Part of Mother

Definition

The Part of Mother is one of the Arabic Parts — calculated points, also called Lots — that classical and medieval astrologers used to look closely at the mother and maternal matters. The Dorothean version, in Carmen Astrologicum I.14, builds the Lot from the Moon, Venus, and the Ascendant: Asc + Moon − Venus by day, with the order reversed by night, following the standard day/night convention. The topic it covers is the mother's condition, vitality, and length of life; the relationship with her; and inheritance from the maternal side. It is read together with the 10th house and the birth Moon.

In Tradition

In medieval Arabic-Persian and Latin practice the Part of Mother is the maternal counterpart to the Part of Father — a precision-significator that sharpens the broader reading from the 10th house and the Moon. Bonatti and the Sahl-Masha'allah chain of sources treat it as one of the topic-specific family Lots a practitioner turns to after the general parental reading. The day/night reversal keeps the luminary alignment intact: the Moon and Venus are the night-sect significators of mothers, so the Lot flips by day.

In Practice

You compute the Lot by formula — Asc + Moon − Venus by day, Asc + Venus − Moon by night — then find its sign, house, and ruling planet. That ruler's essential and accidental dignity (its inborn strength and its strength of placement) is read for the mother's condition; the house of the Lot shows the life-context where maternal themes surface; aspects from benefics suggest maternal support, aspects from malefics suggest hardship or early loss. In timing work the Lot is moved by primary direction, or checked at solar-return ingresses, to find the years when maternal themes come alive. As with all Arabic Parts, the sources hold competing formulas, so traditional practice usually tests several maternal-topic Lots side by side rather than picking one canonical version.

Historical Origin

The Part of Mother is recorded in Dorotheus of Sidon's Carmen Astrologicum I.14 (1st century CE), carried through the Arabic transmission by 'Umar al-Tabari's Three Books on Nativities and Abu Ma'shar's Great Introduction to Astrology, set out formally in Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae (c. 1277, Tractate II Pars II Nativities), and entered the medieval Latin tradition through the per-Part formula catalogues William Lilly preserved in Christian Astrology (1647).

Further Reading