Read Your Birth Chart in Minutes: Vincent van Gogh Example

Introduction

So I'm going to help you, even as a complete beginner, read your chart quickly but comprehensively. That's the intention. I'm going to be taking the selected birth chart of Vincent van Gogh. He has had an interesting life, unfortunately a tragic end. We'll try to find reasons behind his life story from his chart and also map, most importantly, selected life events through the Dasha table.

The Dashas are not just some theory that is explained by people who are interested in astrology. You can actually verify them against his chronology, and this is one of those occasions where I'll try to demonstrate the usefulness of the Dashas.

Check the birth time

Before we begin, please enter your date, time and place of birth and please make sure that the time difference is calculated accurately. He was born in 1853, on 30 March at 11:00 a.m. local mean time in Zundert, and at that time the time difference was about 20 minutes. The selected instant is about 10:41 UT.

So if you're born in a country particularly which is using DST, please make sure that the time difference is taken properly by your chart generator. For Van Gogh, this is a historical local-mean-time conversion, not modern daylight-saving time.

Use rulers to complete the picture

Okay, let's have a look at his selected chart. You might be able to read this chart quite clearly as the house numbers are clearly mentioned. The sign number for his rising sign is the third sign, the sign of Gemini. This is the standard format, but this in my view is incomplete because you don't know the role planets are playing in the chart, and by that I mean which houses these planets are ruling in the chart.

Now the fifth house and the twelfth house fall in signs ruled by Venus and therefore Venus is ruling the fifth and the twelfth house. In the initial days I would struggle to discover that because you see the planet's position and then have to do this additional calculation to see which signs are falling in which houses ruled by the planet.

So you don't have to do all of that. There's this control at the top called Rulers and you'll get to see these numbers appearing next to planets, all of them, and these numbers represent the houses these planets are ruling in the chart. So you have the complete picture: Venus in the tenth, Venus ruling the fifth and the twelfth, in the sign of Pisces, and the Nakshatra is Uttara Bhadrapada. So this makes reading the chart easy.

Look for creative ability

So let's now start to interpret what this means for him. When you are looking at a chart belonging to an artist, you look at Venus's position. Venus signifies our creative ability, the fifth house is the house of creation, and our imaginative power is the twelfth house in my method.

So immediately you can find reasons behind his creative ability. Venus rules the fifth and the twelfth and falls in the career house.

Follow the Venus–Saturn exchange

Now let's analyse this Nakshatra position. Venus falls in the constellation of Uttara Bhadrapada, ruled by Saturn, and Saturn is in the constellation of Bharani, ruled by Venus. There's a beautiful Saturn and Venus relationship in this selected chart which, in my view, is behind his artistic ability.

Of all the constellations I rate Bharani as highly creative. So he has a very Saturn-like energy expressing this creative sign. He might express a deep emotional pain through his paintings due to Saturn being there. That's my explanation, not a diagnosis.

Cypress in The Starry Night

I'm not just trying to unnecessarily reverse engineer this combination and fit it to him being a painter. Let's have a look at his most famous painting, The Starry Night. As MoMA explains, the cypress tree represents themes of death and mourning given its association with cemeteries.

Now if you go back to his chart, Saturn is in the constellation of Bharani. The source illustration linked Bharani to death and rebirth or life after death. That's the connection there.

So what I'm trying to say to you is that we have found that he's a creative person. Venus rules the fifth and the twelfth. It's in the constellation ruled by Saturn. Saturn is having this exchange, and Saturn-Bharani is linking his creative ability to themes of death and life after death. When Saturn is there, in my explanation, there's also a case of some suffering, some deep emotional suffering that he's expressing through his creative art. That is an interpretation, not a diagnosis.

Trace the burst of ideas

And if you look at Rahu's position in his selected chart, it falls in the first house in the constellation of Mrigashira. So he's the kind of person who's going to be bursting with ideas in this reading: Rahu in the sign of Gemini, Gemini ruled by Mercury, and Mercury in Ashwini.

I'll leave that to you to analyse: why have I said he's going to be bursting with ideas?

Connect skill to career

So let's have a look at the position of the Sun in his chart. It's ruling the third house. The third house's energy now is falling in the career house, which makes him highly skilful, particularly with the use of hands, in the source's interpretation.

Mars's position is also very helpful in the tenth house. Now the Sun, incidentally, is falling in another highly creative section of the sky, Revati, which again is directly linked to his creative ability in this reading. I want to take you right away to the Dasha table. Let's test the theory against dates.

Map the career Dashas

I've mentioned the Sun is there in the tenth in a creative constellation. He was going through Venus Mahadasha right at the end of this Venus chapter when Ketu was also involved. Ketu was the Antardasha. He moved away from his work. He worked for a while as a missionary in the Borinage. It didn't work out. And then he felt inspired to be an artist. So he became an artist in 1880, at 27. The selected table places Venus-Ketu from about 21 May 1880 to 22 July 1881.

And then he painted his first major work, The Potato Eaters, in April 1885 under this Sun Mahadasha, Sun and Saturn to be more precise. Saturn Antardasha runs to about 9 May 1885. During Sun Mahadasha he had the transition from whatever struggles he had before to becoming an artist.

So the source reads the Sun as bringing this creative power in the tenth house: Sun in Revati, Revati being the creative power. During Sun Mahadasha he was involved in some creative work. The chronology lines up under the selected table; it does not prove causation.

Bring Moon into the reading

The Moon, which I forgot to mention in the main chart, is in the sixth house in the constellation of Jyeshtha. Now Jyeshtha is ruled by Mercury. When the Moon and Mercury have a relationship, the individual can dive very deep on the psychological plane in my method.

He's also tried to express his psychological state through his paintings, which in my view is linked to this Moon's influence on his work. That's my explanation, not a diagnosis.

Separate the key dates

Let's have a look at this tragic time linked to the Moon that he had at the end of 1888. He entered, he was about to enter should I say, Rahu's chapter. The selected Dasha calculation places Moon Mahadasha and Rahu Antardasha from about 20 December 1888 to 21 June 1890.

During this time he had his most struggles in life. I have always maintained that a person going through the Moon and Rahu chapter can go through some challenges which are mentally quite taxing. He went through those challenges. He injured his ear on 23 December 1888 and was sent to the hospital in Arles the following morning; he was not already in an asylum. He voluntarily entered Saint-Paul-de-Mausole on 8 May 1889.

But Rahu is also linked to an inspiration to do something new, and it was during this Rahu chapter he also painted his most famous piece of art, The Starry Night, in June 1889. His death on 29 July 1890 came after this Antardasha had ended, under Moon-Jupiter in the selected table.

Keep difficult periods in perspective

There's another explanation. You can't generalise it. It's not as if every Moon-Rahu chapter is going to be so terrifying. In his selected chart, the Moon and Rahu are also sharing a difficult relationship. Rahu is eight places away from the Moon. That is a sign of difficulty in my method.

So the lesson here is don't let your Rahu Maha-Antardasha play with your mind so much that you lose sense of proportion. The best thing through the Dasha table is that you know certain time phases are only for a certain time. The selected Moon-Rahu Antardasha had a known end in June 1890.

If you are going through a difficult time, you can manage or cope with those difficulties much better. This time is going to pass. Seek the right support; astrology is not mental-health care.