Auspicious time today: the hour and the Moon in Arabian astrology

Auspicious time today, in Arabian astrology

The auspicious time today, in the Arabian tradition this page follows, is read from two clocks anyone can consult: the planet ruling the present hour, and the lunar mansion the Moon is passing through tonight. Both run live at the top of this page. This is not the Hindu panchang. Canopy calculates no tithi, yoga or karana, no muhurta, choghadiya or Rahu kaal, and none of the twenty-seven sidereal nakshatras; it works in the tropical zodiac, with the twenty-eight Arabian mansions and the unequal planetary hours of the astrologers who wrote in Arabic. Neither panel asks for your birth data.

Readers of jyotish will know the question in another form. There, whether today is an auspicious day is read from the panchang and its five limbs: the tithi or lunar day, the vara or weekday, the nakshatra, the yoga and the karana. A muhurta is a thirtieth of the day and night, about forty-eight minutes; the choghadiya divides the daylight and the night into eight parts each; and the hora is a planetary hour whose rulers follow the same order as the Arabian ones. How the two traditions choose a time is the subject of muhurat in Arabian astrology, and the mansions beside the nakshatras that of nakshatra, the Moon's mansion.

The Arabian answer comes with a condition. The astrologers of the ʿAbbāsid centuries asked not whether a time was good but what it was good for: their art of al-ikhtiyārāt, the choices, elects a moment for a particular beginning. The hour and the Moon can be read for any purpose, which makes them a fair first answer to “is today a good day?” The rest of an election, the rising degree, the lords of the matter's houses and the planets that signify it, depends on what you mean to begin and where. That is astrology timing as the tradition practiced it: the sky read for a purpose.

Is today a good day? Start with the hour

The planetary day begins at sunrise and belongs to the planet that rules its first hour: the Sun on Sunday, the Moon on Monday, Mars on Tuesday, Mercury on Wednesday, Jupiter on Thursday, Venus on Friday, Saturn on Saturday. The daylight is cut into twelve equal parts and the night into twelve more, so a summer day hour runs long and a winter one short, and the rulers follow one another in the Chaldean order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. That is why the panel above names two planets, the lord of the day and the lord of the hour, as set out under the Chaldean order and the day ruler.

The arithmetic already answers part of the question. A day is twenty-four hours, not one quality, and each planet rules three or four of them: Saturday, Saturn's day, still holds hours of Jupiter and Venus, and Friday, the day of Venus, its hours of Saturn and Mars. “Is today a good day?” becomes “which of today's hours are good, and for what?”

Each hour is read by the nature of its planet. The hours of the benefics, Jupiter and Venus, were sought for whatever one hopes will prosper; those of the malefics, Saturn and Mars, were met with caution; the hours of the Sun, the Moon and Mercury suited dealings with authority, journeys and messages, and writing and trade. Canopy's elections keep that ranking when they score a moment. An hour of Jupiter or Venus counts most in a window's favor, the Sun's somewhat less, the Moon's and Mercury's a little, while an hour of Mars or Saturn counts against it, as does an hour whose own lord is retrograde or combust.

In the app, the Planetary Hour card in the Today reading names the ruling planet and its span, shows the hours before and after, and opens onto every hour of the day and night; its detail adds the day's ruler, the hour's place among the twenty-four and the minutes it has left.

A good time today, but good for what?

Canopy's Events search asks what the tradition asked: what are you electing for? On top of the general ranking above, each of its sixteen purposes, in seven families, names certain hours as favoring the matter, and many name others as hostile to it, so one hour can be a good time today for one matter and a poor one for another. Each purpose links to its own guide.

The pattern is the tradition's. Jupiter's hour is on the favored list of fifteen of the sixteen purposes; only Planning Romantic Dates leaves it off, keeping to the hours of Venus and the Moon. The Sun's hour is favored by twelve purposes and Mercury's by eleven, though Property & Real Estate names Mercury's hour as hostile. Saturn's hour is named hostile by eight, every Marriage and Legal purpose and Travel & Journeys, and favored by exactly one, Property & Real Estate, the matter of what is built to last. Mars's hour is favored by none and named hostile by seven. The Business and Authority & Work purposes name no hostile hour of their own, though the general ranking still counts an hour of Mars or Saturn against any window. For Medical Procedures & Healing the app adds that its timing is astrological guidance only, not medical advice.

On a result card the hour's ruler is named beside the Ascendant and the Midheaven, and under Why this time? a favored hour is listed among the factors that raised the window, a hostile one among those that lowered it.

Is today an auspicious day? Ask the Moon

The Moon carries the other half of the answer. The tradition made her the general significator of beginnings, so the station she holds was taken to color whatever is begun under it, and she keeps each of the twenty-eight mansions for about a day: the mansion sets the tone, the hours divide it. The panel above names tonight's mansion with its nature: Saʿd, fortunate; Naḥs, calling for caution; or mixed, or neutral. Eighteen are Saʿd, four Naḥs, five mixed and one neutral, as the table the panel reads from shows.

A Saʿd mansion tonight does not make today auspicious for everything. Each of Canopy's sixteen purposes keeps its own list of mansions it favors and mansions it forbids, and the lists follow the matter, not the label. The mansion al-Shawla, the Sting, is Saʿd, yet twelve purposes forbid it and none favors it. Spica's mansion, al-Simāk, is favored for proposals, weddings, journeys and friendships and forbidden for medical procedures; the Heart, al-Qalb, is Naḥs and favored for property. The most widely welcome are al-Dhirāʿ, the Forearm, and al-ʿAwwāʾ, the Howler, each favored by ten purposes and forbidden by none. When a window passes with the Moon in a mansion its purpose forbids, its detail marks the mansion Unfavorable for this election. What each station favors and warns against is in the guide to what each Moon mansion favors.

What spoils an auspicious time

Some faults outweigh any hour or mansion. In a search for a named purpose, Canopy sets a window aside when the Moon is combust, too close to the Sun; when she is void of course, completing no further aspect before she leaves her sign; when she travels the via combusta between 19° Libra and 15° Scorpio, or is joined to the South Node; when Mars or Saturn is rising on the Ascendant; when the lord of the Ascendant is combust; or when a planet that signifies the matter is retrograde. A window set aside is simply left off the list, so a Jupiter hour under a void Moon never appears in the results at all. The full set of checks is described in how Canopy reads an election.

The most auspicious time today, found in Canopy

For a real answer, name the matter. In the app, open Elections, choose Events and pick your purpose under What are you electing for? Set the Location card to where the thing will happen, since the hours and the rising sign belong to a place. The range runs from today to three months ahead unless you change it, and can reach six months; Find Best Moments searches all of it, so today's auspicious time is weighed against every other moment in the stretch.

Only windows that pass are listed, each scored at 50 percent or more and called Good or Excellent. Sort by Soonest and they fall under their days, so today's come first if there are any; Best Quality puts the strongest first. Each card gives the time, the Ascendant, the Midheaven and the hour's ruler with the first factors in its favor, and the detail lists every factor under Why this time? and lets you save the window to your calendar or set a reminder. If nothing passes, the screen says so: “No window favors your chart in this stretch.” For today, that is an honest answer too.

Your birth chart enters lightly. Windows are ranked on the election chart alone, and your natal chart is then weighed as a small, bounded adjustment, shown under Relationship to Your Natal once your birth data is in the app. A score measures how well the sky agrees with the rules for your matter; the app's own guide to Events says plainly that it is not the chance of a good outcome.

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