Giving a personalised birth chart: the guide

Giving a personalised birth chart means giving the person the map of the sky at the exact moment of their birth, interpreted for them. You need three pieces of information: their date, their time and their city of birth. The result can take the form of a poster, a PDF or, more lasting, a bound book.

A birth chart makes a gift of rare precision: it speaks about one single person. Here is how to give it well, without knowing anything about astrology.

What a birth chart is (and is not)

A birth chart is the photograph of the sky at the moment of birth: the position of the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the ascendant, the houses. It is a portrait, not a prediction. It describes a way of being, not a destiny written in advance.

What you need to give it

Three pieces of information, and three only:

• The date of birth.
• The time of birth: essential, because it gives the ascendant and the houses. Without it, the chart is incomplete.
• The city of birth.

The time appears on the full birth certificate. If you do not have it, it is better to track it down than to give a half-accurate portrait.

The possible forms

• A poster or print: pretty on the wall, but fixed on the positions, with no text.
• A PDF: practical, immediate, but soon filed away.
• A bound book: the portrait interpreted, chapter by chapter, kept and leafed through. The most lasting form.

Why the book format changes everything

A poster shows symbols; a book tells them. The Book of the Century goes further than a fixed chart: it interprets the birth chart, then unfolds the great periods of life across a hundred years. You give an object that opens, is read and is handed down, not an image looked at once.