Everything so far has used the tropical zodiac, the one most Western astrologers use. India has its own long tradition, called Jyotish or Vedic astrology, and it measures the signs differently. Once you see how, you'll understand why someone can be a Pisces in one system and an Aquarius in the other.
The tropical zodiac is tied to the seasons. 0° Aries is set at the March equinox, the day spring starts in the north, and the signs are counted from there.
The sidereal zodiac, which Vedic astrology uses, is tied to the stars behind the planets. Long ago the two lined up. But Earth wobbles slowly on its axis, and that wobble makes the equinox drift backward against the stars by about one degree every 72 years. Over many centuries the gap has grown.
Today the gap is about 24°. The exact figure is called the ayanamsa, and the most common one, Lahiri, is the standard in India. In practice, you take a tropical position and subtract about 24°.
A sign is 30° wide, so a shift of about 24° pushes most placements back one sign. Only a planet in the last few degrees of a sign stays where it was.
Maya's Sun sits at 24.3° Pisces in the tropical zodiac. Subtract about 24° and it lands at roughly 0° Pisces. It's still Pisces, just barely. A friend born a day or two earlier would have a sidereal Aquarius Sun.
Her rising is Taurus at 3.8°. Take away 24° and it falls back into Aries. That changes the frame from lesson 5. In whole-sign houses, which Vedic astrology uses by default, Aries becomes her 1st house, and the chart ruler becomes Mars, the ruler of Aries, instead of Venus. Her Moon at 18.8° Capricorn slides back into Sagittarius. Her Venus at 9.3° Taurus lands in Aries.
One thing doesn't change: the aspects. Every planet moved back by the same amount, so the angles between them are identical. Her Sun is still conjunct Saturn, and Saturn is still sextile Neptune at 0.1°. The aspect work from lesson 6 carries over unchanged.
Vedic astrology adds a second, finer zodiac on top of the twelve signs. The circle is cut into 27 nakshatras, or lunar mansions, each 13°20′ wide. Each one has a name, a ruling planet and a character of its own.
The number 27 comes from the Moon. It takes roughly 27 days to go around the zodiac, so it moves through about one nakshatra a day. That's a clue to how much the Moon matters in this tradition. Where Western astrology tends to open with the Sun sign, a Vedic astrologer usually opens with the Moon: its sign, and above all its nakshatra. The Moon's nakshatra is used to time the major periods of life and, in many families, to choose a baby's name.
For Maya, the arithmetic puts her sidereal Moon in the late degrees of Sagittarius, in the nakshatra called Purva Ashadha. A Vedic reading of her chart would likely start right there, rather than with her Pisces Sun.
Neither. The two systems ask slightly different questions. Tropical astrology follows the Sun's relationship to the seasons. Sidereal astrology follows the planets against the fixed stars. Each is consistent on its own terms, and each has centuries of practice built on it.
What doesn't work is mixing them without saying so. If you take your Sun sign from one system and your Moon from the other, you'll get muddled sentences. Pick one system for a reading, say which one you're using, and stay with it.
This is the last lesson. You can now read planets, signs, houses, aspects, time and relationships, and you know a second tradition exists. What turns that into real skill is repetition.
Read three charts of people you know well, using the four steps from lesson 8, and ask them afterward which parts rang true. Their answers will teach you more than any book. Keep a small notebook of slow transits to your own chart (lesson 9) and look back at it a year later. If a friend is curious, try the synastry method from lesson 10 on the two of you, and practice describing without scoring.
And come back to Maya now and then. Every time you learn something new, you'll find another line in her chart you can read.
Take your own Sun, Moon and rising and subtract about 24° from each. Write down which ones change sign. Then find which of the 27 nakshatras your sidereal Moon falls in, and read one short description of it. Notice whether the Vedic picture of you feels different from the tropical one.