What It Takes to Cast Your Chart the Old-Fashioned Way

In the past, before the computer infiltrated every corner of human existence, figuring out the positions of the planets was a challenge. It required patience, hours of free time, a fearless approach to mathematics, and an eagerness to grapple with the kinds of boring details that drive most people nuts.

For instance, you had to look up the longitude and latitude of your birth place, and you had to correct for its distance from the standard time meridian for that location. You had to distinguish between local time and Greenwich mean time, not to mention standard time, daylight saving time, and war time. Then you had to calculate the movement of the planets using, among other tools, a table of proportional logarithms. Most people didnít want to bother.

I always felt differently. I liked staying up late surrounded by numerical tables, volumes of astrological data, pads of yellow paper, and the special horoscope blanks I bought at a metaphysical bookstore. As I calculated each planetary position and house cusp, drew the symbols of the signs and planets onto the chart, and counted up how many planets were in fire signs, in earth signs, and so on, the chart - and the person - slowly grew clear in my mind.

That process takes time, and I don't do it anymore. With a computer, you can get an accurate chart without even thinking about math. Later in this chapter, I tell you how.

Still, the best way to understand astrology is to cast a chart the old-fashioned way. Here's what you would need to calculate it yourself:

• The precise longitude and latitude of your birthplace. You can figure it out from a map or look it up in a book like The American Atlas: U.S. Longitudes and Latitudes, Time Changes and Time Zones, by Thomas G. Shanks (ACS Publications), which includes an international atlas.

• The details about your time of birth. Just because you know the exact moment of your birth doesn't mean that your problems with time are over. You also have to know what time zone you were born in - and this is an area riddled with quicksand.
  
  For instance, Tennessee is divided down the middle, half in one time zone and half in another. Most places in Texas observe central standard time - but El Paso doesn't. And if you were born in Indiana between 1955 and 1965, you're in deep trouble. During those years, the powers-that-be, unable to choose between central and eastern time, decided to carve up the state and assign different regions to each time zone. Each year, they did it in a different way. If you were caught in this civic calamity, you have no choice: Go to a professional astrologer. Or log on to one of the Web sites listed later in this chapter.
  
  Then there's daylight saving time. Until 2007, it ran from late April to late October, but the exact days differ from year to year and from state to state. For example, if you were born in California on October 27, 1963, you were born under daylight saving time. But if your birthday is a year later, on October 27, 1964, you were born under standard time.
  
  And did you know that during World War II, the entire U.S. operated under war time? It began on February 9, 1942, about two months after Pearl Harbor, and ended on September 30, 1945. (It was also in operation in some places during World War I.)
  
  To account for these variations in time, you need a trustworthy source. Again, I recommend The American Atlas: U.S. Longitudes and Latitudes, Time Changes and Time Zones, compiled by Thomas G. Shanks.

• A table of houses. This book-size table tells you what degree of the zodiac is rising at any given moment according to the time and latitude of your birth. It also tells the degrees that appear on the other house cusps. One resource for this information is the Michelsen Book of Tables by Neil F. Michelsen (ACS Publications), which includes two popular types of house division as well as a worksheet for casting a horoscope the old-fashioned way.

• An ephemeris for the year you were born. The Rosetta Stone of astrology, an ephemeris is an almanac that lists the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets for every day of the year, either for midnight or noon in Greenwich, England (the basis for Greenwich mean time, from which all time zones are determined). So if you were born on the stroke of midnight in Greenwich, you don't have to do a thing to determine the position of your planets. You can read them right out of the book.
  If you were born at any other time or place, you have to make adjustments. Using an ephemeris, a table of houses, and the principles of high school algebra, you can come up with a close approximation of your chart. Should you insist on precision (perhaps because you have a dose of Virgo in your birth chart), you need one more item, which I explain in the following bullet.
  

• A table of proportional logarithms. Using this numerical chart makes your calculations precise. But if going to the mat with a table of logarithms sounds like a fight you won't win, do yourself a favor: Skip the calculations and go directly to the Internet.