Your Sweet Success Zone: Working With Your Lot of Fortune
- Robin Pool
- Feb 26
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 29
Almost everyone feels lucky at some time or another. It’s a dopamine rush waiting to happen: pulling a winning lottery ticket, getting a killer deal in a game of cards, finding a $20 on the ground. We love totems that might bring us luck: a horseshoe, four-leaf clover, even our "lucky" cap. But what if luck really does exist in a way we could see and use? The universe gives us an edge, if we just tap into it.
Last year, Robin and I started an interesting experiment. We began to look for astrological indicators that would show us how -- and where -- we were lucky, and we began to chase that luck. At one point, Robin managed to score five free tickets to the local Renaissance fair, which she'd already decided not to attend because the $35 individual ticket price was out of our budget!
One of the most intriguing and powerful turned out to be an astrological point called the Lot (or Part) of Fortune -- a zone of success/satisfaction. When you dive into your Lot of Fortune energies, it feels like life gives you a big return on your efforts.
You achieve success that feels greater than the work you put in.
Activities that feel like just the right fit for your personality and gifts.
Like a pilot getting into the cockpit of a favorite fighter jet, the seat is just molded just right to your backside, and the controls feel good under your hands.
Medieval Middle Eastern astrologers equated the Lot of Fortune with a sense of gratitude for being alive, like you'd finally found your right place on the planet.
Life doesn't feel like such a struggle when you engage in these activities.
How the Lot of Fortune shows up in your life
Do people comment on something where you seem to be skilled with relatively little effort even though many others struggle?
What feels easy or natural for you that other people say is really hard?
Once people learn about their Lot of Fortune, a whole lot of weirdly positive results suddenly make sense. They're able to put more energy into these rewarding areas and stop pushing so hard to do things that don't yield such good fruit. Many people who feel successful in their career turn out to be working a job that is at least tangentially related to their Lot of Fortune. In the words of former NFL player and sports commentator Chris Collinsworth, “it helps you avoid the tough sledding.”
This article includes instructions for identifying your Lot of Fortune, even if you don't know your birth time. It's pretty powerful!
Important note: Classically, the Lot of Fortune is also associated with physical health. So if you're experiencing a lot of health challenges, your Lot of Fortune might be weak or afflicted. Contact me if you'd like help investigating this in your life.
Where does the Lot of Fortune come from?
Robin and I didn't invent this incredibly helpful concept.
Sages and astrologers have been working on it for thousands of years! It's mentioned in Hellenistic astrology writings from about the beginning of the common era. This and other lots were expanded in medieval Persia, India, and what is now Iran and Iraq. The 1980s astrological renaissance reintroduced modern audiences to these important concepts. Everyone can tap into them.
The Astrology Podcast video "The Lot of Fortune and Spirit in Astrology." demonstrates how the lot is calculated. It involves finding the distance from your sun to your moon (or the reverse if you were born at night) and moving that many degrees forward from your ascendant (the degree on the horizon at your birth time, labeled AC or ASC on your birth chart.)
But the helpful internet is there to calculate it for you. Our directions at the bottom walk you through how to find it.
How to use your Lot of Fortune
Once you find your Lot of Fortune, pay attention to two things:
The house where it falls
If you know your birth time, what sign it's in
The house indicates life activities that come easy for you and where your efforts will be rewarded. When you put extra energy into those, you get a lot of bang for your buck. And if you feel like you haven't found your purpose, or it's hard to feel good, your Lot of Fortune House activities are great places to start!
If you're experienced with astrology, you might like an expanded list of house significations (did you know there are way more beyond the first 3 or 4 everyone talks about?) There's a list in my Etsy shop HERE.
If you know your birth time, the sign shows you what energies or approach to those activities yield the best results.
There are more exercises for this at the bottom.
And if you don't know what the houses and signs represent, see the FREE 1-page cheatsheet HERE.
Keep these in mind
Not everyone has an equal amount of fortune. We all have natural gifts to be fortunate at some activities, but some people are going to be naturally great while others will achieve a more modest success.
In other words, you can find more “luck” by working with your Lot of Fortune, and life should feel easier and smoother. However, it doesn't magically wipe away all of your challenges. There will still be some areas in which you are not so fortunate.
You can improve your Lot of Fortune. Tuning into the energies of other locations or using astrological remediation can improve your “luck.” This has made a huge difference for us, and we help clients with this all the time.
Do you consistently experience greater success or better mental health in certain areas of the world? People often have a favorite vacation spot where good things always seem to happen. Perhaps life just seems easier when you visit a different time zone. Robin and I ended up moving off of the West Coast when we realized that Robin's Lot of Fortune was permanently weakened there. Her health is much better as soon as she gets off the West Coast!
While modern astrology tends to focus on personality and psychology, ancient astrology was also concerned with living better and safer, avoiding hardships brought on by external forces. The Lot of Fortune is part of this practical tradition, which makes it so helpful for living a better life.
How to find the Lot of Fortune in your chart?
Go to the website astro-seek.com Traditional Astrology Calculator
Enter the birth date, location, and, if you have it, the birth time. (If you have an approximate birth time like morning or the early evening, just get as close as you can and remember that you might have to experiment to find the correct sign (email us if you need help with this.) If you can't narrow down the birth time at all, see directions 5 and 6 below.)
Once you've generated the chart, look for the symbol that is shaped like a circle with an X in it (like a railroad crossing sign). That is your Lot of Fortune.
Note the house and sign it falls in.
Special instructions for no birth time...enter 7am along with the location and date of birth.
If you don't know the birth time, the Lot of Fortune is either in the house indicated by the circle with the X or in the house indicated by the circle with the vertical line (that’s the Lot of Spirit, which we’ll discuss later). If you don’t know whether you’re looking at a day or night birth, it could be either one.) Read through the house significations for each of those houses and figure out which one of the two feels like a luckier or easier spot for you. That one is the house of your Lot of Fortune -- without a birth time, it's very difficult to pinpoint your LoF sign. Let me know if you want help with this.
Leverage this in your own life
Try this exercise:
Identify a few current or past activities that relate to your Lot of Fortune house and sign if you know it. How have you already reaped extra success or good fortune in these?
Consider what new, related actions or activities you could add. What could you do to bring more emphasis on this life area?
Spend a week or two doing these more, and track your results. Are you happier, more at ease, or have you reaped some extra rewards?
After trying this, ask yourself how your life might be different or better if you did more of this.
Note: everyone's Lot of Fortune is colored by other parts of the chart: its ruler, aspects from other planets, its relation to the ascendant or other angles. So you may have to experiment with leveraging your Lot of Fortune energy. That's part of the lifelong study of making your astrology work for you.
A practical example
Lot of Fortune in the 4th house in Leo.
4th house: home, family, ancestry, agriculture, and mining, among other significations.
Leo: expressing your passions, sharing your interests, and finding an audience.
Let's say a woman has been trying to launch a singing career.
She's been performing at local open mic nights but with little success. Performing in public venues might work for a Lot of Fortune in the 10th or 11th houses, but with a 4th house lot, this person should try hosting performances in her own home or the home of an acquaintance with a nice piano, a big living room, and some music-loving friends.
Perhaps she could consider an agricultural setting, say a harvest festival at a local farm. She could ask her family and see if anyone has a connection with a recording company or a musical venue. Maybe, instead of singing what she hopes will be a popular cover of somebody else's song, she should concentrate more on expressing herself and writing her own music (Leo is about self expression, not about copying other people's art). Or, if she's not a songwriter, she could concentrate on songs from her family's history or culture since the 4th house is associated with ancestors.
Pinpointing the Lot of Fortune House and sign provides a plethora of suggestions beyond the conventional wisdom about how to launch a recording career or find an audience.
We hope this has helped you understand a little bit about the Lot of Fortune, how to recognize your own and others, and how to leverage it in your own life. Feel free to leave a comment below or email us if you have thoughts or questions.
If you feel like you want some help, we do Lot of Fortune consultations for clients, and they make a great gift.
Go forth and be fortunate!
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