elements, polarities, modalities and orientations in the horoscope: Part 1

You can get a pretty good overview of your natal chart simply by delineating your chart for these four concepts. Using my sons chart, I will show how this is done.

Elements and modalities:

There is usually a small box on the natal chart (see image above) that tells you the elements and modalities of your child's chart. Across the top are letters C, F & M; these stand for Cardinal, Fixed & Mutable and are your modalities. Down the left side are letters F, A, E, & W; these stand for Fire, Air, Earth & Water and are your elements.

Today we will go over the Modalities.

Looking at my buggy boy's chart you can quickly see he has most of his planets or sensitive points located in FIXED signs [There are 7 planets and sensitive points located in fixed signs in order from left to right & top to bottom are: Venus, Saturn, Midheaven, Neptune, Chiron, Mars and ascendant(or rising sign)]

He has 3 planets in CARDINAL signs [Sun, Moon, Mercury] and 3 planets/ 1 sensitive point in MUTABLE signs [Jupiter, Pluto, Uranus and his north node]

Now the fun part! What does this mean?
Well, in this case we are talking about a pretty FIXED chart.
Now the bug is only a year old and let me tell you, he is definitely a creature of habit, stuck in his ways and stubborn. He likes routine and if anything disrupts that routine, well, we have one cranky little critter on our hands.

The good news for our little boy is he has 4 MUTABLE placements and 3 CARDINAL placements. Now, while not perfectly balanced there is at least some flexibility(mutable) and initiative(cardinal) in his chart. The fact that his Sun, Moon and Mercury are all in Cardinal signs shows that he will have initiative and the ability to engage in purposeful activity. He is quite the little explorer and he is very active from the moment he wakes up. His flexibility is more of a generational effect [the planets located there are considered generational, their orbits are so slow that many children born within a certain period of time will have these planets in the same sign]
Since mommy has an overabundance of mutable planets in her chart, we hope that she will be able to help him develop a little more flexibility!

We will go into more detail about how everything interrelates later in the lessons, for now make a little list of how many points are in each of the modalities and jot down a couple words from the keywords below that describe how they are showing up in your child's personality.

Keywords for the Modalities:

Qualities of the Cardinal Modality
aries - libra - cancer - capricorn

Skillful Application:
generating, beginning, doing, initiating,
originating, enterprising, active, direct,
purposeful

Unskillful Application:
starts but does not finish, impatient,
dissatisfied, overactive, forceful,overcommitted

Qualities of the Fixed Modality
taurus - scorpio - leo - aquarius

Skillful Application:
concentrating, stabilizing, sustaining,
finishing, establishing, preserving, conserving,
steadfast, focused, powerful, persistent,
constant, determined

Unskillful Application:
stubborn, rigid, resistant to change,
stuck,obsessed, overly retentive, inert,

habit-bound

Qualities of the Mutable Modality
gemini - sagittarius - virgo - pisces

Skillful Application:

distributing, adaptable, flexible, adjustable,
connecting, linking, mental, adapting, learning,
changing, versatile, dual

Unskillful Application:
scattered, unfocused, depleted, dissipated,
diffused, distracted,inconsistent, prone to worry,
indecisive, restless, unfinishing