In a previous post I introduced the markers of marriage. Promise of marriage is shown by transits of Saturn through Pluto to the descendant, its ruler, planets in the 7th house, and Venus. And the fulfillment of this promise is shown by transits of Jupiter and Mars, in particular to the angles and luminaries.
Sometimes, marriage looms but the promising transits don’t quite appear to materialize in number or significance.
For example, here is the transit chart of a man who got married in September 1994:
Promise
To Descendant: No hits.
To Descendant ruler: Mars is the ruler of the Aries descendant. Transiting Saturn is opposite Mars, but it doesn’t go exact until April 1995, a full 7 months after the wedding. We will put it in, but with a dashed line to show the stretching of the timeline.
To planets in the 7th house: There are no planets in the 7th house.
To Venus: Again, a reach because Saturn was exactly square Venus in February of the year, a full 7 months before the wedding.
The promise is not very strong. When I see that transits don’t show clear promise, and there is an earnest question/desire for marriage, I turn to solar arcs to see if there are hits to the same targets: descendant, descendant ruler, planets in the 7th house, and Venus. To this I would add the ascendant and IC, because hits to the ascendant invariably affect the descendant (the self-other axis), and likewise, hits to the MC affect the IC (public-personal axis).
Here is the solar arc overlay chart for this man’s wedding date:
Immediately, you see that SA Uranus is conjunct the ascendant. However the orb is nearly a degree, which means the arc will be exact about a year later. But the man is getting married now! My take from this is the man was born a couple of minutes earlier, because I trust this solar arc hit of Uranus to guarantee a life-changing circumstance. Such an adjustment of birth time based on transit/solar arc hits to angles is called rectification, and is routinely undertaken by astrologers when the birth time is off by a few minutes.
This SA Uranus to ascendant hugely bolsters the somewhat weak transit measurements of promise, and persuades me that marriage-if it is in the works-will most likely happen in the 6 month window around the exact solar arc hit. (I routinely use a 3-month leading period, and a 3-month trailing period for significance around the solar arc hit epicenter.)
Fulfillment
Given this promise, fulfillment is shown (in the first, transit chart) by transiting Jupiter conjunct the all-important Moon in the 1st house, hovering very close to the Moon in June/July, and then exactly square the MC (social status, here transformed by marriage) in August. And for narrowing down the time even further, transiting Mars exactly square exactly natal Mars just a couple of days after the wedding, the Mars here is being doubly important because it is the ruler of the descendant.
Following is another example, a man who got married in September 1988. Here’s the transit chart for this date:
There are no close-to-exact transits from Saturn, Uranus, Neptune or Pluto to the descendant, descendant ruler Mars, or Venus. There are no planets in the 7th house. No promise at all! There’s fulfillment shown by transiting Jupiter EXACTLY opposite Venus (to the minute!) and Mars about to conjunct the descendant, but we can’t put the cart before the horse-we need to look for promise before we move to fulfillment. What does the solar arc chart show?
This is a no-brainer, the SA Sun is about to conjunct the IC. At 14 Cap 58, it is within 11 minutes of exactness, which is about 2 months of time. Recalling that it’s reasonable to use a 6-month window around the exact hit, the wedding date is well inside the period of effectiveness. Also, recall that a solar arc to the MC/IC is an equally significant measurement as one to the ascendant/descendant axis, since the MC/IC has to do with the public and private lives, and both will be impacted by a marriage.
Here’s a third example. This woman got married in Feb 1988, for which the transit chart is this:
As in the previous example, there are no close-to-exact transits from Saturn, Uranus, Neptune or Pluto to the descendant, descendant ruler Saturn, Moon (in the 7th house) or Venus. You might look at the trine from transiting Pluto to Venus, but it doesn’t become exact until December 1988, which is way too far away. Once again, no promise at all shown by transits. Once more, like in the previous example, there’s fulfillment shown by transiting Jupiter EXACTLY sextile the Sun (in the same degree, the Sun is ever important) and transiting Mars opposite the Sun becoming exact on the Feb 15, just four days after the wedding.
So, we want to turn to solar arcs. Here’s the solar arc chart overlay:
Lo and behold, we see a precise hit from solar arc Sun to the ascendant, at the exact same degree and minute. Case closed.
