Daily Horoscope Guide

Daily Forecast with Classical Astrology

The twelve Zodiac figures. Illustration from a 1482 edition of Poeticon Astronomicon, attributed to Hyginus.

Most newspapers have columns with daily horoscopes, describing what to expect of the day in a couple of sentences. Nowadays, the Internet has countless sites doing the same. So, how is this done and can you do it yourself?

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First of all, few of the newspaper horoscopes are done with any astrological method. Journalists are assigned to make something up, which is the traditional job for novice reporters. As for Internet versions, I doubt that they are made in a significantly different fashion.

That's because real daily horoscopes, using astrology correctly, is quite complicated and time-consuming. Newspapers couldn't be bothered.

Also, there's no room in any newspaper for doing the job properly. Instead, these daily horoscopes are based solely on what Zodiac sign the sun is in — the sun sign. Thereby, they limit it to twelve different texts. As if there are only twelve people in the whole world.

The Real Thing

A proper daily horoscope for a person is quite a different thing. It takes into account the whole birth chart of that person, with all its Zodiac signs, astrological Houses, planets, and aspects (special angles) between them. And it compares this to the positions of all the planets at the day in question.

That makes an intricate whole, which is far from easy to interpret. The planetary positions of the day in question are called transits. When these form aspects to planets and other points in the birth chart horoscope, this indicates events to happen on that day.

Here's an example of a transit horoscope — for Barack Obama on the day of the Presidential election, November 6th, 2012:

Barack Obama daily horoscope for the election on November 6th, 2012.

The transit planets are marked outside the outer circle, and the positions of the planets at his birth are marked on the inner side of the Zodiac circle. The lines inside the innermost circle mark aspects between transit planets and those of his birth chart (radix). Conjunction aspects (0°) are not marked, but they are still easy to spot.

I made a reading of this daily Obama horoscope here, using it to try and figure out if he would win the election or not.

As you can see, there's a lot of work involved in both charting a proper daily horoscope and interpreting it — even nowadays, when computer programs do the math and draw up the complete horoscope chart.

The above example is the only true and complete way of making a daily horoscope. If you want to try it yourself, there are several astrological sites doing the chart for free. Check the Your Own Horoscope webpage here, for a list of some of these services. Or just use a search engine.

What It Reveals

In the reading of the daily horoscope, you have to remember that some transit planets move much faster through the Zodiac than others do. The moon (counted as a planet in this context) is by far the fastest, moving something like 13° a day, whereas Pluto is the slowest, taking almost 250 years to make a complete orbit.

Therefore, the influence of a Pluto transit aspect is not just for that day, but for a year or even longer. Of particular interest is the day when that aspect is exact, which means something significant may happen on that day and have a long-lasting effect. The same is true for Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn. Less so for Jupiter.

The remaining planets — Mars, Venus, and Mercury — tend to express themselves in events on the very day their transit aspects to your birth chart are exact. The moon, too, but it tends to be expressed by moods instead of events. Also the sun is significant in a daily horoscope transit, indicating what "theme" will dominate the day.

There's no room on this webpage to go through all the components of a proper daily horoscope, but you can see several examples of how such a reading is done — just check some of the Famous Horoscopes.

You can also see some examples of it at Predictions.

If Making It Simpler

Now, if we would still do like the newspapers and simplify the task significantly, we have to watch out for some traps.

It's not wrong to choose the Zodiac sign positions of the sun in your birth chart, since that's the mightiest of the points of the horoscope. The radix sun mainly shows what you are when not doing things that involve other planets. That's your nature when you rest, for example, but also what seems to dominate your life, generally speaking.

But a Zodiac sign covers 30° of the total 360° Zodiac circle of the horoscope. For any accuracy, you need to check where in the sign your radix sun is, to know if the transit planet forms an aspect with it or not.

For example, if your sun is in the beginning of a Zodiac sign and the transit planet at the end of it, that's not a conjunction. Not at all. Transit influences demand close aspects, really no more than 1° or 2° from being exact. Anything over 5° is completely insignificant — it just means that the aspect has happened earlier or is yet to come.

If this is not checked, the daily horoscope is a lottery instead of astrology.

If you do check it and you find a proper aspect between a transit planet and your sun, it can indeed be interpreted astrologically. But then you have to be aware that it involves only one ingredient of your birth chart horoscope, therefore only one circumstance in your life.

Since it's the sun it's sure to be significant — but not complete. Lots of other things may happen than what the transit to your sun reveals. For a complete picture, you need to make a daily horoscope like the Obama example above.

Who said it was going to be easy?

Zodiac Sign Calculator

If you're unsure of your Zodiac sign, or if you want to know on what degree (between 0° and 30°) of the sign the sun was at your birth, please visit the Zodiac sign calculator. It's very easy to use, and then you'll know for sure. (I designed this calculator, but it's moved to another website.)

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