Introduction to the Grid

"The Rules of the Game":  A Brief Summary

"The Six Chess Pieces":  The Planet Metaphors

"The Chessboard":  The Grid Elements

Last update: 2 May 05

"The Rules of the Game":  A Brief Summary

The following is a 'brief and pithy' summary of the grid. It may be too abbreviated for some people, but we include it in the event some of you find it useful.

1. The grid uses the position of the six slowest "planets": Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Chiron, Saturn, and Jupiter.
   • "Planets" is in quotation marks because Chiron is an asteroid between Saturn and Uranus.
   • Slowest refers to the length of the time it takes the "planet" to orbit the sun or traverse the 12 zodiac signs. The earth orbits the sun in one solar year of 365 days; Jupiter takes about 13 years, Saturn about 29.5 years, Chiron about 50 years, Uranus 84 years, Neptune about 168 years, and Pluto about 250 years. (The moon traverses the 12 zodiac signs in about 28 days.)
     
     
2. Consequences of using the six slowest planets:
   • Only the day / month / year of a birthdate is needed. The time of day and the place of birth (and the longitude) are not needed. The Grid does not use the houses system employed by astrologers.
   • A Grid of a date is stable for several days, e.g., up to 10 days, this means that people and events within a several-day period will have the same grid pattern and metaphysical characteristics.
   • Michael Jordan (2/17/63) - probably the worldÕs best basketball player - and Charles Barkley (2/20/63) - another top-flight basketball player - were born within three days of each other, and it is easy to identify basketball ability from the Grid.
   • Evel Knievel (10/17/38), Wayne London (10/19/38), and Christopher Lloyd (10/21/38) were all born within four days of each other and have the same Grid pattern. All three are passionate stuntmen or mad scientists.
   • A database of individual birthdates can be created. This is not possible with classical astrology that uses the time and place of birth, and the notion of houses.
   • We believe, that the position of the six slowest planets gives information about deeper metaphysical and spiritual healing (MASH) issues, such as, connection to spirit, soul issues and the re-sounding of karmic or non-local phenomena.

   We believe, that the position faster planets (sun, moon, mercury, venus, and mars) provide more superficial information, such as a personÕs style or personality. This applies to oneÕs sun sign Ð the month of birth as in "I am a Libra." Newspaper horoscopes deal with this information.
   
   

3. The position of a planet is a) the zodiac sign and b) the degree (window) of the planet on a given day.
   • The zodiac sign gives information about the person as a member of their age group cohort. For example, "Jane Doe has her Chiron in Aries" is translated as "Jane Doe as a member of her age group will align or heal (Chiron) a culture (Aries)."
   • The degree (window) gives information about the person as an individual. For example, "Jane Doe has her Neptune in degree window 8" is translated as "Jane Doe as an individual has a script (Neptune) in a new culture (window 8).
   • Thus, the Grid is really two grids: one for an age group cohort, that uses zodiac sign information, and the other for an individual, that uses degree window information. As a convention, a planet metaphor in a zodiac sign is placed in a box.
   • Rounding up: when a planet metaphor is in a degree window and the minutes are 59 (and possibly 58) the planet metaphor is placed both in that degree window and the next higher one.
   • At present, the Grid does not use information about a planet moving retrograde, or backwards. When the earth is on the opposite side of the sun from a slower moving planet, the planet appears to be moving forward, that is, from lower to higher degrees. When the earth is on the same side of the sun as a slower moving planet, the planet appears to be moving retrograde, or backward, that is, from higher to lower degrees.
     
     
4. Transiting Grids, Events, and Birthdates
   • Each date has a Grid. In the terminology of astrology, the Grid of today is called the "transiting grid" (where the planets are transiting the 12 zodiac signs today).
   • When an event happens to an individual, both the grid patterns of the date of the event and the birthdate of the individual are placed on the same chart. This allows seeing why a specific event happens to a specific person on a specific day.

By convention, a "hat" V is placed on the planet metaphors of the grid of a date of an event, e.g., today's date, date of a wedding, of an accident, or of the onset of an illness.