A fun spin on serious cosmic stuff! Wendell C. Perry has 40 years experience studying astrology and how it impacts personalities & relationships. He's written two books & published articles in astrology magazines. He's happy to share this website so that you, too, can have fun with astrology to help you in everyday life!
I my last article I attempted a rectification of the horoscope of Alexander Hamilton. (Click on Alexander Hamilton to see that article.) Reading about Hamilton got me interested in the life of his famous nemesis, Aaron Burr. Burr is another person for whom we are unlikely to ever have a time of birth, so I decided to apply the same process of rectification to his chart.
With Alexander Hamilton we first had to deal with different opinions about his year of birth. That’s not a problems for Aaron Burr. We can say with great assurance that Burr was born on Feb. 7, 1756. He was an Aquarian by Sun sign and we know his Moon was either in Aries or Taurus. In terms of rectification, the uncertain sign placement of the Moon is actually a gift. It provides us with our first clue in timing Burr’s birth.
The circumstances of Burr’s birth were quite different from those of Hamilton. While Hamilton was born illegitimate on a distant Caribbean island, Burr was born into one of the more prominent families in colonial America. His father was a well-known minister and his mother was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards who was a major figure in the religious movement called the First Great Awakening. Aside from this, however, Burr and Hamilton had much in common. Both were orphaned at an early age (Burr at age two). Both (most likely) had genius IQs and their intellectual gifts were noted while they were still young. Both cut short their education to join the battle for independence from British rule and during that conflict, both displayed outstanding courage and commitment to the cause.
The gold standard for any astrologer is an official time of birth. Dates are easy. Just about everyone knows their date of birth. But the time can be harder, and sometimes it requires more than dragging out your birth certificate or calling your mom to learn this information. Other times, you have a time but it is approximate, rounded off to the hour or something vague like "around noon". In either case the only thing an astrologer can do is go through a process called rectification.
Rectification is the process of matching the events that occur in a person’s life with transits and progressions that occurred during those periods. Events that occur at a time when an important transit, such as a Saturn Cycle transit, is taking place are eliminated and the focus is placed on events that occurred without such a transit, the supposition being that such event must feature a significant transit to either the angles of the chart (Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven and I.C.) or the Moon, all of which can only be definitively located with a time of birth.
Rectification can be particularly challenging when we are considering historic figures. These can be people born a long time ago for who a time of birth will never be known and, in some cases, even the date might be a mystery. Take, for example Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton has enjoyed a resurgence of fame in recent years because of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s play, but there are questions about exactly when he was born.
Historically speaking, angular aspects between transiting Saturn and Uranus, like the one we’re now experiencing, have been a mixed bag. When these aspect have occurred in the past conflicts between the necessity for change and the need for stability have erupted in various places around the globe, but there is no consistency as far as which side won. Sometimes we got a major disruption of the status quo and sometimes the status quo quashed the revolution.
In the United States I see this conflict between Saturn and Uranus and the old and the new in what’s been happening to the Republican Party since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. The old Republican Party, as represented by people like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, is giving way to the new Party of Donald Trump. In this case, Uranus and disruption seems to be winning the battle.
But the forces of Saturn are still out there. Yesterday, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who retired from politics after Trump was elected, gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in which he drew a clear and less than flattering distinction between Reagan's brand of Republicanism and Donald Trump’s.
I made much of the dominance of Neptune in the New Moon chart for May 11. (Click here to see the article and the chart.) Neptune has a way of reducing ambitious initiatives to muddled attempts. So instead of facilitating agreement on Biden’s infrastructure bill or even a bi-partisan commission to investigate the events of Jan. 6, 2021, this chart brought doubt that either would be accomplished.
I also noted that the nearly exact sextile between Uranus and Mars in the Tenth House indicated problems for someone in a position of authority. Instead, this aspect seems to have spurred the Biden administration to intercede in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. The current cease-fire may be tenuous but it’s certainly an improvement over what was happening earlier in that lunation period.
It is possible that the big event for this lunation period, at least with regard to the United States, was the announcement that the investigation of Donald Trump’s business dealings has been broadened to cover criminal charges. With both the Sun and Moon in the Ninth House, it’s not surprising that there would be movement in issues related to the court. However, thanks to the strength Neptune in this chart, what that movement means is still a matter of conjecture.
The Science and the Art of Rectification
