We are thrilled to introduce the MC, IC, and DC: three power points in your chart that signify career, home, and relationships.
Along with the ascendant, or rising sign, the MC (midheaven), IC (Imum Coeli) and DC (descendant) form the anchors of your birth chart — and your life.
Technically known as “angles,” you can think of the MC, IC, and DC as compass points, which orient you to the cosmos. Configured by the exact minute and geographic coordinates of your birth, they’re part of what makes your natal chart so special — and so unique to you.
Learn about the anchors of your life
MC — Your Career and Public Roles
Your MC is the symbolic culmination point in your chart: consider it your personal high noon. It represents your most visible “outside” selves: the identities you’re tugged toward in your career and vocation. Your MC tells us so much about your relationship to the world and what you’re called to contribute to it.
What sign is your MC?
The sign of your MC reveals the tone, quality, and energy behind your vocational striving. If you have an MC in Aries, you’re competitive, bold, and risk-taking in your career. If you have an MC in Taurus, you might be more methodical; you’re drawn toward arts, aesthetics, and sensual pleasures — such as fine cooking or crafting perfumes.
Do you have any planets near your MC?
Planets near the MC influence your professional drive. For example, if you have Uranus here, you prioritize independence and free thinking. Your career path naturally smashes down barriers and glass ceilings. Or, if for example, you have Mercury on the MC, wordsmithing, data collection, and advertising form parts of your public path. You’d make a powerful spokesperson for any cause.
What house is your MC in?
The house placement of your MC reveals what life paths you’re drawn to — and why. For example, if you have an 11th House MC, you thrive working with community and friends. Society itself is your office, and you want to make it kinder and more just. As another example, if your MC is in the 9th House, your career must set you free through what you learn and teach — whether in the study halls and libraries, or through adventures of your own making.
*Please see FAQs below if you have questions about your MC being in a house other than the 10th.
IC — Your Roots, Home, and Family
Your IC is exactly opposite the Midheaven. It’s the symbolic midnight of your chart: the low point in the Sun’s journey beneath the Earth from our point of view. It represents family, roots, ancestors, home, and foundations.
What sign is your IC?
The sign of your IC sheds light on the moods and atmospheres at home — whether in your upbringing and ancestral lineage, or the domestic realm you’re creating for yourself right now. For example, if you have an IC in Sagittarius, you feel most at home on the road (or a sailboat, or a hammock tent). As another example, if you have an IC in Virgo, you come from a lineage of hedge witches, writers, and weavers. You feel most at ease if home follows your sacred system of order and preparation — whatever that means for you.
Do you have any planets near your IC?
Planets on the IC can hint at the qualities of your upbringing, parents, caregivers, or your own domestic self. Saturn on this point can indicate a childhood that was ordered, strict, or rigid, while Neptune here may have felt like there were no boundaries or rulebooks at all.
What house is your IC?
The house placement of your IC illuminates themes in your upbringing, lineage, and family of origin, as well as places that feel like home. If you have an IC in the 5th House, you were raised by the muses of play and creativity — which may have been your parents, caregivers, and ancestors, or sprites of your imagination. If you have an IC in the 3rd House, you may feel most at home in a good book. Language is a form of care for you, and communication is one realm through which you carve your sense of belonging.
*Please see FAQs below if you have questions about your IC being in a house other than the 4th.
DC — Your Relationships and Co-conspirators
The DC is the sign exactly opposite the Ascendant, or rising sign. It always forms the 7th House of the chart and represents your significant others: your beloveds, best friends, biz or artistic collaborators, as well as anyone in a close 1:1 dynamic with you, such as clients or therapists.
What sign is your DC?
The sign of your DC reflects the people you’re attracted to and those attracted to you. Because this sign is always opposite your ascendant, which represents you, these people and relationships may nudge you outside your comfort zone. The people in your life balance you, hold you accountable, and help you grow, and you do the same for them.
For example, with a DC in Pisces, you could be drawn to people who inspire you, romance you, and help you let go. If you feel safe when you control all variables of a situation, the people you draw into your life will help you release some of that burden. You’ll magnetize folks who help you trust — and relax with your whole body (and nervous system). On the other hand, you offer them the gift of competence. You teach them how to manage the minutiae that may escape their attention from day to day.
Do you have any planets near your DC?
Planets on the DC further hint at the folks you draw into your sphere and the relationships you build together. If you have Mars on the DC, you’re attracted to people with a healthy spirit of adventure. While your communications may sizzle at times, there’s an ability to mobilize and cut to the root of any problem. Jupiter on the DC, on the other hand, orients you toward wisdom seekers, teachers, and benefactors. Generosity is hot to you. So is someone who makes the profane feel sacred, and vice versa.
As you can see, these points are vital, because they form such core areas of our lives: our career or life direction, our family and home, and our closest bonds.
Explore transits to MC, IC, and DC
Because the MC, IC and DC are such personal pillars of our life, we really feel it when transiting planets pay them a visit. When Saturn touches one of these points, it may feel like a boot camp initiation into becoming a “grown-up” (no matter what age you are). Jupiter, meanwhile, will bring a dose of luck and abundance to this area of your life, while Venus brings a frisson of attraction, charm, and connection.
Head over to the CHANI app now to learn what signs form your own MC, IC, and DC, what natal planets are hitched to these points (if any), how they’re under the influence of transiting planets, and what this all means for you and your beautiful life.
Not seeing MC, IC, and DC? Try closing and reopening your app. If that doesn’t work read how to update the app here.
FAQs
1. My MC / IC is in a different house than I’m used to seeing it. Why?
Quadrant house systems like Placidus, which has been popularized by many astrological sites and apps, use the degree of the MC as the 10th House cusp. This is what you are most likely used to seeing when you pull up your chart online. In quadrant house systems, no matter where your MC falls, it forms the beginning of your 10th House.
While we value the wisdom of each house system, CHANI app uses Whole Sign Houses, which does not pin the MC or IC to a specific house. In Whole Sign Houses, the MC can appear anywhere between the 8th and 12th Houses, while the IC can appear anywhere between the 6th and 2nd Houses.
We understand that this may be a shock to see at first. For us, this ancient approach to your birth chart adds extra nuance and meaning to the MC and IC, because it shades our most visible and private points with the meanings of the house it falls in. We’ve provided you with a detailed explanation of what these placements mean in the app. We hope it helps you identify added layers to your professional and/or vocational life.
2. What does it mean if my MC isn’t in the 10th House, and my IC isn’t in the 4th?
This is completely normal when viewing your chart through the lens of Whole Sign Houses, the house system that the CHANI app uses. This ancient house system might be jarring to new users at first, but is one that we believe offers an eloquent and accessible way to understand your birth chart.
When reading the description of your MC and IC, you might notice mentions of the house meanings that your MC or IC falls in. Your MC and IC will be infused with the characteristics of the house it falls in. For example, someone with the MC in the 9th House may gravitate toward 9th House careers, such as education, law, astrology, spirituality, travel, etc.
3. I can’t find a house interpretation for my Descendant (DC).
Just as the ascendant is always found in the 1st House, the descendant is always in the 7th House. Those 7th House themes (relationships, commitment, partners, and significant other people) are woven into the interpretation for your descendant.
4. How does the location of my birth change the angles?
Because the Earth spins clockwise on its axis, the Sun will always rise from the East, no matter where you’re born. It takes about one hour for the Sun’s light to move 15 degrees, which is why Sol’s beams reach the East coast of North America before they spill on the West. That’s also why we use time zones.
Latitude is important too, because Earth is not a perfect sphere. Its circumference is narrower at the poles than at the equator. That’s why daylight changes so drastically between seasons in extreme North or South latitudes — 24 hours of daylight in the summer vs. 24 hours of night in the winter.
The MC, IC, and DC are angles that anchor the sky to your perspective on Earth, which changes depending on your location.
5. How does time change the location of the MC, IC, and DC?
The signs shift over the Eastern horizon every 1-2 hours, with the entire zodiac rolodexing over the ascendant in a 24 hour period. What’s more, the degree of the ascendant shifts every couple of minutes — that’s why your ascendant is so important in astrology, and why we focus on it so much in the CHANI app. It’s unique and personal to you.
As the signs travel through the sky in diurnal rotation, following the movement of the Sun, we calculate what signs form the symbolic sunrise (ascendant or rising sign), high noon (MC), sunset (descendant), and midnight points (IC) of your birth chart.
6. Can I know my MC / IC / DC if I don’t know my birth time?
Unfortunately, not in most cases. The angles are contingent on the exact time and place of your birth. For what to do if you don’t know your birth time, read this.
7. I thought “angles” were the ways the planets relate to each other through squares, trines, etc.?
One of the many reasons astrology is so confusing is that astrologers often use the same words for different phenomena. In the context of the MC, IC, and DC, the angles refer to the four anchors of the chart: the Ascendant, Midheaven, Imum Coeli, and Descendant. You can think of these as the 4 cardinal directions, or compass points, which orient you to the cosmos.
When planets relate to each other through squares, trines, etc., they form aspects. Admittedly, this is confusing, because what we’re talking about when we discuss aspects is the geometric relationship (i.e. “angle”) between planets. This is a different sort of angle from the 4 angles in a birth chart, listed above.
8. Are the MC, IC, and DC points that travel around in space like the lunar nodes or Black Moon Lilith?
No. The lunar nodes and Black Moon Lilith are geometrically calculated points in space. Like the planets, they move around out there and cause all sorts of interference (example: eclipses), but unlike planets, they have no mass, length, width, or thickness.
Like the lunar nodes and Black Moon Lilith, the 4 angles (Ascendant, Midheaven, IC, and Descendant) have no mass, length, width, or thickness, but unlike the nodes and Black Moon, they don’t describe a point “out there.” They’re what anchor the cosmos “down here” to the perspective of us earthlings.
Another way to think about this is that, like the planets, the nodes and Black Moon are objective points in space — they’re in the same location for everyone at the same time, no matter where you are on Earth. The angles are more subjective — they change depending on your location.
Here’s another “astrology confusing” moment. Even if the MC, IC, and DC are not the same as Black Moon Lilith or the lunar nodes, they’re still sensitive, spaceless, and massless “points” in a chart, which is why we display them under Points & Nodes. The ascendant is a sensitive point too — and one of the four angles — but because we consider it extra special, and one of the central keys to a natal chart, we display it separately.
