the twelve signs

your sun sign is the sign the sun occupied on the day you were born. star sign, sun sign and zodiac sign all mean the same thing. it describes the core of a person: the thing they are moving toward rather than the thing they already are.

western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which divides the year into twelve equal parts anchored to the equinoxes rather than to the constellations. this is why the dates are stable year to year, and why your sign no longer sits against the stars it is named for.

each sign carries one of four elements and one of three modalities, and no combination repeats. fire acts, earth builds, air thinks, water feels. cardinal signs open a season, fixed signs hold it, mutable signs end it and hand over. a sign is largely the meeting of those two things plus its ruling planet.

a sun sign is one placement out of roughly forty. your moon governs your inner life, your rising governs how you are first met, and the angles between your planets describe the tensions you live with. two people born on the same day in different hours can be genuinely unalike.