I like to think that everything is connected — the stars, the sky, the planets, the moon, the sun, me, you. We are all primarily composed of the same carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen building blocks. Every living being is made out of the exact same atoms as the planets and stars in the sky. In an essence, we’re created from shuffled stardust. If everything is just a part of one greater whole, it’s safe to assume that we all might have an unseen relationship to one another.

That’s where astrology comes in. The beliefs behind astrology have been around since the dawn of humanity and have popped in and out of history ever since. Before the scientific method was developed, humans truly believed that the planets were gods in the sky — wreaking havoc on humans as they pleased. This ideal gradually transitioned into the theory of astrology, which has made a mega comeback in the last year.

In modern astrology, there are three main signs you should be concerned about — your sun, moon, and rising sign. The twelve sun signs, based on birthdays, are the most popular and well-known signs (technically there are 13 of them, but everyone pretends Ophiuchus doesn’t exist.) Sun signs represent your most basic identity and core values.

If sun signs function as plot summaries, rising signs function as book covers. They relate to the outer version of the self. They might describe the way you express yourself through style, casual relationships, or day-to-day personality.

Moon signs, then, are like an “about the author” section. They represent the emotional self. Moon signs relate to version of yourself you are most likely to show only your loved ones. It’s the voice inside your head. Moon and rising signs are tricky to calculate, so your best bet is to find the exact time and place of your birth and enter it into an online astrology calculator that will give you your whole birth chart.

A birth chart is basically a screenshot of the sky at the exact moment you took your first breath on this planet. It accounts for the degrees of every planet in our solar system, the signs those planets fall in, and the houses each planet is in also. It’s a massive amount of information to decipher.

Just like sun, moon, and rising signs, each planet symbolizes something. In some more famous examples, Venus is the planet of love and Mars is the planet of war. Knowing your planetary placements is extremely beneficial. Astrological houses dive into a whole other level on complexity on the spectrum. In the most basic of senses, there are twelve houses and each house represents a different aspect of modern life. In each case, you can draw connections between signs, planetary positions, and houses to discover more and more in-depth reading about your inclinations. Astrology is basically emotional math.

Apps such as Costar can help any budding astrology addict understand their chart in a simplified manner, but in reality, astrology charts are soaking with information and it can take months of studying to truly be able to read it.

Modern astrology is one huge personality analysis. Similar to a Myers-Briggs test or a Harry Potter Sorting Hat quiz, astrology can tell you things about yourself that you didn’t realize, and give you necessary perspective on aspects of your life you’ve been missing. Pseudoscience or not, there is something so enticing and addictive about believing in a little magic in the sky.