The best day to start a friendship or a partnership

Friendship astrology: timing the step that begins a bond

Friendship astrology, in the older sense of the art, is not a chart of which signs get along. Ask the tradition how to make friends with astrology and its answer is to choose the moment a bond begins: the evening you join a circle, the first meeting of a group. It is electional astrology, al-ikhtiyārāt, “the choices”, on the principle that a matter keeps the character of the sky at its start. An auspicious day to start a friendship or a partnership is therefore a window: the strongest hour inside the dates you can manage, for the place where you will meet.

Canopy’s purpose for it is Friendships & Alliances, al-Ṣadāqah wa al-Taḥāluf, for “making new friends, joining groups, forming alliances, or strengthening social bonds.” Canopy’s guide to the purposes calls an alliance “a relationship of cooperation toward a shared aim” and says: “Time the meeting or the step that begins it.” It sits in the menu’s Marriage group, though its planets and its house are its own.

Partnership here means that kind of alliance; a business partnership sealed by a signed agreement is timed as a contract, covered by the best day to sign a contract. An election improves a beginning; it does not choose your friends.

Which planet is responsible for friendship: Jupiter, with Venus and Mercury

Canopy’s friendship search names three significators: Jupiter, the greater benefic, first; then Venus, whose hour the tradition gave to love and friendship; then Mercury. Jupiter is the planet the Moon is measured against. A Moon applying to him counts in a window’s favor, the more the closer she comes, while a separating Moon earns nothing, and Why this time? lists either with its orb.

Why this time? marks each significator strong or weak by its sign, as the table of domicile and exaltation sets out, and the three pull against each other. Mercury’s signs, Gemini and Virgo, are Jupiter’s detriment; Jupiter’s, Sagittarius and Pisces, are Mercury’s; and Pisces, where Venus is exalted, is Mercury’s fall. The sky seldom gives all three their strength at once, and the search does not ask it to: it weighs each one with everything else in the window.

So Canopy’s answer to which planet is responsible for friendship is Jupiter, with Venus and Mercury beside him; the tradition also gave Jupiter his joy in the eleventh, the house of friends.

The eleventh house: friends, allies and aspirations

The friendship search looks to the first, eleventh and seventh houses, in that order, and makes the eleventh the house of the matter, where Canopy’s wedding and proposal searches use the seventh. On the detail screen, House Ruler Analysis gives each a card: “Self, body, and overall vitality”; “Friends, allies, and aspirations”; “Partners, others, and open enemies”. Each lord is scored on its sign, its whole-sign place, and whether it is retrograde or combust.

So the search sets up no contest between you and the other side. A wedding or a contract asks whether the lord of the Ascendant, who stands for you, overpowers the lord of the seventh. A friendship asks only whether he is stronger than the lord of the eleventh; when he is not, the window is held back from the top of the scale, and Why this time? says so. The seventh still counts: its lord is weighed, and a malefic there rules a window out.

Betrayal and retrograde: what sets a friendship window aside

Some faults the friendship search refuses outright. A window that carries one is set aside, however good its hour:

• Mars or Saturn in the eleventh or seventh whole-sign house, a rule Canopy keeps against betrayal;
• Jupiter, Venus or Mercury retrograde, read as a matter delayed or prevented, 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.

The retrograde rule bites hardest here, because a friendship has three significators that can turn back. A wedding window survives a retrograde Mercury; a friendship window does not. Jupiter is retrograde about four months in every thirteen, Mercury three times a year for about three weeks, Venus about six weeks every year and a half, and while any one of them is retrograde the search finds nothing.

The Sun in the seventh counts against a window, read as separation. Mars in the first, which a wedding refuses, does not rule out a friendship unless he rises within 3° of the Ascendant. Among the fixed stars, Spica on an angle counts for the window; Algol or another malefic star on the Ascendant, Midheaven or Descendant rules it out.

The faults that strike any window

Beneath these lie the refusals Canopy applies to every purpose: the Moon combust, within 8.5° of the Sun, unless she is cazimi; void of course, a rule drawn from Sahl and al-Bīrūnī; on the burnt path from 19° Libra to 15° Scorpio, or within 8° of the South Node; Mars or Saturn within 3° of the Ascendant, a fault drawn from Sahl and Māshāʾallāh; and the Ascendant’s lord combust. The electional astrology guide explains how Canopy reads an election.

Auspicious days for friendship are counted in hours

Canopy scores the planetary hour, not the weekday. The friendship search favors the hours of Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, and counts Saturn’s and Mars’s against a window; Jupiter’s and Venus’s weigh most, since every search already counts them as benefic hours.

The Chaldean order makes them easy to find. The hours run Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, and round again, so four in every seven belong to the friendship’s planets: a run of three, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, then Saturn’s, then Jupiter’s. Each day opens with its own planet’s hour, so Friday’s daylight begins with that run and Thursday’s with Jupiter’s hour.

The clock times shift with the season and the place; the planetary hours guide shows the current planetary hour free. And the hour is the smaller part of the judgment: a Jupiter hour cannot rescue a window with Saturn in the eleventh.

The Moon’s mansions for making friends

The Moon’s lunar mansion is the other measure: four of the twenty-eight count in a friendship’s favor and seven heavily against it, though neither list refuses a window.

Three of the four lie in Mercury’s signs: al-Hanʿa and al-Dhirāʿ, crossed on consecutive days, fill most of Gemini, and al-Simāk, named for Spica, closes Virgo. Baṭn al-Ḥūt closes Pisces, Jupiter’s sign. No Moon-sign rule applies here, unlike the wedding and proposal searches, so all four are open.

These lists are the search’s own, not a verdict on the mansions. The mansions guide reads al-Ghafr as favoring friendship and Saʿd al-Dhābiḥ alliances, yet both count against a friendship window, under the list Canopy’s marriage rules pass to every purpose in that group. See what each mansion favors and tonight’s mansion.

How to find the best day to start a partnership in Canopy

In the app, open Elections, choose Events, and under “What are you electing for?” pick Friendships & Alliances, in the Marriage group. Set From and To: the range opens on the next three months and can run to 183 days, about six months. Set the Location card to where you will meet, since the hours and the rising sign are worked out for the place, then tap Find Best Moments.

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 and the first factors in its favor. Election Details adds the exact time and span, House Ruler Analysis and Why this time?; Save to Calendar and Set Reminder keep a window in view.

An empty list, “No window favors your chart in this stretch”, often means a significator is retrograde: widen the window past the day it turns direct, and set the first meeting at the window itself.

Your chart and the friendship

Windows are ranked by the election chart alone. Once your birth data is entered, your natal chart adds a bounded adjustment, capped at ten points either way, which Relationship to Your Natal names. The natal house carried over is your seventh, not the eleventh: as across Canopy’s Marriage group, an election rising in your natal seventh-house sign counts in a window’s favor, unless natal Mars or Saturn stands there. Your Chart at Election Time sets your natal planets against the window’s peak minute.

Canopy does not compare two people’s charts; it reads yours and times the beginning. The electional astrology guide explains why the tradition compared whole charts, not birthdays.

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