>On Aug 23, 2006, at 8:22 PM, ya’ll wrote:
>As I have gotten a little further down
>this astrological path which presumably
>will be a life long quest I have
>a couple of questions please.
> 1. How much does the D.O.B. affect
>the accuracy of a natal chart? i.e.,
>over the years I have had charts
>done on family, friends and lovers and
>if I didn’t know the time of birth I would
>use 6am. What areas would
>potentially be off?
It’s not the DOB so much as the TOB, and what that will effect is the houses, and potentially, the moon’s sign. Rising Sign, house placement, all of that is affected by time. In days of yore, the first software - had something like 90% of the market - would automatically set birth times for noon. That created a whole series of charts that are potentially off. When I see one of those old chart, from a dot matrix printer, I mentally rotate the chart 90 degrees, and check for possible errors.
When I’m unaware of the time, if the client doesn’t know, I tend to use something close to sunrise, as I’ve found that’s usually fairly accurate. When I’m doing a live reading - I’ve done this for a long time - I can rectify a chart on the fly.
This made me think about a client’s chart at a recent event, and the client argued with me about the rising sign, insisting the TOB was such and such and the rising sign was such and such. As I proceeded through the recitation, I kept in mind, and mentioned, that the rising sign might be off, and I based my prognostications on more tangible elements, like the degree of Mars, Venus, and so forth.
I’ve been at this game long enough to know that planets incline but do not dictate. I also understand that there will be subtle variations, and I’m - painfully so - aware that some planets might not be where the client wants them.
This was only the second pissing match I’ve gotten into with a potential client, and while I was working, I was careful, too, since the data was only one hour off. When I work with suspect information, I handle it accordingly. The suspect datum was later clarified, and the rising sign was what the client wanted. The time was different from what I was repeatedly told.
But that problem points out the answer to the question, and when I’m “live,” I don’t let it interfere with the work. However, being off by an hour on a birth time can change the symbolism of a chart.
If there’s a planet at zero degrees or 29 degrees, 59 minutes, or the moon is late (or early) then it’s a bit of guess. A few probing questions can usually render a quick calculation that can pinpoint the ascendant, the moon’s sign and so forth.
The houses - 12 houses - change every two hours. The moon changes signs about every two and half days. So when the moon is early or late, then birth time gets a little more important.
I watched one professional astrologer get absolutely silly about time of birth, and just few minutes off radically changed an interpretation. I’m not like that. Besides, at this stage of life, the astrology chart is about trends, past, present, and most important, future.
N.B., I process all of the astrology chart reports myself. When I see suspect data, or an unknown birth time, I can usually get in the ball park with a birth time, in a matter of minutes. That’s the advantage of having a human processing the information.
>2. How the heck does being born during an
>eclipse affect a person?
There’s a whole school of astrology - several in fact - based on the natal eclipse patterns. Spiritual Astrology by, I think Spiller and someone else, my copy is on the bookshelf over the bed and I can’t see it from here, is the best reference I’ve found so far. Then too, there’s the whole question of the nodes of the moon, and that’s one that I have fun with - it’s Shakespeare reference, incorrectly glossed in most Shakespeare texts, one character is “born under the Dragon’s Tail (Moon’s Node) and that is usually thought - by scholars - to mean the constellation Draconis, where, in fact, the passage is a bit of astrology lore. I think it’s in Lear.
Laeti edimus qui nos subigant!