Realizing your ascendant and house orientation is all wrong

[WeCareALot]

Wow, so after questioning my mother for about 35 minutes, I realized that there's a big probability my birth time is different--thereby making my ascendant and house orientation different as well. I previously thought my birth time was 7pm based on my mother's initial recollection. She thought I had been born in the evening, around 6 or 7pm. But based on events surrounding my birth (the fact that I was born after my grandmother started her 3pm shift at the hospital and before my Mom's friends came to visit her after leaving their jobs at 5pm), it looks like I was born between 3 and 5pm. By my Mom's best guess, it was around 3:30pm.

What this really demonstrates is that I need a proper copy of my birth certificate so that this speculation can be laid to rest. But it's interesting to consider the differences between a 7PM birth chart and one between 3 and 5pm. My rising sign changes from Libra to Virgo, and the house orientation puts my Sun and Venus in the 8th house, my Moon in the 2nd, Mercury in the 7th, Mars and Jupiter in the 10th, Sat/Nep/Uran in the 5th, and Pluto in the 3rd. My Midheaven also switches from Cancer to late Taurus. Pretty different from what I thought before. (3:30pm birth chart attached)

Has anyone else experienced this before? Or do you all have definite birth times?

 

[JUPITERASC]

Wow, so after questioning my mother for about 35 minutes, I realized that there's a big probability my birth time is different--thereby making my ascendant and house orientation different as well. I previously thought my birth time was 7pm based on my mother's initial recollection. She thought I had been born in the evening, around 6 or 7pm. But based on events surrounding my birth (the fact that I was born after my grandmother started her 3pm shift at the hospital and before my Mom's friends came to visit her after leaving their jobs at 5pm), it looks like I was born between 3 and 5pm. By my Mom's best guess, it was around 3:30pm.

What this really demonstrates is that I need a proper copy of my birth certificate so that this speculation can be laid to rest. But it's interesting to consider the differences between a 7PM birth chart and one between 3 and 5pm. My rising sign changes from Libra to Virgo, and the house orientation puts my Sun and Venus in the 8th house, my Moon in the 2nd, Mercury in the 7th, Mars and Jupiter in the 10th, Sat/Nep/Uran in the 5th, and Pluto in the 3rd. My Midheaven also switches from Cancer to late Taurus. Pretty different from what I thought before. (3:30pm birth chart attached)

Has anyone else experienced this before? Or do you all have definite birth times?

the reliability of ANY official time of birth is questionable

Keep in mind that
timepieces are frequently inaccurate
....often slow or fast

and also

the medical team at the precise time of delivery were not seated at a computer
ready to input an accurate time of birth for a natal chart
but were instead focused on the health and safety of mother and newborn

for this reason
times of birth are routinely noted at varying times AFTER the event

and

after the newborn has had airways checked, been weighed, washed, clothed
and the mother made comfortable


HOWEVER

fortunately
there are several ancient rectification techniques
routinely utilised to verify official times of birth

RECTIFICATION TIPS - Verifying Ascendant/Descendant/MC/IC angles thread
discussion at http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum...ad.php?t=51626

 

[waybread]

If you can get a birth certificate or hospital record with your correct birth time, that really is the best. Did Mom make a baby book for you that might have this information?

I had this happen-- twice. When I first started studying astrology, I didn't know my birth time. My parents were no longer living, and my birth certificate didn't record it. I called the county recorder's office, and they didn't record birth times. I read a lot, and thought probably my rising sign was Leo. An astrologer read my chart, and she agreed, after looking at me. Then I got into chart rectification, and thought probably early Libra. Finally, in going through some of my mothers old papers, I found a local unofficial birth record: late Virgo it is.

The trouble with rectification is that you have no way to verify it, and different horoscopic placements can sometimes give the same signal.

Keep in mind that planets in the first house, or aspects from other planets to them or to your ascendant can "muddy" an assumption based entirely on personal traits.

I gave birth to two children via natural child birth (through which I was completely conscious.) At my hospital, I was attended by the doctor and two nurses. One of them held a stop watch and recorded the birth time, date, baby's sex, and weight on a slip of paper for me to keep. I think this is fairly standard. They might round the time, but this is your best bet, especially if the time subsequently goes to your city or county recorder's office.

The office is called different things in different places (maybe vital statistics, for example) but if you google "birth certificate" for your county or city of birth, you should find the correct office to ask.

 

[mdinaz]

Many counties and states don't record it, some do. I was there when my daughter was born and although we disagree by one minute, they recorded it as soon as it happened. I was born in a military hospital where they always record it. It is correct that many house placements can seem "accurate"; this is why rectification is still just an educated guess, you'll still never prove it conclusively, but sometimes that is the best you can do.

 

[Plutos]

I apparently had the wrong birth time for 10 years. I was always plagued with uncertainty because different websites and software gave me two different ascendants. But I actually had my birth time written onto a baby-sized wrist band from the day I was born in hospital. So I was annoyed that I was getting different ascendants from different sites/software.

It was a choice between Aries and Taurus, so I was always questioning which one was more like me, I really could pass as either. I once submitted a photo of myself to an astrology forum and had them pick which sign I looked more like. They couldn't decide.
See, I walk fast like an Aries, but my body type is more Taurean. But my face is a hybrid between the two signs! My Mum is a Taurus and my Dad is an Aries, so this just confuses the matter, as I look half and half like them! (I am a Scorpio Sun, but this is not so apparent in my face.)

I went to meet up with a fellow female astrologer after we spoke online for a long time. She said immediately "definitely Aries rising, you walk so fast and find a path right through through crowd, whereas I'm struggling back here". So I decided I must just be Aries Rising. It turns out that was the right decision.

The problem all along ended up being daylight savings time. In my state of birth, there is no DST. I made sure of that the first time I ever looked up my chart. But by chance a few years ago I came across information about a "trial daylight savings time" period which occurred during the year of my birth, and was subsequently abandoned. So I was born at 4pm but the time was officially recorded as 5pm because of this trial daylight savings time.

Funny, after all this time believing I could've been either sign, I actually leaned more towards Taurus, not Aries. I believed I just took after my mum. We look very similar, she's definitely a true Taurus, I look nice and have feminine body shape. Also, I'm not very assertive or combative outwardly, even though I have an easy time in crowds. But of course, seeing as my ruling planet has been Mars all along, and that my Mars is actually in Gemini, well this could help explain why I can navigate through crowds well. But I do have Vesta in Taurus in the 1st house so this could be what made me look half way between two rising signs.

 

[JUPITERASC]

Many counties and states don't record it, some do.

That's USA and Canada of course
and the situation worldwide also varies
some nations record the official time of birth on the birth certificate
other nations do not

I was there when my daughter was born and although we disagree by one minute, they recorded it as soon as it happened. I was born in a military hospital where they always record it.

Maybe your timepieces were not syncronised

So even though you were present and recorded the time of birth,
nevertheless you disagreed by one minute
with the time as recorded in a military hospital.
So the official time of birth is clearly a matter of opinion
even when observed in a military hospital by an astrologer
in the presence of military personnel

Military personnel are trained to make precise and accurate observations
and so are astrologers

Keep in mind as well
that not all hospitals are necessarily military hospitals
and
not all births are attended by an astrologer intent on noting the precise time

Clearly medical personnel attending a birth
may well disagree amongst themselves regarding the actual official time of birth

A disagreement of one minute
can make the difference between one rising sign and the next
although of course that is not necessarily so in this particular case

It is correct that many house placements can seem "accurate"; this is why rectification is still just an educated guess, you'll still never prove it conclusively, but sometimes that is the best you can do.

Rectification is an ancient astrological art which takes hours, sometimes days, weeks months
and
requires great experience

Some charts such as the USA CHART have tested the rectification skills of astrologers for decades
and their rectification remains a work in progress and a matter of dispute

 

[poyi]

Well and truly birth time is the last thing stardard medical professional would care about. We are trained to ensure safety not standing there with a stop watch. We may count te time of how long it took for the newborn to breath by himself but surely not hurrying up to write it down on paper too many other assessment to do. I have lost counts how many deaths I had witnessed much earlier than the official time of death written on the paper. You can argue about the last breathe or the actual signiture by the doctor. In my opinion is the last exhaled of breathe or the first discovery of death by someone as event chart.

 

[JUPITERASC]

Well and truly birth time is the last thing standard medical professional would care about.

We are trained to ensure safety not standing there with a stop watch.

We may count the time of how long it took for the newborn to breath by himself
but surely not hurrying up to write it down on paper
too many other assessment to do.

I have lost counts how many deaths I had witnessed much earlier than the official time of death written on the paper.

You can argue about the last breathe
or
the actual signature by the doctor.

In my opinion is the last exhaled of breathe
or the first discovery of death by someone as event chart.

Birth and death have in common that they are both events that are timed by the breath
i.e. first inhalation and final exhalation

And the medical personnel
are not necessarily even aware precisely WHEN a newborn takes the first gasp of air
because as poyi states
there are too many other assessments to do

so

even if medical personnel notice the child is taking a breath
they are engrossed in other vital medical assessments
and that may not have been the first tiny gasp of intake of air by the newborn

very interesting subject
because
the entire natal chart is based on WHEN the official time of birth actually is

of course, similarly time of death is based on the final exhalation

HOWEVER

increasingly however, with today's medical interventions
such the case of Marlise Munoz are creating ethical dilemmashttp://frederickleatherman.com/2014/01/16/unplug-marlise-munoz-from-life-support-immediately/

QUOTE

I cannot stop pondering the ethical dilemma created by doctors
keeping Marlise Munoz’s decomposing corpse on a ventilator
so that the fetus in her womb can reach full term and be birthed into this world.

Since the beginning of our species approximately 200,000 years ago, pregnant women have died and will continue to die.
That reality is not going to change, although the percentage of pregnant women who die probably will decline over time.

Until relatively recently, the fetus perished with the mother,
unless someone removed it with forceps
or cut it out of the dead or dying mother’s body
and it had developed sufficiently to survive on its own.
Our technology has created an ethical dilemma.

 

[waybread]

[deleted response to off-topic comment - Moderator]

Poyi, I believe you are from China and live now in Australia. I respect your experience but don't think you would claim that it applies globally.

The fact that different countries use different jurisdictions as repositories of their vital statistics is immaterial. Find the one where you were born. Developed countries keep birth registries unless a baby is born at home and the parents try to keep it out of the records.

To be sure, any sort of record could be mistaken. But surely rectification is even less secure, because there is no way to verify it. It may be better than nothing-- but being wrong is not better than nothing, regardless of the source.

 

[waybread]

I apparently had the wrong birth time for 10 years. I was always plagued with uncertainty because different websites and software gave me two different ascendants. But I actually had my birth time written onto a baby-sized wrist band from the day I was born in hospital. So I was annoyed that I was getting different ascendants from different sites/software.

It was a choice between Aries and Taurus, so I was always questioning which one was more like me, I really could pass as either. I once submitted a photo of myself to an astrology forum and had them pick which sign I looked more like. They couldn't decide.
See, I walk fast like an Aries, but my body type is more Taurean. But my face is a hybrid between the two signs! My Mum is a Taurus and my Dad is an Aries, so this just confuses the matter, as I look half and half like them! (I am a Scorpio Sun, but this is not so apparent in my face.)

I went to meet up with a fellow female astrologer after we spoke online for a long time. She said immediately "definitely Aries rising, you walk so fast and find a path right through through crowd, whereas I'm struggling back here". So I decided I must just be Aries Rising. It turns out that was the right decision.

The problem all along ended up being daylight savings time. In my state of birth, there is no DST. I made sure of that the first time I ever looked up my chart. But by chance a few years ago I came across information about a "trial daylight savings time" period which occurred during the year of my birth, and was subsequently abandoned. So I was born at 4pm but the time was officially recorded as 5pm because of this trial daylight savings time.

Funny, after all this time believing I could've been either sign, I actually leaned more towards Taurus, not Aries. I believed I just took after my mum. We look very similar, she's definitely a true Taurus, I look nice and have feminine body shape. Also, I'm not very assertive or combative outwardly, even though I have an easy time in crowds. But of course, seeing as my ruling planet has been Mars all along, and that my Mars is actually in Gemini, well this could help explain why I can navigate through crowds well. But I do have Vesta in Taurus in the 1st house so this could be what made me look half way between two rising signs.

Plutos, even if you had Aries rising, your ascendant might have progressed into Taurus. This would keep a basic Aries-rising nature, but add some Taurean stability to you.

I had an astrologer tell me I "looked like a Leo" when I didn't know my birth time. Unfortunately, she was mistaken.

 

[mdinaz]

Plutos: I walk very fast and I'm a Taurus rising. Didn't know that Aries were supposed to walk faster.

JupiterASC - every hospital I've been in has a clock right on the wall over the bed. No need to have someone with a stopwatch standing by - just look up. We disagreed over the time because I looked at the clock apparently one moment earlier before everyone else did. It is still within 60 seconds or less. Good enough for me.

 

[poyi]

I was born in Hong Kong under the British government both Uk and Hong Kong do not record birth time on their birth certificate. I assume you could request from birth records if the hospital do keep them. I have my birth time because my mum specifically recorded it on her own piece of paper and I have used that to test accuracy of life major events of the 30 years of my life also had done prediction for myself each month accurately with midpoint on lunar return and solar to be confident that is within workable accuracy. But surely not accurate enough to be up in seconds which is not required for most people unless you wanted to do sport prediction for gambling.

In Australia, I found examples of government website with sample of birth certificates, they simply have no display of birth time. I assumed this is a common practice among some commonwealth counties.

https://www.qld.gov.au/law/births-d...rtificates/commemorative-birth-certificates/#

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080726062759AAW7ip8

US had passed the law in 1968 to record on birth certificate. Before 1968, this practice of recoding birth time is not always been followed. Steven Forrest has an article explaining this and how people could try to request their birth time.

https://www.forrestastrology.com/where-to-order-birth-certificates

Each individual has different idea of how accurate a birth time should be. Some are happy to be within 1 minute for astrological reading but some truly professional astrologers will work to get their birth rectified up in second based on their demand of their personal predictive astrology. I hold the attitude of do not just assume your birth time is accurate enough and if you want to do predictive astrology you should have serious doubt untill proven accurate by actual practices. Birth time accuracy is the first requirement of accurate natal chart reading and of course prediction of any kind.

 

[poyi]

Every 4 minute it changes 1 degree (60 minutes) of the ascendant. Testing on my own birth chart on astrodienst, one minute error of birth time can change 13 minutes of your ascendant degrees. You may test the error in seconds of your birth time if you have Solar Fire.

The position of the Moon and error of the degree of the Moon will be based on the Speed of the Moon on the day you were born. Moon is one very crucial luminary as we know. Error can be very minor to very major. A small error of 1 to few minutes again will totally change Part of Fortune and Vertex axis. Testing on astrodienst, 1 minute birth time error changed your Vertex axis by 1 minute and changed your Part of Fortune degree by 13 minutes.

For those were born between the edge of two Zodiac Sign ascendant would be most affected by their birth time accuracy.The entire ascendant sign will be different. Even less than 1 minute error can change the sign of your ascendant. So really depending on how Virgo you are (obsessive on precision).

 

[poyi]

According to the British Vital Certificate link:

Is the time of birth included on the certificate?

The time of birth is not usually recorded. The exceptions to this are for twin births, and some Scottish registrations. Please note that where the time is not recorded, we are unable to provide this. The only place this may be recorded would be on medical records to which we do not have access.

http://www.vitalcertificates.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions-8-w.asp

It is entirely common, for those whom are not into astrology/occult simply do not care about birth time precision like astrologers do. I do not think the usual authority would see the importance of birth time or death time to be perfectly exact either. There is no mundane importance to have accurate or even record of birth time. Other than using birth time on occult practice, information of birth time has no single impact of your daily life at all. So commonly speaking, majority of the people just simply don't take much notice.

 

[JUPITERASC]

JupiterASC - every hospital I've been in has a clock right on the wall over the bed. No need to have someone with a stopwatch standing by - just look up. We disagreed over the time because I looked at the clock apparently one moment earlier before everyone else did. It is still within 60 seconds or less. Good enough for me.

Some hospitals apparently do have someone with a stopwatch standing by

I gave birth to two children via natural child birth (through which I was completely conscious.) At my hospital, I was attended by the doctor and two nurses. One of them held a stop watch and recorded the birth time, date, baby's sex, and weight on a slip of paper for me to keep. I think this is fairly standard. They might round the time, but this is your best bet, especially if the time subsequently goes to your city or county recorder's office.

The office is called different things in different places (maybe vital statistics, for example) but if you google "birth certificate" for your county or city of birth, you should find the correct office to ask.

 

[JUPITERASC]

Many counties and states don't record it, some do. I was there when my daughter was born and although we disagree by one minute, they recorded it as soon as it happened. I was born in a military hospital where they always record it. It is correct that many house placements can seem "accurate"; this is why rectification is still just an educated guess, you'll still never prove it conclusively, but sometimes that is the best you can do.

Obviously everyone has their own opinion regarding the reliability
or otherwise
of any particular astrological technique

Every 4 minute it changes 1 degree (60 minutes) of the ascendant.

Testing on my own birth chart on astrodienst, one minute error of birth time can change 13 minutes of your ascendant degrees. You may test the error in seconds of your birth time if you have Solar Fire.

The position of the Moon and error of the degree of the Moon will be based on the Speed of the Moon on the day you were born.

Moon is one very crucial luminary as we know.

Error can be very minor to very major. A small error of 1 to few minutes again will totally change Part of Fortune and Vertex axis.

Testing on astrodienst, 1 minute birth time error changed your Vertex axis by 1 minute and changed your Part of Fortune degree by 13 minutes.

For those were born between the edge of two Zodiac Sign ascendant would be most affected by their birth time accurate.

The entire ascendant sign will be different.

Even less than 1 minute error can change the sign of your ascendant.

So really depending on how Virgo you are (obsessive on precision).

 

[fullmoonlibra]

I know that feeling.. I always thought that I was Virgo ascendant, untill I came to know that it is actually a late degree Leo .
Awesome feeling.. Sun, chart ruler is in 9th house, conjunct North Node, and trine ascendant.
I'm in love with that position in my chart, even if Venus is more prominent, being on the top of my chart, in Taurus tenth house, conjunct MC..

 

[waybread]

[deleted remark to off-topic comments - Moderator] I have noted consistently that different jurisdictions do things differently with respect to birth time, so I think we've settled the matter. I stand by everything I write.

I don't think the demographic argument is sound. I was part of the post-WW II "baby boom" generation, so there were plenty of births in the western countries in the decade after WW II, yet someone in the delivery room somehow managed to record a birth time for my parents, even though it did not appear on my official short-form birth certificate.

Actually, the high birth rate continued in the US until the early 1960s, when the widespread introduction of birth control pills lowered it. Today, most European and industrialized Asian countries have a birth rate at ZPG. China's one-child policy has been in effect for decades, although this may be changing.

I do think that in the US, birth times may be rounded to the nearest 5-minutes. The one group I have seen posting here and at Astrodienst with birth times to the exact minute are from India; presumably because astrology is far more reputable there. Of course, this may not apply to births for poor people.

But I'll take hospital records over chart rectification on its own, any day; because something so complex as a horoscope can have many confounding variables. The biggest one would be going by personal appearance.

 

[wilsontc]

About birth time

All,

There has been quite a discussion about accuracy of birth time, including some which seemed to become attacks and responses to attacks (postings now deleted). The one thing that has come out of this discussion is that birth time accuracy is a MUCH debated topic and the accuracy of your birth time depends on a LOT of different factors. Feel free to share your thoughts on your own experiences with your birth time (or your baby's). However do NOT start disagreements with other people about the "facts" in the matter of THEIR birth experience.

Back on topic,

Tim

 

[waybread]

Thanks, Tim.

WeCareALot, I will try to steer the thread back on-topic for you.

You can try chart rectification methods, and a detailed book on the subject is: Laurie Efrein, How to Rectify a Birth Chart. I just checked amazon.com and apparently it is out of print, but may be available through used book sellers. The one in-print book on the topic seems to be: Progressions Directions and Rectification by Zipporah Dobyns, Kris Riske and Jack Cipolla (2011.)

Another book that I highly recommend is Jodie Forrest, The Ascendant. She focuses on the AS/DS axis as a whole, and looks at personality traits, vs. physical features. She is one wise and funny lady.

Also, member Alice McDermott (www.aliceportman.com) recommends timing Uranus transits to major life-changes, as Uranus signifies sudden change. For example, for a sudden break-up with a partner, Uranus theoretically should be in the 7th house or hitting the cusp. I think you'd have to work with transits, and different types of progressions (secondary, tertiary, solar arc.)

You would want a solid working knowledge of planet, sign and house rulerships, as well as transits and progressions to attempt rectification.

I once worked with someone to try to rectify her birth chart. I found the tertiary progressions seemed to work the best for her in terms of date match-ups, but then we had no way of verifying it.

If you do think you can nail down your rising sign through chart rectification, then I would recommend you stick with a whole-signs house system. You would be lucky, indeed, if you could get your ascendant down to the degree, so it would be hard to have much faith in house cusps in the other methods.

If it were me, I would probably pay a professional astrologer to do the work, but you would need to come up with a list of key events in your life that do not relate to your age-cohort as a whole. For example, I would leave out high school graduation, but I would include something like a marriage or birth of a child (or something similarly momentous if you haven't experienced these.)

One thing I don't recommend is going by physical appearance. I empathize with your concerns, having: (a) an astrologer conclude Leo rising based on my appearance, (b) deciding through rectification that I had an early degree of Libra rising, and then (c) finally learning that I have a late degree of Virgo rising!

While I think my rectification wasn't a lot of degrees off the mark, it did change my rising sign completely.

Let's take Virgo rising. I have a lot of Virgo's critical discernment and sense of perfectionism (in certain areas), but these could just as easily be explained by my having another planet (Saturn) in Virgo. One thing I do not have is Virgo Rising's tidy appearance or sense of organization. A neat-freak I am not.

When I did find my unofficial birth certificate (issued by the suburb where my parents lived when I was born,) it also put Uranus on my MC closely squaring my ascendant. With this configuration, there is no way that my clothes or hair could look well put-together. The moral of the story is that a planet in a rising sign or aspecting the ascendant degree can really modify one's physical appearance.

Speaking of hair, supposedly Aquarius rising or Uanus in the first house can give the person "unusual hair." My hair still doesn't cooperate, but it was extremely "unusual" when I was very young, both colour and texture. Complete strangers used to ask me if it were "real." But Uranus was working from somewhere else in the birth chart, and it can be very hard to determine the ascendant just on the basis of physical appearance.

One last thing you might try (based on Jodie Forrest's book) is on those painful occasions when someone criticizes you directly and personally, how do they describe you? More like an Aries? ("You only think about yourself!") Or more like a Taurus ("You're so stubborn!")

And then so much of one's physical appearance is based upon genetics. In Days of Yore, before geneticists had worked out human genes, it was easy to say that an Aries rising or Mars in the first meant a ruddy complexion or red hair, simply because Mars is the "red planet." These descriptions were also based upon European colouring, not on folks from Asia, Africa, &c.

Good luck with this.