Fun With Geo-Positioning and Astrology

[Gannon]

This is uncanny. Inexplicable. Beyond understanding.

I've sampled a few on-line programs which create an astrological birthchart, now that I'm back to attempting to learn astrology again.

Decided to see why they have differing degrees and minutes for the Eastern Horizon at the point and time of my birth...so I looked into how they tag "Detroit" in their calculations.

Got into Geopositioning...found a few places that could give me the coordinates of 2500 W. Grand Boulevard, near 14th...the site of the original Providence Hospital.

Found it curious they'd give readouts to such accuracy...out to the fourth significant decimal digit.


Only two of the three birthchart calculation sites showed their exact choice for everyone born in Detroit...and one of them reverse-geocoded to almost exactly the street and block where Old Providence once stood. The site reads LaSalle Gardens, between 14th and 15th, while 2500 W. Grand is on the next block...but a half-mile from that big hospital built by Henry Ford.

I know most of the city's population was born in other hospitals...especially by 1963.

What the actual heck is going on here? Again, uncanny...inexplicable...beyond understanding.


Anyone got any hints here?! Tips? Tricks? My brain is melting.

[Gannon]

To be clear...I know I speak in fragments when I'm excited...fingers cannot keep up with my brain, ever.

I compared three Astrological Birthcharts calculated by various on-line sources. Each gave me a different definition of the Eastern Horizon at the time I was born...not off by much.

One read 9 degrees, 44 minutes...another 9, 35...the third 9, 38.

My two study guides are a bit weak on the explanation but emphasize that knowing the time and place of your birth is important to working up an accurate birthchart.

I know enough to clearly see there exist curiosities with this quest already, because even the sample charts I've read ring too true to abandon. As if I'm being shown a hint of something very important, but beyond my grasp and understanding just yet.

The printed chart from the Matrix Software group uses 083W02'45" and 42N19'53". The calculator associated with Joanna Woolfolk's "The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need" uses 83W5' and 42N21'43.9" according to the printout, but when you enter the data their temporary box reads 42.3622 and -83.0954 when you enter "Detroit, MI" as the city.


Those were the digits I plugged into the reverse geo-positioning calculator that yielded the really strange result that so unnerves me now.

I haven't tried to plug the other coordinates into the reverse geo-p tool yet...perhaps I'll do that before cleaning up for the family Easter meal...

[Gannon]

See? The other one yielded what I'd deem a valid response...it uses 42.33139/-83.4583 as its "Detroit" point [[after going through on-line convertors from the 083W02'45"/42N19'53" notation on the print-out I made years ago with the Matrix Software).

That goes to the intersection of Woodward and Cadillac Square, and if I zoom in enough I'd expect it to be centered on the Origin Point found when they renovated Campus Martius.


So, they mystery deepens. Hope we're not at the deep end.

[Gannon]

Oh well, those actually appear to locate a half-block away...according to the map scale, roughly 200 feet East of that Origin Point...but still a bit more logical than some random point in the New Center area.

[G-DDT]

I'm quite lost here, but I'm sure that it has to do with a privately witnessed synchronicity of some sort of another [[no stranger to those things). It probably involves a lot of esoteric processes, as well.

Long before I became a Christian, about as mystically esoteric I got [[around the time I was having a severe existential crisis-mostly due to diagnosed blood sugar, and a lot to do with some other shadowy things imposed upon me-that lasted quite a while.) was I studied astrology. I was good about it too, to a point. I didn't pay attention to the intricacies of ascending or descending signs, and such, but moon sign ephermerides intrigued me [[with the notion that there wasn't just 12 signs but 12 X 12 possibilities if signs). I was also good at guessing a lot of folks' signs within a short amount of spent time with them.

As I became Christian I gratefully let that slip away. I even met someone in Louisville [[from the Dayton/Cincinnati area) who said he had the same ability [[had the same sign as I) long ago to get an accurate guess on other folks' signs, as well, before he became a Christian.

One thing that does haunt me, though, is what if some areas of the Earth have signs, so to speak? What if such areas or cities draw more folks of a certain sign over others? Is Boston Cancer? Is Louisville Leo [[or Sagittarius even)? Even still [[if you've followed me on this tripe, thus far)-what sign is Detroit? A fire sign like Aires or some Earth sign like Taurus or Capricorn?

Feh, just a stupid whim...

[Gannon]

A friend who's studied the matter told me that these points for metropolitan areas are usually hospitals within districts which've been traditionally birthing centers.

Was Old Providence that much of a baby-factory? I guess, the better question around the obvious is, how many Catholic hospitals were there in Detroit over the past half-century or so?

I checked the software's points for Chicago, Cleveland, Lansing, and Pontiac...just to see where it put me for each town...a sampling of cities not far from Detroit.

The first one seemed to confirm her claims, Chicago's was two blocks south of the Illinois Medical District.

Expecting Cleveland to follow suit...it goes to where I-490 dead-ends E. 55th street, in the middle of nowhere next to a huge railway yard.

H-m-m-n-n.

Lansing? At a huge factory on the Grand River, at a particularly hard bend.

Pontiac...some residential home off Perry, north of where Woodard starts to loop...which I always thought was Widetrack Drive. Did that end when Goverment Motors killed the Pontiac brand?!


So...unless they average out the major hospitals in an area, and Old Providence simply ended up being built a half-block away from that point...there is little evidence of any trend either way.

Still a fun exercise...it had me jumpin' there for a minute.

[canuck]

A friend who's studied the matter told me that these points for metropolitan areas are usually hospitals within districts which've been traditionally birthing centers.

Was Old Providence that much of a baby-factory? I guess, the better question around the obvious is, how many Catholic hospitals were there in Detroit over the past half-century or so?

I checked the software's points for Chicago, Cleveland, Lansing, and Pontiac...just to see where it put me for each town...a sampling of cities not far from Detroit.

The first one seemed to confirm her claims, Chicago's was two blocks south of the Illinois Medical District.

Expecting Cleveland to follow suit...it goes to where I-490 dead-ends E. 55th street, in the middle of nowhere next to a huge railway yard.

H-m-m-n-n.

Lansing? At a huge factory on the Grand River, at a particularly hard bend.

Pontiac...some residential home off Perry, north of where Woodard starts to loop...which I always thought was Widetrack Drive. Did that end when Goverment Motors killed the Pontiac brand?!


So...unless they average out the major hospitals in an area, and Old Providence simply ended up being built a half-block away from that point...there is little evidence of any trend either way.

Still a fun exercise...it had me jumpin' there for a minute.

Just me wondering. Not particularly enamored of anything remotely spiritual or esoteric such as...

But, is there not a point of departure more delectable, perhaps more mysterious and fundamental that predates birth by nine months? Shouldn't that be the end all, be all, catchall of astrology? How to determine the location of conception?
Is there any sense in that, or am I just mislead by too few documentaries and too much reality TV?

[Zacha341]

I dabbled in astrology in another life [[smile) to the level of understanding basic charts and what not. But, I found the outcomes and character markers inconclusive, as the so-called 'rising' sign and other factors seemed to modify specifics of the sun sign!

[Honky Tonk]

I dabbled in astrology in another life [[smile) to the level of understanding basic charts and what not. But, I found the outcomes and character markers inconclusive, as the so-called 'rising' sign and other factors seemed to modify specifics of the sun sign!

But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

[Gannon]

Just me wondering. Not particularly enamored of anything remotely spiritual or esoteric such as...

But, is there not a point of departure more delectable, perhaps more mysterious and fundamental that predates birth by nine months? Shouldn't that be the end all, be all, catchall of astrology? How to determine the location of conception?
Is there any sense in that, or am I just mislead by too few documentaries and too much reality TV?

There's that...and the phenomena called in ages past 'the quickening', which is the first noticeable movement from the developing fetus...a time when some believe the soul enters the body.

It wouldn't be that much work to do three birthcharts...and compare them over time. But I'm guessing this has already been done.


I'm more concerned with the calibration in the modern age...there is some misalignment due the precession of the equinoxes over time that has caused the charts to not mesh with the visible sky. And that pesky 13th sign Ophiuchus.

[Zacha341]

Ah, yes Pink Floyd had it right......

But another modifying factor, seemingly endless in astrology. So what I got away from it for that and other reasons!

But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

[Honky Tonk]

Ah, yes Pink Floyd had it right......

But another modifying factor, seemingly endless in astrology. So what I got away from it for that and other reasons!

In my younger days I was into Zen Macro-Biotics. I would only eat food dictated by my Horoscope sign.