Although it becomes necessary to use an equal house system when the birth time is unknown, the advantage of working from an exact birth time and having exact size houses makes an incredible difference in understanding the horoscope.
Karmically, we are not all born equal. Many past life experiences have changed us so that we enter this life with different strengths and weaknesses and different lessons to learn. Some of these lessons require little effort and are quickly dispensed with during childhood. Others may be so complex and involve so much integration with others that they may in fact take an entire lifetime or even more than one lifetime to resolve.
There are two astrological factors that have a great influence on how karma gets worked out. The first of these is transits. Remembering that the natal chart contains dormant potential. It is the planets transiting sensitive spaces in the natal chart that unlocks these potentials and causes us to confront the challenges in life from which we will grow.
Transits that spend more time over any of our natal planets will obviously bring out a longer confrontation of how to use the planetary energy correctly. Thus, the outer more slower moving planets, which can sometimes spend months or years transiting any of our planets can represent important life lessons being brought to our attention.
The second of these two factors, is Progressions, which symbolize how we progress from our life starting point as each measured time period in our life moves forward. Here the karma of one's life long lessons becomes even clearer, because when we look at outer planet progressions which move so incredibly slow, we might find that some forty or more years later, the progressed planet is still affecting the natal planet, not too far from the degree it started at.
I mentioned the Transits and Progressions for an important reason. They demonstrate in no uncertain way, how individuals are affected when these traverse through any astrological house in the horoscope.
Transits and Progressions will spend much more time moving through larger astrological houses than smaller ones. As a result, the karmic lessons they are bringing to the fore, become a focal point of the individual's life for a much longer time period and get worked on with much more intensity and effort.
Look at the largest two houses in the horoscope (they will necessarily be opposite each other) and you will find the areas in life that are requiring the most karmic work in the current incarnation. The good part of this is, they of course hold within them, the most fulfillment and evolution that can be karmically reached!
