The 8th House

Live and learn.  I did a considerable amount of reading last night before falling asleep.  The reading was about about the Astrological House system.  It was quite fascinating  It would seem that there is one more important House I need to consider in MySynastryEngine.  This is the 8th House.

The 8th House is naturally ruled by Scorpio.  It is associated with Death, Rebirth, Transformation, and... yes... you guessed it... sex.  Scorpio is a femmie water sign, exhibits high levels of fertility, and we all know that Scorpios have the absolute highest sex drive in the zodiac.   Scorpio rules the male gentiles, according to rumor.  This makes the 8th House a big one for karmic unions.

I had a fairly poor understanding of the 8th House before this reading.  I understood the 8th House as the house of death, reincarnation, and transformation.  I understood it had things to do with regenerative processes such as surgery, medical treatments and healing.  It turns out that this House deals with the wheel of Samsara more than anything else.  This is the cycle of death, sex, conception rebirth, life death, sex, conception and rebirth.  The mysteries of life and the life-force are found here.

According to the readings last night, this is the House ruling the reproductive drives, mergers of all kinds, marriage consummation  and intimacy in all forms.  These authors deny the 5th House controls reproduction.  The 5th House is just the house of child rearing and parenthood as an occupation, not conception, fertility or sex.

So the 8th House is absolutely crucial, is it?  What implications does this hold for yours truly? It means any woman with an Aquarius Ascendant is in mega-deep dooh-doo versus me.   Why is this?  If her Ascending sign is Aquarius, Aquarius rules her 1st house.  If Aquarius rules the 1st House, Virgo rules her 8th House and Leo rules her 7th House.  This is a double-whammy versus me.  This means most of my power-planets {e.g. Ascendant, Sun, Mercury, Uranus, Pluto, etc.} land in her 8th House, and whilst Venus and Mars land in her 7th House.  The effect is devastating, like a 5 megaton H-bomb.

There are some warnings about join finances in this configuration, however, the results should be impressive.

Conversely, any woman with a concentration of power planets in Aries and Pisces is going to put the whammy on me.  Pisces is on my 7th House and Aries rules my 8th House.  For the first time, Sirus's projections of the 538 score for the 4/13/1979 Aries woman would seem to make some sense.  This is an Aries woman with considerable Pisces in her chart.  As such, she is afflicted with internal Fire-Water conflicts, but she has the right stuff to mess me up... this according to the Housing system.  The strange thing is that Sirus seems to make it's calculations without reference to the Housing system... go figure.

So the object lesson for the Synastry engine designer is this:  The whole game of Synastry is beginning to resemble a game of Spades played on a roulette wheel with 12 slots on it.  Those 12 slots are almost like books in Spades.  You want your cards to naturally fall into book 5, 7 and 8.  This is how you score victories in the romance game.  Likewise, you need her cards to fall into books 5, 7 and 8 of your housing system.

A short little diddy about House-Based Synastry

Welcome to Sagittarius Season.  Today, November 22, is the first day of Sagittarius... at least from a tropical Zodiac and goecentric point of view.

This past Scorpio season turned out to be quite a learning experience for me.  I studied the charts of many female Scorpios as their birthdays passed by.  I frequently compared them to mine.  I learned several unexpected things.

First of all, any Scorpio female born around noon time is likely to have an ascending sign Pisces.  This trend becomes more pronounced as the Scorpio month continues. According to certain Synastry engines--not Sirus or Kepler--I have blistering scores versus *_ANY_* female with an Ascending sign of Pisces.

Why is that?  A Pisces Ascendant means that the first house of the individual's chart is in Pisces.  We start the housing system there.  Mathematically, this necessarily means that Virgo is the ruler of the 7th House of the individual's chart.  The 7th House is the house of marriage and partnership.

Now, you have to understand that I am no ordinary run of the mill Virgo.  I am a Super Virgo.  I am a Virgo with an Ascendant of Virgo, and a whole bunch of Virgo planets in my first house.  This includes my Sun. Mercury, Pluto, and Uranus.  I also have some asteroids there, including Vesta.

Theoretically, any female with an Ascendant of Pisces, and therefore Virgo on the 7th House, has to deal with the influence of all my power-planets right-schmack in her 7th House:  The house of marriage and partnership.  According to Janus 4.3, this is supposed to have a pretty overwhelming affect upon the lucky girl or the unfortunate victim.  Particularly, Uranius in the 7th House is supposed to create instantaneous love-at-first-sight experiences.  Further, Pluto in the 7th house is supposed to give me overwhelming power and influence over such females.

In a good scenario, such a female may believe immediately that I am 'the one and only'.  In an adverse situation she may feel overwhelmed, panic, and run away from me.  In a truly adverse situation, she may feel completely dominated and oppressed by me, despite the fact that I have done nothing to warrant such a conclusion.

So be warned:  Any Scorpio female born around noon is in big trouble if she comes up against me in a party.  Further, any female born with an Ascendant of Pisces is in trouble if she bumps into me in a singles situation. You are doomed.  You are like an unfortunate quarterback facing Ndamukong Suh.

I also learned that any female with an Ascendant of Taurus is immediately & completely doomed to an obsessive and compulsive, all-consuming, exhausting sexual relationship with me... if we should happen to meet.  We're talking fatal attraction here. 

Why is that?  A Taurus Ascendant means Taurus rules the first house.  This means Virgo rules the 5th House.  The 5th House is the house of sex, pleasure, reproduction, and recreation.  Any female with an Ascendant of Taurus is going to find all of my power planets schmack in her 5th House, tugging away at her sexual and reproductive drives. Besides that, you have a natural affinity between Virgo and Taurus at play here.

She won't know what hit her.  The presence of Pluto in the 5th House is supposed to have nearly unspeakable consequences.   She will want to play house immediately.  She might become violent if I should happen to hesitate.  Be warned...  You can't say I didn't warn you...

[As a quick side note:  It's funny that this has never happened to me.  There must be plenty of girls with an Ascendant of Taurus.  In fact, at this point, I am feeling mighty damn rejected by the earth clan.  The Taurus and Capricorn girls will have nothing to do with me.  Nearly all the chicks who have flirted with me on-line have been Leos.]

Finally, I discovered that any female with an Ascendant of Aquarius is also in for a shocker if she bumps into me.  Why is that?  Well, we start her housing system with Aquarius, and this naturally makes Leo the ruler of her 7th House.  I just happen to have two crucial power planets in Leo:  Venus and Mars.  If you put Venus and Mars in the house of marriage and partnership.. well... let's just say that's like putting dynamite in the oil furnace.

Same thing if her Ascenant happens to be in Aries. This would place my Venus and Mars in her 5th House.  Put Venus and Mars in the house of sex and pleasure and we're talking about big trouble in little China.

There is a general lesson to be taken out of my specific case.  If you happen to have a concentration of powerful planets in one sign, you look for people with an Ascenant of the opposite sign.  Alternately, you count back 5 signs from that concentration, and look for people with that Ascenant.  Your power planets will be concentrated in his/her 7th House or 5th House.  This will lead to some serious shaking and quaking.

There is also a lesson here for the software engineer working on a synastry engine.  My synastry engine should be designed to look for these concentrations of power planets, and automatically seek candidates with opposing Ascendants, or Ascendants 5 signs back.  These will be the highest-percentage candidates for life's journey.

A full day of rest leads to a synastry breakthrough

As I mentioned in previous blog posts, I am walking pile of training injuries.  I am having great difficulty making the jump to Kettlebell and CrossFit training intensities.  About 8 days ago, I suffered a pretty serious shoulder injury which has left my right hand numb most of the time.  That's right, I am currently typing with a partially numb right hand.

Because I have only slowed down, rather than stopped, it just hasn't gotten better.  In truth, this may require a visit to Dr. Bachner's surgery center, and he may need to perform the Sam Bradford procedure on me.  In the interests of healing, and in view of our harsh weather conditions today, I declared a full day of rest.  No exercise, period!  I mean zip, zero, nada, nothing; not even abs.

Naturally, I was at loose ends today.  It might have been impossible if it hadn't been a football Sunday.  Even so, I was at loose ends, not knowing what to do with my spare energy.

I found myself doing extensive searches online for key aspects in the pseudo-science of Synastry.  As you know, I have a project in progress (currently on hold) to build my own Synastry engine.  The objective is to create a collection of webservices that will power both a collection of mobile apps, and a major-league Windows WPF application.

As I did my research, it suddenly dawned on me.  I had the massive ah-ha! experience.  I suddenly snapped on a perfect, simple, elegant, high-performance architecture for this Synastry engine.  I now know how I will do the high-speed computations for millions of people per minute.

In short, this is a classic application of Multi-Dimensional Analytics.  Multi-Dimensional databases are popular and vogue stuff in the business intelligence market.  The notion is fairly simple, mathematically speaking.  Each point of data has three or more dimensional coordinates.  Think of each coordinate in a hyper-cubic space.

In a simple cube, each data-point has an X, Y and Z coordinate.  You can fetch any point of data in the cube by referencing it's three coordinates   However, the cube is only the start.  You can have n dimensions, where n is any finite number.  This means 6, 8, 9 and 12 dimensions are all possible.  One word of warning: As you increase the number dimensions in your hyper-cube, the exponential explosion of data points can easily blow even the most powerful server's capacity.

I am not worried about this.  In my case, Synastry is a relatively manageable 4 dimensional data problem.  Consider the following Dimensions:

1. The A chart {e.g. Ascendant, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, etc.}
2. The B chart {e.g. Ascendant, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, etc.}
3. The Angles {e.g. Conjunction, Sextile, Square, Trine, Opposition, etc.}
4. The Categories {e.g. Romance, Communication, Creativity, Aggression, Mutual Success, etc}

I need one point of data corresponding to the unique combination of each of these four coordinates.  As soon as I populate the four-dimensional cube, it is just a of looking up the scores in the cube.  Of course, we still need to compute and compare two people's charts, but this is the relatively easy part.  Scoring their potential for a relationship accurately... this is the hard part.

Consider a simple hypothetical scenario.  I am a Virgo.  A female I am interested in is a Capricorn born January 14, 1979.  Her moon is in Leo, her Venus is in Sagittarius.  There are a number of excellent aspects here.  We have a near-trine between suns.  Her Sun conjuncts my Vertex.  Her moon trines my moon and conjuncts my Venus.  Her Venus trines my Mars.  What should her score be?

It depends on the category.  Each aspect I just mentioned will have an impact on several different category scores.  Romance, Aggression, Mutual Success will all be impacted to varying degrees by each of these aspects.  Without calculation, we can already know the score will be very, very good, but just how good?

Using a four dimensional hyper-cube, and I can look up each score, for each aspect, for each category.  The sum can be fetched using MDX SQL code query.

Of course, there are other ways you can do it.  You could do it in a purely functional manner, but this could be extremely computationally intensive in a situation where you are attempting to serve a million people in an Internet/Smart Phone world.  A pre-calculated hyper cube should be faster and more scalable.

It's also extremely well organized, testable, verifiable, and maintainable.

Another case where Sirus got it wrong

Those of you who read this blog know I am a fan of the Sirus 1.1 astrology package. You also know that I view this engine as imperfect. It generates a lot of solid results. Then it screws up. It screws up not because I say it screws up, but because it does not identify key synastry aspects any keen-eyed astrologer would spot on close examination.

In other words, it fails to consistently apply the rules of the game. It makes mistakes, and that can be demonstrated by the book. This is probably just a simple defect in coding in some cases. In others, it may be that writers of this software subscribe to a different philosophy. Nevertheless, errors are made.

Such is the case with Poppy Montgomery, the new star of the new TV series called Unforgettable. If you are like me, you are watching a lot of preseason football right now. If you are like me, you are seeing preposterous numbers of commercials for the upcoming TV season. You may or may not have caught the advertisement for Unforgettable. If you have, you may agree with me that Poppy Montgomery is pretty unforgettable.

She just about knocked me over when I first laid eyes on her. She's a stunner. Of course, Hollywood is overflowing with stunners. I see a hundred stunners on the tube every single day. Few, if any, blow my brains out like this one did.

Naturally, I had to have a look at the synastry scores to see what was going on. Poppy is a 6/19/1975 Gemini, cusping on Cancer, born in Sydney Australia. She happens to be a gorgeous red-head also.

As a rule, I am not all that thrilled by Geminis. They make good buddies, but the girls don't often flip my lid. When they do, they really do, however. What does Sirus 1.1 have to say about the situation? Nothing to warrant a synastry reaction. Check this out:

1. Romantic and Sexual Attraction: 104

2. Similarity of Interests and Temperament: 229

3. Mutual Success and High Achievement: 21

4. Problem Solving, Communication, and Mutual Understanding: 61

5. Mutual Kindness, Friendliness, Pleasantness, and Peace: 32

6. Aggressiveness, Competition, Power, Success, or Violence: 0

7. Adventurousness, Surprises, Disturbances: 88

8. Shared Creativity, Imagination, and Inspiration: 68

I've learned that whenever my gut disagrees with the scores, it is time to have a look at the planet lineup, and see what Sirus missed. So it was this time. Consider the following snapshot of data:

As you will notice, her Moon is in Libra, mine is in Aries. Roughly speaking, this is a 180 degree opposition. What do we know about opposition? Opposites attract and balance one another. Now this is not precisely a 180 degree angle. It's more like 158, but let's not split hairs. She is a lunar Libra, and I am a Lunar Aries.

Now consider the all-important Mars vs. Venus aspects. These are the most important key determinants in sexual attraction. My Mars is a 5 degrees Leo. Her Venus is at 12 degrees Leo. That is what we call a conjunction folks. When his Mars conjuncts her Venus the two of them are going to react to each other. This is one of the most powerful guarantees of sexual attraction in the book. Here we see it strike once again. Sirus just flat-cold missed it.

Incidentally, I encountered this same conjunction earlier in the summer with that 8/19/1990 Leo girl I mentioned. There was a big reaction there. Still love her to death, folks, but it is better that she find a guy closer to her in age.

But wait! There is still more. Notice that Poppy's Mars is at 21 degrees 18 minutes Aries. Notice that my Venus is at 22 degrees 04 minutes Leo. This is close to a perfect Trine, or 120 degree angle. This is the most favorable angle possible. It may not produce quite the high level of attraction as conjunction or opposition, but it leads to far better things. It is better in quality. Once again, the scoring engine in Sirus blew it. It just flat cold missed on this Trine.

What does the Trine found here mean? It means she would pursue me almost as hard as I would pursue her. She would be on offense, and I would be on offense. Nobody would play any defense.

One more thing: My moon Trines up with her Venus. This leads to very nice emotional understanding and harmony. Why the Sirus engine declares low pleasantness and peace between us I will never understand.

It is true that Sirus makes bad predictions, but this is only because the software fails to identify key and clear aspects that are there in the charts. If the software identified these aspects and scored them correctly, we would see a big score here.

This one should not score less than 300 points. There is some elemental conflict between Gemini and Virgo, but it ain't that bad. I can testify that these two signs love to chat together. We are both Mercurial.

I need to make sure my engine catches these things and scores them correctly.

Considering the glass slipper quest

Intro

As you well know, I am re-forging my body in the fiery furnace of my will. If the documentary evidence is any indication, the effort is producing results. I have some limitied anecdotal evidence that this is having an impact on members of the opposite sex.

With the understanding that this was not the reason why I had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, I can see no reason why I shouldn’t take advantage of the other positive side-effects of this arthritis remedy. But when? When shall I go forth on this quest?

Setting the time frame

Saint Augustine of Hippo was famous for saying: da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo. Give me chastity and continence, but not yet! My perspective is quite the opposite. Give me a high-end dating service and the nightlife, but not yet!

As far as I am concerned it is still the preseason. I am not ready for the regular season. I am not in playing shape just yet. Just when will this moment come?

Well… to be quite frank with you, I would at the very least like to have a healthy body fat percentage, before being placed in any situation where I might eventually need to disrobe. Does that make any sense to you? I hope it does.

The last visit to the Bod Pod indicated that I had 32% body fat. If you have looked carefully at any of the photographed Bod Pod documents I have posted on this blog, you may have noticed a box of information called “Body Fat Ratings”. There are a series of check boxes for different ratings. My rating is currently “High Risk: High Body Fat”. This is because my body fat percentage is still higher than 25%.

Now I fully understand that these ratings are statistical. They may not describe me at all. I may well be able to beat the crap out of their benchmark-expectations for a guy with 32% body fat. If they tested me now, I might well beat their chemical and cardio respiratory benchmarks by several hundred percentage points. That’s no joke. I probably can.

Still, I see reason in what they are saying. I have not obtained a healthy body fat percentage, or arrived at my goals, but I press on to take hold of that for which the surgeons took hold of me. This one thing I do: I forget what is behind and battle towards that which is ahead. I press on towards the prize.

I won’t be officially healthy until I reach 20%. Now when will that be? One week ago I was 12% off the mark. Due to the massive surge I have experienced this past week, I have reason to believe my BFP is now below 30%. If so, I am now less than 10% away from the mark. By next Friday, I could well BFP of 28.275%. This will leave me 8.272% away from the mark.

Of course, this extraordinary drop is courtesy of busted set-point, and a massive surge. Through this long process, the secular trend has been a 1% drop in BFP per week. If I should happen to hit my immediate goal this Friday, It must be understood that these results are not typical.

Rationally speaking, I should not expect a healthy BFP for 9 weeks, that is, 8 weeks from next Friday. Rationally speaking, this means October 14 is the logical date for Healthy BFP day. Rationally speaking, this means I should target Halloween as the season for my debutant ball.

Oh jeeze… I’ve never been a big fan of Halloween. I’ve never exactly hated it either, but this is when the freak flags fly. I don’t particularly love this notion, but you have to play the cards you are dealt.

The Game plan

The incidental moments with women in public are entertaining and delightful, but I have little or no confidence in theory that this is how I will meet my prize. No, no, no. I am far too exacting, precise, perfectionistic, and goal-oriented to do things in this random and haphazard way.

As you know, the objective is to meet women born on 3/12/1986. Sirus 1.1 claims this is the optimal solution date. Women born on this date have the highest of all possible total combined scores versus men born on 9/2/1966. Incidentally, it works in reverse also. Men born on 9/2/1966 have the highest of all possible combined scores versus women born on 3/12/1986. They can’t do better. We can’t do better… according to the match maker software in Sirus.

Incidentally, you should be able to reverse the sexes also. According to this logic, my birthday buddy Salma Hayek should go after Danny Jones, singer of the band McFly. He will blow her head off, and visa-versa.

Now, if I happen to finish my synastry engine before October 14, I may have a better target. I doubt this will be the case. I’m juggling far too many balls in the air right now to finish by October 14^th. Even if I should finish my project, and even if it chooses a different optimal solution, my curiosity has been piqued. I am going to have to meet at least one female born on 3/12/1986 just to see what it is like. I have to put Sirus to the test.

The plan calls for the use of Zoosk at the moment, but this may change. I may find a better solution.

Meet Candidate B: Nigella Lawson

Intro

Roughly two weeks ago, I wrote blog about project Chess Master. Chess Master is my code name for one component (among several) of my larger Synastry Engine project. Chess Master is the software module that will computer the 5 internal planet settings for your two optimal trine companions in life. Remember, there are always two.

If you read that blog entry you know I specified the 5 inner planet settings for my own two optimal trine companions in this life. I dubbed them Candidate A and Candidate B. This does not express any preference or priority. It is simply a designator.

Candidate A is Taurus woman. A woman fairly similar to her happens to exist in my own professional environment. She is not an exact match, but she is a reasonable approximation of Candidate A. There may well be much closer matches for Candidate A out there in the world, and I suspect there are.

Candidate B is a Capricorn woman. When I wrote that piece, I knew of no woman who was a reasonable match for Candidate B. To be sure, I was very interested in finding a close match for Candidate B. I wanted to know how I would react to her. Finding such a woman would tell me whether my theory was on the right or wrong course.

Yesterday morning

As I was trying to wake from a nightmarish and sleepless night last night, I noticed that the Biography channel was showing a program about one of my very favorite women and cook show hosts: Nigella Lawson, the grand dame of British TV. I already knew she was a Capricorn, and I already knew I was crazy about her.

For me, Nigella Lawson is like a blast of pure sunshine. I am always thrilled to see her.

Since Nigella is twice married and once widowed, with several children, not to mention several years older than me, I had never bothered to cast her chart. She’s off the draft board. I can’t have her. Poor me. There’s no use in investigating Nigella.

The documentary began (appropriately enough) with Nigella’s birth. Her birthday was given as January 6, 1960 in London England. Well, since I was a bit board at the top of the day, I decided to take the 25 seconds necessary to walk over to my desktop computer and cast her chart. What I saw astounded me. I saw Capricorn Sun & Mercury, I saw an Aries Moon, and a conjuncted Venus and Mars sitting in Sagittarius.

People who are little less fluent in the symbolic language of astrology might not snap on that one instantly, but I did. If you know your own chart like the back of your hand, and if you have memorized the pattern for your ideal trine companion, you would have snapped immediately also.

I saw a strong match for Candidate B, my ideal Capricorn companion. In fact, she nailed 4 out of 5 signs. The one difference was her Moon sign. Instead of having a Leo Moon, she had an Aries Moon. This is the same as my Moon sign. Although her Moon is 16 degrees away from mine, we are—roughly speaking—conjucted here. That ain’t bad folks. That shouldn’t count against her at all. Some might even say this makes her more ideal.

Consider the information in the following table.

Num	Planet	Me	Candidate B	Nigella Lawson
1	Sun	Virgo 09:37	Capricorn 9:37	Capricorn 15:11
2	Moon	Aries 07:13	Leo 12:20	Aries 23:14
3	Mercury	Virgo 02:09	Capricorn 2:09	Capricorn 03:17
4	Venus	Leo 22:04	Sagittarius 05:02	Sagittarius 04:57
5	Mars	Leo 05:02	Sagittarius 22:04	Sagittarius 24:20

If you understand simple numbers, representing degrees in a circle, what you see here is very nearly a bull’s eye strike. Nigella is terrifyingly close to a perfect match for Candidate B, and even more terrifyingly close to perfect match for me.

It’s so clear-cut that even Sirus understands we are a hellacious match. The synastry engine in Sirus 1.1 grades the romantic and sexual attraction score as 370. Remember, anything over 150 is considered extremely strong.

Do I think Nigella is a 370? Hell yes! Are you kidding me? She drives me bat-shit crazy! Of course she is a 370! That just may be an error on the low side. Certainly, my own engine would grade her much higher than that.

Implications

I consider the case of Nigella Lawson a full-scale proof of my theory of synastry. I am not only attracted to Candidate B, I have been attracted to her for years now. I am attracted to her despite the fact that she is nearly 7 years older than me. I am attracted to her despite fact that she is twice married with children.

As you can see, there are reasons why. Although Sirus is in the ball-park, Sirus under-values this matchup by a considerable margin. The score should be higher.

So, one of my relatives text messaged me with a simple question just a little while ago, "Does Nigella really represent your ideal type? If you spotted a girl in a public place who strongly remind you of Nigella would you go after her?"

The answers are:

• Hell yes.
• Hell yes.

I have said many times that I am strongly biased towards European looking Latins. You can draw a golden triangle from France down to Spain and across to Italy, then back to France. Anywhere inside that golden triangle, you are likely to find what Dave regards as the most beautiful women in the world. Though Nigella is British, she could easily pass for Italian, and I am sure she did during the time she lived there.

My own emotional reaction

Of course, I was pissed off and jealous shortly after seeing all of this. I’m going to have to journey to heaven to punch God in the mouth for cheating me in this lifetime. Nigella should have been mine. I was swindled. This is an injustice!

Of course, we realize that there were many baby girls born on 1/6/1960. We also realize that this celestial combination may recur 10 to 12 years later. Let’s just hope this series is not that uncommon, and let’s hope I can find many more examples like Nigella.

Still, as all fans of Nigella will tell you, there are few if any women like her in this world.

The Chess Master: My first original and brilliant idea

Intro

In any scientific software project, there are two paths you can take.

You can take a purely empirical approach in which you perform open-ended research without any assumptions about what the data is going to tell you. This is what statisticians do when they perform endless linear regressions through piles of numerical data. You just try to find the patterns in the data. This is how baseball geeks discovered that on-base percentage was the ultimate predictor of a player’s value to his team. This is how I discovered I have a thing for Venus or Mars in Scorpio. This is how I discovered my magical little 3/12/1986 date. Incidentally, she does not have Mars or Venus in Scorpio.

The other path is the logical, abstract, theoretical approach. In this approach, you use key theoretical principles to reason-out the best possible hypothesis. You then devise a test for that hypothesis. This is how a guy like Bill Walsh reasoned out the theory that a bunch of short triangle rub-off passing patterns could win you the Super Bowl back in the 1980s. This is also how Bill Bellichick reasoned out the notion that two-zone 40 yard defense could stop those short triangle rub-off patterns. Of course, they put these theories to the test in battle. They both won their gambits.

Let’s look at the astrological wheel as a chess board

To the best of my knowledge, there is no piece of software in the astrological world that resembles a chess engine. There is no piece of software that will consider the contents of your chart the way a chess engine would consider the placement of pieces on a chess board. There are plenty of chess engines out there, and most of them will allow you to set up a scenario of pieces. Those engines are then capable of determining that specific arrangement of pieces opposite your pieces would be the best possible counter-position.

In the world of astrology, such an engine should be able to consider the placement of planets on a wheel and then say, the following arrangement of planets on a second chart would be the theoretical optimal solution as your soul-mate. Of course, the next problem is computing the date when that theoretical optimal combination of planets occurred. Unfortunately, due to the complexities of celestial mechanics, that perfect combination might have a date in the year 987 BC, or maybe it won’t occur until 2365 AD. You never know until you compute the date. The perfect mate may be, practically speaking, impossible to obtain.

Nevertheless, I think there is great value in devising an engine that will reason out the perfect theoretical mate. Just presenting this information in a simple grid would be extremely informative. A guy like me could easily memorize what that theoretical ideal looks like. Given five minutes to compare a real chart to that theoretical chart, it’s easy to see how closely it resembles or how far it deviates from that theoretically perfect chart.

More importantly, there is a chance—no matter how remote—that you just might get lucky. Your perfect mate might have been born 4 years before or 6 years after you. You might have a lucky chart that’s easy to match. If so, you might not need my help, but what the hell.

What is this ‘perfect’ crap you’re talking about?

The Star Goddess Janet Scialis is fond of saying “If you ever hear the word perfect, it came out of the mouth of a Virgo.” Yes, I am a Virgo, and a damn good one. I have a high concentration of powerful planets in my first house, and that first house just happens to be located in Virgo. We have a killer reputation for being perfectionists. With that said, our rep is vastly overstated.

We know the difference between a theoretical ideal and reality. I am very pragmatic and utilitarian in looking for optimal solutions. I begin with the notion that perfection is un-obtainable. Furthermore, perfection is the enemy of the possible, as my dad likes to say. We strive for perfection, but we do not attain it. We go after it, and get as close as possible, but you need to know when to stop and accept an expedient compromise.

Nevertheless, perfection is a very useful abstract concept. The meter, the kilogram, and the liter are all purely abstract concepts. No one has ever measured a perfect meter, kilogram or liter of anything. Nevertheless, these abstract concepts of perfection are incredible important units of measure in our practical world of engineering. We would be utterly fucked to the gills without perfect units of measure. No technological progress would ever be possible without such units of measure. You can’t put a man on the moon without these perfect units of measure.

Likewise in synastry, I don’t think you can really make a recommendation about what a guy or a girl should look for until you come up with a sharply honed notion of what the perfect mate would look like.

So how the hell do you compute a theoretical ideal mate anyway?

It’s pretty easy actually. We start with the following presuppositions based on theory:

1. The 5 personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars) are the key pieces that have to line up with good angles.
2. The Conjunction is the most powerful angle in just about all cases, but it is unpredictable. Sometimes it produces great affinity and sometimes it produces great hatred. It depends on whether you identify strongly with that individual, or if that individual reminds you of everything you hate about yourself. Despite its tremendous power, we discard the Conjunction as a candidate for the optimal solution. It is just too unpredictable.
3. The Opposition is the most powerful angle for attraction, but opposition contains… er… well… opposition. If you are opposites, you don’t have a lot in common. You may complement each other well and complete each other, but you don’t agree much on the particulars of the matter. We discard this as a candidate for the optimal solution because it strongly implies conflict as well as balance and attraction.
4. The Sextile, or 60 degree angle, is the angle of good fortune. It denotes different, but highly compatible elements. In the case of Earth signs the Sextiles will be water signs. In the case of Fire signs, the Sextiles will be Air signs. We regard this as an excellent angle, but only second best overall. It is not the optimal solution, although it is a very good solution.
5. Almost everyone is in agreement that the Trine, or 120 degree angle, is the best of all possible angles. This denotes one of two possible signs that are of your specific gender, energy and element. This implies strong compatibility and an easy flow; getting together is both natural and fun. The Trine is the optimal solution.

Let’s Trine out

So the notion is simple.

1. Take the orbital position of the five personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars)
2. Compute the two trines of each planet by adding or subtracting 120 degrees to that orbital position.
3. Collect up the results and Lay them out in a grid next to client chart.
4. Try to compute the actual date on which this combination planet positions occurred.
5. Determine whether this date is, practically speaking, out of range and unobtainable.
6. Look for some near misses.

Critique

I am aware of the fact that the astrological literature warns that too many trines make for a lazy, careless and easy life. I am aware of the fact that many authorities suggest that squares and oppositions create challenges that are important for personal growth and change.

These chaps obvious haven’t met Tim Tebow. As I have mentioned before on this blog, the kid is almost entirely fire. His chart is utterly dominated by Leo, Aries and Sagittarius. Tebow is a bunch of Trines. You ought to see the magnificent equilateral triangles in his chart. This is one of those charts that makes the Magi come from east and say show me where the new born king of the Jews lies. It doesn’t surprise me that the kid is great, and I don’t doubt he will become a great NFL QB. There ain’t nothing lazy, careless or easy about this kid.

In short, I don’t buy this critique. I reject it. I think it is good to trine out the five internal planets. I can see no downside to taking a stab at this objective. I think this represents the best of all possible abstract goals. Of course, real mileage will vary.

There are always (at least) two candidates

So let’s remember that there are 12 signs and 4 elements. Each element has three signs. Each one of your planets is going to reside in one of those signs. For each possible position of any planet in your chart, there are two possible Trine companions. In the case of Virgo, both Taurus and Capricorn are equal Trine companions. In the case of Scorpio, both Cancer and Pisces are equal Trines. In the case of Leo, both Aries and Sagittarius are equal trines. In the case of Libra, both Gemini and Aquarius are equal trines.

Logically, this means that for any given individual there are two equally good theoretical perfect matches. I have two theoretically perfect matches. You have two theoretically perfect matches. The implications of that statement are fairly staggering. What if you had to choose between two theoretically perfect mates? How would you go about making that decision? How could you disappoint either one of them? Would it not kill you to make that choice?

The decision would be greatly complicated by the fact that these two would also be equally perfect for each other. They might be as close as blood brothers, or virtual sisters. I wonder if this is the reason for the great popularity of the archetypal romances in which a man or a woman is forced to choose between two perfect candidates. There are many thousands of mythical tragedies in which two blood brothers fall in love with the same woman and wind up killing each other over her. They kill each other because neither can live without her.

You can take solace in the fact that you probably won’t ever have to make this choice. Whether either one of your two perfect candidates lives today is in doubt. Whether either one of them is old enough or young enough for you is equally in doubt.

Still, we can afford the time to look around for these candidates.

Take me, for an example

So if we use an example I happen to know well, namely me, we can see how this works in action. A grid displaying my 5 personal planets and there two perfect Trine companions.

Num	Planet	Me	Candidate A	Candidate B
1	Sun	Virgo 9:37	Taurus 9:37	Capricorn 9:37
2	Moon	Aries 7:13	Leo 12:20	Leo 12:20
3	Mercury	Virgo 2:09	Taurus 2:09	Capricorn 2:09
4	Venus	Leo 22:04	Aries 05:02	Sagittarius 05:02
5	Mars	Leo 05:02	Aries 22:04	Sagittarius 22:04

As you can see clearly in this grid, my Virgo Sun has two perfect trines. One can be found at 9 degrees 37 minutes Taurus. The other can be found at 9 degrees, 37 minutes Capricorn.

In the case of the Moon, I choose Leo twice. I do not choose a Sagittarius moon. Why discriminate against Sagittarius? In theory, you could choose Sagittarius in both cases. Both females would still make excellent mates. As a matter of practical expediency, I might be forced to switch to Sagittarius in order to be able to find a living prospect.

What I am doing in this case is putting an optimizing wrinkle in the compiler. I want to construct a near-conjunction between my Venus are her Moon at the same time that I create trine between my Moon and her Moon. This effectively doubles down the score. A conjunction between Venus and the Moon is seen as one of the most positive aspects for marriage. This is what a compiler designer would describe as a discrete optimization technique.

Since celestial mechanics allow the moon to be anywhere vis-à-vis the position of the Sun, I am going to take advantage of this fact to construct a better match up. For this reason, I chose Leo twice, and I bump it’s position over 5 degrees to aspect better with both my Moon and Venus at the same time.

In the case of Mercury, it is the same story as the Sun. I want a simple Trine by adding or subtracting 120 degrees. All three Earth signs have practical, level-headed, expedient, pragmatic, utilitarian, skill-based intelligences. We’re all a bunch of feet-on-ground types, although some would question that in my case. Just in case you were wondering, the laws of celestial mechanics dictate that Mercury can never be more than 28 degrees away from the Sun. Ergo, the simple Trine is best you're ever going to do here.

You have to remember, I am an air adept. I can get pretty theoretical and abstract if I want. I haven’t lost that ability.

Notice that neither of my theoretically perfect candidates has a Venus or Mars in Scorpio. I would be willing to accept that as a substitute if no closer match could be found in reality, however, we should not go looking for 90 degree square problems.

In the case of Venus and Mars, I’m going to put in another discrete optimization technique. As I have mentioned many times on this blog, the Conjunction of Mars and Venus between two charts is the most significant predictor or sexual attraction and sexual compatibility. Whenever you can find a conjunction between his Mars and her Venus, you can be sure they want each other badly.

It’s a similar story for the Trines, just not as overwhelming. When his Mars trines her Venus, you will find a smooth, easy, fun blend of the male and the female principles. Most failed couples will tell you that the smooth blend of the masculine and feminine is the toughest possible task to accomplish. You want this principle working for you, not against you. It is even better if her Mars trines his Venus at the same time. You can be sure they will both be crazy about each other then.

The formula is simple. You take his Venus position add or subtract 120 degrees, assign that to her Mars. You take his Mars position, tack on 120 and assign it to her Venus. Of course, the same technique works fine if you have a female client.

Questions

Q: Why pick Aries twice for the Taurus candidate?

A: Because my Mars and Venus are conjuncted, I figured it would work better if my perfect match were also conjuncted. Further, celestial mechanics dictate that the position of Venus can never be more than 48 degrees away from the Sun. Because Venus cannot be more than 48 degrees away from the Sun, a Taurus woman cannot have her Venus in Leo or Sagittarius. Aries becomes the only choice.

Q: Why pick Sagittarius Twice for the Capricorn candidate?

A: Same reason. A Capricorn cannot have her Venus in Leo or Aries. Given a Capricorn Sun, the only choice for a conjunction of Venus and Mars in Fire is Sagittarius.

Q: Wouldn’t a Taurus with Venus in Aries and Mars in Sagittarius be a great trine candidate?

A: Absolutely, but she wouldn’t be conjuncted as I am. This would make her a little less consistent, and a little more complicated. She would probably still drive me crazy. I would probably still love her to death.

Q: Wouldn’t a Taurus with Venus in Aries and Mars in Leo be a great trine candidate?

A: Yup, same deal as before, but possibly better. We might make her Mars conjunct my Venus in this case. That should drive her crazy. Incidentally, a batch of females like this were born on 5/10/1963. You can also find these split combos with Capricorn. The results will probably be equally good.

Q: Rather than picking Moon in Leo, shouldn’t you select Moon in Sagittarius in order to produce Trines between your Venus and her Moon?

A: You make a very good point. If we go consistently with Trines everywhere, her Moon should be in Sagittarius. This would probably produce fantastic results. Once again, I am putting in a discrete optimization wrinkle here. I’ve heard too many good things about Moon conjunct Venus to pass on this aspect without trying. I am prepared to adjust this Moon position to Sagittarius if no Moon in Leo candidates are alive and within practical age boundaries.

So do you know anybody resembling this profile?

It just so happens I do. As I mentioned once before on this blog, there is a certain Brazilian Taurus woman I know at work who was born on 5/8/1979. If we compare her to the abstract notion of perfection called Candidate A, we see some very interesting corollaries and differences.

Num	Planet	Me	Candidate A	Brazilian Taurus
1	Sun	Virgo 9:37	Taurus 9:37	Taurus 17:14
2	Moon	Aries 7:13	Leo 12:20	Libra 03:51
3	Mercury	Virgo 2:09	Taurus 2:09	Aries 25:52
4	Venus	Leo 22:04	Aries 05:02	Aries 18:24
5	Mars	Leo 05:02	Aries 22:04	Aries 24:09

I don’t want to sound like Meatloaf, but 3 out of 5 ain’t bad. Her Sun position is off by less than 8 degrees. My Mars doesn’t precisely Trine her Venus. Her Mars is just 2 degrees away from a perfect trine with my Venus. We would always treat that as a Trine. According to the legend and lore, this would indicate that she is the pursuer and the party with cravings.

What about the Moon? Her Moon is just about perfectly opposed to my Moon. As you know, opposition is the most powerful aspect for attraction. However, opposition means opposition. She is a balanced peacemaker, emotionally speaking. I am a military war machine, emotionally speaking. Still, these two forces are powerfully attracted to each other. In terms of attraction, this will be stronger than a Trine. You might want to count this in her favor. It shouldn’t count against her.

The big problem is the Mercury sign. Mentally, the two of us a have a 130 degree sesquisquare. This would suggest a tremendous imbalance intellectually speaking. This could be the one and only big issue. She almost had a Taurus here, which would have been perfect. She missed the ideal by just 6 degrees.

Notwithstanding, you have to look at that grid with amazement. Any reasonably mature Astrologer would look at our two charts, raise an eyebrow, and wonder if she isn’t a God-given, custom tailored playmate for me. It is astounding that Sirus only grades her as a 231 point prospect. I still wonder why the score isn’t 639. Surely her score should be higher.

It is like a Finger Pointing Away to the Moon…

Don’t get hung up on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory. Don’t get hung up on the case of Dave and the Brazilian Taurus. Focus on the software engineer constructing his own synastry engine. The take home message is as follows

1. Understand that I am designing and constructing of a logical expert system that will arrange planets on a chart to make a pair of theoretically perfect Trine companions for you, or anyone else.
2. These two abstract charts are useful for comparison purposes. You can compare real-world charts to these two measuring sticks to see how closely the individual in question conforms to your theoretically perfect mates.
3. You might not be able to find an exact match for either of your two theoretically perfect charts, but you should be able to get reasonably close.
4. Understand that this abstract notion of perfection will resemble people who are alive and well today. You might even know someone who strongly resembles one of these two abstract charts, just as I do. With an adjustment here and there, said individual might be your most perfect available match.
5. With some very hard work on the mathematics of celestial mechanics, it should be possible to compute the exact date when your theoretically perfect mates were or will be born. This does not mean they will be within striking range of your lifetime, but you just might have a lucky chart.

I think this will be a useful tool, and worth building.