Hi,
A placement of 00 degrees puts Mercury right on the cusp of the sign. The first degree begins at 0 degrees, just like any scale. Think of it like your age. You aren't born at 1 year old. You are in your first year, until you reach your first birthday, at which point your second year begins. So Mercury at 00 degees is just starting out in Scorpio. I would guess that there are minutes attached to those degrees, rather than it being 0 degrees precisely.
yes, there were two other signs, and after I posted this, and went back to look more at my 'chart', I noticed this. .06 degrees in Venus and .07 in Neptune (I think it is--the sign looks like a pitchfork with the 3 prongs pointing upwards and a line through the stick part of the symbol).
- can you tell, I'm not up to the standards here???
Now you are right to be a little suspicious of the reported placement, as even small errors in your data could push Mercury back into Libra or a little more forward into Scorpio.
The first source of error is your birth time. Even if this has been entered on your birth certificate, it might be slightly wrong. There isn't a registrar in the delivery room taking note of your exact time of birth. Instead a nurse or doctor will glance at the clock sometime after you are born. This might be a few minutes or if it's a difficult delivery perhaps half an hour later or more. Whatever the reason, this type of error puts your birth a little later than it actually is.
Okay, well this is why I am re-doing the chart. My birth record does show the time - but the way it is written in, there is one number that isn't quite clear. My mother always said I was born at 11:58 pm. However, if you look at the time written in, the third number could be a "5" as mom says or a "3". So, I figured, "easy fix"---I can do another chart and see which one really seems to fit me best. And, for the most part the signs are fairly much the same--though a few various degrees. Anyway--this one was one that perplexed me when I furthered the search by googling "Mercury 00 degrees in Scorpio". It just doesn't sound like "me". As for someone taking exact notice of said birth, tbh, I didn't even think of that! But, it does make perfect sense, of course. I know I was a 'long' birth and a difficult one as I was a HUGE baby....
If you've not got a recorded birth time, you are likely to be dependent on your mother or other relative's memory. In which case you're likely to get a birth time something like 'around half past ten in the morning', which is a bit vague or even 'sometime after breakfast' which is even vaguer.
well, as I mentioned, I do have a birth record certificate with the time noted--but that one number is written so you can't quite make it out if it is a "3" or a "5". My brother, (who was 11 when I was born) also swears it was 11:58 pm, though he was only 11--and NOT at the hospital, so....
Other error sources can come the calculation algorithm used by the web page. Not all of them are particularly rigorous, or issues with whether daylight saving was or was not in force and was properly recorded (or at least adjusted correctly) For Mercury an hour can make a difference as it can move at over one and a half degrees in a day at it's fastest.
Other sources of error can include entering the time of birth incorrectly on the website, especially treating pm times as though they were am, with a chart that's twelve hours out.
I can double check that the data you have produces the result that you got, by entering it into one of my own Astrology programs. However if the error comes from recording your birth time incorrectly, it won't detect that.
Oh, that is so sweet of you! I'll PM you my information--and if you could do that, I'd be grateful. thank you! I know I didn't type it in wrong--as I double checked what I typed before sending it off, for BOTH times.
A process called 'rectification' might. It attempts to find the chart that best fits your life. While the results are not guaranteed to be 'right' they can give you a chart that fits better than the one you have. In your case the changes would be marginal at most, if you have a recorded birth time, but 'marginal' is all we need here.
I don't use the 'personality' approach to planets. I'm very dubious about its value for Sun Signs (unless you were born at or around dawn) and I think the use for the planets is frankly worthless in cook-book terms. What matters most is which house the planet is in and which houses it rules in your chart. The sign placement gives some indication of how well it is able to express it's natural significations.
Yes, well, I have always been told this too--and so I know not to take each planets position in the different signs as gospel truth--of course. But the one site I went to describing the Mercury in Scorpio for me was really WAAAAY off from me! When I noticed it was 00 degrees, it got me thinking, maybe it is due to that and I did think perhaps I should also look at the Mercury in Libra--though I didn't do that yet.
It's also worth remembering that if Mercury is around 0 Scorpio, your Sun is either in Libra, or its in Scorpio. From your post, I'm guessing that your Sun is actually in Libra.
If you want me to check, then PM me your date, time and place of birth and I will get back to you.
Yep! Sun is in Libra. 08 degrees.
Thank you for your help. Greatly appreciated and a PM is being sent after this is posted.