Chart Rectification
What if you don’t have an exact time of birth?
A surprising number of people don’t know their exact time of birth. A careless nurse or a lost birth certificate stands between these poor souls and the light of astrology. Tragic, right? Sure, they still have planets in signs and in aspect – and that’s better than nothing – but there’s a big issue: no Ascendant. And if they don’t have an Ascendant, they don’t have houses. And if they don’t have houses, there’s no terrestrial component to their chart. The zodiacally conditioned planetary influences are just hanging in space, without reference to the various domains of the native’s life in the sphere of mundane phenomena. Without houses, the chart is applicable in only the most general way.
But there’s a solution: a rather complicated procedure known as chart rectification. This is a procedure by which the Ascendent is sort of reverse engineered. In this blog post, I’m going to describe a method with which I’ve had success.
Let’s say the native was born on March 15th, 1984 in Minneapolis, MN but they don’t know what time. They might say, “I think it was in the morning,” or “it was either 6am or 6pm,” or “I think it was, like, 4pm.” Answers like these are usually met with a few seconds of a wordless, unblinking stare from me. I’m also suspicious of birth times that sound rounded, like to the quarter hours (e.g., 3:00, 3:15, 3:45). Basically, if the native doesn’t give me a specific sounding time, like 8:39am or something like that, then I’m suspicious. I will usually ask if they can consult their birth certificate. But let’s say that’s not an option, for whatever reason, and the native is still earnest.
That’s when chart rectification becomes an option. It’s kind of a last resort.
Here’s how I do it…
I start by erecting a chart for noon on the birthdate. From there, I look at their physique and start sizing up potential rising signs. A native with Aries rising, for example, might have a darker complexion, a long face, black eyebrows and a long neck; Taurus rising might be on the short side with big eyes, a wide forehead, thick lips and strong shoulders. Lilly is a good place to look for some of these general descriptions. This can help you begin to zero in on an Ascendant. But remember: throughout this process, you’re looking for multiple agreeing factors. You want verification from as many metrics as possible.
After looking at the physique, I start asking the native questions: “What do you do for a living?” “What are your hobbies?” “Do you have any children?” “What can you tell me about romantic partners in your life?” I will jot down notes as I’m listening and asking follow-up questions. The intention here is to start to fill in the houses. Let’s say the native has four children; I might look for a four-planet stellium in their chart and rotate it onto the 5th house, which is the house of children. Again, that doesn’t mean we’re done – but if the stellium on the fifth house also gives us a good descriptive rising sign, then we know we’re getting closer. I might then look at the ruler of the 7th house and see if that planet fits the native’s “type” of romantic partner. Say, for instance, that the planet ruling their potential 7th house (the significator of the native’s partner) is in the relative 6th house. If they tell me that their partner is in health care or is a veterinarian, then I know that we have one more metric covered and we’re getting closer to orienting their houses.
I also use annual profections in reverse. I might ask for a chronological summary of important events in the native’s life. We know that 5th house themes, for instance, should be prominent during everyone’s 28th year of life. Romantic and legal themes should surface at the ages of 18, 30 and 42 because those are 7th house years. So, if we can find their profection pattern, then we can look at the nature of those events to see if a particular ruling planet was clearly at work. We might also check if these annual events were colored by a particular zodiacal influence. For example, let’s say the native says they started training for their dream career – to be a lion tamer – at 21 years old. In this case, we might try turning Leo onto the 10th house. You get the picture. But remember, we’re always looking for multiple agreeing factors.
Let’s say we’re reasonably confident that we’ve found a house configuration that seems to accurately symbolize the native’s lived experience. We could stop there, since we’re within 30 degrees or a couple hours of an Ascendent (depending on the house system). But we could also try to nail down the Ascendent to the degree. One reason we may want to dial it in tighter is so we can establish the angles of the chart – the ASC/DSC and MC/IC axes. Establishing these nodal points on the ecliptic will give us a better idea about the prominence of each of the planets, either by conjunction or by aspect. How is this accomplished? Roughly the same way we rotated the chart to find the configuration of the houses – by working backward from the life of the native to the chart.
After applying some of these techniques and experimenting with the placement of planets in houses, some semblance of order begins to emerge and a picture of the native slowly comes into focus.
If you don’t know your exact time of birth, or you distrust the birth data from your birth certificate, get in touch with me and I’ll help you figure it out.