Predictive Precision, Part I: Solar Arc/Transit "Echoes"

Some of you may be following #astrologergood on Twitter, where folks get excited about the lousy things that happen in their lives when those things turn out to be beautiful manifestations of their astrological charts. Here is my contribution--on Christmas Day, during our first Christmas visit with my wife's family in nearly a decade, I tested positive for COVID. I'm fine so far, quarantined in a back room, and no one else has yet tested positive or shown symptoms. I've decided to spend part of my ten-days alone looking at how precisely various predictive techniques, modern and traditional, capture this diagnosis. The technique I thought most folks here would find most interesting is the combination of solar arcs and transits.

I have anticipated some kind of serious illness for months--every single predictive technique known to me suggests it. In the case of solar arcs, there are only two this year that are partile in my chart, SA MC=Ma, partile last April, and SA Ma=Mo, partile in August 2022. The former played out in spades, as my office was overwhelmed this year with work--and I with it as newly-appointed Deputy Director. The latter suggested the possibility of illness or injury, since Moon rules my Sixth House, so I've been extra cautious about my well-being this year. The question was--when might I expect this to happen?

Have a look at the attached tri-wheel chart from 23 December 2021. The inner chart is natal, the middle is solar arcs, the outer is transits. I've stripped it down to just the relevant planets for this analysis. While I know that many folks prefer to use a 30' orb applying, and 30' separating for solar arcs, my own practice has suggested a degree applying and a degree separating. Arcs suggest once-in-a-lifetime developments whose origins are often earlier than we acknowledge, and have a longer tail than we expect. The wider orb captures this wider developmental "arc" well. In this instance, then, we might look for triggers to the SA Ma=Mo beginning around Aug 2021 through its partile point next August. So what triggers should we look for?

There is a simple technique of looking for echoes of any given solar arc in one's annual transits that often works very well for determining when that arc will manifest most clearly. In this case, then, we would be looking for hard aspects--conjunctions, squares, or oppositions--from Transiting Mars to the Moon during the period August 2021 to August 2022. This approach isn't fail-safe--no approach is. Transiting Mars conjoined my Moon in August 2021 at the start of this period with no significant health issues that I can recall. Perhaps this is evidence that it was too early to be looking for significant events within the arc--it was nearly a full degree from partile at that time. I did, however, perform in public for the first time in nearly a year at an outdoor Colonial Fair in Ohio, where roughly 5 of the 10,000 people who attended the fair was wearing a mask. Did this exposure begin eroding my resistances, who knows? But that was the first time I had that kind of mask-free exposure to the general public in a year.

The next transit of Mars to my natal Moon will be the square that is partile on January 1, 2022. This follows the December 4 solar eclipse at 12 Sagittarius, which squared my Moon within one degree. Looking at this months ago, we might have said, well, keep an eye out for possible health difficulties or injuries around Christmas/New Year's during your visit out West. In the event, I began experiencing symptoms of COVID around Dec 22, a bit more than a week before partile, with the square applying by 7 degees. I had a *negative* COVID test the following day, but was nervous that it might be inaccurate, considering my persistent cough. I tested positive at home on Christmas Morning, with Tr Ma applying within 5 degrees.

It is still early, of course, so perhaps there is more to see from this infection in the coming days as transiting Mars closes to partile by New Year's Day. Moreover, SA Ma=Mo is still outside the 30' orb that most folks use. This could suggest that the worst is yet to come, of course, whether as part of this COVID infection or other health concerns in the coming year. That's a sobering thought, and I'm certainly keeping a close eye on my condition right now. But I'm vaccinated, and boosted, and hopeful that I'll make it through this quarantine without too much difficulty.

Should this ten-day quarantine with COVID prove to be one of the key manifestations of the SA Ma=Mo prefigured in my chart this year, we can draw a couple of tentative conclusions from it. First, that the technique of looking for echoes of the arc in transits is an effective method of timing within the period of the solar arc. Second, that we should be open to a wider aperture of orb than the standard 30' applying and separating. Third, that we should allow for a fairly wide orb on the "echo transit" to play itself out. Assuming that all goes well, my 10-day quarantine from the first appearance of symptoms will end on January 2, as Tr Ma begins to separate from its square to the Moon. Fingers crossed.

I'm planning to write a blog post looking as well at the insights that profections, solar returns, and direction of the solar return offer on the question of timing this event. The latter nailed it virtually to the day. These techniques are drawn from the Medieval Arabic tradition, though, so are outside the scope of the normal Tyl Continued purview. For the purposes of this analysis, though, it's worth saying that the standard approach of solar arcs/transits, focused through the lens of the "echo" principle, affords a predictive accuracy within roughly a week. Which ain't bad at all.

Assuming I'm still around in May 2022, I'll check in again when Tr Ma once again squares my natal Moon. The SA Ma=Mo will be closer to partile at that time. I'm going to be taking my vitamins and getting a physical between now and then.

Peace.