How to Count Elements and Modalities in Your Birth Chart

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You can work out your chart's element and modality balance in about five minutes with nothing more than your planet list and a pen. The Astrologist.com chart does not do this count for you. It does not score elements, show percentages or label a chart "fire dominant", so the method below is a manual one. That is less of a drawback than it sounds, because the choices you make while counting are part of what makes the result meaningful.

Step 1: Get your placements

Generate your chart on the free birth chart. Under the wheel is a planet table. Each row shows one point, its degree and minutes, and the glyph of the sign it is in. Copy the sign for each of these:

• Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars
• Jupiter, Saturn
• Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
• Your Rising sign (shown in the badge above the wheel), if your birth time is known

Leave out the North and South Node. They always sit in opposite signs, which share a modality, so including both doubles up one modality on every chart. Chiron is optional; most simple methods skip it.

If your birth time is unknown, there is no Rising sign to count, and the Moon may be shown with two possible signs. Neighbouring signs always differ in element and in modality, so in that case note both options and see whether the result changes. The same applies, more rarely, to any planet that changed sign on your birth date: the free chart only flags this uncertainty for the Moon. There is a full worked count with two possible Moon signs in this unknown-time chart example.

Step 2: Look up element and modality

The pattern is easy to remember once you see it: elements repeat every four signs in the order fire, earth, air, water, and modalities repeat every three in the order cardinal, fixed, mutable.

Step 3: Choose a weighting

There is no standard scoring system, and different astrologers use different ones. A plain count (one point per planet) is a fine place to start. Many people then move to a weighted count, because the Sun and Pluto do not carry the same personal weight.

One simple weighting, offered here as an example rather than a rule:

• 2 points: Sun, Moon, Ascendant
• 1 point: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn
• ½ point: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto

The idea is to give the most weight to the most personal points and the least to the planets you share with everyone born in the same few years. Some astrologers give the chart ruler an extra point too. Pick a method and use it the same way every time, so you can compare charts fairly.

Step 4: A worked example

Here is an invented chart, set out the way you would copy it from the planet table:

Plain count of the ten planets: earth 5, water 3, air 2, fire 0. Cardinal 4, fixed 3, mutable 3.

Weighted count (with the Ascendant): earth 5, water 3½, air 2, fire 2. Fixed 5½, mutable 4, cardinal 3. Total 12½ points either way.

Two things jump out. Earth leads in both versions, so the earthy flavour is solid. The modality result flips, though. In the plain count cardinal leads, but three of those four cardinal planets are Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn, a slow-planet cluster shared by a whole birth cohort. Once the weighting halves Uranus and Neptune and doubles the personal points, fixed takes over, carried by the Sun, Venus and the Leo Ascendant.

Fire also changes from "missing" to "present but thin". Without the birth time, this chart would look fireless. With it, the only fire is the Rising sign. An astrologer might read that as fire that shows in first impressions and personal style more than in the planets' everyday functioning.

Step 5: Read the result

Look for three things.

A clear leader. An element or modality well above the others suggests a default style. Element balance and modality balance describe what each emphasis tends to look like.

A gap. Zero or close to zero in an element or modality is often the most talked-about part of the count. See missing an element for how astrologers approach it.

Where the numbers come from. A high count produced by one stellium reads differently from the same count spread across several signs.

You can also combine your leading element and leading modality. In the example, fixed earth points to Taurus, which here happens to be the Sun sign as well. That combination is sometimes called the chart's signature and is explained in your element and modality signature.

Common counting mistakes

Counting a noon Moon as certain. If your time is unknown and the chart shows two possible Moon signs, do not pick one silently.

Counting the Rising sign without a reliable time. A guessed time can easily produce the wrong Rising sign.

Treating the number as the reading. A tally is a summary, and it drops a lot of information: aspects, houses, rulers and how close planets are to each other. Use it to frame questions, not to settle them.

If you would like a second opinion on what your count suggests, take the totals to Ask the Astrologist and ask how they fit with your Sun, Moon and Rising.

Related articles

• Element Balance in a Birth Chart
• Modality Balance in a Birth Chart
• Birth Chart Calculator Guide
• Zodiac Signs Overview
• Birth Charts