Ascendant in a late degree and Mercury in a late degree.?

Question

Ok so this is my birthchart. I'm having a little bit of trouble with understanding some things so Im going to ask you guys. First my ascendant is 26° in virgo and this puts my leo in the 11th house instead of the 12th I need help understanding that because I thought that if your ascendant was in virgo, leo is automatically in the 12th house and also what's really confusing me is that libra is also somehow in the fifirst house. Secondly my mercury, my mercury is 29° in cancer but I thought that your mercury sign could on be 28° at the most. These are the two things that is don't understand. And if you have any thing else you would to say about my chart feel free too I would really appreciate it.

Answer 1

The ring of the zodiac (the ecliptic) was in a certain location AT the moment of your birth.

We set the Midheaven and the Ascendant for what WAS there.

And then for the rest of the houses it is a division of time .. how long it takes for the Sun to go from the Ascendant to the Midheaven.

- in summer, when the day is long, there is a lot of the zodiac between the Asc and the MC... you can have as many as 4 signs in that space (in those 3 houses).

- in winter, when the day is short, there is not much time between sunrise and noon ... so you have fewer signs in that space .. as few as 2.



No, there is no rule that consistently tells you what signs your house cusps will be.

It is a factor of the time of year .. .and also how far north/south from the equator your birthplace was.

The chart is calculated, based on the relative movement in the sky. It is not an "automatic" thing, EXCEPT for the Sun sign.



The reason the Sun sign is automatic and matches calendar dates, is because our calendar is based on Earth's orbit around the Sun. Every May 1st, when you look at the Sun, the SIGN of Taurus is behind it . because every May 1st, Earth will be in the same place on its orbit.



Now, there are different house systems. Different ways of dividing the ecliptic up into houses.

The "Equal House System" DOES have one different sign for each house, and you would have Leo on the cusp of your 12th if you had Virgo Rising.

But most Westerners use the Placidus system of House division, which is based on movement and time .. and that is what your chart has been done up for, and that is the system I have explained here for you.



We use Placidus because that system seems to produce more-accurate results.



As for Libra in the first house .. think of the zodiac as a wheel. The 1st house starts AT 26 Virgo, and ends AT about 22 Libra (hard to read the small print there). Everything between 26 Virgo up to 22 Leo (or about) is IN the 1st house.

Houses are man-made, man-decided. They are not natural phenomenon. Planets are natural phenomenon. So are the aspects between any two planets (shown by the red or blue lines connecting some planets to other planets).

Houses and signs are not natural phenomenon. (the zodiac signs are distances from where the Sun is at the time of the Vernal Equinox .. and don't actually match the constellations they are named after).



As for your Mercury .. let's start big and hone in on Mercury.

The zodiac is (appears as) a circle around Earth.

Like all circles, it is 360 degrees around.

360 degrees in a circle

60 minutes in a degree

60 seconds in a minute



The zodiac circle has been broken up into 12 equal areas, each area named after a constellation (yes, the "signs" are not constellations).

So the closest any planet In Cancer CAN get to "being in Leo" is if it is at 29:59:59 Cancer (29 degrees, 59 minutes, 59 seconds). Add one more second-of-arc, and NOW the location is no longer in Cancer, but it is in Leo.



Sure your Mercury can be in Cancer.

In fact it WAS in Cancer ... assuming you used an accurate and precise birthtime when you entered your birthdata into the website's calculation program.



Thank you for bearing with me

It is not easy to discuss astronomical data without diagrams to point to, and it is even harder to READ it.

Answer 2

Hmm use must be use to an equal/whole house chart or something. I like Placidus. I feel like its more accurate. Yes you can have more than one sign in a house. Sometimes even three signs in one house! So this is not odd at all. When interpreting I usually go by the sign that rules that house. The first sign of a house.



Also; there is a 29th degree! Its a critical degree! This is important information. The degrees actual go 0-29. Meaning that theyre are a total of 30 degrees for each 12 signs. 30×12 = 360 the amount of degrees in a circle.

This enables you to be able to count the distance/degrees/aspects between planets.



There is also some hoopla over the zero degree and the 29 degree. One is a beginning one is an ending. There is a theory that says zero degree makes for a lot of power in that sign. And 29th is a fading of that sign. Its weaker some say. Others might think it even crosses over into the next sign.

Answer 3

Most astrologers use the Placidus system of house division. Doesn't matter if the Ascendant is late in the sign. All you have to do is to start researching major life events, corelating them with Primary Directions of the degree of your Ascendant, and you see that the whole sign system fails. The only caveat with an Ascendant late in a sign .. or early in a sign, for that matter .. is you want to make sure it is an accurate and precise birth time. The Ascendant moves at the rate of approx. 1 degree for every 4 minutes of clock time. So it your Ascendant is 28 Pisces, all you need is for your actual birth to have occurred 9 minutes later and your Ascendant is shown in the wrong sign. Birth times are often rounded off ... a 3:00 PM birth is rarely a birth AT 3:00 PM, for instance.