Page 14 - Talented Astrologer • Volume 1 Number 10 • June 2017

is not a crystal ball, and it’s impossible to get a clear, de nitive picture of the future.
Major life events are contained in the natal chart, and a talented predictive astrologer can consider a combination of triggers to identify both the potential nature of the event and the general timing of the event. But precision with predictive natal astrology is measured in weeks or months, not in days or hours. And narrowing the timing of a prediction to a one or two-week period requires an accurately-timed natal chart.
Primary directions and secondary progressions set up the potential of a major life event, while transits light the fuse.
Astrologers today focus on transits, and many obsess about the precise timing of transits, only to be disappointed when the transits comes and goes with no event to mark it. If there’s the potential of an important experience, transits can trigger it, much like a timer can trigger a bomb. But if there’s nothing to trigger, when the timer reaches zero, it goes “beep” not “boom.”
You identify the big events by considering primary directions and secondary progressions. Both of these tools use symbolic time scales. Broadly, one degree of motion corresponds to one
year of life. Accurate timing of the birth chart matters the most
for primary
directions.
If the birth time is o by 10 minutes, that could represent about a 2.5° discrepancy with the Ascendant. But in practice, this could translate to a 5 to 10 year di erence in the timing of key events linked to primary directions. In
William Lilly’s time, astrologers used primary directions to rectify charts before they made any new predictions.
If you’re not concerned with using predictive natal astrology, you don’t need a completely accurate time of birth. How much you can do with the chart depends on
your de nition of accurate.
There’s a big difference between
“I don’t know what time I was born,”
and “I’m pretty sure I was born around 10 a.m.”
If you only know the date of birth, but have no clear idea of the time, that can be challenging. e Moon can travel up to 14° in a 24-hour period. Not only would you not be able to be certain of the exact degree of the Moon, you might not be able to be certain of the exact sign of the Moon.
e rising sign changes about every 2 hours, and the sign on the Midheaven will uctuate based on latitude.
e degree on the Ascendant changes every 4 minutes, and the house cusps will move with the Ascendant, depending on which house system you use. As the house cusps change, it a ects not only the
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