Locational Astrology (Part I): Astrocartography in My Past Homes

For most of my life, I thought movement would change things.

I didn’t stay in the town where I was born. I left for college. I moved again for work. Later, for family. Eventually, I moved north with plans to retire and write full-time—or perhaps to begin something entirely new. Each relocation felt intentional, even hopeful. New scenery, new chapter.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that, astrologically speaking, I never really left.

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What Is Locational Astrology?

Locational astrology—most commonly known as Astrocartography—is a technique that maps your natal chart onto the Earth itself. Instead of asking who am I?, it asks a different question: Where do certain parts of my chart become louder?

Using your exact birth date, time, and place, astrocartography shows where each planet in your chart becomes angular—rising, setting, culminating, or anchoring at the foundation of the chart. These angular placements are projected as lines across a world map, creating geographic corridors where particular themes tend to be emphasized.

Astrocartography doesn’t replace the natal chart. It activates it. Place doesn’t change who you are—but it can shape how, where, and under what conditions different parts of you are expressed.

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How to Find Your Own Astrocartography Map

If you want to explore this for yourself, here’s the simplest way to begin:

1. Go to Astro.com
   
2. Select Free Horoscopes
   
3. Navigate to Locational Astrology
   
4. Click AstroClick Travel
   
5. Enter your birth date, birth time, and birth location
   (Accuracy matters here—especially your birth time.)
6. Once the map loads:
   • Click the harmonious and disharmonious aspect buttons at the top of the map
   • Click directly on locations or planetary lines to see interpretations
   • Zoom in on places you’ve lived, studied, worked, or are considering

That’s all you need to get oriented.

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Astrocartography in My Past Homes

I grew up in the American South. When I left home for college, I moved about a hundred miles away. When I later settled into my career, married, and raised a family, I lived roughly 125 miles from where I was born. Even my eventual move north—made with the intention of retirement or reinvention—was only about 400 miles.

On a road map, these were meaningful distances.
On an astrocartography map, they were barely a shift at all.

For decades, I remained within 100 miles east  of a Chiron–Ascendant line, and for more than thirty years of my working life, I lived directly on a disharmonious Sun square Midheaven line.

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The Lines Involved (Accepted Interpretations)

Chiron on the Ascendant (Chiron/AS Line)

Living near a Chiron–Ascendant line is often associated with a long-term process of identity formation through challenge. These locations tend to bring old wounds to the surface—especially those connected to belonging, visibility, and self-definition. If you’ve read my new book, Vertex, Anti-Vertex, and the Fated Path in Astrology, you know just how challenging my life was until a couple of years ago.  Over time, a person may feel set apart from their surroundings, marked as different, or positioned on the margins of social norms.

While this energy can be difficult, it is also linked to deep self-awareness and authenticity. The pressure to confront one’s shadow may eventually lead to clarity about who one truly is. For some, this manifests as a calling toward healing or innovation. For others, it creates a persistent sense of being an outsider that ultimately becomes a source of strength.

Sun Square the Midheaven (Sun ☀ MC)

A Sun–Midheaven square in locational astrology is commonly associated with tension between personal identity and public or professional expectations.(Oh. My. God.) In places where this aspect is emphasized, individuals often feel driven to succeed and to be recognized, yet encounter resistance, misunderstanding, or lack of alignment with the prevailing culture.

This line can coincide with professional challenges, conflicts with authority, or the feeling of having to work harder than others for acknowledgment. While it can produce achievement through persistence, it often does so without ease, pushing a person to define success on their own terms rather than through external approval.

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How I Actually Experienced This

I didn’t understand any of this while I was living it.

From childhood through retirement, I carried a steady sense of being an outsider. I was capable and competent, and my career was objectively successful—but I never quite belonged. My ideas landed differently than I expected. What felt innovative or forward-thinking to me often registered as disruptive or suspect in the small, conservative Southern towns where I lived and worked.

I learned early to temper myself. To edit what I said. To anticipate resistance before it appeared.

Professionally, I did well. I built a long, stable career spanning more than three decades. Yet recognition was complicated. I was respected for results, but rarely embraced for how I thought. At times, I became the subject of gossip—not because I failed, but because I didn’t fit. Success came, but it always felt earned the hard way, as if I were swimming upstream while everyone else moved with the current.

What’s striking in hindsight is how often I moved, without actually changing the underlying experience. Each relocation promised a fresh start, but delivered the same friction in a new setting. Even the place I chose later in life, beautiful and farther north, felt just as inhospitable in quieter, subtler ways.

The real change didn’t come from moving farther. It came from moving off those lines.

When I finally did, the difference was immediate. Like someone flipped a switch. Not dramatic on the surface but unmistakable internally. The constant vigilance eased. I could breathe. I didn’t feel defined by opposition or difference anymore. I didn’t have to justify myself simply to exist in the room.

Leaving those places didn’t change who I was. It finally allowed me to be that person without resistance.

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Looking for all my Vertex/Anti-Vertex posts? Try the Vertex/Anti-Vertex Page.

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For more on Solar Return astrology, see the Solar Return Astrology Hub.