zodiac climbing over the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. It sets where the houses begin, and it needs an exact birth time — without one there is no Ascendant and no houses.

Midheaven — also MC

The highest point of the chart, where the zodiac crosses the meridian. Read as the public face of a life rather than the private one.

House

One of twelve divisions of the chart, counted from the Ascendant. Signs say how something happens; houses say where in a life it happens.

Cusp

The boundary between two houses. A planet close to a cusp is read as belonging partly to both.

Placidus

The house system Ephemra uses by default. It divides time rather than space, which is why it fails above the polar circle.

Whole-sign houses

The older system, where each house is exactly one sign. Ephemra falls back to it near the poles, where Placidus cannot be computed, and says so on the chart.

Aspect

An angle between two planets that the tradition treats as meaningful — a conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition or quincunx.

Orb

How far from exact an aspect may be and still count. A conjunction gets a wide orb, a quincunx a narrow one.

Applying and separating

Whether an aspect is still closing or already opening. An applying aspect is read as the stronger of the two.

Stellium

Three or more planets gathered in one sign or house. A concentration of weight in a single area of a life.

T-square

Two planets in opposition, both squared by a third. The third planet carries the tension of the pair.

Grand trine

Three planets forming a closed triangle of trines, usually within one element. Read as ease that can turn into inertia.

Grand cross

Two oppositions squared into a closed figure of four planets. The busiest configuration a chart can hold.

Yod

Two planets in sextile, both pointing by quincunx at a third. Traditionally read as a long adjustment rather than a talent.

Elements — also fire, earth, air, water

The four families of signs. Their balance in a chart is read as temperament rather than as a verdict.

Modalities — also cardinal, fixed, mutable

The three ways signs act: starting, holding, adapting.

Chiron

A small body between Saturn and Uranus, added to astrology in the twentieth century. Ephemra needs the full ephemeris files to place it, which is why it is computed rather than approximated.

Lunar nodes — also North Node, South Node

The two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. Ephemra uses the true node, not the mean one — many calculators quietly use the mean and land a degree or two away.

Black Moon Lilith

The empty focus of the Moon's elliptical orbit — a point, not a body.

Swiss Ephemeris

The tables of planetary positions that professional astrology software runs on, derived from the JPL ephemerides. Every number in Ephemra comes from them.