Getting Your Chart: What You Need, and What to Do If You Don't Know Your Birth Time
— 5 min read
Before any reading, you need a chart. And for the chart, three pieces of information are enough.
- Your date of birth.
- Your time of birth, as precise as possible.
- Your place of birth, the city is enough.
The first two rarely cause problems. Neither does the third. It's the time that trips up most people, so let's start there.
Why the time matters so much
Your chart, the bodygraph, is calculated from the planetary positions at the exact moment of your birth. Those positions are constantly shifting. A two-hour difference can move a planet from one gate to another, activate a channel that wasn't active before, and change a center from open to defined.
In practical terms, a shift in time can change your authority, sometimes your type, and often your profile. In other words, most of what you were about to read.
That's why we insist on this point, and not out of formality.
How to find your birth time
If you were born in France, it's written down somewhere. Three places to check.
Your health record book (carnet de santé). The time is often noted on the first pages. The quickest option if you have it on hand.
Your parents. Their memory is worth what it's worth, but "just before lunch" already gives you a workable window.
The full copy of your birth certificate. This is the authoritative source. The time is stated on it. You can request it from the town hall (mairie) where you were born, online or in person, and it's free. Allow a few days if requesting by mail. Be careful to ask for the full copy: an extract without parentage information doesn't always include the time.
If you can't find it
This happens, especially for births abroad or a long time ago. You have two options.
The first: start from an estimate and read your chart while keeping in mind that certain parts are uncertain. What changes the least with time are the planetary positions linked to the Sun, so part of your profile and your main gates. What changes the most is the Moon, which moves quickly.
The second: test two or three plausible times and compare the resulting charts. If they give you the same type and the same authority, you can be confident about the essentials. If they differ, read both versions and see which one describes what you actually experience. It's an empirical approach, and it's better than nothing.
Once you have these three pieces of information, calculate your chart here. The diagram appears immediately, no sign-up required.
What you'll see on the chart
The bodygraph looks like a stylized silhouette filled with geometric shapes connected by lines. At first glance, it doesn't mean much. Here's how to read it, layer by layer.
The nine shapes are the centers, each responsible for a domain: communication, action, emotions, intuition, thinking. Some are colored in, meaning they are defined: their energy is stable and consistent in you. The others remain white, meaning they are open: their energy varies depending on your environment and the people around you.
The lines connecting the centers are the channels. A complete channel colors in the two centers it connects.
The numbers all around correspond to the gates, inherited from the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching.
From this configuration come three pieces of information you'll find at the top of any reading: your type, your strategy, and your authority.
Where to start once you have your chart in front of you
Don't try to understand everything at once. The order that works best:
- Your type, and the strategy that goes with it. The guide to the types gives you a clue to recognize your own.
- Your authority, meaning the way your body signals a yes or a no before your mind starts arguing about it.
- Your open centers, often the most revealing part. The guide to the nine centers details what each one governs.
The channels, the gates, and the Gene Keys will come later, once the basics are in place. Trying to absorb everything in the first week is the surest way to close the tab.
If you'd rather receive all of this written out instead of decoding it yourself, our readings start from your birth data and give you everything back in clear language, with concrete things to try day to day.