Chart shapes
Seesaw
The chart divided into two camps
- The rule
- Two groups of planets facing each other across two clear gaps
- Read through one planet
- No
What it is
The planets fall into two groups separated by two empty arcs, each at least 60 degrees on this site. Neither group is a single planet, which is what distinguishes a seesaw from a bucket: one lone planet opposite the rest is a handle, and two or more is a camp.
The groups do not have to be equal and they do not have to be exactly opposite. What makes the shape is that the chart divides cleanly in two.
How it reads
Two sides of something, held at once. The tradition associates a seesaw with an awareness that there is always another position, and with a habit of weighing rather than committing.
What it is consistently NOT read as is conflict. Both groups belong to the same person, and the standard reading is negotiation rather than a war: somebody who understands the opposing case because part of them is making it.
The cost the tradition attaches is delay. A shape built to see both sides is slow to settle on one, and that is usually the practical difficulty rather than the tension itself.
How common it actually is
The most common of the seven: 32.6 per cent of charts, about one in three. That is higher than most treatments imply, and the reason is that a chart splitting into two camps does not have to be widely spread to do it. Two clumps at opposite ends can sit inside two thirds of the wheel and still be a seesaw rather than a locomotive.
What to watch for
Reading it as internal conflict. The tradition reads two camps as two perspectives, which is a much milder and more useful claim.
Is your chart a seesaw?
The birth chart tool names your shape along with the span it occupies and the widest empty arc. Bear in mind that the thresholds are a convention rather than a fact, so a different tool may reasonably give you a different word for the same chart. The hub prints the exact numbers this site uses.
The other shapes
- SplashSpread all the way round, with no large empty arc
- BundleAll ten planets inside 120 degrees
- BowlAll ten planets inside one half of the wheel
- BucketA bowl, plus one planet standing alone on the other side
- LocomotiveAll ten inside two thirds, leaving an empty trine
- SplayIrregular clumps that fit none of the other six