In 2019, writer and astrologer Jaime Wright moved to a place she considered an astrologically “bad idea” — Los Angeles. Being aware of astrocartography (the relatively recent study in an eon-spanning tradition that projects the aspects of your birth chart onto the map of planet Earth), she knew she has a Mars line that goes through the West Coast. This proved to have a tangible impact. Upon arrival, Wright brought a Mars red car and would wear a red shirt almost every day. “Everywhere I looked, I saw Mars,” she says, “When I’m in Los Angeles, I feel this intense Mars-hot heat in my life.” Her LA stint lasted all of eight months.
Today’s astrocartography practice was pioneered by American astrologer Jim Lewis, with his foundational 1997 text The Psychology of Astro*Carto*Graphy. According to Wright, there are lines throughout the map that emphasize certain planets in our astrological charts. The influence of living on one of these lines spans about 300 miles from where the exact line is. For Wright, her “Mars energy” in LA causes “conflict, separation, and a lot of anguish”.
Locational astrology or astromapping has existed in Vedic astrology throughout history, but has only made it to For You pages of the astrologically inclined on TikTok over the past couple of years. Online astrocartographers are telling people to study in London if they were born in 1995 and to move to Morocco if they were born in 1990. As a result, Wright is currently seeing an increase in inquiries about astrocartography, noting that Los Angeles was ahead of the curve. “When I was in LA I remember seeing a couple of accounts of people specializing in astrocartography for the first time,” she says. “But that’s probably an LA thing because they were also way ahead with the rise of human design.”
Dom and Mishell, a married couple who offer astrocartography readings as Cosmic Vibrations say their goal is to get as many people as they can to the places where they can live their best lives and raise their vibrations. “A lot of people are familiar with astrology in general, and are now using it to look for a tool that can help indicate if they’re making the right decision in a move.” They find people become even more drawn to the practice when they realize they can use it to locate their best places for love, community, and career opportunities.
Dom found astrocartography just over a decade ago while trying to narrow down their choices for a big cross-country move. “Now we use it to carefully plot our moves and even our trips based on a combination of our charts and demographic data about an area,” says Mishell. The astrological duo even try-out different lines to be able to give more detailed feedback to their clients. The areas where a person’s most advantageous lines are placed are called “power places”. “The most beneficial planets are generally Jupiter, Sun, and Venus in the midheaven (MC), descendant (DC), and imum coeli (IC) positions,” explains Dom. These are the lines that influence how you show up (as in your career), how others relate to you, and your ties to your karmic history, respectively. In broad strokes, Jupiter relates to growth, the Sun exudes confidence and power, and Venus influences love and beauty. So at these intersections one would hope to hit a kind of astrological jackpot.
“I have never felt more sexy, confident, stress-free, and at home than I did on my Sun line in Mexico City.”
Despite what some TikTok videos may have you believing, when it comes to astrocartography it’s not always possible to pack up your life and move across the world simply because your chart told you so. Accessibility is an obvious real world concern— with visas, job prospects, and distance from family all being valid considerations. However recreational astrologer Janesha Anthony still thinks there’s a reason to look at astrocartography even if you’re not in a position to move. “You might not always be able to implement it, but even just knowing can help you navigate the struggles, and pour your energy into other areas of life,” she says. In that way astrocartography technically is accessible to everyone who can see and understand it—even if they discover they weren’t born on an ideal line.
While it’s perhaps a bit reckless to base a decision of astrology alone, astrocartography works well as a guide if you’re debating between places to move or are a remote worker with the option to travel regularly. “I have the luxury of being able to travel wherever I want and I don’t know where I want my home base to be,” says Anthony. “I’m using astrocartography to give me ideas of places to try and see if I want to live there.” Anthony adds that she’s currently living on a Neptune line, which can be good for people who work in spirituality, but has places on her Venus Lines next on her list: including Peru, Puerto Rico, and Perth, Australia.
But not all astrocartography exploration needs to be a means to an end, there are people who use it just to inform their travel plans. Meghan Rose, a Los Angeles-based astrologer and tarot reader, traveled for most of 2021 by way of astrocartography. Along the way, she kept track of how she felt in each place. “In Paris, on my Mercury and IC lines, the ease at which I could connect and idea-share with others was out of this world,” Rose says. “I have never felt more sexy, confident, stress-free, and at home than I did on my Sun line in Mexico City.” With astrology sites making locational astrology charts more accessible than ever, Rose recommends that astrocartography newbies should vacation along their Venus, Sun, and Jupiter lines.
Thinking less literally can also create opportunities to channel astrocartography into your life without ever getting on a plane. Rose suggests cooking dishes from the cities or reading biographies from writers who were born in those places to connect with your power places, sans travel. Sometimes the person who connects with your map doesn’t even have to be you, at all. “It’s not always about you physically being in one of your planetary lines,” says Rose. “I’ve ended up falling in love with someone whose family has strong roots in Arizona,”— one of the places that runs along her Venus line. “Astrocartography talks to you in metaphors, more often than not.”
