I see your astronomical thinking Kirk but retrograde is quite regular. Venus/Mars are retrograde 10% of the time, Mercury 20% then we are into the 30% from Jupiter.

No astronomical thinking here. I'm following the observational foundation of the day as measured by the Sun's complete cycle from the eastern horizon to its return there the next morning, and the year as measured by the Sun's movement along the ecliptic. Those two types of motion acquired symbolic meaning: That's astrology. Noting the percentage of time spent by the planets in retrograde motion is not astrology! What use is it? Its most obvious use is to dissuade people from bothering with astrology at all. Statistics and symbolism both start with the letter s, and that's about all they have in common.

What difference does it make if retrograde motion is regular? We aren't considering the occurrence of retrograde but the effects. Retrograde motion doesn't 'turn on' so that the planet always and continuously acts like in a certain manner for a set amount of time. The planet enters a period of a more irregular likely expression.

Then the next question when people have charts full of 'retrogrades' do we notice greater amounts of irregularity / impulsivity. My understanding is from the Psychological Astrology literature is that this isn't noticed when we study people more intensively.

It does depend on the definition used of irregular and impulsive behavior in people. When is someone's action somewhat quirky and when is it clearly irregular? Who determined the definitions and rules that were then used in the literature for judgment? With retrograde motion maybe we are in one of those areas where natal and horary astrology need to be treated differently.

I don't think retrogression should be differently interpreted in the various branches of astrology. The only step is to clarify more exactly what retrogression is in the 'sidereal language' and, to my mind, 'weekness' is a sort of baggy translation that is not suitable in each situation.
I can absolutely agree with Kirk as to contemplate the celestial event itself behind retrogression. Moving counterclockwise, that is, the secondary motion is the natural way of progression (in every sense of this word) of both wandering and fixed stars in a broader scope but I would resist to call retrogression unnatural. It is a matter of forming an opposition with the Lord of the Zodiac, the Sun, or, in the case of inner planets, of passing round him like a dog around the owner. It wouldn't be properly called backward motion because in time there's no backward motion, only recalling past events. Therefore, this motion is not about activity but making plans, tactics, strategy. That's why it is sometimes compared to being ill, when the body tries to set up itself again, but it could be described metaphorically as sleeping vs. being awake, contemplation vs. activity and so.
To sum up, in this and other cases I found the best if we try to unfold some meanings from the celestial story itself and eventually we will be able to interpret the phenomenon properly.

Hi Matt, my chart is diurnal, I think. 0505am, asc 0 leo, sun 3 leo. Sunrise?

It also sounds like the Saturnalia..

Someone who elects to incarnate at sunrise just to puzzle those who use sect in astrology is clearly a born trouble maker!! As to Saturnalia as you know it happens soon after the sun ingress into capricorn. I have heard that an ability to cope with chaos is a capriconian trait. I have started to look at some charts to see if there is a particular saturnian influence that could be relevant.

I have a first house retrograde Jupiter, in Sag.

When it went direct by secondary progression in middle age it delivered everything traditional astrology would have predicted for a non-retrograde Jupiter placed as it was. Before that life was mostly a struggle.

Have others seen retrograde planets start to perform when they go direct by secondary progression?

[quote="matt23z"]

Someone who elects to incarnate at sunrise just to puzzle those who use sect in astrology is clearly a born trouble maker!! /quote]

No, no I'm a good girl honest! Just trying to understand my chart from a traditional perspective. I do appreciate you helping and I don't know what sect it (although I've seen it mentioned on this forum). So I'll have to do some investigating also.

Cornelia, my progressed saturn will be RX all my life, so I'll never know what a direct saturn feels like. Really glad to hear your story. Practical examples are the only way to test the theory. Thanks.

My elder son has jupiterRX and saturn RX in 1st house.
My younger son has Mercury in 6th, Mars (and chiron) in 12th and all the outers (neptune in 1st, uranus in 2nd, and pluto in 11th) are all Rx.
So as their mother, this thread is important to me and I'd love to hear some opinions on how this manifests.

My impression of my younger son is that he is quite spiritual for an 8 year old! He is very caring, he notices others and can put himself in their shoes, He's very loving and affectionate and in spite of merRx does very well at school. He is intellectually curious and has a fantastic imagination. He does have temper outbursts.. marsRX in 12th...throwing, slamming... but these seem to be lessening. He's always very sorry immediately afterwards. And he's popular at school.

I'll be checking their progressions.

Sect is easy. Is your Sun in houses 1 - 6 or 7-12? If it's in 1-6, it's below the horizon, a night birth. If it's in 7 - 12, above the horizon, that's a day birth.

Or were you the troublemaker who got born at sunrise? As a rule, if it's within 12 degrees of the ascendant, it's still a daytime birth. There are exceptions, but not too many.

Anyway, work out if your Sun is above or below the horizon, and work out whether the other planets are above or below the horizon in the same way.

Then we can tell what's in sect. Ideally you want the day planets above the horizon in a day birth, with the night planets below the horizon, or in a night birth you want the day planets below the horizon, and the night planets above it. Sort of what would be showing in the sky if we could see them is consistent.

Almost nobody has everything in sect. I think my only in-sect planet is Saturn. Mercury, but that's pretty much always in sect, it's a switch-hitter (big surprise there ).

And Jupiter is out-of-sect, retrograde, and in curtailed passage in my chart, even despite being in the 10th and conjunct Spica and the North Node. I'm well into middle-age, so I may well not live to see it go direct by progression in 2016. Not sure it'd make much difference given the afflictions anyway, but that's a weird one - it's strong in my chart in some ways - obviously - but weak in others.

As a rule, if it's within 12 degrees of the ascendant, it's still a daytime birth. There are exceptions, but not too many.

Hi Olivia,
I wonder if you can offer a reference to that rule. Or is it your own suggestion? As far as I'm aware, a chart will turn from being diurnal to nocturnal in an instant, just as the 12th diurnal (seasonal) hour will move into the 1st nocturnal hour in an instant. I think that modern astrologers try to add in a twilight factor but that seems to me to contradict the ancient approach to this matter.

Regards
Deb

I've got some somewhere, Deb, but I'll have to dig them up. It's something to do with observation over philosophy again, though. I will try to find it; it didn't come out of my own head.

Memory, not too reliable, suggests that both Lee Lehman and the Gaquelins mentioned this and quoted sources if that helps any - or if anyone finds it faster than I do.

This was a good opportunity to start a new thread concerning the Sun relative to the horizon:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 9582#39582

Kirk wrote: No astronomical thinking here. I'm following the observational foundation of the day as measured by the Sun's complete cycle from the eastern horizon to its return there the next morning, and the year as measured by the Sun's movement along the ecliptic. Those two types of motion acquired symbolic meaning: That's astrology. Noting the percentage of time spent by the planets in retrograde motion is not astrology! What use is it? Its most obvious use is to dissuade people from bothering with astrology at all. Statistics and symbolism both start with the letter s, and that's about all they have in common.

What difference does it make if retrograde motion is regular? We aren't considering the occurrence of retrograde but the effects. Retrograde motion doesn't 'turn on' so that the planet always and continuously acts like in a certain manner for a set amount of time. The planet enters a period of a more irregular likely expression.

It does depend on the definition used of irregular and impulsive behaviour in people. When is someone's action somewhat quirky and when is it clearly irregular? Who determined the definitions and rules that were then used in the literature for judgment? With retrograde motion maybe we are in one of those areas where natal and horary astrology need to be treated differently.

Well I think I'll blame you for using 'astronomy' as I was temporarily in this spatial Ptolemaic mindset imagining the apparent motions of the celestial objects from a geocentric frame of reference in an effort to try and work out why the idea of retrograde is seemingly regarded as more ?negative? in the ??traditional?? literature than the ?contemporary? literature. Is this a lame excuse?

But I wouldn't throw statistics out so early if we are looking to define impulsive or irregular. How do we measure these in these infantile days as regards cogntive neuro-psychology other than relying on a group of psychotherapists looking at behaviour through a one way mirror and speculating as to whether person X?s behaviour is of a more ?irregular like expression? this week/month.

As to natal and horary being treated differently can you expand your thoughts on this?

Deb wrote:

As a rule, if it's within 12 degrees of the ascendant, it's still a daytime birth. There are exceptions, but not too many.

Hi Olivia,
I wonder if you can offer a reference to that rule.

Hi Deb, hi Olivia,

I just find the 'real' astrologer John Frawley saying - The Horary Textbook, p. 48 -:

"Allow a few degrees in favour of day at either end [of the AC-DC-line], so if the Sun is only a couple of degrees below the Ascendant or the Descendant you count it as day. This is because the Sun's light is visble before the Sun rises and after it sets. 'A few' is all the precision necessary here: the precise number varies with latitude and time of year."

This definition seems to be rather imprecise and in reality a maceration of the classical definition of day and night, a contradiction to it as Deb has already stated above.

Regards
Johannes

Thread-hopping is getting me confused. In the other one I wrote:

I've been rummaging around for something I saw months ago which I believe was from the 17th century. That's not ancient but it's quite a few steps back. What sticks in my mind is a statement in someone's book which surprised me at the time that one should consider a chart to be nocturnal when the Sun was approaching the Descendant within a certain number degrees. I'm thinking it was Ramesey, Partridge or Coley, but I haven't found it yet. Or maybe it was later in Sibly. The person who wrote it may have gotten it from an earlier source ? or 'modern' was already creeping in.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 9582#39582

If anyone's curious, I listed the authors in the order I think to be most likely as the source, with Ramesey as seeming the most likely.