1YOUR 4O YEAR HOROSCOPE

C h a p t e r O n e

Why astro logy? Why Not?For more than ten thousand years, astrologers were among the finest minds—mathematicians, scientists, doctors, and philosophers. Today, astrology still has an educated following. Every country in the world embraces its own form of astrology.

What I am suggesting is: why wouldn’t you use this ancient sys-tem of wisdom to help you?

Astrology is not about vibes and crystal balls. Astrology is based on mathematics; specifically, the cycles of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets in our solar system.

I hope this book can help you learn more about yourself, help you to better plan your future, and help you to get a better handle on your life.

I use astrology in many ways, but here is one way it helped me:

For thirteen years, I rented a townhouse on King’s Road in Vancouver near the University of British Columbia. I loved living there. It was a close-knit neighbourhood, only one block long, and full of friendly, interesting people. (There were a few duds.)

However, all the time I lived there, I also owned a piece of land on a nearby island. One day, to everyone’s horror, we were all given eviction notices because our townhouses were to be torn down. We were being forced to move!

Everyone began looking for places to rent or buy. I, however, simply moved into a new house on my island property, which I had built in the year prior to getting evicted.

Did I see the eviction coming? Of course not. Astrology is not a crystal ball. However, according to my own chart, I saw that I would

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be moving in the next year. Since this was inevitable, I started to build the house I had always dreamed of building.

This is just one way that looking at my chart has helped me. Being able to see a particular cycle in the future can be a godsend! It allows you to prepare yourself—psychologically, emotionally, and practically for whatever lies ahead.

Our lives are a series of cycles within cycles. Daily cycles, weekly cycles, monthly cycles, annual cycles, and the cycles of the changing seasons. Astrology is based on the mathematical cycles of the planets moving through the signs. A good astrologer can interpret data from these cycles and correlate them to the cycles of your chart and pre-dict the future with reasonable accuracy.

And hey—of course you’re concerned about the future. This is where you’re going to spend the rest of your life!

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C h a p t e r t W O

You are More than Your s ign!

When you read your horoscope every day, most of you read one sign—the sign that lines up with your birthday.1 Many people do not know that your sign (“I’m a Leo!”) is actually the sign where the Sun was when you were born. So, to be more correct, your “sign” is your Sun Sign.

Confused?Each of us has an astrological chart showing where all the plan-

ets are. That’s how astrology works. It shows the sign that your Sun is in and the sign that your Moon is in and the sign that Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the rest of the planets are in. So your “Sun Sign” is just one part of you.

You also have a Rising Sign. (This is sometimes called the Ascen-dant.) The Rising Sign is très important! In fact, it is the biggest reason people of the same sign appear to be so different.

What Is the Rising Sign?

Your birthday tells you what your Sun Sign is because your Sun Sign is based on the day of the year you were born. The Rising Sign is based on the time of day you were born, as well as the day of the year. This is more specific.

1. If you are born at the beginning or at the end of your sign, you’re born on the cusp. This means you probably have the qualities of both signs. However, here is something important to know: the dates in newspapers or magazines are average dates for each sign. In truth, each sign can begin or end on a different date, depending on the year. If you were born on the cusp, and aren’t sure what sign you are, you have to check with an astrologer about the particular year you were born. This is why some columns have different dates from others. I chose the same dates as Sydney Omarr’s because I admired him (no doubt because we have very similar charts).

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Your Rising Sign is your mask or your persona. It’s how you proj-ect yourself outwardly to the world. It has a lot to do with your appearance, your personality, and your outward packaging. In truth, your Rising Sign is the modus operandi that you adopted as a child to survive in your family. It’s your game face.

Your Rising Sign indicates how you make things happen in your life, or how you will attain your future. It’s the style you use to get what you want. To put it another way, if I have to describe someone, and if I could know only one thing about them—I want to know their Rising Sign.

Consider this example:Let’s take a look at the birth of baby Johnny. No matter what

month of the year Johnny is born (this means he could be any sign), he is the fourth child in a family who already have three rambunc-tious boys under the age of eleven. You get the picture. “Don’t run with scissors!”

Common sense says that little Johnny will assume a certain game face to survive in that family. If he is a scrapper, defending himself right from the moment he arrives—he might be Aries Rising. (A war-rior!) Or, if Mom or Dad is powerful, he might be Scorpio Rising: strong, tough, and able to stand up for himself, but also a child with an extremely strong role model for a parent. Or he might be Libra Rising if he assumes the role of the peacemaker among his squab-bling sibblings.

Your Rising Sign shows how you chose to survive in your fam-ily. It also shows how you might have imitated a particular parent or taken on a certain style, which, of course, is your signature for the rest of your life.

It is because of the Rising Sign that all Aries, or all Capricorns, or all of any sign, are not the same and, in fact, are amazingly different!

Therefore, if you know what your Rising Sign is, all the infor-mation about it will apply to you equally as much as the information

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about your Sun Sign. And hey—when I say equally, I mean it will apply equally in terms of describing you and it will apply just as equally in terms of predicting your future.

This is why, if you know your Rising Sign, you will have TWO signs to read every day, every week, and in every annual forecast—and certainly in this book. Bonus!

And now the painful caveat. It’s best to ask an astrologer or to get a computer program to compute your Rising Sign. Or you can Google Rising Sign Calculator and a “calculator” will come up.

No simple table can be fully accurate. The table on page 6 will only put you in the ballpark of your Rising Sign. But if you have nothing else, this table will narrow it down to one of three signs for you. This means you might have to read the description for three signs to figure out which Rising Sign you have. (Not as bad as having to butter your toast with hard butter.)

Find your sign in the horizontal black bar and follow the col-umn downwards to line up with the time of day you were born. Your Rising Sign will be either the sign you “land” on—or the sign on either side. Good luck!

To know your Rising Sign as well as your Sun Sign is more than satisfying idle curiosity. It will help you make pivotal decisions in the future. Since important decisions are often tough to make, why not use everything at your disposal to help?2

2. That famous Leo Arnold Schwarzenegger said running for governor of California was the second hardest decision he had ever made in his life. His toughest decision was in 1978, when he decided to get a bikini wax.

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hoW To FINd Your rIsING sIGN

Choose the time in the left column to match your birth time (a.m. or p.m.) to your sign. Example: If you are a Virgo who is born at 10:23 a.m. you are Sagittarius Rising.

SIgn ARIeS TAuRuS gemInI CAnCeR Leo VIRgo

12am–2am Aquarius Picsces Aries Taurus gemini Cancer

2am–4am Pisces Aries Taurus gemini Cancer Leo

4am–6am Aries Taurus gemini Cancer Leo Virgo

6am–8am Taurus gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra

8am–10am gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio

10am–noon Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius

noon–2pm Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn

2pm–4pm Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius

4pm–6pm Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces

6pm–8pm Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces Aries

8pm–10pm Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces Aries Taurus

10pm–12am Capricorn Aquarius Pisces Aries Taurus gemini

SIgn LIBRA SCoRPIo SAgITTARIuS CAPRICoRn AQuARIuS PISCeS

12am–2am Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn

2am–4am Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius

4am–6am Libra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces

6am–8am Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces Aries

8am–10am Sagittarius Capricorn Aquarius Pisces Aries Taurus

10am–noon Capricorn Aquarius Pisces Aries Taurus gemini

noon–2pm Aquarius Pisces Aries Taurus gemini Cancer

2pm–4pm Pisces Aries Taurus gemini Cancer Leo

4pm–6pm Aries Taurus gemini Cancer Leo Virgo

6pm–8pm Taurus gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra

8pm–10pm gemini Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio

10pm–12am Cancer Leo Virgo Libra Scorpio Sagittarius