Rise and Shine

Part 1

First Impressions: Your Rising Sign

The Rising Sign is one of the most important features of your astrological chart. It ranks right up there with the Sun and the Moon. But unlike the Sun and the Moon, the Rising Sign is not a planet. It's a demarcation line. It marks the fixed point on the eastern horizon where night becomes day so that whatever zodiac sign was "rising" here at the time of your birth becomes your Rising Sign.

Your Sun Sign describes who you are. It's everything that you know about yourself to be true. Some of these characteristics you're proud of. And others? Maybe not so much. Nevertheless they're the personality traits that you identify with the most.

Your Moon Sign describes your emotional life. It's how you really feel about things deep down inside. The planet of habits, memories, and dreams, the Moon remembers you even when you've forgotten yourself. The Moon is also where you turn to when you feel unsafe.

Your Rising Sign is the face of your astrological chart. It's not a mask, a persona, or a role that you play. It's your face-and it's every bit as spontaneous, expressive, and reactive as your physical face is.

Think about your face for a moment. Your face makes you recognizable as you. No two faces are exactly alike-even with identical twins. Each person's face is so individual and distinct that facial recognition is now the standard for unlocking your smartphone and authenticating payments. But who sees your face more during the course of a day-you or other people? It's other people. Now that might be hard to believe in an era of selfies and Zoom calls, but it's still other people who meet your gaze, sheepishly avoid eye contact, or don't even look up as you walk past because they don't know you from Adam. Like your face, your Rising Sign is continually registering the faces of others and responds accordingly. It decides what to reveal and what to conceal, independently of the rest of your horoscope.

We all have a pretty good idea of what our face looks like and what we hope to convey by it, but it's others' reactions to our expressions that influence our interactions. How many times has your thoughtful frown been misinterpreted as sullen and off-putting or your smile regarded as inviting when you're actually just being polite? Your Rising Sign is on show for everyone to see and it knows it. It's the first glimpse others get of you, and that includes your voice and demeanor. Everyone wants to make a good impression but oftentimes we can be in the dark about the signals we send or the vibes we put across. All of this is bound up in the zodiac sign people meet first, and not the one you truly are.

Astrology Is a Calendar

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There are two ways of telling time-a calendar and a clock. The calendar tells you what day it is while the clock tells you the hour, and that's precisely what the Sun Sign and the Rising Sign do. The Sun Sign will always tell you the time of year that someone was born while the Rising Sign will tell you the time of day. Here's how it works.

In Astrology we work with a 360-degree circle that is divided into twelve signs just like our calendar is divided into twelve months. This circle is called a horoscope.

The Earth orbits the Sun in a counterclockwise direction. The Earth's orbit around the Sun gives us the seasons. Now in Astrology, everything is seen from the Earth's point of view so it's not the earth that orbits the Sun, but rather the Sun that orbits us. As the Sun moves through the signs in a year-the Sun is in Aries in April, Taurus in May, Gemini in June, and so on-you will see it move in the direction mapped out on the figure below. The Sun in a zodiac sign will always tell you what time of year it is.

Astrology Is Also a Clock

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As the Earth orbits the Sun, it also rotates on its axis. The Earth's rotation on its axis gives us day and night. The side that faces the Sun is day, and the side that faces away is night. The Earth rotates on its axis in the same counterclockwise direction, from west to east, yet the Earth's rotation is also what creates the illusion of the Sun moving in a clockwise direction. This is why the Sun rises in the morning on the left, moves across the sky, and then sets on the right at night. Remember that everything in Astrology is seen from the Earth's point of view and that's how the Sun looks to us in the sky during the day.

Let's say that you were born on March 23. An Astrologer would immediately know that you are an Aries because the Sun is in the astrological sign of Aries from March 20 to April 18. But let's say that you were born at seven thirty in the morning. Then the Astrologer would hazard a guess that you're probably an Aries Rising because you were born around Sunrise. That would make you an Aries/Aries Rising because the Sun in Aries is rising over the horizon line on the left. Anyone born at Sunrise has their own zodiac sign rising.

Now let's say that your birthday is March 23, but you were born at noon. You're still an Aries because it's still the same day, but the time has changed. You now are a Cancer Rising because Cancer was the zodiac sign that was rising over the horizon when you were born.

What if you're an Aries born around Sunset? Then you are an Aries with Libra Rising. This can be a challenging placement because the Sun is as far away as it can be from the Ascendant. People are more likely to register you as a Libra because that's the sign they "see" first.

And if you're an Aries born around midnight? Then you are an Aries with Capricorn Rising. As you can see, the wheel has turned full circle so that with the dawn of a new day Aries will once again be rising over the horizon along with the Sun.

Finding Your Rising Sign

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The simplest way to find your Rising Sign is to input your birthday and time into an Astrology website or app. To deepen your understanding of how it works, here's a brief explanation. There are twenty-four hours in a day and twelve signs in the zodiac. Remember how the year is divided into twelve months, with each month corresponding to a zodiac sign? Well, each sign gets two hours of the day allotted to it because 2 x 12 = 24. Think of the signs as affixed to a wheel that is slowly turning. This wheel mimics the rotation of the earth so that for two hours every day each sign will rise over the horizon before it's replaced by the following sign in zodiacal order. If you were born between six and eight in the morning, then you were born when your Sun Sign was rising. If you were born between eight and ten in the morning, then you were born when the zodiac sign that follows your Sun Sign was rising. Between ten and noon and it's the sign that's two signs after your Sun Sign that's rising, and so on.

As you can imagine, birth times have their pluses and minuses. Being born at Sunrise makes you up close and personal but doesn't really lend itself to seeing yourself objectively, whereas being born at Sunset might make you so removed that others often feel like you're never around or just don't care. The Sun high in the chart is aspirational but can also create a disconnect between how people see you and who you want to be, while the Sun at the bottom of the chart is so rooted in place that people assume you will always be there for them, which is why they stopped asking you how you're doing a long time ago.

Ideally your Rising Sign helps to accomplish the things you want in life, but in some cases your Rising Sign may work against you-especially if it isn't connected to your Sun Sign by element, mode, or Ruling Planet. This is why some people say that they identify more with their Rising Sign than they do with their Sun Sign. In that scenario, there just isn't a strong tie between them-and since the Rising Sign is always on show for the world to see, then it's the Rising Sign (also known as the Ascendant) that gets all the recognition.

In the end, your Rising Sign describes the way people see you. It's your presence, body language, quirks, and demeanor all wrapped up into one. The more you understand your Rising Sign, the more you'll recognize the relationship between it and your Sun Sign. This gives you a more complete picture of how you come across in daily life as well as an indispensable tool for figuring out why people sometimes take things the wrong way. Understanding your Rising Sign allows you to own and direct the first impression you make on others so that the impression serves rather than defines you.

In the sections that follow, we'll look at the twelve Rising Signs of the zodiac-what each of these astrological faces looks like, how they shape and relate to each Sun Sign, and how they interact with other Rising Signs as we all move through the world. This isn't a book about passing judgment on ourselves or others-it's a guide to understanding and decoding the Rising Sign in your chart as well as the ones around you. It's only through insight and reflection that we can truly understand ourselves and our relationships with others.

Part 2

Your Unique Personality: Sun Sign/Rising Sun Combinations

Aries Rising

You need to be first. That's why you arrive early for appointments, answer before anyone else, and step forward when others hem and haw. You have to be out in front. Driven by an overriding sense of urgency, you won't put off for tomorrow what can be done in the next twenty minutes. You're direct, decisive, and get visibly impatient when kept waiting. You don't like following and if you find yourself standing behind someone in line who isn't moving as quickly as you think they should be, then you will push them to hurry things along.

People know to get out of your way. It's like pulling over to the side of the road to let an ambulance pass. You come on that strong. When you're an Aries Rising you feel like everything you do is crucial. It's why you won't think twice about telling a loved one to stop what they're doing and come help you out. Your thinking is: It won't take very long, what you're doing is much more important, and they can always pick up where they left off later. Aries Rising isn't exactly known for respecting others' priorities.

It hurts when people say you always have to win. It implies you're a sore loser-or worse, that you should throw the game just to let somebody else win for a change. First of all, you're an honest competitor. You don't believe in going easy on anyone. That would be cheating. Second, you don't do anything half-assed. You always give it your best shot. Aries is ruled by Mars, the gladiator planet, so you're only as good as your last thumbs-up. You attack everything you do as if your life depended on it.

Navigating gender roles is something you have to do constantly because Mars is still seen as the he-man planet. If you're a guy you're expected to "man up" when things get tough, and if you're a woman you're told to dial it back so that you don't come across as angry and off-putting. Luckily, upsetting people's expectations isn't too much of a problem for you, but it still smarts.

Aries Rising means you came into the world with a mission. You may not have the clearest idea of what it is, but you know that time's running out and lives are at stake. Maybe you're here to fight the good fight, advocate for those who have been beaten down, or do the one thing that nobody thought could be done. Whatever it is, you need to commit to it in full because anything less just won't cut it.

Aries Sun/Aries Rising

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Things matter when you're an Aries/Aries Rising. It's why you act on impulse and speak up when it would be wiser not to. You can't abide holding back or playing it safe. You were built to champion and defy. Quick to butt heads with bullies, haters, and shamers, you're an enemy of anyone who tries to make somebody else feel bad about who they are. You don't think twice about getting up in people's faces.

You know that you're rough around the edges. A work in progress, you're constantly struggling to get to that place in life where you can finally say you made it. Unfortunately, you can't escape this feeling that you may never get there. It sounds self-defeatist, but it's not. It's just that when you're convinced that you can do better there's no such thing as being the best. How can there be when you're always pushing limits, taking risks, and raising the bar?

It's easy to get a rise out of you. Your face turns red. And even if your skin complexion can hide the color, you still can't escape that telltale burning sensation. Your anger, embarrassment, or sexual excitement is on show for everyone to see. Now this could lead you to collect your things and make a hasty exit, but you know that if you did that then you would only have to face these people later, which is why you choose to wear your emotions proudly, like a scarlet letter. A moment's humiliation often turns into a triumph when you're an Aries/Aries Rising because you won't back down. You should never feel ashamed about showing that you care-especially when you can't help it.

People expect you to be a hero. They want you to save the day, fight the fights they don't want to fight, or fall on your sword if need be. Don't be a dupe. It's hard to resist the distress call when everything feels so heated and in the moment, but when you see that you're the one taking the hits for people sipping cocktails and cheering you on from a safe distance, then you'll realize the wisdom of letting them fight their own battles. And that's the moment when you turn the tables on those who were using you to their own ends.