Where parans come from
The word comes from the Greek paranatellonta, "rising alongside". Ancient astrologers noted which stars rose, culminated or set at the same moment as a planet. In astrocartography the same idea links two planets: if Venus was culminating overhead at the exact moment Jupiter was rising, then wherever that is true, the two are bound together. On the map, it is the point where the Venus MC line crosses the Jupiter ASC line.
Why a crossing becomes a latitude
Here is the useful part. The crossing happens at one point for your birth moment, but the latitude of that crossing depends only on the two planets' positions relative to each other, not on the time of day. As the Earth turned through the day you were born, the same Venus-overhead, Jupiter-rising pairing happened at every longitude along that latitude. So astrologers extend a paran's influence around the whole globe, in a band a degree or so north and south of the crossing.
That is why parans are drawn as horizontal bands on the map, and why this site's rankings give every city near a paran latitude a share of its meaning, not only the city at the crossing.
Reading a paran
Read a paran as the two lines together. Each line is a planet on an angle; the paran puts them in conversation.
| Paran | How it is often read |
|---|---|
| Venus MC and Jupiter ASC | Charm and luck in public life |
| Sun IC and Moon DSC | Home and close relationships intertwined |
| Mars ASC and Saturn MC | Drive that meets pressure: ambition, but hard going |
| Moon IC and Venus DSC | Warm home life shared with a partner |
| Mercury MC and Uranus ASC | Original ideas that get noticed |
A paran of two supportive planets strengthens the theme they share. A paran that mixes a supportive planet with a difficult one tends to be read as "yes, but": opportunity that comes with effort.
Parans without a birth time
Because a paran's latitude hardly moves during a day, parans are the part of astrocartography that still works if you don't know when you were born. Tick I don't know the birth time on the astrocartography chart and the map hides the lines, which could be anywhere east or west, but still draws your paran latitudes. The Moon moves about 13° a day, fast enough to shift its parans noticeably, so they are left out in that mode.
Finding your parans
Open the Parans tab after making your map. It lists every paran from north to south, with the two planets, their angles and the latitude; polar latitudes are hidden unless you ask for them. Tap one to highlight it on the map. The reading for any place also lists the parans within about 160 km of its latitude, and how to read your chart shows how they fit into a full reading.