Joe Biden and What a Difference Five Minutes Can Make

Sometimes people get a little miffed with astrologers because we are so insistent about getting the exact time of birth. “It’s nice that your mom remembers that it was around sunrise,” the astrology says, “but what’s on your birth certificate.” And even when we have a documented time,  if it appears as if it has been rounded off to the nearest hour or half hour, we get suspicious.

Here’s why: the degree of the Ascendant and the Midheaven (along with all the corresponding angles) moves around one degree every four minutes. It might not make any difference to you if you have seven degrees of Gemini rising instead of six but can make a lot of difference to an astrologer, particularly when he or she is timing aspects that will be impacting your horoscope. That one degree discrepancy can make a huge difference in this timing.  

An example of this is the horoscope of Joe Biden. (Click on Joe Biden to see the chart.) His time of birth is given as 8:30 AM. It comes from him to an astrologer named Celeste Longacre. We don’t know where Biden got this information. It might have been on his birth certificate, though in Pennsylvania (where he was born) the time of birth was not always recorded. It might have also come from one of his parents, a birth announcement or some other source. The important thing is that it appears to have been rounded off to the half hour.

In my “Contenders” article on Joe Biden (click here to see the article) I mentioned that Neptune would be moving across his I.C. in 2020 and this was likely to raise questions about his positions on the issues. Neptune aspects can also raise questions about a person’s veracity and signal the emergence of a scandal. Given that the I.C. is associated with the Fourth House, family and relationships with family members could be a factor.

I didn’t feel the need to elaborate on what Neptune crossing the I.C. might mean because, at the time I wrote that article in early 2019, it looked like the aspect would not become a factor until April 2020. That’s when Neptune reaches 19 degree of Pisces, which is the degree of Biden’s I.C. Of course, as we know, questions about Biden and his son Hunter erupted the year after President Trump tried to coerce the President of Ukraine into investigating the Bidens. Even though there is no proof of wrong-doing by Joe Biden or his son, the matter has cast a shadow over Biden’s campaign.

So what happened. This year, in July, Neptune reached 18 degrees of Pisces and then turned retrograde. It remained at 18 degrees Pisces through September, when news of Trump’s infamous phone call broke. If Joe Biden was born at 8:25 AM instead of 8:30 his I.C. would be at 18 degrees of Pisces, right in the crosshairs of this transit. That’s why five minutes is important.

Even with the five minute difference in time, Neptune will continue to be a factor in Biden’s life in 2020. The difference is the timing of the aspect. With the I.C. at 19 degrees Pisces, the aspect would hit Biden the hardest in April 2020, again in Sept. and make its final pass in Jan. 2021. At 18 degrees, however, the conjunction will be within a one degree orb first in February 2020 and then from October through the end of the year. In other words, it will coincide with the election.

Right now, thanks to pressure from President Trump, two Senate committees are investigating the relationship between Biden and his son and Ukraine. This matter is not likely to go away soon. The facts might be on Biden’s side but Neptune doesn’t care about facts. Neptune is all about perception. If it turns out that Biden is the Democratic nominee, the perception that he is somehow untrustworthy is going to be hard to shake.