First date astrology: choosing the day and hour for a date

First date astrology is an election for the meeting

First date astrology, in the older sense of the art, does not ask whether two people suit each other. It asks when to meet. It is electional astrology turned to one small beginning, on the principle that a matter takes on the character of the sky at its start. The Arabic authors called the art al-ikhtiyārāt, “the choices”.

No list of auspicious dates suits everyone, because the sky that matters turns by the hour: the rising sign moves on about every two hours and the Moon enters a new lunar mansion about once a day. What astrology can offer is the window, inside the days you are free and for the place you will meet, with the fewest faults and the most help.

Canopy keeps a purpose for it, Planning Romantic Dates, Liqāʾ al-Ḥubb, for first dates, romantic outings and rekindling romance; its own guide puts the task plainly: time the meeting. The election shapes the start of the meeting, not how the evening goes.

What Canopy weighs for a date: Venus, the Moon and the fifth house

Canopy reads a date through two significators: Venus, the natural signifier of love, and the Moon, whose condition Canopy weighs in every election. Each counts for the date in her own signs or exaltation and against it in detriment or fall (see essential dignities).

The Moon’s motion counts too. A Moon applying closely to Venus counts for more than one separating from her; a waxing Moon, or one applying by trine or sextile to Jupiter or Venus, counts in a window’s favor, and one applying to Mars or Saturn counts against it.

The houses are where a date parts company with a wedding. A wedding and a proposal are judged from the seventh house, the partner’s. The date search looks to the first, fifth and seventh, and makes the fifth, which Canopy’s House Ruler Analysis calls “Creativity, children, and fortune”, the house of the matter. Each of their lords is scored on its own condition.

So a date carries no contest between the lord of the Ascendant, who stands for you, and the lord of the seventh, who stands for the other person. One test remains: when the lord of the Ascendant does not overpower the lord of the fifth, the window is held back from the highest scores.

Coldness and quarrels: what sets a date window aside

Some faults the date search does not weigh but refuses: a window that carries one is set aside, however good its hour. Three belong to the date:

• Mars or Saturn in the fifth or seventh whole-sign house, a rule kept against coldness and quarrels;
• Venus retrograde, since a retrograde significator was read as a matter that stalls, a rule drawn from Sahl ibn Bishr and the Picatrix;
• the Moon in the eighth or twelfth whole-sign house, a rule drawn from Sahl and shared with Canopy’s other marriage purposes.

The first is the date’s own. A wedding refuses Mars in the first or seventh house; the date search moves the rule to the fifth and seventh and adds Saturn, so Mars in the first house no longer rules a date out unless he is within 3° of the Ascendant, a fault every election shares.

Other faults count against a window without removing it: the Sun in the seventh, read as separation, and a combust Venus, which counts twice, as a weakened significator and as the date’s own caution. Among the fixed stars, Spica within a degree of an angle counts for a date; Algol within a degree of the Ascendant, Midheaven or Descendant rules one out.

The faults every election shares

Beneath the date’s own rules lie the refusals Canopy applies to every purpose: the Moon combust, within 8.5° of the Sun, unless cazimi, in the heart of the Sun; the Moon void of course, a rule drawn from Sahl and al-Bīrūnī; the Moon in the burnt path from 19° Libra to 15° Scorpio or within 8° of the South Node; Mars or Saturn within 3° of the Ascendant, which Sahl and Māshāʾallāh read as destroying any election; the lord of the Ascendant combust; and a malefic fixed star such as Algol within a degree of the Ascendant or Midheaven. The electional astrology guide sets out how Canopy reads an election.

Astrology date night: the hours of Venus and the Moon

The date search favors two planetary hours, Venus’s and the Moon’s, and counts Saturn’s and Mars’s against a date. Unlike the wedding and proposal searches it gives no extra weight to the hours of Jupiter and Mercury, though a Jupiter hour still counts as benefic, as in every search.

Friday is Venus’s day and Monday the Moon’s, but Canopy scores the hour, not the weekday: a Venus hour on a Tuesday counts in full, and a Saturn hour on a Friday counts against a date. The hours run in a fixed order, so the planet that opens each evening is the same everywhere; only the clock times shift with the season and the place:

Read against the date’s rules, Monday night opens in Venus’s hour and reaches the Moon’s in its third hour, Thursday’s opens in the Moon’s, and Wednesday’s second hour is Venus’s, while Friday, Venus’s own day, opens its night in an hour of Mars. The planetary hours guide shows the current hour free and has a section on the hour of Venus.

The Moon’s mansions for a first date

The Moon’s lunar mansion is the date search’s other measure. Four of the twenty-eight count in a date’s favor and seven heavily against it, but neither list refuses a window: one in any of the seven can still pass, at a lower score.

The Moon stays about a day in each mansion. Each month she passes through al-Buṭayn and al-Thurayyā on consecutive days, the second taking her into Taurus, the sign of her exaltation; then two mansions against a date; then al-Hanʿa in Gemini; and, close to three weeks later, al-Fargh al-Awwal. The date search, unlike the wedding’s, sets no rule for the Moon’s sign, so all four are open to a date.

These are the date search’s own lists, not a verdict on the mansions: al-Haqʿa, al-Shawla, Saʿd al-Dhābiḥ and Saʿd al-Akhbiya are Saʿd, fortunate, on the mansions guide, yet count against a date. Each mansion’s reading is in what each mansion favors, and the live tool shows tonight’s mansion.

How to find the best day for a first date in Canopy

In the app, open Elections, choose Events, and under “What are you electing for?” pick Planning Romantic Dates. From and To default to the next three months and can stretch to 183 days, about six months. Set the Location card to the city where you will meet, since the hours and the rising sign are worked out for the place, then tap Find Best Moments.

The Window chips switch the results between one, three and six months, sorted by Soonest or Best Quality. Each card gives the time, the hour’s ruler, the Ascendant and Midheaven, a quality percentage, the first factors in the window’s favor and, with your birth data entered, a line on your chart. Open one for Why this time?, which lists the factors that raised or lowered its score; Save to Calendar and Set Reminder keep it in view.

If Venus is retrograde through your whole range, the list comes back empty, with “No window favors your chart in this stretch”: widen the range past the day she turns direct.

Your chart, not theirs

The windows are ranked by the election chart alone. Once your birth data is entered, your natal chart adds a bounded adjustment of up to ten points either way, named under Relationship to Your Natal; for all of Canopy’s marriage purposes, an election Ascendant rising in the sign of your natal seventh house counts in a window’s favor. Your Chart at Election Time draws your natal planets inside and the election moment’s outside.

Canopy does not compare two people’s charts. It reads one nativity, yours, and times the beginning. The love elections set the date beside the later beginnings: the best time to propose and the wedding date.

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