Take home lesson
The Moon is Void of Course every few days. When the Moon is Void it is no longer making effective contact with other planets in a horoscope. This is a fallow time. It's better to wrap up old work than to launch new things. For me, when the Moon is Void I take a breather from my work. I'll show you how to play with this approach and see how it works in your life.
What's the deal
There's a special branch of astrology that focuses on answering specific questions: it's called horary astrology, from the Latin hora, meaning of the hour. A horary chart is drawn for the moment when a person asks a question. Literally it is a chart for the birth of a question.
Reading a horary chart follows some unique rules. Rather than just looking at what's going on in a chart, a horary interpretation looks at how the chart changes over time. That change over time frames the answer to the question.
The most important thing in a horary chart is the Moon's position. An astrologer looks at all the contacts that the Moon makes with other planets before it leaves its current sign. These contacts mark the development and final solution of the problem.
What happens if the Moon doesn't make any contacts with other planets before it leaves its current sign? That's when the Moon is Void of Course. It's aimless, not focused on anything specific. A horary chart drawn when the Moon is Void says that nothing will come of the question: either the question isn't framed right, or other things will enter the picture that will render the question meaningless. In any case, the question can't be answered.
Many astrologers – including me – take note of when the Moon is Void. Those times are fallow times. Projects started during those periods typically come to naught: the effort is rendered unimportant by unexpected events.
I've been doing personal experiments by watching when the Moon is Void of Course and how it affects me. I've also been experimenting with scheduling down time during Void of Course Moon periods. I've found that it's like having a mini-vacation to power down, distance myself from my affairs, and then power back up when the Moon is back in force.
Do your own experiment!
Head over to AdventuresInPlanetland.com. If the Moon is Void of Course sometime during the day, you'll see a time line on the home page. The time line has a bar that shows you exactly when the Moon is Void. Just pay attention to those times and see how things work – and see if taking a break during those periods improves your life.
When you go to AdventuresInPlanetland.com, the information you see is computed for our home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It's a snap to see the information in your time zone, though. When you join AdventuresInPlanetland.com, you'll enter your current location. With that extra information we'll compute the exact times for the Moon being Void in your own time zone.
A note for experienced astrologers
There's some controversy among astrologers in how to compute a Void of Course Moon. Some astrologers use only the ancient Ptolemaic aspects (conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition), while others add in additional aspects (quincunx, semisextile, semisquare, sesquiquadrate). Our Void of Course information at AdventuresInPlanetland.com always sticks with the standard Ptolemaic aspects; this is the consensus among the best horary practitioners that I've known, read, and studied with.
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