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When looking up your chart, it’s important to have an exact birth time. Rising sign changes every two hours, and the moon changes sign about every 2.5 days. So 15 minutes can make change your rising sign, and if you were born on a day the moon changed signs, a few hours could also change your moon sign (not to mention the fact that knowing the degree of your moon makes a difference for the aspects it makes to other planets/points in your chart). But knowing your birth time isn’t always easy, especially if you’re not in touch with your family of origin. If you’re trying to figure out your birth time and either aren’t in contact with your parents or they don’t know, you can try calling the Department of Health for the state where you were born and just asking them.

A friend of mine wanted to look up her chart, but her family only had very vague guesses about what time of day she was born, so I set out to try to figure out her birth time and print her chart for her for her birthday. I called the Department of Health for the state where she was born and asked if they could help. The guy on the phone said, “We don’t have that information.” That sounded wrong to me, and I’m also a trans person who has been lied to by too many identity-document bureaucrats to count. So I double-checked online to make sure that her state did track birth time during the year she was born, and in a week or 2, I called again. This time, the woman said, “What’s the name again?” and told me her birth time. Voila!

If you don’t get as lucky, you can also order a copy of your birth record, but for most states, you’ll probably need to order a “long form” birth certificate (which includes more information than the standard one). Check to make sure that the state where you born recorded birth time the year you were born and which document you need to order to get that information before you waste time and money ordering a document.

If none of that works, there are astrologers who specialize in “chart rectification” and can probably narrow in on your birth time by looking at the timing of other important events in your life.

I was inspired by @jessrollar‘s daily tarot tracking method.  Instead of putting in the time and meticulous attention to precision required of making a chart by hand, I decided to make myself a chart in Excel.  If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to check Jess’s blog post explanation linked above.

Here’s what my sheet includes: like Jess’s model, the centerpiece of this is color-coding the suits I pull for my daily tarot draw.  Jess is tracking moon phases, which I’m doing as well, but I also wanted to track the moon’s movement through the zodiac. Additionally, I included a column where I could record the number of the card I draw to see if there are any numerological patterns developing.

Here’s the Excel tarot chart if you’d like to use it.

Here’s my first month of tracking:

You’ll see that I missed several days.  I put in a star on days where I did a multi-card spread instead of a daily draw, to distinguish that from the days I don’t pick up my deck.

I’m finding this really illuminating already.  I didn’t realized how many pentacles cards I’d pulled in January, nor that Strength came up for me 3 times this month after having almost never come up in daily draws in previous years.

Welcome to Queer of Cups!  Check the links above for offerings and information about how to order your mini astro-consultation.

Follow me on instagram @queer_of_cups for astro updates.

Header photo by Sam Goodgame on Unsplash.