Occult Aspects I

Greetings, and welcome back to Journeys! This month and next I am continuing the loose Neptune theme of the last few months with a post on the connections between planets which are not visible in the birth chart. We will also look at the astrology of Amelia Earhart, David Bowie, William Faulkner and Anne Frank. 

Fair warning – the techniques outlined in these two messages are more suitable for students of astrology at an intermediate or advanced level of study. For beginners these techniques could not only be confusing but also overwhelming because they yield more detail to an already complicated and detailed situation. Essentially we will be looking at the birth chart using a microscope to see some of the cellular structure or the wiring under the board. Understanding these articles is also helped by an understanding of mathematics and geometry, although in the modern world computers make the labour in this unnecessary. That said, however, beginners in astrology can still benefit from learning about these techniques – you may be one of the few who just gets it straight away, or you may just file it away and look at it again at a later point, as I did.

Both of these messages, this one and next months, will explore ways in which the objects (planets and Lights) in the birth chart can be connected to one another in ways which are not immediately readable from looking at the chart itself. They are also an advanced course in the topic of astrological aspects. We might term this entire field ‘occult aspects’ because they are aspects hidden from view as far as looking at a chart is concerned. This month I will talk about declination and the importance of parallel and contra-parallel aspects.

DECLINATION

To begin with it helps to identify what declination is by reflecting on the following – most people know that the Moon goes around the Earth about once every 28 days, giving rise to our word month. It’s also widely known that during that time there will be a period when it is filled with light as a Full Moon and a period when it can’t be seen at all, called the New Moon. The New Moon occurs when the Moon is in relatively the same position as the Sun in the sky, so she is not visible during the day because she is washed out by the sunlight nor is she visible by the night because she has descended below the horizon with the Sun. She has basically disappeared from view for a few days because she is very near to the Suns positioning in the heavens. It is also common knowledge that from time to time the disk of the Moon passes directly in front of the disk of the Sun, eerily covering it and giving rise to a total eclipse. The total eclipse of the Sun was one of the most fearsome and awe-inspiring occurrences in the skies of the ancient world and in early times it could create panic.

Fortunately, this was not a monthly occurrence! It is in fact comparatively rare, with most times that the Sun and Moon are in the same place in the sky being simple New Moons and not eclipses. The reason for this is that most times the Moon will be passing either above or below the Sun, not in front of it. In astrological and astronomical terminology this is called a difference in declination, a degree of distance north or south of the equator, projected into space. This celestial equator is a Great Circle around the Earth, and I will come back to it in a moment, for now its important to understand that this is different to the Great Circle of the ecliptic, which is the apparent path of the Sun through the sky over the course of a year (actually caused by us going around the Sun, so seeing different backdrops of stars behind it). The ecliptic is where we get our zodiac positions from, in other words it is the central column of the zodiac. The ecliptic circumnavigates the sky around the Earth through the 12 constellations that also inform the 12 signs of the zodiac, which are seasonal divisions measured from the twin equinoxes and twin solstices, the places on the ecliptic where the time of sunlight and day is equal, or at its zenith or nadir, compared to the time of darkness and night. These signs of the zodiac are named after the constellations, but they are not the same thing. They are instead 12 divisions of the year, 3 parts for each of 4 seasons, measured from the soltices and equinoxes. This is the tropical zodiac used in western astrology, the sidereal zodiac uses the constellations instead, however both zodiacs arise from and are centred upon the Great Circle of the ecliptic.

Although we draw the zodiac from this ecliptic ring formed by the annual passage of the Sun against the backdrop of the stars (in the sidereal zodiac) or the seasonal rhythm of light and darkness, growth and decay that this delineates through the year (in the tropical zodiac), the solar system is a highly complex organism composed of interlocking cycles (including orbits, rotations on axes and boundaries between light and dark), and this is not easily represented on a piece of parchment or paper. As an example, the three dimensional ‘donut’ shape of the zodiacs ring is ‘squished’ and loses its three dimensional form when it is pressed into a two dimensional birth chart. The donut becomes a flat circle. Simply put, we can no longer see if the Moon is above or below the Sun when there is a New Moon. In fact, we can’t see this kind of relationship for any of the objects in the chart, because they have all been pressed down into a circular ring when they were once sprinkled throughout a three dimensional torus. Objects which once had a height in the sky have all been compressed and thus lost their distinctions by height.

Working with declination is how we restore this dimension to our work with the chart. Declination is a measurement of distance north or south of the celestial equator, which as I stated above is simply the equator of the Earth extended into space, forming another Great Circle. Declination is sometimes expressed as a plus or minus value instead of a north and south value respectively and it is measured in latitude, not longitude like the positions of objects in the zodiac is. Depending on when and where you are viewing it from, the Sun can be anywhere between 23°28’N latitude of the equator, or 23°28’S latitude of it (it can go very slightly over this number as it’s not exactly precise, but it is never further than 24° N or S). These are the boundaries on either side of the equator that we call the tropics, named for Cancer and Capricorn because these are the tropical zodiac signs that the Sun enters when it reaches them. If we also extend the tropics into space like the equator, the Sun never climbs higher north or south of these two tropical rings. During the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, as the Sun enters the sign of Cancer, it is at 23°28’N declination, which is as high as it can get in the northern hemisphere. It is the height of summer. During the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere the Sun is 23°28’S declination, entering the sign of Capricorn, and as low as it can get in the sky in the northern hemisphere. It is the depths of winter. During the equinoxes (day and night equal) the Sun is entering Aries (start of spring) or Libra (start of autumn) and crossing the celestial equator, switching hemispheres and heading towards the extreme north or south of its travels, the solstices. It will be at 0° of declination. The southern hemisphere keeps to the same timing (it shares the equinoxes and solstices with the north) but the seasons are switched with their opposites – winter to summer and vice versa and autumn to spring and vice versa.

Visually what this means is that the Earth has a donut shaped ring around its middle within which (from the surface of our planet) the Sun can be visible and it will never climb higher or lower than the edges of this torus. The apparent path of the Sun when viewed from Earth – the ecliptic – will always be within this torus. So the Great Circle of the ecliptic can be 23°28’ above or below the Great Circle of the celestial equator, but never more than this. We can imagine this as a donut shape within which (looking out) the ring of the ecliptic is threaded like a string or a strand of spaghetti, following the path of the Sun, and it is moving up and down from the middle band of the donut over the course of a year, forming a spiral as the Sun moves from top to bottom as well as around the inside. From the outside, it looks like this (all images in this article should expand when clicked):

Essentially, from Earth the Sun has a boundary or region in the sky beyond which it cannot pass unless the tilt of the Earth is itself catastrophically changed, or (even worse) we are knocked out of orbit. However every other object – including the Moon – is free to pass this boundary of 23°28, north or south, but most of the time they won’t do so as their orbits around the Sun are pretty much on the same plane in the solar system. The Moon is the most likely to range beyond the Suns boundaries in the sky because it is going around the Earth and not around the Sun. In other words, most of the orbits around the Sun are like the rings on a vinyl record, one which is only slightly warped. This means they are more often than not inside the 23°28’ (23.4°) boundaries, north or south – although their declination can be different from the Suns, they will still frequently be within the same zone that the Sun is confined to. This also means they generally only pass through the same backdrop of constellations that the Sun passes through, the main 12 of which are the zodiac constellations. These 12 constellations are therefore the Suns celestial family, for it never visits the other major constellations that shine beyond the zone it lives in, or only touches their edges. For example, there is no zodiac sign for Ursa, the Bear, because the Sun is never seen in the constellation of the Great Bear, it’s way too far north of the celestial equator. This is a manifestation of the Solar Logos, the body and intelligence of the Sun expressed as a celestial being. It defines the zodiac as the primary evolutionary coding of conscious life on this planet, the astral family of this life. Light from all of this family is within each thing that is born and lives here, animate and inanimate.

PARALLEL OBJECTS

This being understood, when two objects in the sky are in the same hemisphere (i.e. both are north of the celestial equator or both are south of it) and they are at the same declination or within 1° of one another by declination, then they are parallel to one another in the sky.This parallel relationship, which cannot be seen in the birth chart, is closest to a conjunction aspect in nature because it joins the two planets together and unifies them in some way, they are on parallel tracks of flight like two birds in the sky. We can think of planets in parallel as being in a kind of invisible conjunction, no matter if in the birth chart they are in a conjunction, trine, square, or any other aspect, or not in aspect at all. If these two objects are in a conjunction in the chart, however, the parallel between them will serve to intensify and scale up the effect of that conjunction, putting an ! over it similar to the emphasis produced by placing the conjunction on an angle like the ascendant or midheaven. This is because if you were to look at it in the sky a parallel conjunction is an exact occultation between the two objects (like an eclipse) with the nearer object passing in front of the more distant object. It really looks like a conjunction in the sky when you look at it, because the two objects are occupying the same position relative to the view from Earth. In a non-parallel conjunction the objects will be separated because one will be above the other in the sky.

Take a look at this birth chart for Amelia Earhart, below.

Note the close conjunction between the Moon and Pluto in Gemini (the sign of traveling). They are in a conjunction, with only 3° of separation. You might think they were next to one another, until you look at the declination. This is shown in the box in the top left corner below the breakdown of the Elements and Modes. After the symbol and name of the object (Moon, Sun etc.) there is a column showing its position in the zodiac (longitude) and the column next to that is the column for its declination. There you can see that the Moons declination is listed as +26° while the declination for Pluto is listed as +12°. This means they are in a conjunction but they are not parallel. When you look at it in the sky it looks like this:

The thick white line in this image near the bottom is the celestial equator. The blue line curving around the top of the picture with the tropical zodiac signs on it is the ecliptic, the path of the Sun. Notice that, even though they are both positioned on the relatively same point of that curved blue line, the Moon is about twice as far away from the thick white line of the celestial equator as Pluto is – in terms of distance from that white line, Pluto lies about halfway between it and the Moon. That’s a considerable distance when you look at it visually. It means that she has a close conjunction of the Moon in Pluto but that it is not parallel. It’s a regular conjunction.

Compare this to the chart for David Bowie, where the Moon and Pluto are both in Leo (the sign of the entertainer) but there is a gap of 9° separating them – probably still a potent conjunction, especially given the presence of Saturn forming a bridge between them, but not one that would be especially strong without Saturn.

Until you look at declination. In this chart I have put a red circle around the declination data, in case you had trouble finding it. There you see that both the Moon and Pluto are a +23°. They are parallel. When you look at this in the sky this chart looks like this:

First, notice the distance between the Moon and Pluto. That is the space of 9° between them in the zodiac, which is measured along the ecliptic, the blue line that bisects the image from left to right, passing through Regulus. Now notice the celestial equator in the bottom left portion of the picture, the thick white line. When you measure the distance from the Moon to this line, and then measure the distance from Pluto to this line, they are about the same. That’s the parallel between them. Notice how Saturn is slightly closer to that white line. That’s because its declination is not +23° but instead +19°. This means that the conjunction between the Moon and Saturn is not a parallel conjunction, and nor is the conjunction between Saturn and Pluto. This creates two bridges between the Moon and Pluto in this chart, one which is formed by the connection by conjunction that they both have with Saturn, and one that is formed by their parallel with one another. A third connection between them is that they are all in Leo. A fourth is that all are in the constellation of the Crab, sometimes called the Cradle, or the Scarab. These stars are connected with rebirth and the reinvention of the soul. 

So what we call a conjunction is perhaps more properly referred to as an alignment, a close positioning relative to positioning on the Great Circle of the ecliptic, but not relative to the Great Circle of the celestial equator. A true visual conjunction is relative to both, and its called an occultation in astronomy and a parallel conjunction in astrology.

It’s worth stating again that objects in the sky can be in any aspect to one another or in no aspect at all, and still be in a parallel to one another. On its own a parallel relationship between two objects that have no other aspect with one another can usually be left out of discussion if time is a constraint. It only becomes powerfully significant if the nature of the parallel between the two planets somehow underscores a theme that is more obviously and strongly represented in the chart anyway, or is an issue at hand for the person because of transits or progressions. A parallel does have some important differences to a conjunction, though, and I will get to those. However, a conjunction and especially a close conjunction between two objects who are also parallel to one another is an exceedingly powerful conjunction that should be given extra weight in consideration of the chart as a whole. When you have a lot of conjunctions to consider, for example when you are dealing with a chart where there is a stellium, a multiple conjunction of four or more objects, then looking for parallels can help you to sort them and to focus on what really stands out. Later I will have more to say on how to interpret the different combinations. For now, we need to look at a mirror of the parallel.

CONTRA-PARALLEL OBJECTS

The mirror image, reflection or opposite of parallel is when the two objects have the same declination (or within 1° of being at the same declination) but one is north (or positive in declination) while the other is south (or negative in declination). This means they will both be the same distance from the celestial equator, but on different sides of it. This is called contra–parallel. Again, planets do not have to be in an aspect for them to be contra-parallel, and they can also be in any aspect to one another in the zodiac. It is therefore possible for objects to be in a conjunction but also contra-parallel, or in a trine and contra-parallel, etc.

Here is an example of a contra-parallel conjunction from the chart of Nobel prize winning author William Faulkner. He was born with the Moon at 28° of Virgo (a writers sign) and Jupiter at 23° of Virgo, with Mercury between them at 26° of Virgo. All three of them are in a conjunction with one another. By declination the Moon is at -3° while Jupiter is at +3°. Mercury is at +0°, positioned precisely on the celestial equator. Here is how that looks in the sky.

Notice how the Moon and Jupiter are about the same distance away from the thick white line, the celestial equator, but on opposite sides, while Mercury is placed upon it. The Moon and Jupiter are in a contra-parallel conjunction, while Moon and Mercury and Jupiter and Mercury are in a simple conjunction which is not contra-parallel. Notice also that the Sun is centred on the ecliptic ‘(always, because it’s the Suns path) but is also not that far away (1° of declination) from the celestial equator – Faulkner was born just after the September equinox. The equinox occurs when the Suns path (the ecliptic) crosses the celestial equator, and we can see this in this picture because the path of the ecliptic (the blue line) has just intersected with the path of the celestial equator (the white line). We can also see that it is the September equinox rather than the March equinox because at the point where the intersection of these two circles occurs, the glyph for the sign of Libra appears on the ecliptic. A skilled astrologer or astronomer can read time as well as location from images of the sky, although location is harder to pinpoint.

To help you visualise all of this here is the same image zoomed out so that you can see all of one side of the Earth including the horizon line which divides the sky (the black area) from everything which is below it (the green area). It also shows the latitude and longitude lines (black coloured lines) used in map references.

The contra-parallel is most similar in nature to the opposition aspect. Therefore, an opposition aspect that is also contra-parallel is an extremely tight and powerful opposition that will become a major life task for the person who carries it with them. It will be a “true” opposition rather than just an opposition in the zodiac, because the objects will be on diametrically opposite sides of both the celestial equator and the ecliptic. If the orb between the two planets in opposition is very small or exact, then a contra-parallel between them will tighten the screws considerably, locking them into an opposed relationship. Again, from an interpretive standpoint the effect will be similar to having the opposition placed at one of the angles such as the ascendant or the midheaven, but with the twist that it can do it in any of the houses/temples. It will also become dominant over other oppositions which are not in a contra-parallel relationship.

Here is the chart of the famous and tragic diarist Anne Frank.

You can see that her Sun in Gemini is in opposition with her Saturn in Sagittarius, a sign of a sober spirit enduring hardships and burdens, but they are quite the distance apart with the Sun at 20° of Gemini and Saturn at 27° of Sagittarius. At 7°, the opposition should be fading out leaving her with more room to maneuver and less confinement. However, the declination of her Sun at +23° and her Saturn at -22° puts them in a contra-parallel relationship which, for practical purposes, seems to have completely negated that 7° of distance and made her life an archetypal example of the tragedy and hardship that Sun opposite Saturn can bring, while still showing us something positive about the human spirit in her philosophical musings and her sad, private words that have left a lasting legacy. Here are two images showing the contra-parallel opposition (two are required because the Sun and Saturn are literally on opposite sides of the globe).

In this first picture note the position of the Sun towards the upper left and its relative distance from the thick white line of the celestial equator below it. Also note the position of Uranus because it will be useful as a reference in the second image, below.

In this image the globe has been rotated but you can still see Uranus towards the top. More importantly you can now also see the position of Saturn in the lower right, about as far below the thick white line of the celestial equator as the Sun was above it in the previous image.

A couple more things before we move on – notice from the birth chart for Anne Frank that the declination of the Sun was +23°07’. Remember that I said that 23°28’ is the limit that it reaches from the celestial equator, and you will realise that Anne Frank was born a few days before a solstice. Additionally, you can tell that it is the June solstice, because the Sun is at +23, not -23, and so it is almost as far north as it can climb.

And, isn’t it incredible that the people of the ancient world had this all figured out, merely by observation and meticulous record keeping, often on stone tablets or hundreds of thousands of bits of dried out parchment or leaves? That they not only knew all of these things, but went to the incredible effort of building monuments like Stonehenge, Machu Picchu and the Giza Plateau, just to express it in an earthly form? Does this not by comparison make our own city planning look like the result of children let loose in a nursery filled with plastic building blocks? We often think of ourselves as the pinnacle of human development, and certainly to our knowledge this is true technologically, but it is not true in others, and it may not even be true scientifically or culturally. The knowledge and centuries of time required to work all this out without basic technological tools and just water clocks for measuring the passing of time, and the effort then required to then express it in monuments, for whatever reason, surely gives us pause for thought about the comparative sophistication of our own efforts, and our own modern vanities. We may have a more complicated understanding now than we did then in some areas, but in flattening the splendor of the sky onto a two-dimensional birth chart, we lost something – an appreciation of height and depth that was innate to people of the ancient world because they did not look at charts, they looked at the sky. And they were patient, observant and very, very smart compared to what most people believe, they had to have been.

INTERPRETATION: WEIRD SCIENCE

Ok, your brain is likely well exercised by this point, so what now? What to do with this? 

As far as I’m aware not much has been written about the nuances that arise from the combinations between different aspects, parallels and contra-parallels – most interpretive stances on the matter of declination simply state that a parallel is like a conjunction and contra-parallel is like an opposition, and they interpret parallels and contra-parallels between two planets very similarly to those aspects. There is little distinction made between a Sun and Moon conjunction and a Sun and Moon parallel. They are read the same in most takes on the subject.

However, this ignores the reality of the situation in the sky. There is a difference, as the examples in this post should help to make clear. A conjunction usually takes place in a single sign, perhaps two different ones if the conjunction takes place near a sign boundary, but if it does involve more than one sign it is limited to any two adjacent signs. For example the Sun and Moon conjunction could take place in Libra with both the lights in Libra, or it could be that one Light is in Libra and the other in Virgo or Scorpio, the two signs either side of Libra. Thats because a conjunction is limited by the orb of a conjunction, usually about 7° or 8° of longitude, the degrees of the zodiac.

But parallel and contra-parallel declination is measured in latitude, and even though it has a tight 1° orb of influence by latitude it has no restrictions of orb by longitude at all. It is unfettered from the zodiacal sequence, and thus a parallel can exist between the Sun and Moon (or any planets) in any combination of signs. Similarly, a contra-parallel can exist between two planets in any signs, not just signs in opposition. Thus the parallel and contra-parallel represent hidden paths that can exist between two objects, allowing hidden messages to be passed between them. They add a more individual potential to planets and Lights because they enable them to communicate with each other in unconventional and special ways, bringing all kinds of zodiacal combinations into play which resemble conjunctions and oppositions but are given an extra twist by potentially being in exotic sign combinations. The parallel and contra-parallel therefore potentially express far more individuality and strangeness than a conjunction and opposition can. They also represent a refreshing challenge for the astrological mind – how does one interpret a conjunction between a Sun in Taurus and a Moon in Leo, or an opposition between Jupiter in Aries and Mercury in Pisces, for example? The result is a chimera, a hybrid creature that is more of a unique animal. The parallel and contra-parallel are like a magical potion that can produce strange and unusual results. This is wild magic, difficult to define. It’s powerful, transmutative stuff.

Added to this zodiacal chaos is the fact that parallels and contra-parallels not only occur alone but can also occur when the two objects concerned are in aspect. There can be parallel and contra-parallel sextiles, trines and squares, as well as conjunctions and oppositions. Taking all of this into consideration it becomes clear that there is actually a tremendous amount that can be written about the contra-parallel and parallel, many volumes more than the often repeated “like a conjunction or opposition”. In fact the entire topic is a goldmine just waiting for an astrologer to tap into both in terms of research and professional focus.

With all of this said there is a process that you can go through which will help you to reach an interpretation involving parallel and contra-parallel declination. This is my process which I have arrived at through 30 years of practice with astrology and about 20 years of practice with declination.

First, make a list of all of the parallels and contra-parallels in the chart. Many astrological programs can compile a report showing this information for you. Don’t be tempted to experiment outside of the 1° orb – declination does not involve a full 360° like the zodiac does and the distance between objects in declination can be much shorter over longer periods of time, so the 1° orb is the most practical one. Let it go even if it is 1°01’ of orb in declination.

Next, make a tier 1 grouping of all the parallels and contra-parallels which exist between objects that have an aspect with one another in the birth chart, no matter what the aspect is. Put everything else into a tier 2 grouping. If the tier 1 grouping is very large and requires some organization you can prioritize it either by the size of the orb of the declination (so that 0°45’ of orb is ranked higher than 0°55’, for example) or by the following scheme: Lights, chart ruler, angular planets, the rest. You can prioritize the second tier the same ways if you need to. 

The difference between the first-tier and the second-tier is that the first-tier admits more accessibility. The presence of a major aspect in the birth chart alongside the parallel or contra-parallel gives the hidden connection a way to express itself in recognizable form. It makes it easier for the person to recognise what that connection is and to communicate it to others. However there may still be challenges with this process if the aspect is a square, an opposition or difficult conjunction, and the influence of the parallel or contra-parallel will add a unique spin to the conventional interpretation of the aspect. Objects in parallel or contra-parallel in the second tier will be more difficult to access and define as well as communicate to others. However, the strangeness and wildness of their magic will be undiluted and far less conventionally expressed when it does find a way out. It can bring a spark of genius and an innovative twist on what we expect.

Pay special attention to any parallels or contra-parallels which involve either of the two Lights, as these can be very important to address. Also pay close attention to parallel conjunctions and contra-parallel oppositions of any kind as these will be especially strong, particularly if the orb of the conjunction or opposition is very small, so below 4°. People who are born during eclipses will display this in their charts, but others can too, as any two planets can have this relationship.

In building up your own general interpretation of parallel and contra-parallel it is helpful to meditate and reflect upon the following contrary combinations:

A) a conjunction that is parallel compared to a conjunction that is contra-parallel.

B) an opposition that is contra-parallel compared to an opposition that is parallel.

In the first case, a conjunction that is parallel is like a super-conjunction, but a conjunction that is contra-parallel implies that the two objects have a degree of separation and so there is potentially more objectivity in being able to view them as separate parts. They will be like two particles locked in orbit around a nucleus, rather than a fusion of two objects into a nucleus. They may merge and disengage periodically.

In the second case an opposition that is contra-parallel is like a super-opposition, but an opposition that is parallel implies that there is some kind of hidden alignment between the two objects in opposition which can be called upon to help them cooperate more. While the super-opposition can become a super support structure for the entire chart, providing lasting stability and strength through the long process of bringing opposing forces into balance, an opposition that is parallel is often easier to find balance with but trickier to keep in balance because it is less firm than the super-opposition.

After thinking about all of what I have said here for a while, you should be able to move forwards in your interpretation of other aspects which are parallel or contra-parallel and when you do this you will have embarked upon a journey into a wondrous territory of astrology which has seen very few visitors. There is one more thing I would like to tell you about before you go, however.

OUT OF BOUNDS

I wrote earlier that:

“every other object including the Moon is free to pass this boundary of 23°28, north or south”

That’s important. What it means is that while most of the time the sky wanderers of our solar system are found within the same regions of the sky that the Sun is confined to, sometimes they slip outside this net. They go beyond the gaze and watchful eye of the commander and roam into foreign realms. The teenager goes away on holiday, leaving the nest to get away with things “off the record”.

Remember also that I said that the Moon goes beyond this boundary more than the other objects do, because it is going around the Earth and not around the Sun. That was only partly true – Pluto is also moving beyond this boundary quite often, and this is because of the incline of its orbit into the plane of the solar system, within which most of the other planets have their orbits.

When a planet goes farther north or south of this boundary then the Sun can, it is called “out of bounds”, meaning the bounds of the solar realm. It is sometimes even venturing into the territory of non-zodiacal constellations and collecting exotic forms of Light for the Sun from places it cannot visit itself, for ultimately it will always return to the solar realm to deposit this experience.

The general interpretation used by astrologers for an out of bounds planet or Moon is that it will act wildly and eccentrically, as if touched by some aspect of Uranus, but in my practice I find it more useful to consider where the planet is venturing into, where is it going where the Sun does not shine, and how will that affect its tropical zodiac sign position? In cases where the planet is only a short distance away from being over the boundary of 23° 28’ (which is most of the time), then it wont have ventured very far beyond the borders and will be collecting something from the zodiacal sign constellation, albeit an outlying part of it that is more exotic than the usual fare. This will give an inventive and creative spin to the expression of the zodiac sign, it will operate slightly outside of the box but near enough to it to be able to easily make sense of it as an expression of that sign. However in cases where there is an extreme venturing beyond this boundary, the object can visit star constellations that the Sun does not reach at all and in these rare cases there is something even more exotic being collected. It is still being collected for the tropical zodiac sign that the object is located in, and the object will still therefore express itself as its tropical zodiac sign nature inclines it to, but there will be a part of that object that operates without regard to the usual rules. This can be very good or very bad for the person, and the rest of us. It depends on how they choose to handle the fact that they are (in reality) somewhat outside of the rules as they apply to the rest of us, and what the innate behaviour of that planet is when it is given its freedom. A topical example of this is Donald Trump, who, with his (strongly placed) Mercury out of bounds, has (for example) no problem with claiming that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any supporters. It happens to be half-true, half-jest, in mercurial style. He also gives us many more obvious examples of the behaviour of someone with Mercury out of bounds. 

…

I hope that this explanation has been clear and that it excites you enough to begin including declination in your astrological work. Below I have given you a list of individuals who have notable parallels or contra-parallels so that you have some resources to begin looking into. Their chart data is available online.

Although this is an intermediate or advanced lesson in astrology, computers have made working with declination a lot easier in the modern world, and if our technological progress continues in the coming century it seems likely that it will become even easier and perhaps even find its way into the mainstream comprehension of astrology. If some kind of holographic or 3-D display technology breaks through we may finally have the ability to display the sky in a form that truly represents its complexity and shape, which may be truly revolutionary for astrology by doing away with the need for birth charts as we know them now. Parallels and contra-parallels would then become part of what we can see when we look at a map of our births, partly restoring the visual origins of astrology.

Where are the parallel and contra-parallels in your astrology? Are there any out of bounds planets, or the Moon? How do these factors play out in your life? Have fun considering these things, drop a comment or question below if you wish, and thank you for your time. Also, a very special thanks, always to the generous people who support this site through Patreon, you are the best!

Next month, more occult aspects!

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Research Suggestions

Donald Trump (Sun and Uranus in parallel conjunction in Gemini, Sun and Uranus in contra-parallel opposition with Moon in Sagittarius, out of bounds Mercury in Cancer)

Ted Bundy (Moon and Mars in Sagittarius in parallel conjunction, Moon and Mars both in contra-parallel opposition with Uranus in Gemini, Pluto in Leo trine and contra-parallel Moon and Mars in Sagittarius)

Paramahansa Yogananda (Mercury and Venus parallel conjunction in Sagittarius, Mars in Aries in contra-parallel opposition with Saturn in Libra, Pluto in Gemini parallel Virgo ascendant).

Alexandre Dumas (out of bounds Moon in Taurus, Mercury in Cancer parallel Leo ascendant, Mercury in Cancer parallel sextile with Mars in Taurus, Mercury parallel Chiron in Sagittarius, Venus parallel conjunction Saturn in Virgo)

Christopher Reeve (out of bounds Moon and Mars in Sagittarius, Sun and Mercury in contra-parallel conjunction in Libra, Jupiter in Taurus contra-parallel Chiron in Capricorn, Uranus in Cancer parallel Pluto in Virgo).

Edith Piaf (out of bounds Moon in Gemini and Mercury in Sagittarius, Moon contra-parallel Mercury, Sun in Sagittarius parallel Venus in Capricorn, Uranus and the Dragons Head in parallel conjunction in Aquarius, Uranus/Dragons Head in Aquarius contra-parallel Pluto in Cancer).

Lucille Ball (Moon out of bounds in Capricorn, Leo Sun parallel Pluto in Gemini, Mars in Taurus parallel Dragons Head in Taurus, Jupiter in parallel conjunction with Dragons Tail in Scorpio, Uranus in Capricorn contra-parallel opposition Neptune in Cancer).