Ascendant Why are we here? Why are You here? It is the type of question which yields to an answer such as astrology provides. Science cannot answer this basic question. Neither can psychology. The answers religion gives are often far too impersonal for our modern age. Astrology is uniquely suited to give an answer, though it isn't one that can be grasped without some effort on the part of the aspirant. If you want to know something's purpose, it is a good idea to try and determine what it seems made to do. Just so in this fashion astrology can tell you why you are here, in this life as opposed to the potentially hundreds of incarnations which came before, by examining how your seed is meant to grow, by reading the individual prophecy which is written in your birth chart.

One of the most important and impactful aspects of your chart is the Ascendant—also known as the Rising Sign. Your Ascendant is how You do You. It is how the soul incarnated into your body marshals all the forces within, all the principles and powers of the inner planets, and directs them towards the world. This unifying channel thereby provides a tremendous clue as to why you are here, and the clue takes the form of how to best play the great Game. Think of it almost like your position in that regard—your role in the grand play—the Mask handed to you by the Cosmic Director.

Your Ascendant is how you instinctually interact with the world. That is why it determines how others see you, but may not reflect how you see yourself.

Fire sign Ascendants operate with an inexorable belief in their own selves; they may come across as selfish but it is only because they are on a mission from God. Fire sign Ascendants tend to want freedom, but not so much that their aims cannot find realization — it to everyone's benefit that they are comfortable in their role as spark plugs and initiators in life, and they tend to be happiest when in the midst of some glorious pursuit.

Which one? Air sign Ascendants have an idea for you. Maybe more than one. Air sign Ascendants relate to life in a conceptual manner. Though ideas can be considered cheap by some it is after all ideas which ultimately change the world. Just thinking them is never enough, but of course, no plan could ever come to fruition that wasn't first conceived.

And if you do have a good plan, and a good friend who believes passionately in seeing it built, then find yourself an Earth sign Ascendant to ensure it actually reaches completion. Earth sign Ascendants instinctively know how to marshal their talents and the forces often also the talents and forces of others to bring about the successful manifestation and completion of what may once have been considered impossible. It's just that they might have also been the ones saying it was impossible in the first place.

A water sign Ascendant can be considered like a kind of stabilizer, tuned into the signals which come from the emotional realm and ensuring these take priority over more mundane or even more rational logical concerns, which after all are only means to an end. Water signs have real intuitive sense for that ultimate human aim, often a sense for the right Path, part of them always swimming in the Sea of Clairvoyance, the closest thing we have to flesh and blood spirit guides for the rest of us.

The Ascendant doesn't indicate a person's purpose directly, it shows someone's purpose through the way in which their inner power works best in the world.