Twins! A pal asked about twins & natal charts. It's an oft asked question: shouldn't twins always be exactly the same if they share a chart? I've looked at this topic a bit due to my mom being a twin (pic), but twins and more versed astrologers please pipe in!
First, astrology would (generally) say it covers 50% of the person— their framework. How the person is built & functions can be seen. The themes of the person's life & family can be seen. Signposts, points of fate can be seen. Skeptics often use twins to show how astrology must be bunk, but saying this misunderstands astrology, and twins.
Being born even a few minutes apart can sometimes mean a different sign for a planet, the moon, or a rising sign. This alone changes the toolbox the twins have to work with. That aside, a person has a whole natal chart available to them from which to express personality, will, and emotions. Thus, twins with identical charts share the same range of expressions, and most of their natal planets certainly have multiple expressions. I'm thinking of someone, okay me, with 7 aspects made to my Saturn alone. That's a tremendous range of Saturnian expression. Apply that to twins and they could use and exhibit different functions of Saturn at the same time.
Researchers have observed that one twin is often more dominant. Similarly, astrologers observe twins essentially splitting a chart, theorizing that they regularly push to differentiate and individualize off each other even though they are using the same tools. So an example might be one twin maximizes their Sun expression, while the other maximizes their Moon. And, these individualizing expressions can wax and wane and swap places throughout their lives.
We also need look at nurture and occurrence. If one twin is offered a piece of birthday cake and eats it right before a travesty occurs and the other never has a chance to eat the cake but sees it in the trash a day later after the cataclysm, they have had a point of differentiation, not one so large as the travesty itself, but they add up, creating individual character textures over time. This can impact how they employ and express natal energies.
twins
