An astrology reading takes the raw information in a chart—planets, signs, houses, and aspects—and interprets what those placements mean for you personally. Personality, relationships, career, life direction: your birth chart is a beautiful snapshot of who you are, the experiences etched into your soul, the relationships you form, and the things that matter most to you. By reading the chart across past, present, and future, astrology can help connect different parts of a life that may otherwise seem unrelated.
The twelve-sign horoscopes anyone can casually read are based on just one part of the birth chart: the Sun sign. Some people find that those horoscopes fit them surprisingly well, while others feel that almost nothing applies. That makes sense when you think about it. Only one part of the chart is being used. A personalized reading works with far more of the chart, and that is the clearest difference between the two.
What a Personalized Reading Can Show You
There are many different kinds of personalized readings, and what we look at depends on what you are looking for right now. If you want to understand your underlying personality, a birth chart can tell us a great deal. Not everything, but a great deal. That basic nature carries into relationships, love, career, and many of the choices we make throughout life. You cannot simply force your personality to become something else, but understanding yourself can make it easier to choose your path with the larger astrological flow in mind.
If you know the birth date, birth time, and birthplace of someone close to you—a partner, family member, or another important person—we can also compare two birth charts and look at compatibility. This is not limited to personality differences. A comparison can also explore how the two of you relate, where your patterns support or challenge each other, and whether you seem able to keep moving in the same direction over time.
Personalized readings are not limited to astrology, either. Tarot is another option, and its purpose is different. Tarot looks at your state of mind in the present moment. Life rarely leaves us without something to think about, and a tarot reading can begin with a specific question or simply look at your current life as a whole. Because the cards that happen to be drawn are used to explore the subconscious, I look beyond the meaning of each card on its own. The balance of upright and reversed cards, Major and Minor Arcana, the distribution of suits, and the patterns across the spread can all become part of the reading.
Astrology and tarot therefore serve quite different purposes. They can also be used together. Astrology might be used to look at the larger flow of your life and the periods ahead, while tarot can focus on a specific concern you are dealing with right now and what you may want to do about it.
Astrology Alone, Tarot Alone, or a Combination of Methods
Astrology by itself already contains many different techniques. There is natal astrology, which reads the birth chart itself, as well as transits, secondary progressions, solar returns, solar arcs, profections, and other methods used to look at the present and future. Even when something is simply described as an “astrology reading,” it does not necessarily mean that only one chart or one technique is being used. In predictive work, astrologers often layer several methods depending on the question being explored.
Tarot has a different strength. Rather than starting with the structure you have carried since birth, as a birth chart does, it is well suited to digging into the question of what is happening right now. You might only have a vague feeling that something is off in your work or love life, and that can still be enough to begin. As the cards come out, the reading develops from there, and recognizing “this doesn’t feel like me” or “this immediately makes sense” can become part of the process itself.
Using more than one divination method does not necessarily mean checking the same thing over and over again. The methods can have different jobs. A birth chart might be used to understand long-term tendencies, tarot to explore a specific situation in the present, and numerology to look at the cycle of the year you are currently moving through.
At the same time, there is no reason to add tarot when someone simply wants to understand their birth chart in depth, and there is no reason to ask for an exact birth time when someone only wants a tarot reading about one question. The method depends on what you actually want to know.
How to Read a Reading—and What to Do With It
Receiving a reading does not mean you have to follow everything it says. Some parts may make more sense later, while other parts may simply not feel like you at all. A future reading does not mean waiting around for the predicted period to arrive, either. When that time comes, you can return to the reading and think about what you want to do with the circumstances in front of you.
A personalized reading is not necessarily finished the moment you receive it. Its meaning can change when you come back to it after having more experiences of your own. Something that seemed vague the first time may become obvious months later, while another part may take on a completely different meaning once you have lived through the period it was describing.
