Anomalies In The Chart? OOB Planets (Out of Bounds)

You can't see it at first glance but you might have them in your natal chart. I'll show you how to check it and explain why you and your planets can be more SPECIAL than usual.

Do I Have An OOB Planet?

The natal chart shows you the nature of the planets and their impact on your personality. But just by looking at the natal wheel you won't learn everything e.g. you won't notice the ECCENTRIC nature of one or several of these planets.

This is what OOB planets tell you - your life and potential may be more unusual than you think.

To find out if your natal chart hides this important information about your Self, you need to look up additional resources e.g. the chart's tabular information from astro.com. Go to your simple chart view and then click on the "PDF Additional tables" tab. Next look for the declination tab.

If the declination value exceeds 23°28'N/S (just like Mercury does in the example above) then you have an Out of Bounds planet.

Want to know why declination is so important?

The Celestial Address

Imagine your friend lives in a large block of flats at the Second Street 28. If you send a letter to this exact address, the message is unlikely to reach the recipient because the block has many floors with numerous apartments each.

It's very similar with looking at the planets in the natal chart. At first glance we see their "main address" i.e. Second Street 28 but we don't know the floor nor the number. Eventually we may be able to find the friend's apartment by asking someone in the block or waiting outside for him to show up etc.

How simpler our life would be if we had the exact address.

The receive the full "star address of the chart" we need to: check the declination, determine whether our planets are OOB and do the proper interpretation (more on this in the next parts).

What's most interesting in OOB phenomena is why such a situation can happen in the first place! A brief reminder of astrology's basics will help us understand.

Back To Basics

The natal chart is a symbolic record of the sky's appearance (positions of the Sun, Moon, Mercury etc.) made for a specific place at a specific time. Naturally from Earth's perspective.

If you look at the chart, that's us in the middle - born in a given place and time on Earth.

The zodiac signs are found on an imaginary 360° portion of the sky around the Earth called the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the Sun's apparent path around the Earth. The natal chart is a two-dimensional representation of this part of the sky. The image below shows how it all looks in reality.

Notice the ecliptic's shape. The Sun is reliable and moves very consistently moves along its path, not deviating one step (for the purposes of this article, let's forget precession exists). Other celestial bodies aren't as consistent in their nature.

Often celestial bodies (stars) move within the area delineated by the ecliptic but sometimes they go a little "above" or "below" that line. In a nutshell: DECLINATION indicates the instances of going beyond the line. 

Now it gets really interesting!

The less known trait of planets

The declination difference (going beyond the line) can make a significant difference. 

In the drawing the Star (let's say Mercury) is already beyond the reach of the ecliptic (a little "higher" from the Sun) although the natal chart portraits this situation as Mercury's conjunction with the Sun. If the Star was to be perfectly aligned with the Sun, the chart would present it in the same exact way.

Is this really an accurate portrayal of the sky's appearance? 

Including declination in our studies allows to look at the chart not from a two-dimensional perspective but a three-dimensional one. Our chart gains DEPTH!

Interesting fact: Have you ever wondered why eclipses don't happen every month as it's the case with the New/Full Moon? In order to  consider the New Moon as the Sun's Eclipse, the Moon must exactly align with the Sun i.e. the declination of these planets must be relatively equal. When the Sun/Moon forming the New Moon differ in declinations  we only have a New Moon.

Out Of Bounds... but not for everyone

Note the characteristic tilt of the ecliptic. At some points it seems to be tilting a little "above" and on the opposite side a bit "below". It is the result of Earth's natural deviation from the Sun equal... 23°28'.

The Sun in its journey changes its declination: it wobbles from 0° (0° Aries, spring equinox) to 23°28' North (0° Cancer, summer solstice) and again 0° declination (0° Libra, summer equinox) to 23°28'N South (0° Capricorn, winter solstice).

Remember the value 23°28'N/S because everything that exceeds it goes beyond the limits of solar declination and becomes Out of Bounds.

NOT ALL planets can become OOB, specifically:

a) Sun; its path defines OOB;

b) Saturn; it would be silly if "The Lord of Discipline And Predictability" would deviate from its course or make any exceptions to the rules;

c) Neptune; how could this happen? I don't know. Uncharted are the divine judgments.

This means that all other planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Uranus, Pluto and a series of asteroids) can and will become Out of Bounds.

Out Of Bounds - an anomaly?

On one hand Out of Bounds is an anomaly, a strong enough deviation to influence the interpretation of the entire chart. On the other hand OOB is CYCLICAL in nature.

The Moon moves in a "standard" orbit for 9-10 years (never exceeding 23°28'N/S) only to start a cycle of 9-10 years of regularly going OOB for 2 ÷ 2,5 days every 10-14 days. The Moon finished its last OOB cycle in 2011 and the next one starts in 2020.

On average Venus goes OOB twice a year but sometimes once or three times a year. There are years when Venus stays in regular orbit throughout their whole duration! Venus can stay Out of Bounds for one day up to 56-60 days.

Mercury goes OOB two or three times a year although in some years it will only goes OOB once. Mercury can stay OOB for 2 day up to a whole month.

On average Mars goes OOB once a year and stays like that for 2 ÷ 2.5 months. Mercury and Mars never exceed 27°N/S declination.

Going further...

Inner planets (up to Mars) relatively often go OOB. The further away from Earth the less often planets enter OOB but once they do, they stay like that for a long time.

Jupiter and Uranus rarely go beyond 23°28'N/S and if they do, it's only angular minutes above the limit. Jupiter goes OOB once every 6 years and remains so 6-9 weeks. Now Uranus goes OOB every 49 years and stays like that the next 4 years. Undoubtedly we can consider its impact on an entire sub-generation.

Pluto is unique due to the huge irregularity of its orbit. For example: Pluto went OOB in 1938-1952 (approximately) and its next OOB cycle should be around 2024-2034. On average, Pluto stays OOB for about 8-12 years.

More Than Meets The Eyes

There's so much more to explore.

Checking OOB is really one of the many ways to use declination in astrology. Ancient astrologers studied the influence of so-called parallels and contraparallels i.e. how differences in declination affect the potency of planetary aspects. That's a story for another time.