Astrology
Chart shapes
Marc Edmund Jones set out seven of these in 1941 and they are still the only classification of the kind in general use. Where a pattern is about the angles between particular planets, a shape is about where all ten sit: heaped in one place, split between two, or spread across everything.
Every chart has exactly one
That is the practical difference from the aspect patterns, where a chart can carry several or none. It also means the shares below have to total 100 per cent, which makes the measurement a test of the detector as well as a count. Measured across one chart per day from 1900 to 2100, it totalled 100.00.
All seven, commonest first
| Shape | Rule | Share of charts |
|---|---|---|
| Seesaw | Two groups of planets facing each other across two clear gaps | 32.6% |
| Splay | Irregular clumps that fit none of the other six | 30.5% |
| Locomotive | All ten inside two thirds, leaving an empty trine | 14.7% |
| Bucket | A bowl, plus one planet standing alone on the other side | 13.8% |
| Bowl | All ten planets inside one half of the wheel | 7.4% |
| Bundle | All ten planets inside 120 degrees | 0.86% |
| Splash | Spread all the way round, with no large empty arc | 0.21% |
The thresholds, so you can argue with them
Jones described the shapes in prose. Later authors turned that prose into numbers and did not agree with each other, so any tool that gives you a one word answer has quietly picked a side. These are the numbers this site picked.
- Bundle
- within 120°
- Bowl
- within 180°
- Locomotive
- within 240°
- Dividing gap
- 60°
How much that matters, on the same 73,049 charts: requiring no empty arc of 60 degrees makes the splash 0.21 per cent of charts. Loosen it to 90 and the same charts give 8.76 per cent, which would move it from the rarest shape to commoner than the bowl. The bundle stays rare under any reading. So whether your chart is a splash is partly a question about whose rule you are using, and a different tool may reasonably tell you something else.
What each one is
- SplashPlanets in most of the signs and nothing left empty
- BundleThe whole chart heaped into a third of the wheel
- BowlHalf the chart occupied, half of it empty
- BucketA full half with a single planet opposite itRead through one planet
- LocomotiveTwo thirds occupied, with one clean third emptyRead through one planet
- SeesawThe chart divided into two camps
- SplayThe catch-all, and it is one in the tradition too
Which one is your chart?
The birth chart tool names the shape, the occupied span, the widest empty arc, and the handle or leading planet where the shape has one. It uses the thresholds printed above.