Chocolate Coated Time-Check Techniques

by Mj Patterson

Rectification is the correction of the time of birth until it correctly predicts the life events of the client. Why should we bother with checking the times? Most countries of the world record the time of birth on the birth certificate. Canada and many parts of the US fall behind in that the only record is kept at the maternity unit, assuming one is born at a hospital.
 
Four minutes makes a big difference! Every 4 minutes, another degree slips over the horizon and the chart is irrevocably changed. This means that if you have a time accurate to within 15 minutes, you have 15/4= 3.75 possible charts from which to choose. Only one is your client’s chart!

How Does It Work?

The approach to take depends a great deal upon what information the client brings. If there is a rough birth time, this is by far the easiest. If let us say, the birth time is “between 9 and 11 in the morning” we are likely choosing between 2 rising signs.
 
When you have a case of an adopted person, or where both parents are deceased and the time was not recorded, then you are looking at a full day rectification. This is not for the faint of heart. In my experience, it is far easier to be wrong than right, yet my view is that each soul deserve the map of his or her life and so as an astrologer it is my duty to at least TRY to find that special moment of birth.

Physiology and the AC

The features, manner, stance and movement of a person correlate strongly with the Ascendant and any planets around the AC and DC.
 
One big critique of this is that racial physiology eclipses planetary influence. I disagree. I grew up around the world and have discovered that once overarching commonalities are “subtracted”, this method can yield promising fruit, especially where there is no story around the birth.
 
If there is no time at all, I ask for a school or passport photo showing both ears and the full face. I then look at the physiology and try to narrow down the number of possible rising signs as follows

Aries

• Ruddy complexion (all fire signs)
• Walk with head jutted forward
• “sharp” features
• Often hit or fell on head as a child (and have heard all the jokes!)

Taurus

• “Square” silhouette
• Often wide neck
• “sultry/sweet” features
• Can have good speaking/singing voice

Gemini

• Slim silhouette, Quick moving, chatty
• Very good fine motor skill (drawing, piano, fly tying, etc)
• Face wider at top narrower at bottom
• Not that tall

Cancer

• Barrel chested look
• Shoulder to elbow shorter than elbow to wrist
• “rounded” look especially to shoulders
• Round face, large eyes
• ‘moist’ complexion

Leo

• Ruddy complexion (all fire signs)
• Striking hair (often blonde or red) or no hair at all
• Eyes large in the face
• Jaw often square, even in women
• “Cat’s paw” hand

Virgo

• Like Gemini, wide at top of face, narrower at the chin area
• ‘Worry’ lines on brow
• “sharp” features
• Thin lips
• Very slight hook to nose

Libra

• Fleshy appearance – a bit like Taurus
• Full cupid bow lips – often dimples
• Full fleshy balanced features-usually strikingly good looking
• Large shape or if not large, they ‘dress’ large (ie batwing sleeves)

Scorpio

• Hooked nose
• Piercing eyes deeply set, often with a serious brow
• ‘Dark’ complexion (nothing to do with race – a general and distinct ‘darkness’)
• Strongly sexual/sultry ‘signature’
• Strongly private about personal details

Sagittarius

• Ruddy complexion (all fire signs)
• Open, wide face, sun-kissed, often freckles, buck teeth or at least an overbite
• Bad hips, can extend down to knees
• Endearingly clumsy
• Foot-in–mouth disease

Capricorn

• “Birdlike” physiology
• Superb bone structure
• Wider top of face, narrower chin
• Can have slightly stooped posture
• Get better looking as they get older

Aquarius

• Symmetrical features
• High forehead
• Somewhat androgynous appearance esp. females
• Long legs, prone to tallness
• Friendly open face

Pisces

• Bedroom eyes
• Moist skin type
• Full lips, slightly rounded face
• Planets etc near the horizon can really modify the physiology of this AC

Let’s Take an Example

The features, manner, stance and movement of a person correlate strongly with the Ascendant and any planets around the AC and DC.

A person with Cancer rising often has a moistness or fleshiness to the skin, a roundness to the face and features and is very rarely angular or bony such as this person is. Let us check the signs before and after Cancer. A person with Gemini rising should have a slim silhouette, with a face wider at top and narrower at the bottom, is typically quite short . What about Leo rising? We would expect a ruddy complexion (all fire signs), striking hair (often blonde or red) or no hair at all, eyes large in the face, a firm jaw, often square, even in women. So here we have a ruddy complexion, a strong nose, redness of the hair, but very small eyes. If this person had Leo rising we would expect larger eyes.

Let us take another look at the birth chart.

On the left we have Gemini rising. We should see fair hair, sharp features – so that part is good, not a lot of height so that is good, but we do not expect a ruddy complexion or so much redness. Further, the ruling planet is in the 8th house and close to the Moon but we see nothing lunar in the nature.

What about the other chart? We as you will recall, have a ruddy complexion, a strong nose, redness of the hair, but very small eyes. Why do you think we would have small eyes with a Leo rising? Are there any planets on the horizon which might influence the physical appearance? Yes! Saturn who likes to make things smaller is sitting right there! So the Leo Rising chart is looking like the most likely candidate for this person. Later, he was able to contact his mother to confirm the birth information and it was indeed a Leo rising chart with Saturn right on the horizon.

“Jumping” Houses

Once we have a rough idea of the time of birth, we can use the planets in houses to hone the birth time. First, we move the chart time back and forth until a planet ‘jumps’ from one house to another. Consider the meaning of the two delineations. Also consider the time elapsed. Is it reasonable?

For example, I wrote to a client as follows: 6/25, 10:41pm Mj Patterson – ok please consider these and pick a) or b), one per pair - please pick 1:

You have a need for structured daily work. You may have health problems early in life. A daily health program may be beneficial. You may also have good organisational abilities.
OR
You may have experienced a lack of fun felt early in life, resulting in a reticence to relax or play later in life. You will find that structuring your creative work and recreation time is your best approach.

Daily routine is comforting for you. A focus on daily routine and health will satisfy your emotional needs. Pets may also be a source of emotional warmth.
OR
You have a deeply-felt need for one-to-one relationships. Intimate partnerships will provide emotional sustenance. Beware of a need to have your partner mother you.

This method has several drawbacks. First of all it is subjective, in that it relies upon the native’s understanding of themselves to be effective. Where the client is unclear about themselves, this method will not be very helpful. Because of this, I do not propose it as a standalone method, rather a way to narrow down a birth time in consort with other methods.

Secondary Progressed MC / IC

The MC/IC progresses one degree per year. As children we have a lot less say about what happens in our lives. To zero in on the time of birth, look closely at the IC by sign and degree and move it 1 degree for each year of life – it should tell the story of the client’s earliest years. See how it tells the story of that person’s early life. Wiggle the IC slightly back and forth until the degrees line up with what happened. Look for moves or changes of circumstances where the IC changes sign.

For example, a client named Penny worked with me to get her chart rectified to 06:35 and then found a baby book where her time was listed as 06:40. This wheel is the chart cast for 06:35. I messaged her as follows: “Hi Penny … the chart suggests a galvanising event of large proportions which was at the same time painful or causing distress yet brought out your latent talents and made you feel ‘grown up’ in some way at the same time. The two times suggest two possible ages…. 22 or 18 to 19. It is not loads of pain — it’s a trine so it could be wistfulness or concern what do you think? Anything? It could also have a link to an increase in psychic ability.”

And she replied: “As I mentioned in the car on way home from Bridgewater, my mom died just a month before my 22nd birthday. Yes my Intuitive abilities which were strong ramped up even more, as well as my empathic abilities.” I exclaimed: “Wow!!! That means my rectified time is more accurate than the baby book!!!! so 6:35 pm is the winner! Take a look at the chart above and focus on the IC – imagine it moving 1 degree for each year. Can you see why I would say 22? The IC progresses (secondary progression) to connect to the Jupiter there, The 6:40 time had that same connection by secondary progression at the age of 18-19.

Primary Directions

I first heard of this technique at a lecture by Toby Alden of Vancouver Astrology. He referenced a book on the subject, Primary Directions in Astrology: A Primer, by Anthony Lewis. Since I promised time check techniques without heavy mathematics, I will not get into the calculations but rather refer you to the website https://www.calsky.com/cs.cgi/Calendar where you can get an exhaustive list of these timings for any chart. Solar Fire also has this in one of its tabulation pages. With the natal chart wheel open, select Reports, then choose the Tabulations tab inside Reports and from there choose Rise/Set Times.The table will look like this:
 
Highlighted are the times that make sense within a human lifetime. 4 minutes is one year of life, so 400 minutes or so past the time of birth is all you need to consider, which is 6 hours and 40 minutes.
 
So if you create a table of these events in chronological order, they shou ld tell the story of the major life events. If they are off by a year or two, then the time of borth needs adjusting backwards or forwards until the number of minutes divided by 4 between the time of birth and the life event gives the age at which the event took place.

The quick and dirty method of calculating these is as follows:
 
Using the ration of 366.242199 sky (sidereal) days per year and a circle consisting of 360 degrees, we get: 360/366.242199 = 1.017339441666667 years to one degree. Inverting this fraction gives: 0.9829560902128594 *60 minutes in a degree = 58’59” for each year of life. If your client is under 30, you can proabaly use 1 degree and get away with it… older clients not so much as the tiny error starts to add up.

Let’s look at an example:
Let’s look at his runing planet of Jupiter at almost 20 degrees of Sagittarius. If we imagine it rising up into the sky at just under a degree per year we can see it hits his AC (the horizon) at approximately age 16 to 17 and from there it bumps into his Point of Fortune. This is the time of his life when he moved to New York to study acting. The wikipedia article on him states: “He was in a school play and enjoyed it … So he decided he would go to New York and study acting because that was the only thing he had enjoyed. That was when he was 18. In the A&E Biography episode on Brando, George Englund said Brando fell into acting in New York because “he was accepted there. He wasn’t criticized. It was the first time in his life that he heard good things about himself.”

In roughly 50 degrees, that same Jupiter conjoins natal Saturn by primary direction. Not just any Saturn but Saturn in the 11th house of fame and earnings from work. As we are now getting up there in years we should probably multiply by 0.9983 ( Naibod ) which give us 49 years. This is the year The Godfather came out. There is a Saturn aspect to this in that he refused the Academy Award he won for this film, and boycotted the award ceremony, instead sending American Indian rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather, who cited as the reason for the refusal Brando’s objection to the misuse of American Indians by Hollywood and television.

The next planet to get attention from Jupiter is Juno. The difference in degrees is 72, so corrected for age (* 0.9983) we get 71 years or 1995. This is the year he starred with Faye Dunaway and his friend Johnny Depp in the box office hit Don Juan DeMarco.
This is just a small sample of the use of primary directions in the chart. It is possible to look for planets opposing and squaring directions, but as in most astrology, conjunction is the strongest.

“Proving” the Chart

Once you have a working time, you are NOT done! You now use that working chart and you progress the Ascendant by secondary progression – look for weight gains and losses, injuries, “makeover” style changes as the Ascendant contacts planets or changes signs.

Last Thoughts

This material covers quick and dirty time check techniques. It is in no way meant to replace a full rectification. Keep working the chart taking careful notes on timings of predicted events vs. actual events. You might need to move the time a little forward and backward. It is worth taking care with this. The better your predictions are, the more your clients will come to you for advice!

Image sources:
Ascendant images: The Ascending Signs With 144 Portraits and Profiles E. C. Matthews – ISBN1425486002 reprint 1960 kessinger.net (this book is out of copyright as the original book was © 1923)
Charts and soldier: provided by author
Collage of portraits: CC0 Creative Commons, via pixabay.com

First published in: ivcconference.com/constellation-news/, 2018.

Author:
Mj Patterson, BA, BSc, BEd, MEd, CA NCGR-PAA is an astrologer and educator based in Halifax, Canada. She is now a NCGR Research Director and the founding Director of the Atlantic Professional Astrologers’ Association, and a member of the Astro InvestiGATORS Research group. Specializing in rectification, with clients worldwide, Mj lectures, teaches and consults internationally in French, Spanish and English in person, through her online astrology school and her weekly radio show (The Astrology Show – http://www.ckdu.ca) Mj is also a professional educator, systems programmer and web designer. She remains always a grateful student of M. Axel Harvey of Montréal.
Website: http://www.halifaxastrologer.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HalifaxAstrologer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mj_astro

© 2018/19 - Mj Patterson - Constellation News

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