Born on the same day but with differing temperaments and separate paths in life. The planets and aspects can be identical but if the birth time is different and thus the planets sit in different houses there can be a world of distinction.
Pakistan split from India but celebrated its independence at 9.30am the day before on 14 August 1947 where India waited till midnight to begin their new journey. Both have fixed, enduring charts with a flamboyant Leo Sun square Jupiter in Scorpio but with an undertow from a can-be-self-destructive Saturn Pluto conjunct Venus hinting at hardship, deprivation and a tilt towards war-mongering.
Pakistan has the volatile, eruptive Mars conjunct Uranus on their Midheaven suggesting a hair-trigger fuse, a tendency to be overly-reactive and defiant, with a warrior ideal. Their 11th house Mercury, Pluto, Saturn, Venus, Sun hints at their tendency to have military or hybrid military/political governing classes. Neptune in their 1st house may hint at an evasiveness or even an image linked to narcotics.
India has its can-be-destructive, unyielding Saturn Pluto closer to the IC and Sun Venus in the 4th so their focus is internal, wrestling with domestic hardship and inspired by an affection for the homeland. The volatile Mars Uranus falls in the India 2nd house and Jupiter in the 6th so money and employment will be areas of primary interest and attention. In many ways India is a more insular country. Pakistan is outward looking (11th house) and keen on its independence (left hand chart).
House transits which show the broad context of changes will also differ with another axis and Midheaven/Ascendant. Pakistan has tr Neptune square the MC in 2025 for a directionless drift and disappointment with neighbours as tr Neptune enters the 7th. Where India will be less undermined by Neptune except where money is concerned but will be rebellious and independent come 2025 with Uranus moving across its Ascendant.
Another example is TV presenter and property expert Jonnie Irwin, who has just died, and former racing driver, Red Bull Formula 1 principal Christian Horner were born on the same day 18 November 1973. Jonnie Irwin seemed mild mannered in contrast to Horner who has been accused of controlling behaviour, though to date has not been found guilty. Neither has a birth time so to illustrate the difference houses can make the following is entirely speculative.
Both have an intensely determined Scorpio Sun; with a volatile, excitement-junkie Mars in Aries opposition Uranus and inconjunct Sun; and an emphasized Saturn on the focal point of a yod to Jupiter sextile Neptune and square Pluto.
Jonnie Irwin dealt in property so giving him a 2am birth time puts his creative Venus in his 4th; with a communicative Sun, Neptune in his 3rd, good for presenting work. Pluto would sit in his 1st giving him a controlled image with a well-organised, businesslike Saturn in his 10th. His Jupiter in his entertaining 5th would help him on TV. His volcanic Mars would be buried in his 8th so less visible. So he would come across as reasonably battened down as well as chatty and good at performing.
If Christian Horner, being sportingly inclined, has Mars in his 5th house, his adrenaline-junkie tendencies will be more obvious and more significantly, on this scenario, his Pluto will be in his career 10th making him influential, controlling and can-be-dominating.
A different birth time can alter the trajectory of the planets and what gets highlighted and what suppressed. The strong similarities will always be there but distinct variations as well.
Mind you I have known twins born close together in time who picked up different strands of the same energy and acted them out in different ways. Two Scorpios, I recollect, whose mother said one lived all the positive traits and the other the negative.
There is an X factor which the chart won’t show which can be explained by those who believe in young souls and old souls. The more evolved will be more self-aware and able to get the best out of their chart, maximise its potential. Where the unevolved will stumble along blindly and not make the most of the hand of cards they were dealt. It always sounds elitist so makes me cringe slightly but there may be a mite of truth in it.
I’m sure everyone will have examples to illustrate. Feel free to pitch in.
ADD ON: Most useful piece on dwads with easy to read chart from Mel Priestley below. URL won’t load so have put in quotation marks.
‘https://www.melpriestley.ca/how-to-use-twelfth-parts-dwads-in-astrology/’
The Mountain Astrology piece backs up the notion of twins dividing up the planetary traits, some shared, some different.
Thanks, Marjorie. The one thing though, is the issue of young souls or old souls is based on reincarnation, which I don’t believe in. So, then, what does it mean to be an old soul/young soul if we don’t reincarnate and death really is the end?
Great point Demtra!
I was such a math/science gal before I studied astrology and other spiritual paths,….. and I, too, have always got questions re: reincarnation. I had a terrific small book that described many different approaches to reincarnation that offered my science brain an answer… that basically it’s all happening at once!! Oddly, that makes the most sense to my science brain! However, who really knows? What I DO know is that I am in THIS body and working out THIS life… which is about all I can handle! haha.
Certainly mathematics is everywhere in our world… that intrigues me, too.
Still… I am only left with The Mystery… and I feel that Mystery when I look at a chart!
I have a theory that, IF there is reincarnation, the current astrology chart is a crystallizing of the most salient events/characteristics of all those lives! So when I do a reading, I can dip into past life language, or I can focus on the Now… the past childhood, etc. I don’t think it really matters for a reading.
Now.. old soul/young soul…. another mystery? As we have questioned before, why does one person work their chart with courage and depth and integrity.. and another not? Who’s to say who is the Buddha and who is not?…. as I age, I honestly have no idea and so resist going down that path as an astrologer… or person.
Susan Osborne, on the Paul Winter Consort album, Missa Gaia… sings an extraordinary song…
Oh Mystery!
It’s on Youtube.
Both she and the song nail it for me!
take care!
A lot of astrology ideas are tied in with reincarnation. But even if it doesn’t exist, “old soul” and “young soul” do describe contrasting perspectives on life. Perspectives that we certainly can see in some people! Doesn’t it make sense that if personalities of twins diverge, one of them could have a classic old soul outlook, the other demonstrate young soul tendencies?
Marj this is all very interesting. What about finding one’s rising sign. How do I find this instead of ringing up hospital? Plus mom has dementia??? Thank you.
You can get a rectification but they are only guesstimates. The hospital may not keep records that far back or be cooperative but it is your best hope. Or an auntie with a birthday book.
On the other hand, re: two people born on the same day/same year…. I have 2 people in my life now who have this. They are Sun in Capricorn, Moon in Cancer and they certainly do “feel” the same in many ways. Both are serious, reserved, elegant in their Tai Chi form… and then, when they engage their hearts, they burst open in their eyes and their hearts spill over! One is female the other is male.
Interestingly, they each have had a major event happen to them very close together. For the woman – she had put $8,000 into fixing her car and then it just stopped working…. and is now junk. With a young child and a baby on the way, this was huge! The fellow was just in a motor cycle accident and broke 3 ribs and possibly bones in his feet.
Hmmm….
And I seem to remember Alice Howell wrote about some old astrology records that kept track of the lives of a prince and a pauper, both born on the same day and year. I’m away from home so cannot confirm that! This kind of astro-twin intrigues me…. same energies, different outcomes. I do enjoy quietly noting the lives of my two young astro-twins… a bit of a study!
and thank-you for the info on dwads, etc.
onwards!
Alice Portman studied the dwad a lot, I believe, and it’s as if I remember her studying the astrology of twins as well…
Two of my best friends from school are born on the same day. They are different personalities – one is cautious, the other creative. I’d guess that is because the former is a Virgo moon, the latter probably Libra moon conjunct Pluto.
I was also good friends with 3 other guys born around the same date as me. Two of them the day after – which given I was born late in the day actually means I’m probably astrologically quite similar to them. The other born three days before me. There was a 4th guy who born the day before me but we never clicked.
The relationships I have or, in most cases had, with each of them – I can see see within the two groups which seems tto relate to their Suns and Mercurys as it’s how they talk and express themselves. But I have never felt like any of them are clones of each other.
My best friends in high school were identical twin girls and, yes, they were “opposites” in many ways. They were, however, ever close. I have known 2 other sets of identical twins with very polarized, hurtful relationships between each. In fact, one is currently in my life and would like a reading! Yikes!!
Way back in my memory, I recall my first astrology teacher.. a feisty, older Scottish woman (who was ever so proud of her Mercury in Virgo…. SUCH detailed, bare bones foundational astrology she taught!!)..
anyways… I seem to recall her saying she used something like “dwads”… a division of a sign into 12, so each is 2 1/2 degrees. Each of those divisions is assigned a consecutive sign. So if Moon is in Aries then Aries rules the first 2 1/2 degrees, Taurus the next, etc. There was some way that she maybe dove deeper into dividing the degrees into minutes and then assigning astrology signs?
Similar to harmonics only in that it’s a way to expand and deepen a chart.
Has anyone else heard of this?
wished I would have asked her more back then!
I’d certainly like to have more understanding of how to read a twin’s chart beyond that they each pick up certain parts of the chart early on.. .although maybe, with twins, it is VERY difficult to move into the other part of the chart later in life because the identities are so strong by then?
oh dear.. many questions!
thanks!
I agree with Lorrylou. Even if one original cell split to make identical twins, they each have their own soul. I had a wonderful time dating a girl in college, whose identical twin had no interest in friendship with me. (The other twin didn’t dislike me, I was just boring because of nothing in common.) The twins grew up together and shared a lot of qualities, but were very different as individuals.
I wonder if the discussion of rectification should be brought in here. My birth certificate has the time given to the minute. I think four minutes earlier better fits my life experience. It’s easy to imagine that in the hospital, there could have been four minutes between my first breath and when a nurse had a chance to pick up a pencil or look at the clock.
Birth of twins would make the medical people even busier. Especially if there is no universal standard for birth as time of first independent breath vs cutting the cord, etc., I could see this easily making ten minutes or more discrepancy with what gets written down. Even more if born in a situation where they didn’t even try to document the exact minute as with me, but took their best guess and rounded to five minutes, at paperwork time as the very last task.
I’m Scottish, so our birth times are noted on the birth certificate. As I am interested in Astrology, I was aware of the time my children were born. To my surprise, the time given on my eldest daughter’s birth certificate was out by 20 minutes. When I took the certificate to the registrar I complained that the time was wrong, the registar then had to phone the hospital where a long discussion ensured. I don’t know what they were talking about, but I was determined that my time was recorded on the record, and that is what happened.
My point is, even if your birth time was recorded at the hospital, there is absolutely no guarantee it’s correct.
My birth certificate has a 12:55pm time and I’d worked for years with this chart. Imagine my surprise when my Aunt who was babysitting my brother whilst my mother was giving birth, said that she was awoken in the morning to a call from the hospital with news of my arrival. Anecdotally this means by birth time couldn’t be possible; neither parent is around now to clarify.
Mom had remarked to me about the time of day circumstances of my birth. The official time fits well with that. Good for you for pushing back against a false report on your daughter! Strange that your own certificate could be off by so many hours.
I’ve often wondered whether my own birth time is accurate (even though it was recorded by the hospital).
I was born by elective caesarean. Does anyone know whether birth times recorded for caesarean births are likely to be reliable?
Back in the 60’s, I knew a set of popular twins (Lee and Scott) born 15 minutes apart but oil & water personalities. Lee Was helpful, fun to do things with, popular with the girls. Scott was physically abusive, vulgar, and bragged about how many teenaged girls he had sex with. Of course, those “girls” would have sex with anyone, any age. He would routinely hunt me down and beat me up after school.
Sad to learn, Lee had died after college in a car accident. Scott lives on. His 50th HS reunion photo shows him with shoulders hunched forward, as tho still in rage.
Is it possible to talk about hormonal teenagers without superimposing societal gender expectations?
Both twin brothers were obviously getting laid in whatever ways they could manage without incurring negative judgement (in fact, one receives your approval). But, apparently the irresponsible behavior of a bragadocious teenage lothario is put on the shoulders of female teenagers.
Would people prefer that half of the human population routinely raped the other half to prolong our species’ survival just to preserve the virginal=innocent female stereotype?
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with horny teenagers, of any gender, exploring their sexuality. Trial and error is pretty much how all of us survive or perish in life.
Maybe if we don’t insist that one gender overwhelmingly shoulders the responsibility for the misbehavior of the other while simultaneously robbing them of their opportunities to occupy leadership roles, we wouldn’t be anxiously staring at two genocidal maniacs framing the Eurasian continent with ongoing atrocities that allow a genocide-enabler on the other side of the world to enriche the arms industry whilst pretending to wring his hands, just so he can wedge in another term that less and less people support but for the other war-mongering narcissist knocking down our door!
To differentiate the different characteristics of twins born mere seconds apart use
a Dwadamsa chart, Set up one twins Dwadamsa chart and the second twins
dwadamsa chart……you will see the twins differences in their Dwadamsa chart.
https://www.melpriestley.ca/how-to-use-twelfth-parts-dwads-in-astrology/
A good expert on dwads and twins is astrologer Alice McDermott.
In Solar Fire or your astrology program set up each twins natal chart then convert
both charts to the dwad chart to see the difference. Their Ascendants will be in
a different dwad section.
I don’t know but I think Numerology may have some part to play. I’ve also asked the question about what separates the character of twins that are a minute or 2 apart. Well their first names are different. So apparently names carry different numeral vibrations which may contribute to the difference.
Sounds kooky, but then Astrology is not far off. It is said the universe is rooted in math; which is at the root of both Astro and Numero it seems.
My husband is an identical twin and his brother has been the problem child of the family since birth when he was breech. When he finally got out of the womb after much struggling, my husband slid out quite easily. They are 2 mins apart and share the same ascendant and placements of planets. I assume his brother is living out the difficult aspects of their chart. There has been so much drama and fighting and bad decisions in his twin’s life compared to my laid-back, kind and well loved by everyone husband. Not sure how astrology explains the stark difference but it has intrigued me since we met.
Is it possible that your husband’s brother was the subject of much more parental projection than your husband?
I understand that scapegoating and projection can happen within a family without anyone having the slightest awareness or understanding of why – one child just gets picked on for reasons beyond conscious reasoning.
Yes, the scapegoating is definitely possible. They are from a religious family that had money. He also may have been sexually abused by a physical education teacher in his early teens. He ran away soon after but was found in CA where his older brother went to college and returned home quickly. Angry guy who sneakily beat up my husband every day of their childhood. Father was a narcissist and mother projected everything was perfect when it wasn’t.
His difficult birth may well have affected his brain wiring since it is all very plastic at that stage and liable to modification. Which does not explain why the astrology does not point that up.
There is also the intriguing if horrifying scenario where one child in a family is scapegoated while the others are well treated. Not sure I have ever seen charts for this but would be interesting to see the whole family dynamic.
They are fourth house Venus, Mercury, Moon, Sun in Aquarius with Moon and Sun opposite Pluto. I always felt their mother was very controlling and their dad had a lot of rage. They did divorce after the kids were in their twenties.
That’s a good point that his brain wiring might have been affected and not something I have thought about. His mother coddled and made excuses for him until she died. His siblings don’t speak to him and it was only last year that my husband up with met him for an hour in a public place and first time seeing him since their mother’s funeral 7 years before. Their older brother hired two plain clothed police with guns just in case there was a need at the funeral, which there wasn’t. If he hadn’t received everything including two houses in the will, then he might not have been so amenable that day.
I think I once read it is the harmonics that differentiate the twins.
Alois Treindl, of Astrodienst, was very into this topic, because I think he has twins. There should be some articles and message-board threads around there about it.
Surely the harmonics would be the same for charts that are separated by only a few minutes (as in the case of twins).
I’m not too sure… I see people here mention the duad/dead and there is also ghe Vedic dwadashamsha, which are not the same, and I think those too are a kind of harmonics.
Read Mel Priestley above on the add on – explains all.
These add-on links are hugely helpful, Marjorie.
Certainly wakes up what my astrology teacher WAS doing with twin charts.
Plus even more to delve into.
I am usually very skilled at hunting for information but never had these come up.
Must have used the wrong words in my search!
terrific… and thank-you, thank-you
take care
Hmm I had a brief look and can’t see where harmonics would be helpful. The dwads maybe. But how you deduce from the astrology that one twin picked traits 1,2,3 and 7 while the other picked 4,5 and 9 I have no idea.
The question of twins came up at my astrology group at the weekend, but I wasn’t convinced by the reply, especially when some twins have the same ascendants and houses.
In a natal chart, my belief is that two separate souls incarnate, it might not necessarily be young or old souls, just different ones! They come in with the same chart to work with, but the energy plays out differently as they are two entirely different beings to begin with.
Yes I completely agree with this.