The Rising Sign

 

In your natal chart, the three most important parts of your personality are represented by your Moon (your emotional self), Sun (your inner self), and rising (your outer self). Your rising sign is the sign that’s on the cusp (beginning) of your first house. The first house cusp is the exact placement in the zodiac where the horizon was when you were born, essentially the sign rising in the sky, which is why it’s referred to as your rising sign. The first house is the house of the self, ruling you, and the sign on the cusp and planets in the house show how you come across.

The most interesting and important thing you need to know about your rising sign is that it’s interpreted far more positively than your Sun and Moon. Why? As a general rule, when a person is with other people that they’re not close to, they behave differently. Better. Most of us want to present ourselves in the best light possible when we meet new people and encounter strangers, and we put on a mask, a façade, in an effort to hide our true selves and avoid embarrassment or rejection. Because of this, you generally only manifest the positive attributes on your rising sign.

I’ll tell you a little story. When I first began studying astrology, I was using an incorrect birth time. I didn’t find out my real birth time until I got a copy of my birth certificate, and discovered that my mother had been off by an hour. One hour doesn’t make much difference with the placements of the planets in your chart, but it does for houses, and I went from thinking I was a Libra rising to knowing I was a Scorpio rising.

When I tell you that I wasn’t happy, that’s putting it mildly. I didn’t want to have anything to do with psycho Scorpio! But as I studied more, not only did I find that it make so much more sense to describe me, but that I also liked being a Scorpio rising. We’re less intense and more magnetic, we’re less serious and more friendly and engaging. It tones down the airhead-ed-ness of my Libra Sun (I’m still an airhead, just less of one than if I were a Libra rising too), and gives my Pisces Moon some direction and focus (so when I train wreck, it’s with a purpose).

Your rising sign can explain how you come across so differently than how you are with people you’re close to. You usually see that being the case if your Sun and rising signs are one, three, or five signs apart, or are opposite one another.

Planets that are in this house will also manifest in your personality, and you’ll absorb some of the traits of the sign(s) the planet rules, adding to your rising, so you want to read up on those as well. If you don’t have any planets in the first house, you express your rising sign energy purely. Study up on your rising so you can better understand how you come across to other people.

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