The right moment: choosing the day and time of your project

What is electional astrology?

Electional astrology is the art of choosing the moment of a beginning. It starts from a simple idea: whatever begins takes the sky of the instant it begins. A business has a chart, the chart of its birth; so does a wedding, a lease, a departure. This chart of the moment reads like your birth chart: an Ascendant, a Midheaven, twelve houses, planets in their places.

It is one of the oldest branches of astrology. Greek astrologers, then Arab and medieval ones, chose the hour of a foundation, a journey or a coronation by following a few rules that have not changed: a Moon in good condition and moving towards a good aspect, favorable planets on the angles, the ruler of the project well placed, and never a “void-of-course” Moon.

The difference from a horoscope: you are not reading what the sky brings you, you are choosing the sky you act under. You cannot change your transits; you can choose the hour at which you sign.

What the site calculates, moment by moment

For each day of your period, within the time range you give, the site draws up the chart of the moment every five minutes, at the place of the project and in its time zone (daylight saving included). Over three months, that is thousands of moments: work an astrologer does by hand on a few dates, done here on all of them.

Each moment then goes through the rules of electional astrology, from the heaviest to the lightest:

• A void-of-course Moon rules the moment out: when the Moon forms no further exact aspect with the six other traditional planets before changing sign, what begins “comes to nothing”, says the tradition. Those moments are never offered.
• The Moon: waxing or waning, too close to the Sun, in the burning way, strong or weak in its sign, the next aspect it is about to form and the house it occupies.
• The angles and the houses of the project: Venus and Jupiter on the Ascendant, the Midheaven or the angle of the project’s house count for it; Mars and Saturn in the same places count against it.
• The rulers: the ruler of the Ascendant and the ruler of the project’s house, their dignity, their house, their retrograde motion.
• The planet of the project and its retrogrades: Mercury for a contract, Venus for a wedding, the Sun for a business; a retrograde that hinders the project weighs on it, and so does an eclipse less than three days away.

Each project has its houses: the 10th and 2nd for a business, the 7th and 3rd for a contract, the 4th for a home, the 7th and 5th for a wedding.

Your birth chart in the calculation

A good sky for everyone is not necessarily yours. Once the chart of the moment is scored, the site crosses it with your birth chart: the angles of the moment on your points, the Moon of the moment on your chart, the moment’s helpful or difficult planets on your Sun, Moon, Ascendant and Midheaven, and the house of your chart where the moment’s Ascendant falls.

For several people (a couple, business partners), every chart counts. The site keeps the average of the people, minus half the gap between them: a moment that is excellent for one and hard for the other drops in the ranking. Nobody is left out.

Your chart is calculated as everywhere on the site, with the accuracy of the ephemerides, to the minute when you know your birth time.

The three options

Three ways to use it, depending on what you already know about your project and the people it involves:

With the My Birth Chart+ subscription, each option costs less: €39, €79 and €159. To compare it with our other offers, see pricing.

• Compare your dates (€49): you already have up to three possible dates, the ones offered by the notary, the town hall or the employer. The site ranks them and gives, for each, the best time within your time range, with a second time on the best day.
• Find the moment (€99): the open search over a period of three months at most, up to two years ahead, within a time range, with days of the week to leave out if you wish.
• For several people (€199): the same search, crossed with two to four birth charts.

What your report contains

The report arrives as a PDF by email. It gives three moments on three different days (or your dates, ranked), a backup moment, and for each one the day, the time, the window and the reasons it was chosen, from the strongest to the lightest. Each moment carries its quality: “Excellent”, “Very favorable”, “Favorable”, or “The best of the period” when the period allows nothing better.

It also gives the periods to avoid, and why: the retrogrades that hinder your project and those of Mercury, the days around an eclipse, the days when no moment is possible within your time range. To place these periods in the year, see the retrogrades and the lunar calendar.

The dates and times are printed by the site, exactly as it calculated them; the text around them is composed from the reasons for each moment. If you ask for it when ordering, an email reminds you of the first moment the day before.

How to use the window

Each moment has a time and a window: the nearby minutes that are worth almost as much. Aim for the time, but above all keep the window in mind. Prepare everything the day before, so that the act itself fits inside it. If the first moment becomes impossible, take the next one: they were chosen on different days for that very reason.

What counts as “the moment”, the instant to fit inside the window, depends on the project:

• Signing a contract, a purchase or a lease: the signature that makes the deed final, at the notary, at the agency or online.
• Launching a business: sending the declaration or the registration, signing the articles, or the first sale if everything is already filed.
• Moving in: the instant you cross the threshold to stay, with a first object that matters to you.
• Getting married or entering a civil union: the exchange of consent or the signature; for a proposal, the instant you ask the question.
• A new job, a launch, a departure: the signature or your first hour at work; going live or the announcement; the instant you leave the place you are leaving from.

The limits: birth time and what the calculation does not do

Your birth time matters: it places your angles and your houses, which the calculation crosses with the chart of the moment. Without it, the crossing is made on your planets alone, and the report says so.

Sometimes no moment is possible: on some days the Moon can stay void of course for your whole time range. The site tells you before payment; widen the time range or the period. A well-chosen moment replaces neither preparation nor decision: it puts the sky on your side on the day you act.

The right moment and Vega: the difference

Vega, the site’s chat, answers your questions and gives you windows: the seasons of your transits that carry a project, the lunations, the retrogrades ahead (see Vega and the present moment).

The right moment goes down to the minute. It needs the place and the time to draw up the Ascendant and the houses of each moment, the void-of-course Moon, and thousands of moments checked against your chart: that calculation is what you order. The two work together: the window first, then the moment.