As you become interested in astrology, at some point you may think you’d love to get an astrology reading with a professional astrologer. You reach out, excited as can be, ready to learn more about yourself and your birth chart, only to find that since you don’t have a birth time, you can’t go for the big natal astrology reading. Well phooey!
With your birth time, it’s almost impossible for any astrologer to work with your full birth chart. This is why you end up running into a wall.
You can try to find your birth time if your family doesn’t remember (and even when they do, they may remember wrong!) by getting your birth certificate from where you were born. Even then, you may not have the birth time though, since many places don’t record that, and you may have been born somewhere that doesn’t have birth certificates.
So, what can you do when you don’t have your birth time and want an astrology reading?
You actually do have a few options, so let’s dive in!
Why do I need my birth time for an astrology reading?
A natal chart or birth chart is a snapshot of the location in the zodiac of all of the planets, houses, and other bodies at the exact moment you were born from the location you were born at. This is why you need your date of birth, place of birth, and time of birth to create a birth chart.
Not knowing your birth time doesn’t have too much impact on the positions of the planets, with the exception of the Moon. The Moon moves swiftly through the zodiac, moving through all zodiac signs in less than one month. The other planets don’t move that fast, so you have a general idea of their locations and can still use them.
Where not having a birth time makes the biggest difference is the houses. There are 12 astrology houses, each corresponding to a different part of your life and personality. The way they’re calculated, you absolutely have to have an accurate birth time. They go through all of the zodiac signs on a daily basis. Without a birth time, you can’t use houses.
How to Get an Astrology Reading When You Don’t Know Your Birth Time:
You may feel like you have to give up on astrology without a birth time, but astrology is all about giving you answers. So of course astrology has some answers for what to do in this situation!
Read on for 4 options to explore if you don’t know your birth time:
Option 1: Focus on the planets with partial charts (easiest natal option)
Since the planets, outside of the Moon, don’t move so quickly, you can use them instead.
A partial chart is the chart created without the houses and only looks at the planets. It’s usually constructed for noon as the birth time, but I personally like to create two charts instead, one for midnight (12AM) and one for 11:59PM on the day you were born so you get the full range of where your planets fall.
This is helpful for the Moon in particular, since you can see if the Moon changed signs the day you were born. If it didn’t, you know your Moon sign; if it did, you know you’re one of two Moon signs, and can read up about both and assess which may be the right one for you (check out the Ultimate Guide to Your Moon Sign and read both to help you narrow it down!).
You can use your planets just like the houses since the planets rule different parts of your life and personality as well.
For a quick rundown of the planets and what they rule and can be used for:
- Sun: anything with the self, your physical body, opportunities, dating
- Moon: anything to do with the home and family and internal foundation
- Mercury: anything to do with work or health, or the mind or community
- Venus: anything to do with relationships, money, values
- Mars: anything to do with the self, what drives you, or that’s physical
- Jupiter: anything to do with learning, teaching, writing, travel, promotion, beliefs
- Saturn: anything to do with career, goals, responsibilities
- Uranus: anything to do with friends, groups, the future, your dreams, change
- Neptune: anything to do with your spirituality, endings, the past, your subconscious
- Pluto: anything to do with power, control, transformations, other people’s money
So if you’re focusing on money and career, focus on Mercury, Venus, and Saturn; if you’re focusing on your love life, focus on the Sun and Venus; if you’re focusing on your health, look to the Sun and Mars.
Check this out: How Venus Placements Affect the Way We Love
Option 2: Get a chart rectification (best if you have a window for birth time)
With a chart rectification, this usually involves predictive astrology. An astrologer takes information from you about different important events that occurred in your life (like getting married or divorced, getting a big new job, or having a child), assesses what astrology was occurring at that time, and pieces together what your birth chart looks like.
This is definitely the most complex option, and the vast majority of astrologers won’t even do it if you don’t have a window of a few hours for when you may have been born. But if you do, this may be something to consider having done. When an astrologer is knowledgeable with chart rectification, it can be pretty accurate.
Option 3: Use derivative houses (best if you know lots of people with birth times)
With derivative houses, you can use the birth chart for someone else in your life who does have a known birth time, and assign houses in their chart to you. Every house governs different people in our lives, so events that occur to people in our lives can be reflected through our own charts.
This will only be effective for predictive astrology though, and you have to have other people’s charts, so it’s the most limited option, and not very reflective of you in terms of the way your birth chart would show. If your focus is on predictive astrology, and it seems like everyone you know has a birth time, this can be an easy option.
If you’re using a parent’s chart, you start with the 5th house as your 1st house (the 5th house rules your children), and go from there (their 6th is your 2nd, their 7th is your 3rd, their 8th is your 4th, etc.).
If you’re using a sibling’s chart, you start with the 3rd house as your 1st house (the 3rd house rules siblings). If you’re using a friend’s chart, you start with the 11th house as your 1st house (11th house rules friends). If you’re using a significant other/spouse’s chart, you start with the 7th house as your 1st house (7th house rules your committed partnerships).
Option 4: Use horary, mundane, or electional astrology (best for predictive astrology)
There are many branches of astrology, and some don’t require any birth information from you, so if you’re someone who doesn’t even know your date of birth or where you were born, you can use these. Three common ones are horary astrology, mundane astrology, and electional astrology (but like derivative houses, this will only work with predictive astrology though).
You ask the astrologer a specific question, and they construct a chart for the exact moment the question is asked. They use that chart to give you an answer to your question and information about it. This is obviously great if you have questions you want answered and aren’t looking for something about timing.
Focuses on the astrology that we all experience and see at the same time. Planets moving into signs, making aspects to one another, turning retrograde or direct, hitting certain positions, and on and on. This can be helpful for scheduling and planning as you work with the overarching astrology that’s present.
A chart is created for the moment of an event. This is most commonly used for wedding date planning, so you go to an astrologer wanting to find the right date and time to get married so your marriage has an auspicious chart (and minimizes chances of getting divorced!). You can do the same thing with scheduling exams, parties, job interviews, etc. Often, you may not be able to choose when something will occur, but you can still create a chart for the exact moment that it did occur or began, and use that chart to learn information about it.
You can seek out astrologers who specialize in each of these branches of astrology, and get some really great astrology readings as a result.
Conclusion
If you don’t have a birth time, don’t despair! You can still use astrology to your advantage, and you can do so on your own or with the help of an astrologer. You can still get an astrology reading, you just have to be more open and creative about what it entails.
When you find an astrologer you’re a fan of and want to book an astrology reading with them, contact them first to see if they’ll work with you or entertain any of the options listed here. Pretty much all astrologers have dealt with clients who didn’t have a birth time, so try not to think of it as a big deal. Be clear about what you’d like, and understand what your options are. Good luck!
Related Article: The Ultimate Guide to Birth Charts