otterspaceastrology

WISH UPON A STAR — The Importance of Accurate Birth Times

Hello, dear Friends and Readers…Today I want to share a story with you from the  80’s.  It’s not a happy story but it illustrates today’s topic, perhaps too well.  It was a new client who came to me from another town.  Usually, I like a new client to begin with a palm reading, but this lady wanted her chart done.  She was older, in her early 70’s, and gave me her birth data on the phone.  Lots of seniors don’t have the time written on their official birth certificates.  Fortunately, that is changing.

You younger women having babies — make sure your labor coach or doula or relative catches the exact time when your baby is born.  I have been present at a number of births and even the nurses now are pretty good at announcing the time and recording it promptly. The first breath…

Anyway, this woman came to my house and we had a good session.  During the session she mentioned that the time she gave me was close but she wasn’t  100% sure.  I should have insisted right then that we back-track and nail it down,  or switch to a solar chart instead and re-schedule the appointment.   But since she was from out of town, and I was trying to be considerate of her time, I didn’t push it. Transiting Pluto, which moves very slowly, was in Scorpio in her 6^th house of health but approaching her 7^th house of partners.  Pluto symbolizes transformation, regeneration and change.  Since Pluto rules Scorpio it covers  all the big transitions — life and death, birth, healing, puberty, menopause, sexuality, spiritual  ecstasy — merging our individual will with the Divine Will.  Pluto is one of the big heavies even though it is a small planet in the physical world.  It’s power-packed and concentrated.  I lost 17 people during the years Pluto was in Scorpio making hard transits to my chart.  Very tough.  If you attend a funeral, go hug a baby afterwards — best medicine there is…

So, I thought to myself that if she returned as a client,  in a couple of years I was going to have to warn her that Pluto was going to enter her 7^th house, but all I said out loud was since Pluto was in her 6^th it was a very good time to get health check-ups, not just her but keep an eye on her loved ones, too.  She mentioned she had just had a physical but her husband didn’t like to go to the doctor.  I said, well, do what you can to get him to go and we moved on to other transits.

She called me about 3 weeks later and told me she and her husband had gone grocery shopping and they came home and he collapsed from a stroke and died on the kitchen floor.  I knew instantly that she had given me the wrong birth time and that Pluto was really on her 7^th cusp  already.  The birth time was off by less than 20 minutes.

Was it his time to depart?  Could we have saved him?  The right birth time would certainly have changed the forecast.  Pluto  entering the 7^th is a clear sign of a big change in marriage and partnerships, and with older clients being widowed is a very real possibility, as is a health crisis for the mate. Depends on the sign involved and also the other transits.  She did have one hard transit to her  Moon but she was very worried about her sister’s health.   Pluto changing houses… it haunts me to this day.  It’s been over  30 years and I have never forgotten that lesson — accurate birth-times only or switch to a solar chart and make sure the client understands that it can only be a general reading based on the planets and their aspects, and we have to leave out the house positions because we don’t have the correct time.

Pluto and Neptune move so slowly that even using a 3 degree orb means we can have particular transits over a period of 3-5 years.  So if their transits indicate something is going on, then I look at the progressed chart and also their palm for verification.  Transiting Mars can be a catalyst, too.

If someone reading this does not have their exact  birth-time, there is a process called rectification.  It takes awhile to do it and even then I wouldn’t feel totally confident about the exact degree, but basically the client tells you important dates in their life — graduation, moving, marriage, children, any deaths in the family, etc. and the astrologer will study all the transits for those various dates to discern any patterns and figure out the Ascendant.  Some people look more like their rising sign than their Sun Sign; that can be a clue. Much easier to track down the right time, even if it means sending away for an official copy of your birth certificate, the long form — which you should have anyway.

Well, dear readers, this was a heavy one.  Stay safe over the Full Moon Friday (7 degrees Virgo/Pisces) and I’ll be back in touch with something lighter very soon 🙂  Blessings, Jenae