Astrology and
The Fertility Cycle

by Marion D. March

The ancients established that there seemed to be a connection between the position of the Sun to the Moon in a woman's chart and when she was truly fertile. Just as the female body goes through the menstrual cycle, so the natal chart seems to indicate times when a woman is most receptive to pregnancy, namely that moment, once a month, when the Moon is at the exact distance from the Sun as it was at one's birth.

For example, if your natal Sun is 15°40' Cancer and your natal Moon 23°55' Scorpio, the distance between the two luminaries is 128 degrees and 15 minutes. About every 29-1/2 days (thirteen times a year), the Sun and Moon will be at a point where they are separated by 128°15'.

Dr. Eugen Jonas¹, a Czechoslovakian psychiatrist and astrologer, rediscovered this ancient wisdom in 1956. He used the fertility cycle for years, supposedly successfully helping women to conceive. Unfortunately, he did not leave any good records, and when I inquired about him during a speaking tour in Prague in 1994, nobody could find anything in writing, not even in Czech. Yet there was a flurry of articles in astrological magazines in the United States in the late 1970s.² Modern couples were particularly intrigued by this method, thinking it would prevent conception. But the theory did not work and the entire Fertility Cycle fell into disrepute.

The Fertility Cycle as Birth Control

Some astrologers have assumed that if a woman knows the day of her greatest fertility, by adding two or three days before and after, she will have secured a fertile period, making the remaining days of the cycle infertile and safe. Please understand right upfront that this method of birth control is totally unreliable and not recommended.

In today's world where the average woman has taken many artificial substances, from aspirin to birth control pills, there are very few whose natural cycle coincides with her astrological one. In fact, the expected "safe" times may actually be when her natural ovulation takes place, a great time to get pregnant!

Even if you are fortunate enough to have your astrological cycle in synchronicity with nature, nobody can predict exactly how long it takes the semen to travel up the birth canal to inseminate the egg or "lay in waiting" in the tubal area for the egg to be receptive. Medicine says the average semen lives for 48-to-60 hours, but some doctors report that they know of cases where insemination took 72 hours.

Thus, the safe day count can be way off. Obviously, then, it is not a good idea to use this cycle to ensure birth control.

Best Time To Get Pregnant

In contrast, the Fertility Cycle has proven to be very helpful when used to find the best time to get pregnant. I have worked with this cycle for 25 years now and have had some very positive results, although I have also had failures. More than anything else, I have learned great respect for nature -- I am sure that if conception does not occur, it is often because it is not supposed to occur. Therefore, I never promise results. I only offer to try and help to the best of my ability.

The nicest part of this astrological method is that the client does not have to undergo any medical procedure; there are no pills to be taken, no diets to follow, and the only demand is to have intercourse at a certain time of day, and that is usually not considered a hardship.

However, in these days of late-in-life pregnancies and low sperm counts, this simple cycle can only succeed if both parents are physically able to conceive and not in need of medical intervention. Therefore, it becomes imperative to ask how long the couple has been trying to conceive, and if and when a doctor has checked for blockages, tubal problems, the husband's sperm count, and many other possibilities. No "good timing" can undo real physical blockages. The cycle is a simple method of finding the right time to help healthy people conceive a child. (Should there be medical problems, there are other means of helping clients, which I will briefly address later in this article.)

Mechanics of Working with Fertility Cycles

I use the Pathfinder Computer System,³ which provides thirteen dates for one year and the exact moment on that day when a woman's fertility peaks, which is, of course, the exact degree when the Sun and Moon are equidistant to their position at the woman's birth. Even though computers and software programs are very reliable, we who input the data are humans and as such we do err. Please check to make sure that the distance between Sun and Moon is the same as it is in the natal chart.

Since the Fertility Cycle emulates the natural ovulation, I found it helpful to use rules similar to what doctors recommend. They state that the highest potency, when the egg is ready to be impregnated, lasts about one day, or around 20 hours. To be on the safe side, I tighten the astrological period to about 16 hours and find it best to schedule intercourse before the fertility peak. But at times when the couple has no choice and needs to go past that peak, I advise waiting no longer than six hours, whereas the couple can have intercourse for as many as 16 hours before peak fertility. After carefully studying the charts, I consult with the client as to which of the thirteen possible days are deemed good, which are fair to middling, and which I consider problematic.

Continued on the next page:
Rules for Interpreting Fertility Charts;
Pregnancies Through Medical Procedures

DISCLAIMER: All information provided herein is based upon original research methods used by Marion D. March. It is written with reliable intent. The purpose is to inform, educate, and make available tools for individual research. It is not intended to mislead. Although these methods have worked reliably in the past, not enough actual cases have been handled. There is, therefore, no guarantee whatsoever that they will work in the future. Neither the author, publisher, nor programmers connected with this article assume any responsibility for any user's activities or recommendations.

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