Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

Hi, I would greatly appreciate some help with my sidereal chart. According to my birth certificate, I was born in Stockholm, Sweden at 1.30 PM on the 12th of January, 1970. I currently reside in Barnard Castle, Co Durham, United Kingdom. I had a look at a Vedic chart and it seemed a bitter fit... but I'm not drawn to Vedic Astrology, I'm feeling a much stronger pull toward exploring Sidereal Astrology. I have studied Tropical Astrology for many years but not in a professional capacity. I'm curious to learn if there is a reliable online calculator for drawing up one's own Sidereal natal chart. Thank you in advance.

Lisa, welcome to Solunars. Here is your Sidereal chart. (I'll add some starter notes on it shortly.)

When you moved to Teesside, you picked a location where Pluto and Neptune are your two most angular planets - Pluto is 0°22' below Descendant with Neptune 1°23' above Descendant.

Here are some "starter" notes on your natal horoscope. This isn't a full interpretation - just highlights of the most significant figures (which also can serve as a guide to reading more extensive discussions in the various parts of this site). These notes, for example, do not address the contradictory traits in you (which we all have), such as how you balance your instinct for convention and your equally strong sense of the unconventional - the depth that you embed yourself in your culture vs. the extreme way you are a social outlier, especially where you now live. All the parts are here; your life, lived thus far, brings the balance.

First, a summary of the main sign-positions, which are probably the things that most interest you in contrast to your Tropical studies.

Moon in Pisces
Most truly themselves when being someone else. Dramatizes a personal fiction; “big fish” confidence (self-important, airs?). Love having a “secret side.” Divas. Emotionally driven (haunted). Fascinated with the unknown. Religious thinking style. Faith, commitment to beliefs or vision. Judgmental. Hardened personal reality.

Sun in Sagittarius
Social elitism, aristocracy. Excellence, quality. Higher & higher, ambition, travel. Judges self & others, may fail own standards. Right-wrong, reward-punishment, belief- & values-driven. Respects continuity of culture & social rituals. Preserves status quo, heritage, myth when possible. Loyal to tribe. Complacent affection.

Mars in Aquarius
Powerful pragmatic mind is progressive, non-dogmatic. Analytical, innovative, resourceful. Visionaries (yet pragmatic first). Bold individual. Avoids automatic herd compliance. Honest, unpretentious. Follows own instincts, not advice. Gregarious, loves life, vested in friendship, helpful to friends (helper in general). Understands people. Sexually uninhibited.

Mercury in Sagittarius
Easy speech seems cultured, educated, authoritative, refined. Way with words, oratorical. Optimistic. Good-tempered, tactful, quiet (stubborn). Conscious of the architecture of thought & language. Does well in business world, commercially ambitious. Traveling.

Venus in Sagittarius
Idealist; committed to vision of world as they feel it should be. Values friendship (sees it as ennobling, honoring). Expects reliable friends (returns the same). Great need to be liked, accepted (nearly always is) & to bring value to a friendship. Warm, sociable, welcoming. Loves fun. Zealous & generous lovers. Needs affection openly declared: dislikes guessing.


Next, your angular planets. Of these, Pluto is widely angular at birth (but important anyway due to your close Moon-Pluto opposition, which I've included in this set). Neptune is angular only in England, where it (like Pluto) is quite close.

Angular Pluto (Dsc: natal 8°24', England 0°22')
Social outliers needing to be authentically themselves, without labels or arbitrary standards or expectations. Eccentric, antisocial, outrageous; won’t melt into the conventional collective. Singularly unique in their context, on their own path (vulnerable to persecution). Gentle, inoffensive, innocent, shy. Grapples with spiritual actualities.

Moon opposite Pluto (1°00')
Bold & forthright, questioning & challenging, maverick & alien; independent, “marching to a different drummer,” resisting authority. Avoids habitual conformity (rebellious?); resists conventional conditioning and being made to concur with others’ values and codes. Restless, unwilling to be still for long, can uproot or take to the road on little notice. Deeply inquiring into existential mysteries, often igniting remarkable intuitive insights.

Angular Neptune (Dsc England only: 1°23')
Sensitive, vulnerable, feels strongly (tunes into others deeply, not always accurately; feels exposed, over-response). Naturally absorbs & mirrors others’ traits. Sympathy, compassion, empathy (or emotional drama, insecurity, easily hooked, betrayed). Lives in own reality, tenacious with own viewpoint, impervious to logic, passionate about what uniquely frames their view (forges perception of the ACTUAL from their concept of the IDEAL). Favors complexity over simplicity. Dwells within the unknown, choosing mystery over revelation.


Finally, here are the other most important (closest) aspects.

Sun conjunct Mercury (2°01')
Resourceful, knack for organization, likely will do well in the business world, effectively self-expressive. One’s ideas are (unconsciously?) equated with the ego, so altering an opinion may feel like compromising oneself. Intellectual pride, stubbornness. Strong need to identify oneself with rationality, to affirm one’s sanity and reasonableness.

Moon sextile Mercury (2°25')
Intellect linked to emotion (subconscious patterns): Astute, intuitive, strategic. Personality led by intellect & nervous system. Short attention span; but with focus, easily absorbs knowledge. Under duress, “reasonableness” competes with reactive emotion.

Sun conjunct Venus (2°57')
Charming, gentle, fine companions. Keen sense of friendship and natural affection. Graceful. Marked aesthetic appreciation (if not artistic talents). Most comfortable in marriage or similar relationship. (A little vain?)

Sun sextile Mars (1°05')
Drive, courage, energy. Restless, moody, impatient, temperamental, stubbornly if silently prideful. Strong sexual needs. Industrious, instinctive leader.

Venus sextile Mars (1°52')
Passion (in all senses), feels powerfully about things, seeks vivid experiences. Sexual passions mature early, continue late, rarely encumbered by too many conditions. Fun-loving, loves romance: interesting, likable, sociable horny people.

Jupiter opposite Saturn (1°38')
Practical, sensible (especially with finances). Responsible, conscientious, determined. Courageous, effective survivors; rarely halted by adversity. Patient hard work (earning one's place, success through industry) brings the most reliable rewards. Balances gain & loss: what can be won from losing, what it costs to win (cf. politics, finance; making lemonade from lemons). Attuned to legacy, heritage, tradition. Cornerstones of their families or circles. Orthodoxies draw their strong allegiance or opposition (the most creative become baselines of new orthodoxies).

Wow, this is brilliant - Thank you so much, Jim! "the extreme way you are a social outlier" is very spot on... I had no idea the chart could pick up on that for where I live now... This has really stoked my interest and need to know more about sidereal astrology. The planets are all the same as the Vedic Chart I found online... except Mercury which was in the final degree of Capricorn in that system. Much food for thought here and I'm obviously much happier with Sun, Venus and Mercury in Sagittarius... I have always said I never felt like a Capricorn... but I always owned my Moon in Pisces which remained the same. I'm intrigued to say the least! Do you have a any book recommendations for a beginner? Also, is there somewhere online where you can check your Western Sidereal Chart or do you have software to recommend. I need to check everyone I know now haha!

You can calculate Sidereal charts on Astro.com. (Someone who spends far more time there than I do will probably pop in here with tips.)

Some of us here use Solar Fire, which is expensive or astro.com which is free.
We have a place here for instructions for using Solar Fire.

I posted short directions for using astro.com here, and Steve wrote up long directions as a hand out for a class he was giving here. If you start at the beginning of that thread (here) there's a lot of information you may find helpful.

Thanks!

Lisa asked:

Do you have any book recommendations for a beginner?

Most of the books on Western Sidereal Astrology are out of print. I would start with ‘Primer of Sidereal Astrology’ by Cyril Fagan and Brigadier R.C. Firebrace. Cyril Fagan was the father of Western Sidereal Astrology and is known by us Siderealists as the greatest historical astrological researcher in modern history. Fagan wanted to re-write the ‘Primer’ but his life ran out on him, but still a good book for interested beginning students for Western Sidereal Astrology.

If Primer stimulates your learning appetite for more, I would recommend ‘Solunars Handbook’, a selected collection of Cyril Fagan’s Solunar articles which ran from 1953-1970 in American Astrology Magazine. You can order this book from link # 2.

Since most of the best Sidereal Astrology books are out of print, some are becoming more expensive. If you graduate from the two above books, I would highly recommend the host of our forum, Jim Eshelman’s book “Interpreting Solar Returns,” since a Sidereal Solar Return ‘is the basis of the most powerful forecasting system known to astrological technology.’ You can order Jim’s out of print book from link # 3.

One thing for sure: Regardless the vast subject matters pertaining to Sidereal Astrology with questions by students, Jim has a well studied/researched answer.

1: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ... +Astrology

2: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i ... s+handbook

3: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing ... ar+returns

Thanks Jim, Jupiter Sets as Dawn and Steve. Will explore further!

Book recommendation:
Taking the Kid Gloves off Astrology
Free download. One of the best astrology books ever written. Notice the length. Not a lot of fat there.

We also have a number of articles Donald Bradley (pen name Garth Allen) here. Start in the Publications section. Scroll down to the last thread in that section.

Sidereal Mundane Astrology is linked there too. It might be a bit much for a beginner, but you probably should take a look. It's also free.

Ken Bowser's site is back online after being attacked by someone who mistakes disagreements for mortal attacks, and has some of Cyril Fagan's early articles posted. Ken's also working on adding to and reprinting Fagan's book Solunars.

Just an FYI. The phrase "Western Sidereal Astrology" is copyrighted and belongs to Ken. Outside of referring to Ken's work, it's a pejorative applied to us by certain Indian-Hindu-Vedic-Jyotish astrologers who use any of several zodiacs based on several different ayanamshas based on fixed stars or retranslations of some old text. The Sidereal Zodiac based on observation. Jim does a lot of research and keeps accidentally proving our zodiac is real. Sometimes people here get confused, but our zodiac is called the Sidereal Zodiac, and has, and needs, no adjectives.

That said, beware of books you see on Amazon or elsewhere that claim to be sidereal, but are based in Indian-Hindu-etc astrology, which is based on astrology brought to the Indian continent by Alexander the Great, not some grand old Vedic tradition. Also beware of books attempting to "fill a void" in published Sidereal literature written by people who read a couple of books and websites and think they know enough to write a book. They generally don't, or are just repackaging original stuff from Jim and Ken.

Then there are the Hellenists who use methods found in ancient books from the time that the Greeks ruled Egypt, but insist on using the tropical zodiac, claiming it's called for in the old books. They have mistaken the fact that Ptolemy said 0°of Aries coincided with the vernal equinox (which it did about the time he was writing,) in order to make it easier for people to follow his example charts while looking at the stars, with the idea they coincide for all time. Ptolemy wrote his opus in several volumes and he included precession in the math tome. Many people bought only one tome, and didn't realize they were never meant to be read as stand-alone texts.

So you'll find books available on reading solar and lunar returns that only use the tropical zodiac, and some that try to subtract precession to cast the chart and then add it back so they can use the tropical zodiac to delineate the chart. Since Sidereal Leo is not coincident with Tropical Virgo that just makes a huge mess.

So don't spend money on books that aren't by Fagan, Bradley, and Eshelman.

Your best source of information is here. That's what this site is for. Start with the Natal Astrology section, and if Jim didn't write it, take it with a half a box of salt. A lot of people come here to argue their own views, informed by having read a few websites, or by their personal "meditition" or something. Ignore them, stick to what Jim says.