WISH LIST - Finesse aspects in return charts

[Jim Eshelman]

I want to get this written while I have time, and to give it time for discussion and to be revised.

TMSA, from the beginning, had special rules for which aspects it displayed. Some of this filtering is still there, some isn't: At a certain point, other things became complicated in the program in a way that caused some of this to be unreliable. Mikestar13's answer was to go back to showing everything (or maybe it's "almost everything") on the theory that it's better to have to ignore or delete an aspect than to not have it show when needed.

At some point (ideally but not necessarily before 1.0), we want to get back to this behaving as originally intended.

Much of the filtering has to do with the premise that "There is no transiting Sun in a solar return, nor a transiting Moon in the lunar return." The intent of this aphorism is that, when indications are identical for the exactly conjoined natal and transiting luminaries, they are acting as natal planets, not as transiting planets. However, this aphorism arose decades before we had easy access to mundane positions: Often it is not true that the "two Moons" in a lunar return have the same angularity or identical mundane aspects. Quarti-solunars have frequent exceptions and always were treated differently. (With Sun, since it always has 0° latitude, the full and demi [conjunction and opposition] returns will always produce matched angularity and mundane aspects, though the quarti-solar will not.)

I intend to itemize the specific rules that should apply. Most of them will involve distinctions between ecliptical and mundane aspects. Please catch any errors or oversights I make and generally feel free to debate this issue of whether and how we should be masking such things.

[Jim Eshelman]

1. In the SSR and Demi-SSR, transiting Sun makes no aspects (ever). They will always be duplicates of natal Sun aspects.

2. In the Quarti-SSR, transiting Sun makes no aspects unless it makes a mundane aspect that natal Sun does not (or where the natal Sun orb is larger). Example: Quarti-solar Sun may be on MC in mundane square to a natal or transiting planet on Asc or Dsc. Most of the time, natal Sun won't make the same aspect at all. In some cases, it may make it with a larger orb. In those cases, the transiting Sun aspect should be listed, not the natal aspect.

3. In lunar returns, because transiting Moon's latitude will nearly always be different from natal Moon's latitude, the equivalent conditions for a quarti-solar will always apply. I will itemize. Please note that all the lunar return rules that follow operate within the other existing aspect structure, e.g., if only transiting Moon is foreground, then it is the only one that can make an aspect and these are all shown. In what follows, presume both Moons are allowed to make aspects under the selected aspect rules.

4. In lunar returns, transiting Moon makes no ecliptical aspects. They will always be identical to those that natal Moon makes (except that it may be a different aspect, e.g., one makes a conjunction and the other an opposition).

5. In lunar returns, transiting Moon mundane aspects are only listed if they are closer than any matching aspect natal Moon makes. Question: In that case, should we suppress the natal Moon aspect altogether, or show it also even though it has a larger orb? I lean toward suppressing it so that only one appears, requiring the astrologer to distinguish between the effects of a transiting X to natal Moon vs. a transiting Moon-X aspect.

6. In the Other Partile Aspects section, no ecliptical natal-natal aspects should be shown. (These are partile aspects that the person always has. Showing them adds no information distinctive to the time period being studied.) Natal-natal mundane aspects should only be listed if their orb is smaller than any orb those planets have in the natal chart. - Showing them at all is based on the theory that a natal, always-present energy can be made stronger if it is under temporary conditions that make the orb smaller. Examples: I have a natal Uranus-Neptune square 2°00' wide. My lunar return for my cornea transplant, when I was under general anesthesia, had natal Uranus-Neptune square foreground with a mundane square orb of 0°00'. [Bad example since that was a foreground aspect, but it makes the theoretical point.] - My natal Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, 0°17', often appears at a closer orb, say, 0°05'.

[Jim Eshelman]

My wife's SLR for 9/2/2024, calculated for our home, has the following foreground aspects listed in TM 0.5.4:

tMo co tSu 0° 0'100%
tMo op tSa 2°52' 91% M
tJu sq tSa 0°12'100% M
----------------------
tMo sq rSu 1°58' 93%
tSu co rMo 0° 0'100%
tSu sq rSu 1°58' 93%
tMe sq rSu 2°22' 89% M
tMe op rSa 0°41' 99%
tJu sq rMo 1°41' 94% M
tSa op rMo 1°29' 98% M
----------------------
rMo sq rSu 1°58' 93%
rMa op rSa 3°20' 88% M
rMa co rUr 1°21' 98% M

Let's examine these:

• Transiting Moon conjunct transiting Sun should disappear, surviving only as transiting Sun conjunct natal Moon.
• Transiting Moon opposite transiting Saturn should disappear: It's really transiting Saturn conjunct natal Moon. (Both are mundane and the t Sa = r Mo has the smaller orb.)
• Transiting Moon square natal Sun is the same as the natal Moon-Sun square, which is also foreground and listed at the bottom. It should go.

The updated list, therefore, looks like this:

tJu sq tSa 0°12'100% M
----------------------
tSu co rMo 0° 0'100%
tSu sq rSu 1°58' 93%
tMe sq rSu 2°22' 89% M
tMe op rSa 0°41' 99%
tJu sq rMo 1°41' 94% M
tSa op rMo 1°29' 98% M
----------------------
rMo sq rSu 1°58' 93%
rMa op rSa 3°20' 88% M
rMa co rUr 1°21' 98% M

TM 0.5.4 gives the following Other Partile Aspects list:

tMa sq tNe 0° 4'100%
----------------------
tMo co rPl 0°39'100%
tSu co rPl 0°39'100%
tMe sq rMe 0°40' 99%
tNe op rPl 0°21'100% M
----------------------
rMo co rPl 0°39'100%
rVe op rNe 0° 3'100%

• Transiting Moon conjunct natal Pluto should be removed from the list because it is identical with natal Moon-Plut conjunction.
• Both natal-natal aspects should be deleted because they are ecliptical aspects always present regardless of conditions in the return chart.

The revised Other Partile Aspects list looks like this:

tMa sq tNe 0° 4'100%
----------------------
tSu co rPl 0°39'100%
tMe sq rMe 0°40' 99%
tNe op rPl 0°21'100% M

[Jim Eshelman]

As a second example, here is the same lunar return but calculated for Kanarraville, Utah.

tMo co tSu 0° 0'100%
tMo sq tJu 1°54' 93% M
tMo op tSa 2°34' 93% M
tSu sq tJu 0° 6'100% M
tJu sq tSa 2°50' 84%
----------------------
tMo sq rSu 1°58' 93%
tMo co rPl 0°39'100%
tSu co rMo 0° 0'100%
tSu sq rSu 1°58' 93%
tSu co rUr 3°55' 83% M
tSu co rPl 0°39'100%
tSa op rMo 1° 8' 99% M
tNe op rPl 1°57' 96% M
----------------------
rMo sq rSu 1°58' 93%
rMo co rPl 0°39'100%
rSu sq rPl 1°18' 97%
rMa op rSa 3°10' 89% M
rMa co rUr 1°10' 98% M

• Remove transiting Moon conjunct transiting Sun: It shows correctly as transiting Sun conjunct natal Moon.
• Remove transiting Moon opposite transiting Saturn (mundo): It shows correctly, with a smaller orb, as transiting Saturn opposite natal Moon.
• Remove transiting Moon square natal Sun and transiting Moon conjunct natal Pluto: These show correctly as natal Moon-Sun and Moon-Pluto aspects.

Here is the revised list.

tMo sq tJu 1°54' 93% M
tSu sq tJu 0° 6'100% M
tJu sq tSa 2°50' 84%
----------------------
tSu co rMo 0° 0'100%
tSu sq rSu 1°58' 93%
tSu co rUr 3°55' 83% M
tSu co rPl 0°39'100%
tSa op rMo 1° 8' 99% M
tNe op rPl 1°57' 96% M
----------------------
rMo sq rSu 1°58' 93%
rMo co rPl 0°39'100%
rSu sq rPl 1°18' 97%
rMa op rSa 3°10' 89% M
rMa co rUr 1°10' 98% M

[Jim Eshelman]

My Demi-SLR January 29, 2024, calculated for home, had natal Moon more angular (0°06' from EP-a) than transiting Moon (0°24' from WP):

Code: Select all

Pl Longitude   Lat   Speed    RA     Decl   Azi     Alt      ML     PVL    Ang G
                               Transiting Planets                                
Mo 27Le24' 0"  2N11 +11°47' 173°57'  4N59 272°40' + 4°59' 179°46' 184°59'  99% W 
Sa 11Aq 6' 8"  1S37 + 6'48" 338°33' 10S45 106° 4' + 4°19'   1°12' 355°30'  95% A 
Ne  0Pi37'35"  1S13 + 1'42" 356°32'  2S50  89°25' - 5°55' 180° 4'   5°55'  92% A 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                 Radical Planets                                 
Mo 27Aq24' 0"  4N46 +14°42' 351°13'  1N24  88°54' + 0°52' 179°59' 359° 8' 100% Ea
Pl  2Le 6' 8"  9N55 + 1'20" 153° 1' 21N44 298° 3' - 1°57' 180°55' 177°47'  99% D 

Nonetheless, the aspect list takes some surprise turns. Here is the TM 0.5.4 aspect list:

tMo op tNe 0°56' 99% M
----------------------
tSa co rMo 3°38' 86% M
tSa op rPl 2°17' 94% M
tNe co rMo 3°14' 89%
----------------------
rMo op rPl 1°21' 98% M

Transiting Moon opposite transiting Neptune appears to be an alter ego for transiting Neptune conjunct natal Moon except transit-to-transit has a 0°56' orb while transit-to-natal has a 3°14' orb. Therefore, the former is the preferred aspect. The aspect list is simplified a bit to this:

tMo op tNe 0°56' 99% M
----------------------
tSa co rMo 3°38' 86% M
tSa op rPl 2°17' 94% M
----------------------
rMo op rPl 1°21' 98% M

[Mike V]

I think I agree on all points; I will review it more carefully and double check.

Can I use this planetary data (with no name, date, or location attached) for unit tests in the Time Matters repo? I would use the calculated data, I.e. hardcoded planetary positions. It’s what I’m currently doing with my own chart, to test the parsing and display logic rather than the Swiss ephemeris parts.

[Jim Eshelman]

Sure.

[Mike V]

This is half me thinking out loud, and half sharing in case I'm missing a subtle point.

I think the best way to code most of this is to ensure that (refined) rules for biwheels are consistently applied, and to minimize the number of special cases, even if that means superfluous checks get done. (Logic like this is essentially instantaneous to run.) Let me see if I can define the whole set of rules like that first and then apply it to your points and examples below.

In an X return:
If transiting X is not foreground:
Ignore its aspects. (We’ll come back to the “other partile” category.)

Otherwise, if transiting X is foreground:
Calculate but do not display ecliptical aspects between transiting X and natal planets.
Include mundane aspects between transiting X and natal planets if the mundane orb is tighter than the (calculated but not displayed) ecliptical orb. This one half of the special logic.

If natal X is not foreground:
Include ecliptical and mundane aspects between transiting X and transiting planets.

Otherwise, if natal X is foreground:
When natal X and transiting X both have an aspect to transiting Y, only display the one with the closest orb. If that is an ecliptical aspect that natal X and transiting X are both making, only display the natal X one. This is the other half of the special logic.

My question here is: What if natal X is much further away from the angle than transiting X? Do we care? I think I do, and here’s why.

Let’s say it’s some flavor of Lunar Return, like a Quarti-Lunar.
Transiting Moon is on a major angle 0°30’, and natal Moon is on a major angle 8°30’, or on a minor angle 2°45’ (or something extreme like that). Both have an ecliptical aspect to a transiting planet, so the orb is the same.
One line of thinking is “this is a Lunar Return variant, so just show it as an aspect to natal Moon.”
The other line of thinking is “transiting Moon is much more foreground, so indicate this aspect’s relative importance by showing it as an aspect made by transiting Moon.” I have generally written it like this when typing up analyses by hand. In this example, transiting Moon could easily be the most foreground planet, and natal Moon the least foreground (of the ones that are definitely foreground still). I would very much care what the aspects are for a planet half a degree from the angle, but I usually zone out once we get to something over 8° from the angle, and so I don’t care overly much what its aspects are. In this case, I’d much rather see the aspect shown as being made by/to transiting Moon.

So in other words, we can reframe this as: if natal and transiting X are both foreground, prioritize aspects to transiting planets by orb, only showing the tighter aspect. However, if the orbs are equal, prioritize by angularity of transiting X vs natal X instead. (This would be another special bit of logic.)

Okay, back to logic:
For “other partile” aspects:
Calculate but do not display ecliptical aspects between natal planets.
If any of their mundane aspects are tighter than the ecliptical aspects, display those.
Apply the same logic to transiting X aspecting natal planets (if transiting X is not foreground).
Transit-to-transit partile aspects use the tighter of the two orbs as they do at present.

Now let's test this against your examples…

1. In the SSR and Demi-SSR, transiting Sun makes no aspects (ever). They will always be duplicates of natal Sun aspects.

Our logic covers this by virtue of the orbs being de facto the same. Maybe I have to write some fudging logic that says “if the mundane orb is 2 minutes tighter, still ignore it.” I sometimes see things like this in calculations due to the imprecision of floating-point arithmetic. In any case, the logic above theoretically covers this.

2. In the Quarti-SSR, transiting Sun makes no aspects unless it makes a mundane aspect that natal Sun does not (or where the natal Sun orb is larger). Example: Quarti-solar Sun may be on MC in mundane square to a natal or transiting planet on Asc or Dsc. Most of the time, natal Sun won't make the same aspect at all. In some cases, it may make it with a larger orb. In those cases, the transiting Sun aspect should be listed, not the natal aspect.

Covered by the logic above.

3. In lunar returns, because transiting Moon's latitude will nearly always be different from natal Moon's latitude, the equivalent conditions for a quarti-solar will always apply. I will itemize. Please note that all the lunar return rules that follow operate within the other existing aspect structure, e.g., if only transiting Moon is foreground, then it is the only one that can make an aspect and these are all shown. In what follows, presume both Moons are allowed to make aspects under the selected aspect rules.
4. In lunar returns, transiting Moon makes no ecliptical aspects. They will always be identical to those that natal Moon makes (except that it may be a different aspect, e.g., one makes a conjunction and the other an opposition).

So far, still covered by the checks above, except that my question on foreground orbs between natal/transiting X applies here.

5. In lunar returns, transiting Moon mundane aspects are only listed if they are closer than any matching aspect natal Moon makes. Question: In that case, should we suppress the natal Moon aspect altogether, or show it also even though it has a larger orb? I lean toward suppressing it so that only one appears, requiring the astrologer to distinguish between the effects of a transiting X to natal Moon vs. a transiting Moon-X aspect.

If both are foreground, and we are talking about a mundane aspect that is unlikely to have the same orb between transiting and natal Moon, I agree with suppressing the wider orb.
However, if we are talking about ecliptical aspects, then my question about relative angularity applies here - and I personally vote in favor of showing the aspect as being to whichever Moon is closer to the angle, even though the aspect is the same (ecliptically). I’m curious what you think.

6. In the Other Partile Aspects section, no ecliptical natal-natal aspects should be shown. (These are partile aspects that the person always has. Showing them adds no information distinctive to the time period being studied.) Natal-natal mundane aspects should only be listed if their orb is smaller than any orb those planets have in the natal chart.

Yep, this will be covered by the logic above.

At some point (ideally but not necessarily before 1.0), we want to get back to this behaving as originally intended.

I would like it to be included in 1.0 or earlier, and this should be a lot easier to do when my refactor is done. Honestly, I'd love for it to be included in 0.6, but maybe it's a better idea to keep the surface area of that release smaller and just iterate faster. (That's my current line of thought.)

I’ll handle the explicit examples in a separate post since this one is probably getting long. I haven’t typed that yet upon posting this, so feel free to weigh in if you want.

[Jim Eshelman]

Long answer will have to wait until tomorrow, but here is something to remind me of some thoughts then. First, here is the usual aspect breakdown of my SSR:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7522#p54109

Second is one version of what has been sought in the past. This one uses TM's current formulations. I'm not persuaded this long-sought method actually is based on correct reasoning, but I give it here for a starting place to some remarks tomorrow. I set all orbs to max Class 3 (70 total aspects), regardless of angularity. Here is what happens when every aspect's own strength is weighted against the angularity of each planet involved:

r Jupiter r Saturn 96.0%
r Jupiter r Uranus 95.1%
t Jupiter r Saturn 95.1%
t Pluto r Jupiter 95.1%
r Saturn r Uranus 94.1%
t Pluto r Uranus 94.1%
t Pluto r Saturn 93.2%
t Mars r Jupiter 92.2%
t Uranus r Venus 91.2%
t Jupiter r Jupiter 91.1%
t Jupiter r Mercury 91.1%
t Jupiter r Venus 91.1%
t Mars r Uranus 90.3%
t Mars t Pluto 88.5%
t Jupiter t Pluto 85.4%
r Mercury r Saturn 84.8%
t Pluto r Mercury 82.1%
r Mercury r Uranus 80.3%
r Venus r Saturn 77.6%
r Mercury r Jupiter 77.5%
t Jupiter t Uranus 71.8%
t Mars r Mars 68.4%
t Mars r Neptune 66.5%
t Pluto r Neptune 65.2%
t Mars r Mercury 64.7%
r Uranus r Neptune 62.5%
r Jupiter r Neptune 61.7%
t Pluto r Mars 58.7%
r Venus r Jupiter 57.2%
r Mars r Uranus 55.2%
r Mars r Jupiter 53.6%
t Uranus r Saturn 53.2%
r Venus r Uranus 50.9%
r Mars r Neptune 50.4%
t Pluto r Venus 46.1%
r Mercury r Neptune 43.8%
r Mercury r Venus 40.1%
r Mercury r Mars 33.1%
t Mars r Saturn 32.6%
r Venus r Pluto 30.7%
t Saturn r Venus 28.7%
t Venus r Venus 24.9%
t Venus t Saturn 18.7%
r Saturn r Neptune 17.8%
t Mars r Sun 17.2%
t Sun t Mars 17.2%
t Uranus r Pluto 16.8%
t Uranus r Jupiter 15.2%
r Sun r Neptune 14.5%
t Sun r Neptune 14.5%
t Saturn r Pluto 10.9%
t Venus r Pluto 10.7%
t Mars t Jupiter 8.6%
t Mercury r Sun 8.3%
t Sun t Mercury 8.3%
t Uranus r Mercury 8.0%
t Moon t Venus 6.4%
r Sun r Mars 6.4%
t Sun r Mars 6.4%
t Moon r Pluto 5.7%
t Moon t Saturn 5.1%
t Mercury t Mars 2.1%
t Uranus t Pluto 1.9%
t Moon r Moon 1.7%
t Mercury r Neptune 1.7%
r Moon r Pluto 1.4%
t Jupiter r Neptune 0.0%
t Mercury t Neptune 0.0%
t Neptune r Moon 0.0%

[Jim Eshelman]

Firsts: Yes, I see that simpler rules handle this. I phrased the original description so as not to a priori impose coding structure or processing steps (requiring more things be filtered than are really necessary). Nonetheless, in delivering that, I see that having the same logic for Sun and Moon and for all primary-demi-quarti scenarios it cleaner code (and we can spare the nano-seconds). Even though solar returns only need filtering in limited cases because there will never be an issue in the majority of cases, that's no reason not to pass them through the same sieve.

NB - You referred to "rules for biwheels... consistently applied." I suspect that was shorthand and you know that returns, though currently the only biwheels, are not the only biwheels we'll have and these are explicitly return chart rules. (But, as I said, I'm sure you knew that .)

Calculate but do not display ecliptical aspects between transiting X and natal planets.
Include mundane aspects between transiting X and natal planets if the mundane orb is tighter than the (calculated but not displayed) ecliptical orb. This one half of the special logic.

...and tighter than a natal mundane aspect orb. [That might be trickier to capture.]

Example: I have a 2°00' ecliptical Uranus-Neptune square. In LA, it is a 0°11' mundane square. I have a 2°25' Mars-Neptune square that, at birthplace is a 0°07' mundane square. The first part of the thinking is clear enough: In a given chart, don't display these unless the orb is smaller than the smallest orb. The second part is complicated an I'm not sure we want to try to force the program to anticipate and address multiple locations. (There are so many potential breakdown points, we may never loop back to that.)

But what we DO know is that the astrologer has specified a location for the return chart! That means that either the person is at the specified location, or that the astrologer considers another location relevant (e.g., someone who endorses the Firebrace idea that lunars should always be calculated for birthplace), etc. So any comparison to mundane orbs should be against the nativity for the location selected for the return chart. (I suppose natal aspects for that location will have to be recalculated in the return chart aspectarian logic.)

As I think this through, this makes the most sense in several ways (including the fact that I'm skeptical birthplace mundane aspects persist other than by habituated behavior patterns).

NB - My error in flow of this answer: What I just wrote above really applies to Other Partile Aspects. I might have confused things. If a luminary aspect to a natal planet is foreground, we want it displayed regardless, it's just a matter of planet and orb. So if nothing I just wrote applies to the first aspect category, please excuse the out of sequence and slip these comments to the second (OPA) category. - Too many separate things to keep track of when answering on a small screen. <g>

NB - I didn't carefully trace all your logic in a proofreading sense, but the general flow looked right, and certainly the approach looks dead-on.

My question here is: What if natal X is much further away from the angle than transiting X? Do we care? I think I do, and here’s why.

I'll come back to this in the next post.

I would like it to be included in 1.0 or earlier, and this should be a lot easier to do when my refactor is done. Honestly, I'd love for it to be included in 0.6, but maybe it's a better idea to keep the surface area of that release smaller and just iterate faster. (That's my current line of thought.)

Speaking of someone who isn't doing the work, I agree with that line of thought.

More answer on the closer angularity issue in the next post. (Also have to get some work done here at the office this morning.)

[Jim Eshelman]

...When natal X and transiting X both have an aspect to transiting Y, only display the one with the closest orb. If that is an ecliptical aspect that natal X and transiting X are both making, only display the natal X one... My question here is: What if natal X is much further away from the angle than transiting X? Do we care? I think I do, and here’s why... Let's say... Transiting Moon is on a major angle 0°30’, and natal Moon is on a major angle 8°30’, or on a minor angle 2°45’ (or something extreme like that). Both have an ecliptical aspect to a transiting planet, so the orb is the same.

One line of thinking is “this is a Lunar Return variant, so just show it as an aspect to natal Moon.” The other line of thinking is “transiting Moon is much more foreground, so indicate this aspect’s relative importance by showing it as an aspect made by transiting Moon.” ... In this example, transiting Moon could easily be the most foreground planet, and natal Moon the least foreground (of the ones that are definitely foreground still). I would very much care what the aspects are for a planet half a degree from the angle, but I usually zone out once we get to something over 8° from the angle, and so I don’t care overly much what its aspects are. In this case, I’d much rather see the aspect shown as being made by/to transiting Moon.

Mike, you've touched on one of the grand old questions of at least some of the Sidereal pioneers. ("Some" because Fagan didn't care much for this kind of subtlety. He was far more Neptunian in the "fluid and intuitive" sense then people usually detect.) I think the question revisited here is ultimately unresolved (though I suspect that's because the either-or way I'll phrase the question is too simplistic).

Let's frame the question thus: We all tend to agree that orbs matter in the sense that closer contacts are more important (stronger) than wider contacts and that this applies to both angularity and aspects. the big deal "grand slam" is when aspects and angularity peak together - when they are both exact at once. It's less clear when either angularity or aspect orb is exact and the other isn't, though usually (when it's that exact) they both manage to have their say in big ways. Return charts especially are reliant almost entirely (entirely?) on this interplay of angles and aspects.

The underlying question, then, centers on the relationship of angularity and aspect amplitude. Are they more or less the same thing (some "don't pin me down too closely" concept of strong) or are they so different that they don't exactly blend.

This goes back to something Bradley and Duncan pursued more or less their whole careers, a way to bring angularity and aspect strength together in a measurable way. I suspect (but never confirmed) that an early version of this is what was done in Bradley's mid-'50s study of murderers. One of his last articles ever was a new visiting of separate ranking scales for aspects and angularity on the idea that something like angularity-scaled aspect strength was the answer.

But was it?

The table I gave above is based on numbers currently used in TM. I used the Eureka curve plus all aspects out to Clas 3 - 70 aspects in my current SSR! Then, treating each as a percentage, I multiplied planet A angularity times planet B angularity times aspect strength to get a final "this is a big deal" scoring.

I'm not at all sure this is a correct approach. I suspect it's flawed in some way. I've thought we should eventually investigate this sort of thing (perhaps more profitable in return charts than natals) but didn't think it deserved priority ahead of so many other basics in TM.

Where I think it is probably flawed conceptually is, first, that aspects and angularity aren't exactly the same sort of thing: One shows a specific type of demanding energy and the other shows how likely that energy is to externalize. Perhaps these don't exactly scale together. I clearly don't know for sure, though I have impressions from how some things work.

I admit that my tactics (that I use instead of such complex scaling) tend to approximate it - almost like they are ways to get the same results as if we were using interrelated aspect and angularity curves - to "fake it" very effectively. I also know that many of my ideas about return charts date back decade to when we didn't have the calculation tools we have today and were doing almost everything ecliptically (with an occasional spot check or clever fake t detect mundane items).

What it seems in practice, though, is that - while tight angularity combined with tight orbs surges to the front as a powerful, strongly expressed, high-demand energy, angularity itself seems to mark more "thresholds" by which aspects "qualify" to be considered.

I think I should break and take that part up om the next post.

[Jim Eshelman]

Over time, I've developed tactics for sorting through all of this based on how things appear to work in practice. It's quite possible these tactics are merely approximations of a more complicated system (such as the one mentioned above of weighting angularities against aspect strengths), though they present themselves more as something else.

In both ingresses and return charts, being foreground seems much more like it sets planets above a threshold that gives the aspect expressibility, but the degree of closeness to an angle doesn't seem very important in the expression of the aspect. (Ingresses and returns behave slightly differently, but this one characteristic seems stable to both.)

To be more explicit: Closeness to an angle is greatly important for planets, but for aspects behavior is close to an on-off toggle (qualify to be read by being foreground), and then the closeness of the aspect governs. This is so pronounced that, on reflection, I'm increasingly attracted to one of your recent ideas about how to display angularity strength. (More on that as I go, so I don't branch too much.)

To give an example: I can rarely distinguish a 2° Mars-Pluto square (or whatever) 7° from angles from a 2° Mars-Pluto square 1° from the angle EXCEPT the second one also has partile Mars angular and Pluto angular. These, however, are separate factors from the aspect. (Sticking to close contacts, the first is Mars-Pluto; the second is Mars-Pluto, Mars angular, and Pluto angular.)

The method (tactics) for interpreting ingresses is:
(1) Identify foreground planets (any orb out to Class 3 boundary 10°).
(2) Rank angular planets by relative angularity.
(2) Using only foreground planets, identify all aspects (hard aspects, usually only Class 1)
(3) Rank aspects by orb.

Read the chart by a mix of closest angularities and closest aspects (but without distinguishing importance of aspects by the angularity of the involved planets, only by their orbs).

Return charts also follow this rule (as far as I've stated it thus far): A foreground aspect operates independent of its relative angularity (as long as its foreground), although the planets themselves express (are obvious) based on their relative angularities.

One difference between them is that ingresses only need one of the two aspecting planets to be foreground. Non-foreground aspects to foreground planets do operate but only as supplemental, fill-in-the-blanks second tier aspects. (Interpret the chart without them to get the fundamental nature of the time, then read these second-tier aspects only within the conditions defined by the chart so far.) Return charts don't work this way: Non-partile aspects aren't effective unless both planets are foreground. (This one behavior does feel like a gradual taper of aspect importance based on angularity, though not entirely, since it has that "threshold" effect at the outer boundary of the foreground one.)

On why this works this way in ingresses and not returns, I'd have to guess, though I can make a reasonable guess. First, returns may have more general "nose" since there are twice as many planets. Second, individual human psychology is different from mass psychology in ways that seem consistent with this (it's too complicated to put in a short sentence or two).

Return charts show a different kind of "tapering off" effect that I can't replicate with ingresses: When a return chart is too complicated - too much "chatter" - I start by dropping out Class 3 angularities. This removes some planets and, more importantly, their aspects. (Those aspects are valid - they eventually have to be added back in - but I can get a clearer picture of the essential nature of the return without them. Here's what's interesting to me: I can drop out Class 3 angularities (and their aspects) and not lose anything vital to the return; but this effect doesn't continue: I can't then drop out Class 2 angularities (and their aspects) and get an even sharper picture! I'm always at risk of missing something important, it's incomplete. If it is a REALLY complicated chart, I can drop out Class 2 angularities to get a "just tell me what the very very strongest things are" look, but I always have to reincorporate aspects of Class 2 angularities really fast to be sure I have a solid picture. (Aspects of Class 3 angularities I can integrate more slowly and maybe get away without them.)

[Jim Eshelman]

Let's look at your interesting proposal of ranking by closer angularity of the aspected planet (the two Moons). Several thoughts:

• This doesn't match my experience of how aspects in general work in returns or ingresses. Once an aspect is "allowed," their importance ranks by aspect orb more or less unrelated to the exact angularities of the two planets. (The relative angularities are separate factors that may be meaningful.)
• Especially if it is an ecliptical aspect, the aspect to natal Moon would have been ongoing and already and established phenomena strong in a person's life. (Mundane aspects and wider aspects are less clear on this point.)

And yet... if you use the scaling back by angularity class I just mentioned, you might get a really interesting result that upsets the applecart a bit and calls for more ingenious interpretation.

Suppose transiting Moon is in Class 1 angularity and natal Moon is Class 3. Neptune (which is, say, Class 2 angular) ecliptically aspects both of them with an equal orb. Under my current thinking, in looking at the whole lunar - angularities to Class 3 and Class 1 aspects involving only those planets - we would interpret transiting Moon's angularity angularity as the strongest factor, along with transiting Neptune aspecting natal Moon. This is an interesting mix: It highlights the ongoing Neptune-Moon transit. It shows someone in a cloudy, vague, probably highly sensitized state (for me it was usually losing my contact lens ad being half-blind for a few days), a little frail (form e usually having a bug). Add transiting Moon closely foreground and add emotional excitement surrounding one, in the environment, with rapidly changing or unstable conditions, possible attention, certain getting caught up in the commotion. While it's hard to sort out this particular mix of planets (they overlap in such things as emotions, reaction, sensitivity), the main picture is of a cloudy, disoriented, sensitized person being caught up in circumstances that are rapidly changing, filled with emotion and psychological happenings around one (rather than one's own), etc.

Ah, but if I want a "crisper" look at this time, I'm already persuaded that I can temporarily drop the Class 3 natal Moon to get to more of the essence of the chart. All of a sudden, the Neptune transit to natal Moon doesn't exist! - There is no "natal Moon" in the chart! The same aspect becomes transiting Moon to transiting Neptune because I've changed the rules. This helps clarify that the core experience of the time is emotional commotion and lability in the environment, not in oneself. (As Bob Paige once sagely said to me, "When it's transiting Neptune that's angular, remember that it's everybody around you that's crazy, not you." Moon angular is similar, but with a different spin.)

This starts becoming really interesting and gives the chance to really dig into what's going on. If I "go for the essence," using only Class 1 an 2 angularities, that "essence" is marked by transiting Moon most angular and a transiting Moon aspect with transiting Neptune. "The world is crazy and you're going to feel every bit of it! Remember it's not you!" But when I got back to restore the Class 3 angularities, this tMo-tNe becomes a tNe-rMo, and we get something like, "Yeah, but remember it's really all you. Treat things as if there is no change in the environment, just in your own sensitivity and sanity."

These are really hard to sort out - they are so similar, but when you apply an inside-outside model, they do seem to sort themselves out.

I think there is truth in both - Neptune is, after all, aspecting both Moons and the meanings, while distinctive, are often very much alike (the difference between them sometimes seeming arbitrary, though I think we should still struggle to see the difference).

To my mind, we can get the perspective you want to create by simply limiting the foreground orbs to the extent that seems viable. I understand that you'd like to have it just come out that way.

[Jim Eshelman]

This brings me back to one of your ideas the other day and something it triggered in my mind,

I read ingresses primarily from aspects. Foreground quality is mostly to "qualify" the planets to exist. But that's not entirely true: It's obviously clear that an exactly (or nearly exactly) angular has a major voice and commonly will dominate the chart.

I nearly always handle this "sorting out the pieces" on the fly, but it has certainly caused me to think about how we can quantify the matter to give clearer guidance to students and practitioners. The idea that keeps coming back to me when I occasionally think of this is: Just treat angularity as another aspect and rank it with all the other aspects. (The times when I give "first word" to an angularity in an ingress is when it's closer than, or at least comparable close to, the strongest aspects. Collating them together gives reasonable) guidance.' (NOTE: I think of return charts similarly, but they're so much more complicated that they don't make clear examples.)

You had proposed showing angularity % strength as strength-of-foregroundness rather than full strength-on-cadent-to-angular-scale. I argued for keeping the angularity score overall for various reasons. This, however, doesn't prevent us ALSO listing angular contacts like aspects in the aspect list - strength shown differently using the formula for aspect strength.

I've been wondering, therefore, if we should add the option (default to off, make it a toggle on) to add "aspects to angles" (to use a terrible phrase we shouldn't use) to the aspect tables. Thus, my Moon 3°15' below Descendant would not only show in the first table as foreground, on Descendant, 97% angularity strength, but would also be in the aspect table (as Moon conjunct Descendant or - perhaps better - Moon opposite Ascendant) with the strength of a 3°15' opposition (which, with my orb choices, would be a Class 1 opposition at 87% strength).

Here's how Marion's natal would look under that model (with her several foreground planets), except I haven't resorted the columns - I've just added he new (angle)aspects to the bottom of each column. Notice that Mercury conjunct Ascendant comes out stronger than all but tw of her planet-planet aspects.

Code: Select all

Pl Longitude   Lat   Speed    RA     Decl   Azi     Alt      ML     PVL    Ang G
Mo 15Le59' 2"  3N53 +12 20' 163 14' 11N20 320 35' -29  5' 203 15' 138 47'  22%  b
Su 14Ta 1'27"  0N 0 +57'32"  66 30' 21N41  55 39' - 5  3' 182 51'   6  7'  92% A 
Me 27Ar30'46"  3S35 - 1'49"  50 17' 14N44  71 24' + 1  5' 179 39' 358 52' 100% A 
Ve 19Ar28' 4"  1S31 + 1 13'  41 42' 14N30  77  2' + 7 12' 178 23' 352 37'  86% A 
Ma  3Le51' 0"  1N25 +29'21" 150 45' 13N28 334 30' -32 13' 209 38' 124 20'  96% N 
Ju 17Pi58' 6"  1S11 +10'59"  11 40'  3N44 105 29' +22 48'   6 24' 336 26'  10%  b
Sa 28Cp52'23"  1S 3 + 0'24" 325 48' 14S49 160 24' +32 24'  30 52' 297 52'  50%   
Ur  7Le 7' 9"  0N46 + 1' 7" 153 39' 11N42 330 37' -32 52' 209 22' 127 13'  85% N 
Ne 19Li25'23"  1N50 - 1'27" 221 45' 14S12 257 15' - 6 57' 358 27' 172 52'  87% D 
Pl 15Le19'57" 13N36 + 0'16" 166 33' 20N32 322 30' -19 30' 195 42' 149 48'   0%  b
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Class 1 Aspects         Class 2 Aspects         Class 3 Aspects     
Mo sq Su  1 58' 93%      Mo tr Ve  3 29' 77%       Mo co Ur  8 52' 20%  
Mo co Pl  0 39'100%      Mo sx Ne  3 26' 77%       Su co Me  7 15' 45% M
Su sq Pl  1 18' 97%      Su sx Ju  3 57' 70%       Su sq Ur  6 54' 14%  
Me sq Sa  1 22' 96%      Me co Ve  6 14' 59% M     Me sq Ma  6 20' 27%  
Ve op Ne  0  3'100%      Me op Ne  5 59' 62% M     Sa op Ur  8 15' 30%  
Ma oc Ju  0 53' 91%      Ve tr Pl  4  8' 68%       Ur co Pl  8 13' 30%  
Ma co Ur  2 53' 91% M    Ma op Sa  4 59' 73%       Ve co As  7°23'  2%                    
Me co As  1° 8' 98%      Ju op Pl  6 38' 54% M     Ur sq As  2°14' 39%                    
Ma sq As  1° 3' 85%      Ne sx Pl  4  5' 68%       Ne op As  7° 8'  8%
                         Su co As  6° 7' 57%

Unless I've missed or forgotten something, that may be all I wanted to say on this Sorry it took a couple of days to get it all here.

[Mike V]

Lots of cool stuff to discuss... Let's see how much I can get through tonight.

NB - You referred to "rules for biwheels... consistently applied." I suspect that was shorthand and you know that returns, though currently the only biwheels, are not the only biwheels we'll have and these are explicitly return chart rules. (But, as I said, I'm sure you knew that .)

I think I knew that? Synastric analysis would also be a biwheel... and other things...
But yes, I really mean "returns" specifically in this thread. My brain is just in "biwheel" mode since that's the code I'm working with.

Calculate but do not display ecliptical aspects between transiting X and natal planets.
Include mundane aspects between transiting X and natal planets if the mundane orb is tighter than the (calculated but not displayed) ecliptical orb. This one half of the special logic.

...and tighter than a natal mundane aspect orb. [That might be trickier to capture.]

Tricky? It probably will be, yeah. But I think it's worth doing.

Example: I have a 2°00' ecliptical Uranus-Neptune square. In LA, it is a 0°11' mundane square. I have a 2°25' Mars-Neptune square that, at birthplace is a 0°07' mundane square. The first part of the thinking is clear enough: In a given chart, don't display these unless the orb is smaller than the smallest orb. The second part is complicated an I'm not sure we want to try to force the program to anticipate and address multiple locations. (There are so many potential breakdown points, we may never loop back to that.)

But what we DO know is that the astrologer has specified a location for the return chart! [...]
So any comparison to mundane orbs should be against the nativity for the location selected for the return chart.

I agree with all of this.

(I suppose natal aspects for that location will have to be recalculated in the return chart aspectarian logic.)

The good news is that we already do recalculate natal aspects for return charts So we get this behavior for free.

As I think this through, this makes the most sense in several ways (including the fact that I'm skeptical birthplace mundane aspects persist other than by habituated behavior patterns).

I buy it. While comparing against mundane aspects from the radix's original location is doable, I feel like it's not worth it. It makes some subtle assumptions on behalf of the astrologer using the program, and I feel like it doesn't need to.

NB - My error in flow of this answer: What I just wrote above really applies to Other Partile Aspects. I might have confused things. If a luminary aspect to a natal planet is foreground, we want it displayed regardless, it's just a matter of planet and orb. So if nothing I just wrote applies to the first aspect category, please excuse the out of sequence and slip these comments to the second (OPA) category. - Too many separate things to keep track of when answering on a small screen. <g>

I'm pretty sure I'm following your intention; none of this throws me for a loop.

NB - I didn't carefully trace all your logic in a proofreading sense, but the general flow looked right, and certainly the approach looks dead-on.

That's what unit tests are for, once we get down to implementing this stuff

[Mike V]

What it seems in practice, though, is that - while tight angularity combined with tight orbs surges to the front as a powerful, strongly expressed, high-demand energy, angularity itself seems to mark more "thresholds" by which aspects "qualify" to be considered.

[...]

In both ingresses and return charts, being foreground seems much more like it sets planets above a threshold that gives the aspect expressibility, but the degree of closeness to an angle doesn't seem very important in the expression of the aspect. (Ingresses and returns behave slightly differently, but this one characteristic seems stable to both.)

Ah, this is a new line of thinking for me. I was viewing it almost the other way around - primarily looking at a dump of the angular planets, and then checking for super obvious aspects, like "oh Venus is foreground but Saturn and Pluto are squaring it, so it's not just a nice Venus thing."

To give an example: I can rarely distinguish a 2° Mars-Pluto square (or whatever) 7° from angles from a 2° Mars-Pluto square 1° from the angle EXCEPT the second one also has partile Mars angular and Pluto angular. These, however, are separate factors from the aspect. (Sticking to close contacts, the first is Mars-Pluto; the second is Mars-Pluto, Mars angular, and Pluto angular.)

I have difficulty grasping the subtleties here. At the risk of starting another branch, let me ask it like this - how would you interpret these 2 separate cases, assuming they are the only thing at all happening in the entire chart? Let's say these are Lunar Returns, and lets say both planets are transiting in both cases.

- a 2° Mars-Pluto square 7° from major angles;
- Mars 20' from Zenith and Pluto 1° from IC, no aspect between them.

Ignoring for a moment your remarks on the interplay of angularity and aspects, and only going by what I would've interpreted these as if you asked me last week:

- I would look at the first chart and say, "yeesh, that seems emotionally eruptive, climactic, possibly physically dangerous, and probably I'm getting nailed by something really painful, but the angularity is so wide I might just end up forgetting about this chart before it expires. Painful and serious, but also brief and quickly getting buried by other factors happening in my transits or whatever."
- I would look at the second and say: "Looks irritating, busy, emotionally reactive; separately, Pluto on IC makes me think of some intense, private re-evaluation of life, disconnecting from others and hashing out some authenticity issues, possibly catalyzed or forced by abrupt, shocking outer events."

Non-partile aspects aren't effective unless both planets are foreground. (This one behavior does feel like a gradual taper of aspect importance based on angularity, though not entirely, since it has that "threshold" effect at the outer boundary of the foreground one.)

This is another case where I haven't been interpreting them this way. I've been drawing the line at at least one planet being foreground.
I interpreted it as like - Venus shows up to the party (is closely foreground), but Saturn calls them up and keeps them on the phone for 45 minutes and totally sours their mood (is closely aspecting, but not foreground); even though Saturn isn't at the party, Venus's expression was colored rather significantly by Saturn.

Return charts show a different kind of "tapering off" effect that I can't replicate with ingresses: When a return chart is too complicated - too much "chatter" - I start by dropping out Class 3 angularities[...]

I have had so much difficulty with this. Once we get to more than 5 or 6 planets in the foreground, and/or more than 10 aspects, I just lose track of what I'm expecting from the chart.
But then, perhaps our thresholds aren't actually so different in terms of what constitutes "chatter." I just have a hard time getting any more useful understanding when I add back in, say, Class 3 angularities, let alone their aspects.

[Mike V]

Let's look at your interesting proposal of ranking by closer angularity of the aspected planet (the two Moons). Several thoughts:

• This doesn't match my experience of how aspects in general work in returns or ingresses. Once an aspect is "allowed," their importance ranks by aspect orb more or less unrelated to the exact angularities of the two planets. (The relative angularities are separate factors that may be meaningful.)
• Especially if it is an ecliptical aspect, the aspect to natal Moon would have been ongoing and already and established phenomena strong in a person's life. (Mundane aspects and wider aspects are less clear on this point.)

That's fair. I am still very much learning the nuances of these techniques.

To my mind, we can get the perspective you want to create by simply limiting the foreground orbs to the extent that seems viable. I understand that you'd like to have it just come out that way.

That's also fair. Your example with Moons and Neptune helps me distinguish between these cases.

You had proposed showing angularity % strength as strength-of-foregroundness rather than full strength-on-cadent-to-angular-scale. I argued for keeping the angularity score overall for various reasons. This, however, doesn't prevent us ALSO listing angular contacts like aspects in the aspect list - strength shown differently using the formula for aspect strength.

I've been wondering, therefore, if we should add the option (default to off, make it a toggle on) to add "aspects to angles" (to use a terrible phrase we shouldn't use) to the aspect tables. Thus, my Moon 3°15' below Descendant would not only show in the first table as foreground, on Descendant, 97% angularity strength, but would also be in the aspect table (as Moon conjunct Descendant or - perhaps better - Moon opposite Ascendant) with the strength of a 3°15' opposition (which, with my orb choices, would be a Class 1 opposition at 87% strength).

I am so on board with this. This is exactly what I have been looking for.

Here's how Marion's natal would look under that model [...]

Yep, I'm a big fan of this. Maybe I can add this in with, or shortly after, the code to add angles to the data table?

[Jim Eshelman]

I'll answer the easy one first...

I am still very much learning the nuances of these techniques.

We all are. After most of a century of development, we have rules that grab the big picture and reliably point us in the right way, but the finesses often are more art fed by imagination (or convenience of the moment), I'm in continual reworking and reconsideration of what "rules" to give people so they can learn how to do it and, by ruling in or out certain conditions, knowing exactly the terrain within which we are exploring. - When I get to writing Volume II of CSA, I'll just have to draw a line and commit to "current generation of understanding" guidelines.

Of course, I can only be very, very rule-driven only because I'm quite willing to break the rules at a moment's notice

I remember a lunar ingress that first sharpened my thinking about "interpret the aspects if you've got'em." Thinking of the planets in the combinations they are forming "narrows the Venn diagram": Of all the possibilities for a given planet, it narrows the probable picture to those which are shared by the two planets. In this ingress, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Pluto were foreground, all more or less the same strength. They sorted out, though, to a Mercury-Mars aspect and a Venus-Pluto aspect: strategic mobilization, a sense of emergency with nerves on end, combative words, all along with significant disruptions or shifts in "friendships," i.e., relationships with other countries. It was a chart for a declaration of war (I think it was WW I). If the same four planets had been foreground but combined as Mercury-Venus and Mars-Pluto, it likely would have been saber-rattling, confrontational threat, with diplomacy (friendly words) altering the outcome.

[Jim Eshelman]

To give an example: I can rarely distinguish a 2° Mars-Pluto square (or whatever) 7° from angles from a 2° Mars-Pluto square 1° from the angle EXCEPT the second one also has partile Mars angular and Pluto angular. These, however, are separate factors from the aspect. (Sticking to close contacts, the first is Mars-Pluto; the second is Mars-Pluto, Mars angular, and Pluto angular.)

I have difficulty grasping the subtleties here. At the risk of starting another branch, let me ask it like this - how would you interpret these 2 separate cases, assuming they are the only thing at all happening in the entire chart? Let's say these are Lunar Returns, and lets say both planets are transiting in both cases.

- a 2° Mars-Pluto square 7° from major angles;
- Mars 20' from Zenith and Pluto 1° from IC, no aspect between them.

Your sample interpretations of these are pretty good. I'd end up using different words but the two sets would be recognizable to each other. I think you're going down right paths, even capturing the sense of relative intensity that would be one of the most important differences.

Let's start with laying out what I'd expect from each of these factors by itself, using stock text right off the site as a take-off point (presuming both are transiting planets):

• Mars-Pluto aspect: One is forced to stand accountable for one's actions (with swift, unapologetic consequences); otherwise, to take unusual initiative amidst urgent events (air of crisis or emergency). Suspenseful, tense. Unprecedented force (possible aggression, belligerence, or attack). Consequences of cumulative stresses.
• Transiting Mars angular: Others are aggressive, competing, challenging, attacking (sexual bounty). Opposition, defense, shows of strength, struggles for dominance or control. Atmosphere heated, irritating, confronting. Injuries, accidents, inflammation, physical discomfort.
• Transiting Pluto angular: Life revolts against expectation: Dramatic interruptions, alterations, climax, crossroads (crisis, shock). Separating, isolating, or singling out from the herd. High impact events (facing stark, no-nonsense reality). Realization (unevadable reality vacates prior ideas).

If we had a 2° Mars-Pluto aspect with each about 7° from the angles - presuming these are both transiting planets and this is the only thing of importance in the chart - the first thing that would come to me is that this isn't a very important lunar return. There would be very distinctive characteristics of a Mars-Pluto nature, but the period wouldn't especially alter the course of life - it would just have a distinctive tone. If it were for someone else and I wasn't doing a careful month-by-month set of notes, I might overlook it.

I might simplify by shrugging and saying "Oh, you'll be grumpy." I think this catches the right tone. With the close Mars-Pluto aspect, there would be significant, unusual discharge of energy, probably some tension and stress - adding incrementally to cumulative stress - in events that would rivet your attention. There would be a need to "let go" and stop resisting that the past was discontinued and the future looked different, but not in a huge, I might expect things like overwork stress and strain, an ultimately minor grudgy encounter with someone, or a domination-leaning sexual encounter where the only reasonable choice was to surrender to whatever moved through you and have one walloping gigantic orgasm at the end.

What I would not expect are things specifically characteristic of the Mars or Pluto individually. The main characteristic of transiting Pluto angular is that events are riveting, high impact, transitional in a sense of shedding the past like a snake sheds its skin. This wouldn't be a gripping high impact event like that: Any events would have something of that sort of feel but dilute (the way that ten minutes early in Saving Private Ryan holds your attention but then doesn't fundamentally alter your life). There wouldn't be serious aggression directed at you. You might actually wish you had more energy flowing (since the Mars wouldn't be all that strong and you're probably working too hard and pulling it out of your aff instead of your normal reserves).


Changing the scenario to transiting Mars and Pluto closely angular with no aspects or midpoints drawing arising from their positions (and nothing else of substance in the chart), this might sound somewhat similar in that - even though there's not the aspect - I'd probably scan my mental pool of Mars-Pluto aspect evens looking to "narrow the Venn." But I'd pull back from (drop or ignore) those that didn't match the actual conditions of the chart. With transiting Pluto that angular, it would be a high-impact period, possibly altering life in some fashion (within the scale of a lunar return's time period). There would be enormous energy crackling in the air. The form of this could be a direct attack - or at least direct aggression - directed toward you, the need or opportunity to engage in combat (attacked? asked to join the office football team? a super-heated sex thing?). Perhaps most characteristic, it would be gripping and seem inescapable at the time and would certainly get your adrenaline pumping, perhaps provoking anger at what you were experiencing or involving you in heated things. Like the other one, it likely would be tense (good or bad), uncomfortable (even if deemed a desirable event), perhaps a health crisis. It might be a "sense of emergency" like the other but with a difference: The other would have a threat seeming on the periphery, not right in your face, on the edge of awareness (which might, by itself, trigger distrustfulness or apprehension), while this one would be right in your face, no time to dwell on it, just deal with it.

Or something like that. We'll rarely get an exact event, but we can do our best to paint the psychological tone and the quality and intensity of the experience.

Non-partile aspects aren't effective unless both planets are foreground. (This one behavior does feel like a gradual taper of aspect importance based on angularity, though not entirely, since it has that "threshold" effect at the outer boundary of the foreground one.)

This is another case where I haven't been interpreting them this way. I've been drawing the line at at least one planet being foreground.

I can't see these working, I've been able to draw very sharp distinctions in outcomes when one planet crosses into non-foreground. The foreground planet seems siloed off. One good place to study this is when you are undergoing a year or more of a very slow planet transit. In one sense, it will always be there ("the story will be continuing") from the time it's first partile until it's last partile; and, of course, it will be strong while partile during that year or two; but you can see big, obvious differences between those months it's foreground and those months it isn't. - The months where one of the planets is foreground and the other isn't feel like the times when they are both background: The aspect itself seems "not to exist."

Until we loop back at the end to see if we want to add anything from the partile non-foreground aspects, I do think the best strategy for return charts is to pretend that non-foreground planets don't exist. If it were easier to do in Solar Fire, I'd always show these charts with ONLY foreground planets on the wheel. - I use 1+ FG for ingresses, but 2 FG for returns.

I

Return charts show a different kind of "tapering off" effect that I can't replicate with ingresses: When a return chart is too complicated - too much "chatter" - I start by dropping out Class 3 angularities[...]

I have had so much difficulty with this. Once we get to more than 5 or 6 planets in the foreground, and/or more than 10 aspects, I just lose track of what I'm expecting from the chart.

The human brain can only synthesize about six factors at once. Everything else requires mental tactics or neurological enhancement (or will fail). One of the best tactics is not to try to blend all the factors but, rather, to "keep adding to the story." Interpret layer one and get a solid sense of the story. Add layer two and require that it manifest as details within the story you've already started. Look at layer three and be willing not to worry about details that may be part of the story but not really shaping it (e.g., what's sitting on the table in a movie, when nobody is going to interact with any of it) but, otherwise, to fit what's obvious into the story you've already shaped up.

I'll see if I can find an example of one of my old SLRs that has a huge number of foreground planets and aspects stretched across all three angularity classes.

[Jim Eshelman]

Here are some example lunars. I don 't know that they're great examples, but they allow some points to be made. - In terms of a layering approach in storytelling, I always remember something Gary Duncan taught (when we were discussing ho to craft computerized SLR interpretations): Always start be declaring whether it will be a good month or a bad month (and stick to your decision). Ultimately, this is what people want to know: good time or bad time. This has weaknesses and problems, but they're pretty much all covered by the details you will go on to gather.

With rare exception, this is handled entirely by headcounts of benefics vs. malefics foreground (weighted by relative angularity) - the scoring system I've been using, for example. This is where I look at foreground headcount first. From a literary point of view (to exaggerate for a moment), it declares whether you are writing a comedy or a tragedy (in the Elizabethan sense). Be decisive on whether it is a good time, bad time, or mixed. "Mixed" can be leaning good or bad, "neither particularly good or bad," "having strong good and bad elements," etc., but decide this first.

Next, look for the strongest factors. I generally cut right to the aspects for this (to get the most differentiated interpretations), but (without usually calling it this) I tend to lump close angularities with aspects ("planet aspecting angle Class 1") in my thinking, so sometimes individual angularities sneak in. From all of this - the mix of aspects and angularities - tell the main story.

If there is just too much, be sure to drop out Class 3 angularities and the aspects that go with them. THEN tell the story.

Having the basic story, add back in the Class 3 angularities. You probably won't need to change much (but might) but probably will have things to add. (But don't force yourself: If simple things don't even fit from this, they probably represent things uncertain and contradicted in the chart anyway.)

Look, finally, at Other Partile Aspects. Integrate these only if they are an easy fit of new details. Generally consider them as "background influences" that are happening in the background of the story without necessarily being part of the main story you're telling (think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hamlet). Outer planet background partile aspects show continuing backdrop circumstances ("He continues on a general upbeat wave when things broadly go his way," or "Backdrop threats continue but simply don't draw as much attention tis month.")

[Jim Eshelman]

Consider my January 7, 2022 SLR discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5467&p=42302#p43924 - In the prior period (seen a year or more earlier as likely the most difficult month we'd both have maybe in our whole history), we both got Covid-19 for the first time, were crawling up out of it slowly. Sometime in this fortnight I went back to work again (though I was really dragged down for the entire month and part of the next.)

I recalculated the SLR. Here is a fresh breakdown:

t Saturn on EP-a -1°51'
t Mercury on Asc -7°42'
r Uranus on Dsc -1°45'
r Jupiter on Dsc -1°40'
t Pluto on Asc -1°08'
r Mars on Asc -0°25'
----------------------------
r Neptune on Z +0°11'
r Mercury on MC +7°07'
t Uranus on IC +7°13'
t Sun on Asc +7°19'
r Saturn on MC +7°26'
t Venus on Asc +9°05'

t Uranus op r Mercury 0°05' M
r Jupiter-Uranus co 0°05'
t Sun sq r Saturn 0°06'
t Sun-Uranus sq 0°07'
t Sun sq r Mercury 0°12'
t Uranus op r Saturn 0°13' M
t Saturn sq r Mercury 0°14'
r Mercury-Saturn co 0°38' M
t Pluto op r Jupiter 0°32' M
t Pluto op r Uranus 0°37'
t Pluto co r Mars 0°43' M
r Mars-Jupiter op 1°15' M
r Mars-Uranus op 1°20'
t Venus sq r Saturn 1°39' M
t Sun-Venus co 1°45' M
t Saturn-Uranus sq 1°46'
t Venus-Uranus sq 1°52' M
t Venus sq r Mercury 1°57' M
t Saturn sq r Saturn 2°39' M
t Mercury-Saturn co 3°59' M

OTHER PARTILE ASPECTS'
t Sun sq r Sun 0°12'
t Pluto sq r Neptune 0°14'

[Jim Eshelman]

Whew! What do you do with that? Twelve foreground planets and twenty foreground aspects. Nobody can read it like that!

Let's step through it, though: First, is it a good or a bad time? On crude, unweighted count, there are four benefics and four malefics foreground. Using my weighting system (as one way to do it, but a way I'm happy with so far), these foreground planets produce:

Malefic = 12, Benefic = 9
Change = 11
Indignity = 9, Dignity = 6, Spotlight = 1

Raw numbers of good-bad planets are four and four. The more subtle scoring says 12 to 9. I judge this is a mixed month, with unpleasantness or difficulties somewhat outweighing the opposite.

So let's see what this month is going to be about in detail. First, where there is so much going on, my first step is to drop Class 3 angularities (taking aspects with it). This gives:

t Saturn on EP-a -1°51'
r Uranus on Dsc -1°45'
r Jupiter on Dsc -1°40'
t Pluto on Asc -1°08'
r Mars on Asc -0°25'
----------------------------
r Neptune on Z +0°11'

r Jupiter-Uranus co 0°05'
t Pluto op r Jupiter 0°32' M
t Pluto op r Uranus 0°37'
t Pluto co r Mars 0°43' M
r Mars-Jupiter op 1°15' M
r Mars-Uranus op 1°20'

Narrowing helps a lot! Experience tells me we could read the chart just from this and be OK. What stands out is my natal Mars and Neptune (that are in close square [NOTE: TM missed that aspect in the list for unknown reason. I just reported the bug]. So this "mixed and somewhat bad" month likely involves infection, poison, some form of being sick, Mars-Neptune type psychological states and moods, etc. If I were to (excessively) cut to Class 1, I'd get only the natal Mars-Neptune and, on the edge, transiting Pluto which conjoins Mars (partile) and squares Neptune (partile), suggesting it is even more likely that this affects physical health and convalescence. Pluto to natal Mars-Uranus-Pluto flesh out probably cashflow concerns and general changing conditions (details to be fleshed out).

Rounding out the primary story, I see that my entire T-square is foreground wit close angularities of natal Jupiter-Uranus, which (at 0°05' mundo) provide the positive side of the "mixed quality" month; and then there is a bit of Saturn. The whole things seems a bit of a drag but, perhaps, one I'm able to make the best of with things like inquiries, investigation, astrology stuff in general - some exploratory and fun.

With this, I have the basic story of the month. (I haven't polished it as a story, but the essential nature is clear - and even clearer if you know me and how I'll spend my time, and if you know my condition, which has just being knocked flat with Covid-19 for the first time (and my wife similarly sick).

Next, what happens when we restore the Class 3 angularities and their aspects? This adds back transiting Mercury, Sun, Uranus, and Venus, and natal Mercury-Saturn. I rarely would bother to read these angularities at all, but they do add the following aspects back:

t Uranus op r Mercury 0°05' M
t Sun sq r Saturn 0°06'
t Sun-Uranus sq 0°07'
t Sun sq r Mercury 0°12'
t Uranus op r Saturn 0°13' M
t Saturn sq r Mercury 0°14'
r Mercury-Saturn co 0°38' M
t Venus sq r Saturn 1°39' M
t Sun-Venus co 1°45' M
t Saturn-Uranus sq 1°46'
t Venus-Uranus sq 1°52' M
t Venus sq r Mercury 1°57' M
t Saturn sq r Saturn 2°39' M
t Mercury-Saturn co 3°59' M

This is a lot of aspects! I likely wouldn't spell them all out in detail (it would be more of an exercise than likely saying anything concrete). It does look good for discovery, astrology in general, and so forth. The transiting Sun-Uranus conjunction is its main aspect (7', and aspecting several planets especially Mercury). There are various positives and neutrals, some grumbly stuff not quite going my way either in terms of things not working or delays, and other details that could be mined from these aspect by aspect. (Not all bad: Consider transiting Venus-Uranus square even if it IS with Saturn.) Transiting Mercury-Saturn to natal Mercury-Saturn is interesting, and both the positives and negatives of this could be spelled out.

At this point, I'm spent. (Who wouldn't be?) The only non-fore partile aspect [once the Pluto-to-Neptune bug is fixed] is transiting Sun square natal Sun 12'. Maybe there is something one could add to use this and fit it in, but... why bother?

[Jim Eshelman]

The other example I found - a little cleaner and less mind-bending - is my August 4, 2023 SLR, which occurred while I was at m office (34N03'31" 118W24'59"). This post and the one right after it present the chart and list what I learned about analysis at the time: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6521#p54879
Despite first impressions of the chart, it was a really good month. We got our new car and loved it (still love it), though incurring significant debt, and had a solidly good month for four weeks (with two short road trips to "shake down" the car and see how it covered our needs). Recalculating:

t Mercury on Asc -4°30'
t Saturn on Dsc -0°40'
----------------------------
r Venus on IC +5°47'
t Venus on Ac +7°09'
t Uranus +8°51'
r Pluto +9°48'

r Venus-Pluto sq 0°13'
t Uranus sq r Pluto 0°57'
t Venus sq r Venus 1°22' M
t Venus co r Pluto 1°39'
t Venus-Uranus sq 1°42' M
t Uranus op r Venus 3°05' M
t Mercury-Saturn op 3°16'

OTHER PARTILE ASPECTS
t Saturn sq r Saturn 0°00' M
t Pluto op r Jupiter 0°08'
t Pluto op r Uranus 0°17' M
t Sun sq r Mercury 0°26' M

[Jim Eshelman]

When this chart first came around, I saw that Saturn within a degree of an angle - and nothing else close - and may have even seen that transiting Sun was 0°00' square natal Saturn and figured, "Oh, my, I don't like this!" But it was a great month. As I posted in the aftermath assessment, I didn't follow my own rules and weigh the entire foreground picture. With wider angularities of two Venuses and a Uranus, the actual formal scoring came to:

Malefic = 6, Benefic = 5

Indignity was up from the Saturn (without Sun or Jupiter to offset it), but the benefic-malefic balance was almost exactly equal. We would assess this at worst as "a fairly even mix of pleasing and displeasing conditions." A fairer wording would be, "a pretty even balance, leaning neither particularly good nor particularly bad on balance."

So this has to alter how that exactly angular Saturn is read. We're not used to reading an exactly angular Saturn as, "First off, this isn't all that bad," but this says perhaps we should. The chart isn't that hard to read as is - it has a lot of Venus aspects of the new / changed / fun (at worst, "upset" or - in the extreme - separation). If you strip out Class 3 it only really leaves exactly angular Saturn, transiting Mercury-Saturn opposition, and natal Venus moderately angular but we've already interpreted this as not really too bad, so those portents don't seem right. Looking at it this narrowly, I wouldn't have thought we'd find the new car so easily nor that we'd be entirely happy with it. Instead, we have the whole aspect slate.

I suspect that the Saturn so angular and the concurrent Pluto transits to Jupiter-Uranus show the financial restructuring - the taking on of debt - which seemed entirely right until Marion broke her ankle in the next month. Otherwise, this month is mostly marked by these aspects:

r Venus-Pluto sq 0°13'
t Uranus sq r Pluto 0°57'
t Venus sq r Venus 1°22' M
t Venus co r Pluto 1°39'
t Venus-Uranus sq 1°42' M
t Uranus op r Venus 3°05' M
t Mercury-Saturn op 3°16'

Given a stable, unthreatened marriage (which rules out the worst) this opens up with a BIG change of some sort, something involving pleasure or relationships (or both), some significant turning point in a relationship, and a whole lot of fun in the sense of novelty or newness. This was quite on the money (pun not originally intended, but retained).

[Mike V]

Thank you for that detailed explanation and breakdown. I think I have a better sense of what's reasonable in analysis. I'm happy to see that I wasn't all that far off, I just had different aspect rules (and ones which made my life harder, too).

it's quite timely too, as I'm starting to go back and analyze (and attempt to score) all my various returns over the last 6 months.

I really want to add in that optional feature to display "scaled foreground strength as if it were an aspect" along with the actual aspects. I think it would help me a great deal.

[Jim Eshelman]

The clearest label might be "Show angle aspects" and, really, thinking of these as co/op/sq square probably gives the right opinion of their strength. HOWEVER, there is then thr problem thst one of my mantras is "Angle's make no aspects!" (They aren't REALLY aspects to MC and Asc.)

So there ya go.

[Mike V]

What about, "Show angularity strength as if aspect with angle?"

Or, "Display relative angularity strength alongside aspect strength."

Yes, it's long, but I think that's okay. I don't know that there's a way to condense that into 2-4 words without losing key information. Maybe we can put this on a back page, like other other options.

[Patrick Machado]

"Include angularities [or, foreground planets] in aspectarian" or some shortened form of that.