The Bear's Nose: Herbalism, Astrology, & Story

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Update, and New Birth Time: Soul Purpose

Here’s an update from the person who wanted to know about his soul’s mission and career… with a twist. Turns out his birth time is not quite what he believed. Original question and chart are here; chart recast with the new birth information is in this post.

I tried to find work... and create work. As all my work options (teaching, filmmaking etc) were viable, I was still confused, and didn’t try any one option specifically.  I came to the realization that I am already working out my sixth house, playing the peacemaker in desperate family situations. It’s not a career, but a career is not very important--at least, that’s what I think. To someone like me, eating and surviving isn't very important. Better to give more importance to transformation and soul's mission.

However, I've got responsibilities. My parents still earn, but I should be able to look after them financially when they can’t earn anymore. Only for that reason, I repeatedly searched for work, but did not challenge my comfort zone. It is already challenged too much by family situations.

 My psychiatrist still maintains that I should start by working four to five hours a day, at least for now. So I looked for part time jobs, but didn’t get any. Around June, I got a volunteering opportunity. One of my friends was starting something new, and he needed volunteers  for archiving. I leaped at it, as it meant volunteering for my community. The first few months were very good, but then family issues really took a turn for worse. I plan to start my volunteer work again this week.

Letter writer’s birth chart based on updated birth time

Placidus houses, true node

Source of birth information: birth certificate

My parents wanted to set up a business (restaurant) for me. We were pretty hyped up about it, but that only resulted in a terrible row between them, and nothing happened except accelerating my depression.

 The life mission aspect was really something invaluable. The way you explained it, somehow gave me more peace. It somehow confirmed for me that I am not wasting my existence, my existence is just not as materialistic as many others.And yes, my interest in astrology has increased very much in the past year.

 But recently, I moved, and while organizing the papers, voila! my birth certificate was found.

The time on my birth certificate is one hour and three minutes off of my rectified time. Looks like my Virgo Moon mom was right from the beginning. She gave a one hour window and stressed that I was born at the late end of it, but my rectifier chose the early end.

I would really like to know how that would change my career and "soul mission" prospects.

 

It doesn’t change the previous reading as much as you might think. With the corrected birth time, your rising sign is still the same, and all your planets remain in the same signs. Your house cusps shift, mostly to later degrees of the same signs, but the MC/IC axis (midheaven and nadir, tenth and fourth house cusps) changes signs. Your midheaven--that crucial point we look to for career and public image--is in Aquarius instead of Capricorn. 

Your Sun is not right at your midheaven, but in your ninth house. Your Mercury is closer to your midheaven than previously believed. Your Venus is still your chart ruler and still the ruler of your sixth house of day to day work, but instead of being solidly in the eleventh house, it is inside the tenth. However, a case can be made for your Venus being an eleventh house planet and your Sun being tenth house, because while the new chart puts them in different Placidus houses, their whole sign houses have stayed the same. 

In the whole sign system, the sign the ascendant is in counts as the first house, even if much of it is in the twelfth house, and even if it also contains the second house cusp. From there, each sign is counted as a house (second sign from the rising sign is the second house, third sign is the third house, and so on). While I mainly read Placidus houses, and that’s the system I used to cast both your charts, I consider the whole sign houses as well. I see planets that straddle those houses as having shades of both.

So what does that mean for your previous question? Let’s go through my answer piece by piece. 

Since your sixth house is empty, all we have to look to is its sign and ruler. Libra sixth house suggests a need for balance, peace, harmony, making things beautiful. Libra is an alchemical sign: two people coming together to create something new, or new things created out of multiple materials, or the interrelationship that creates something new. Teacher and student, or therapist and client, or doctor and patient, would be a Libran relationship. Art, of every kind, is also Libran.

Still true, mostly. Your sixth house cusp is at a later degree of Libra, but still in Libra. There’s still that Libran message in your working life. 

What’s changed is that your sixth house is not empty. It now contains Pluto, in Scorpio. That adds a note of Plutonian and Scorpionic things to your work. Like Libra, Scorpio is an alchemical sign, though it takes the alchemy deeper. In Libra, the focus is on creating harmony and balance and relationship. Scorpio cares about what’s really there, underneath, even if getting it out in the open upsets Libra’s balance. Scorpio can be edgy. But the ultimate aim of Scorpio is to take the interrelationships described by Libra even deeper. To wipe away any false pretense of harmony and open the door to true, unfettered intimacy.

Pluto shares that aim with Scorpio. Pluto naturally exposes hidden things, the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Sixth house ruler Venus in the eleventh suggests group work, or collaborating to contribute to the greater whole.

With your corrected birth time, Venus still rules your sixth house, but it’s in your tenth. That moves Venus’s influence to the career and public reputation sector of your chart, doubling down on its involvement in your working life.

However, Venus is in your eleventh house whole sign. For that reason, I see it being most relevant to the overlapping meanings of the tenth and eleventh houses. Both of those houses deal with the long term. Both deal with who you become over the course of your life. The tenth is about how you become known, to your community, your society, the world. The eleventh is about who helps you get there. Who you share that journey with. People who have common goals. The eleventh also begins to describe the legacy you’ll leave.

So Venus is still telling us the same thing, pretty much, although there’s more emphasis on the career and public image side of it. More emphasis on who you become, not just for yourself, but for your society and community.

Since Venus is also the ruler of your Taurus ascendant, making it your chart ruler, and your Moon shares the Pisces and eleventh house placement, this Pisces/eleventh house message is a very strong part of your life overall. It’s not just about your work, it’s not just about your daily routine, it’s also a big life theme for you, touching on this soul’s mission you’ve mentioned. 

Still true. Your Moon’s house placement hasn’t changed, and both Moon and Venus are still in Pisces. Your rising sign hasn’t changed either.

…. there are some factors involving your tenth house that might give an astrologer pause, if they’re the kind of astrologer who thinks you should do everything possible to avoid serious risks….

Ruler of your Capricorn MC (tenth house cusp), Saturn, is in the eighth house. That’s considered bad by some astrologers: the eighth house is associated with some horrific things, like death, violence, and (some think of this as horrific) taboos.  An astrologer reading it for those meanings might conclude that being highly visible, especially in your career, would do you harm.

Since your corrected birth time changes the sign of your MC, this is the biggest change of all, but it’s still not as much of a change as you might think. Saturn also rules Aquarius, traditionally, and your Saturn is still in the eighth house no matter how we draw the chart. So is Uranus, the modern ruler of Aquarius. Moving your MC to Aquarius gives it more of a Uranian/Aquarian message: speak your truth. Make your ideas heard. Tell the world what it needs to hear, whether or not you think it wants to hear it.

There is also plenty in your chart to suggest you would not like being in the spotlight, and would not be inclined to seek it out. Taurus rising doesn’t like being disturbed. Pisces doesn’t care for attention in particular, but would rather direct attention to whoever or whatever he himself is focused on. And Aquarius, your sun sign--which is the sign with the most say over how you become who you become, over the course of your life--is the truthsayer, the one who needs his ideas heard, but doesn’t need attention on himself for himself.

All still true. 

However, your Aquarius Sun is in the tenth house, quite close to the MC. That indicates the spotlight falling on you, repeatedly, throughout your life, whether you want it or not. You are someone who needs to speak his truth and have it heard. If you choose not to speak your truth, most likely others will see it in you anyway. You might feel exposed, again and again, for that reason. Your Mercury (speech, communication) sharing the Aquarius/tenth house placement reinforces that.

This changes a bit. Your Sun is no longer in the tenth house, and it’s not so close to the MC. Instead, it’s in the ninth: the house of travel, and foreigners, and philosophy, and higher learning, and law, and religion. I expect at least a few of those things are important to you, and that you find personal growth through those things most of all.

The ninth house feeds the tenth. If the tenth is your career, the ninth is the education you get in preparation for it. If the tenth is how you become known, the ninth is how you formulate the ideas and actions you ultimately become known for. Che Guevara’s motorcycle journey or Mahatma Gandhi’s sojourn in South Africa would be a ninth house experience, while the fame they rose to as an ultimate result of that would be the tenth. Your Sun, being in the ninth house Placidus and the tenth house whole sign, straddles those meanings.

Most people are not Gandhis or Guevaras, of course. I’m not saying you’re necessarily destined for that kind of fame. Your tenth house may be simply how you’re known to your community, and your ninth house doesn’t necessarily mean a literal international journey (unless you want it to!), but the personal process is the same.

What is close to your MC now is Mercury. That moves the spotlight slightly off of you personally and onto what you have to say. You still, likely, have a strong need to speak your truth and have it heard. It’s still possible that, if your truth isn’t what the powers that be are willing to hear, it could get you in trouble, but I think you have a better chance of keeping the focus of that trouble on what you said rather than on you personally. You might, for example, get away with writing about taboo or scandalizing subjects under a pseudonym, or something along those lines.

The rest of my previous interpretation isn’t changed by the updated chart.


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