Often in my articles, I refer to the "overall chart tone" or predominant energies in a chart. As a person becomes more experienced reading charts and understanding energy, this will become a function of intuition and expertise as much as anything else but there is also a simple formula which many professional astrologers use and yet I have never seen it anywhere online. So here it is!

I've selected a chart at random. Take a look at the chart and see if you can guess what would be the overall most prevalent energy. Hint: It's not Scorpio.

Let's take a look at what might be the predominant chart tone. We use basic, classic astrology: 12 houses, 12 signs and 10 planets.

The Rising Sign, asteroids, angles, IC, Midheaven, North and South Moon Nodes are not factored in. Only 10 planets, 12 signs and 12 houses.

Let's review the basic correspondences of modality and element so we can begin to tally the "points" in this chart. We will have a total of 20 points to distribute between 3 modalities and 4 elements.

It's simple. What we will do is tally each planet by sign and house as to which category it falls in.

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First let's look at the planets in houses by the element of the house. In this chart there are:

• 1st house 3 planets = fire house = 3 pts for fire
• 2nd house 1 planet = earth house = 1 pt for earth
• 3rd house 1 planet = water house = 1 pt for water
• 4th house =
• 5th house =
• 6th house =
• 7th house =
• 8th house 1 planet = water house = 1 pt in water
• 9th house =
• 10th house =
• 11th house 1 planet= air house = 1 pt in air
• 12th house 3 planets = water house = 3 pts in water

Double checking, there are 10 points accounted for. This is the tally so far and, by the way, this is how I do it, with stick figures!

Now let's look at the planets by sign and element. In this chart there is:

• Sun in Scorpio = 1 water
• Moon in Capricorn = 1 earth
• Mercury in Scorpio = 1 water
• Venus in Scorpio = 1 water
• Mars in Scorpio = 1 water
• Jupiter in Pisces = 1 water
• Saturn in Cancer - 1 water
• Uranus in Libra = 1 air
• Neptune in Sagittarius - 1 fire
• Pluto in Libra = 1 air

Double checking, there are 10 points accounted for. This is the tally so far and, by the way, this is how I do it, with stick figures!

OK, now let's combine the elements and see which is the predominant element. There should be 20 points in all.

By far the most common element in this chart is water. Many charts are not this extreme. Some are evenly distributed between the elements.

Looking at this in a linear way:

• Fire = 4 pts
• Earth = 2 pts
• Air = 3 pts
• Water = 11 pts

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Let's look at the distribution between Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable by planets in houses.

• 1st house cardinal 3 planets = 3 pts for cardinal
• 2nd house fixed 1 planet = 1 pt for fixed
• 3rd house mutable
• 4th house cardinal 1 planet = 1 pt for cardinal
• 5th house fixed
• 6th house mutable
• 7th house cardinal
• 8th house fixed 1 planet = 1 pt for fixed
• 9th house mutable
• 10th house cardinal
• 11th house fixed 1 planet = 1 pt for fixed
• 12th house mutable 3 planets = 3 pts for mutable

Let's look at the distribution between Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable by planets in signs.

• Sun in Scorpio = 1 fixed
• Moon in Capricorn = 1 cardinal
• Mercury in Scorpio = 1 fixed
• Venus in Scorpio = 1 fixed
• Mars in Scorpio = 1 fixed
• Jupiter in Pisces = 1 mutable
• Saturn in Cancer = 1 cardinal
• Uranus in Libra = 1 cardinal
• Neptune in Sagittarius = 1 mutable
• Pluto in Libra = 1 cardinal

Double checking, there are 10 points accounted for. This is the tally so far.

Now let's add the modalities together and see what is the predominant modality.

So the predominant modality is Cardinal. Combine this with the predominant element which is water and we have, surprise, surprise! Cardinal water or Cancer. Some are more obvious than this and easier to guess.

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