In January I posted my answer to a horary question from a pregnant woman asking, “Will my baby be born at the birth center and when?” I’ve heard back from her, and happily she and her new baby girl are both doing well – after a scary start. She gave me permission to post a follow-up post, so let’s see if I read the horary chart correctly.

At the time, I broke down her question as follows:

“Can I do what I want? (i.e. have my baby at the birth center)”

I said, “Yes, to some extent.” The querent’s significator was Jupiter in its term – a minor dignity.

“When will the baby be born?”

I saw that Venus, Lord 5 and thus ruler of the baby, was 7 degrees of arc from crossing the ascendant. I suggested this meant the baby would arrive in 7 days. I also saw an applying sextile between Moon and Mercury, perfecting in 15 degrees but with poor mutual reception. I said the querent shouldn’t wait the full two weeks (15 degrees = 15 days) before inducing if necessary.

Results:

The chart was cast on 22 December at 6:22 am. The querent reports that she went to the birth center 6 days later, very early in the morning, and the baby arrived a couple of hours later. (The querent has asked that I not share exact birth date & time.) However, the baby was having some difficulties and was quickly transported to a neonatal ICU, while the querent also had to be admitted to the hospital with low blood pressure issues. Querent was released 3-4 days later, while the baby stayed in the hospital for a full 10 days after her birth. As the querent said to me, “a very scary way to start but she’s a perfectly healthy and happy baby now… So, I guess I sort of got what I thought I wanted with the birth center birth, and honestly, it’s probably better we were there as I think that the birth was faster. Had the end stage taken longer, she may have gone into distress.”

I predicted that the querent would be able to do what she wanted to some extent, namely, have her baby at the birth center. She did give birth there, though medical issues required her and her child to be admitted to the hospital shortly after the birth.

I predicted that the baby would arrive in 7 days. Actually, the baby arrived 6 days after the date of the chart. Pretty good, though not exactly right. Venus, representing the baby in the horary chart, was traveling at about 1 degree 15 minutes per day when the question was asked. This is faster than average for Venus. If I’d seen that, I might have realized I could trim a little bit off my prediction.

I saw that something was happening in 15 days, but didn’t really have insight as to what it was. The baby was finally released from the hospital 15 days after the date of the chart. But I’m not taking credit for that, as I didn’t understand it.

Class dismissed! Have a great day, and thanks for reading. If there’s a horary question I can answer for you, just ask.

Horary astrology isn’t that hard to learn. What’s hard is accepting what it says, instead of what you wish it would say.

Today I agreed to look over an astrology student’s analysis of her own horary questions about a guy she likes. Her questions boiled down to these: How does he like me? Where is this going in the next six months? Will he like the art I’m making for him? Here’s how I would approach the chart she sent me.

Chart data: 12 February 2010, 4:10pm PST, 34 N 10, 118 W 22. 7 Leo 39 rising, Moon 12 Aquarius 09.

First, let’s find the relevant significators.

She’s the querent. Leo rises, so her planet is the Sun at 24 Aquarius 10. We also give her the Moon, co-ruler of the querent, at 12 Aquarius 09. Finally, since this is a question about a male-female relationship, we can give her Venus at 1 Pisces 52.

The guy she likes gets Saturn, traditional ruler of Aquarius, the sign on the 7^th house cusp. Saturn is retrograde at 3 Libra 50. We don’t also give him the Sun, even though we ordinarily could for this male-female relationship question, because the Sun is not available to him. In this chart, the querent has first claim on the Sun because it rules the 1^st house, so it’s her primary significator.

The artwork she is creating is a 5^th house matter. Sagittarius is on that cusp, so Jupiter at 6 Pisces 00 represents her artwork.

“How does he like me?” is a question that receptions can answer. In other words, to see what Saturn, the guy, likes, we look at the sign and degree he’s in, then check a table of planetary dignities to see which planets he likes and dislikes.

Saturn at 3 Libra 50 is…

• ruled by Venus
• in Saturn’s own exaltation
• in Saturn’s triplicity (daytime chart)
• in Saturn’s term
• in the face of the Moon
• in the detriment of Mars
• in the fall of the Sun

So, Saturn loves or is ruled by Venus. It’s very much into itself, though, being in its own exaltation, triplicity, and term. It has a very small interest in the Moon. It dislikes Mars and the Sun.

How does he like her? He thinks she’s gorgeous (Saturn interested in Venus), but, sadly for her hopes, apparently he doesn’t care for her personality (Saturn in the fall of the Sun). He’s barely interested in her feelings (Saturn in face of Moon).

“Will he like the artwork?” Receptions can also answer this for her. Looking at the list of receptions above, we see that Saturn, the guy, is in no dignities or debilities of Jupiter, the artwork. He’s indifferent to it.

“Where is this going in the next six months?” (When the querent specifies a time frame, the chart answers the question for that time frame.) Based on things the querent said to me, it sounds like they’re not in a romantic relationship yet but she wishes they were. So, to see if they’ll connect, we look for any applying Ptolemaic aspect between Saturn, his planet, and any of hers.

But this will disappoint her, too. Saturn retrograde at 3 Libra 50 isn’t connecting with any of her planets. Moon has long since separated from the trine to Saturn; Sun is nowhere near an aspect; Venus does not aspect. (Before you shout at me – yes, I see the quincunx coming up; no, that does not count in this astrology.)

Just for the sake of astrological research, we can speculate on what’s in this guy’s near future. What planet is Saturn applying to aspect next? And then what sign does Saturn enter on its retrograde path? And then what planet will it love, and how will it come to feel about Venus? I leave these as an exercise for you.

Last month I received a question from a woman who asked, “Will my baby be born at the birth center and when?” When I asked for clarification, she explained that her birth date was imminent and that she ideally wanted to deliver at the birth center, but was waiting to see if the baby would come on her own in the next two weeks. After two weeks, the querent would have to be induced at the hospital. So I understood her question to mean both “Can I do what I want,” i.e. deliver at the birth center, and “When will the baby be born?” She gave me permission to post her questions and my reply here.

When will my baby arrive?

(Chart data: 22 Dec 2009, 6:22 am EST, Arlington Massachusetts USA. 18 Sagittarius rising, Moon 5 Pisces.)

First, it’s sweet to see Lord 5, the baby, inside the first house. A perfect description of pregnancy: baby inside mother.

Lord 1 is Jupiter, dignified in its term, so the querent has some power (essential dignity) to do what she wants. This is a limited sort of dignity. She’s not in her rulership, she can’t control everything about her situation, but she does have some say in the matter. So my answer to “Can I do what I want?” is “Yes, to some extent.”

How can we know when the baby will make her entrance? I looked at two different factors to judge that. First, with the Ascendant at 18 Sagittarius and Lord 5 Venus at 25 Sagittarius, the baby is just 7 degrees of arc away from rising in the east . That is, she’s leaving the first house (i.e. the querent) and emerging into the light. But would the 7 degrees translate into 7 hours or 7 days? I suggested days.

My other thought was to look at what the Moon was doing as a general indication of what would happen next. In this chart, the Moon has 15 degrees to travel before its next traditional (Ptolemaic) aspect, which is the sextile to Mercury. Fifteen degrees is a long distance to go unaspected. It’s almost like being void of course, in that there’s not much impetus to take any action. This suggested to me that the baby would happily stay put for the full two weeks (15 degrees/15 days), and that the querent would have to be induced. But the nature of that applying sextile bothered me, because it’s between Moon in Mercury’s detriment and Mercury in Moon’s detriment: whatever the Moon was about to encounter, it wouldn’t be good for either party. I concluded that the querent would be better off taking some action before the two weeks had passed.

So that was my judgment: the baby was likely to arrive in a week, and in any case the querent shouldn’t wait the full two weeks before doing something about the situation. I hope everything went well, but I haven’t heard back from the querent. It’s been a month since I studied this chart, and I hope she is busy with her new baby girl by now.

My husband misplaced the TV remote control last night. Oh horrors! How can this happen, how will we ever turn up the volume or change the channel? After 20 or 25 minutes of fruitlessly searching sofa cushions, unlikely dresser drawers, and piles of laundry, it finally dawned on me to cast a horary chart. I like how this one shows the answer – but as with all lost-object horary charts, you still have to try several combinations of what the symbols might mean before the lock springs open.

Where is the remote?

In this chart, Aquarius rises, so my significator is Saturn, its traditional ruler. I was glad to see that the Moon’s next aspect is the sextile to Saturn. This suggests success – not quite the easy success of a trine, but a positive outcome nonetheless.

What is a remote control for? Correctly or not, I reasoned that it is something that gives power. So I decided to look at the Sun to determine where the remote could be.

The Sun is in the 6th house in Cancer. Also, the Moon happens to be right on the 6th house cusp. I thought this might be significant, but I didn’t know how. A planet on a cusp in a horary chart really wants you to notice it.

First, I reasoned that the 6th house is a utility room or storage closet, and that the water sign indicated, not something wet, but something comfortable or soft. So I looked in our coat closet and our bedroom closet, hunting through laundry and checking shelves where my husband, changing clothes after work, might have absently set the remote down. No success.

Then I thought about another meaning of the 6th house: the house of small animals – or where my pets spend their time. Something 6th house and soft must be the cat’s bed, right? I went back upstairs, picked up the two cat beds in our bedroom, and shook them out. No remote.

Finally, I considered that Moon sitting on the 6th house cusp. And it struck me: I should look where the cat currently was. Kobe, our black and white cat, had been napping on an armchair in the living room while my husband and I were searching every other piece of furniture. I patted gently around the cat, and there was the remote, wedged in the chair where he was curled up.

Something finally clicked for me this week about why theft belongs in the 7th house and psychic attacks go in the 12th in horary charts. I used to think an unknown thief must be a secret attacker, and therefore goes in the 12th. That’s not correct, though. These attacks aren’t assigned to houses based on who the attacker is; they’re about the nature of the actual attack.

Theft is a 7th-house matter. You might not know who the thief is, but the harm done to you is obvious: your car stereo is missing, your bank account has been drained. That’s an open attack, so it is associated with the house opposite the first.

Psychic attacks and the like are 12th-house matters. You may be quite certain you know who is sticking pins in your effigy, but the attack itself is covert.

Okay, I don’t know anyone (besides hungry astrologers) who would bother to ask a horary question about  lunch. But I love the section in Bonatti’s Book of Astronomy when he talks about horary questions about banquets. If you’ve been invited to a banquet, he says, and want to know what’s being served, look at the planet the Moon is joined to. (By “joined” I believe he means by conjunction OR by aspect, not only by conjunction.)

Moon with Saturn: unfit and unclean foods, poorly prepared and displayed, not tasting like themselves. “He who has gone will repent of those tastes; whence it is better that he not go to the banquet.”

Moon with Jupiter: good feasting, foods of good flavor, sweets and delicacies. “There will be foods there made with laughter and the like, and you will be honored there.” (I want a recipe for food made with laughter.)

Moon with Mars: don’t go. Bitter foods, and fights break out among the guests. (He also says Moon/Mars can indicate “hot foods and roasted meat.”)

Moon with Sun: foods of good flavor, seasoned with pepper or mustard, country foods, “and similarly-flavored things that are good to taste, and received with foresight, and appropriate.”

Moon with Venus: delicious foods and diverse drinks, or rich and oily foods. “Gladness, and games, and many delights which will please you.”

Moon with Mercury: many diverse types of foods and drinks. Pungent flavors. “Good words will be said there… and believable and unbelievable things will be recited.”

Snippets and paraphrases, parked here mostly for my own reference as I study Ben Dykes’ translation of Bonatti’s Book of Astronomy.

#16 – Bonatti refers to Sahl: “after the malefic planet were to transit the planet whom it was impeding, by one full degree, the planet is said to be freed from the malefic. But to me it seems that after the malefic has transited him by 1 minute of arc, the planet may be said to be free, and to have escaped, because [the malefic] cannot introduce anything after that unless it is fear.” So: in a horary question, if there’s a conjunction or aspect to a key significator by a malefic AND it is just separating, even by as little as 1 minute of arc, it indicates fear, but not the failure of the endeavor.

#17 – Same thing in reverse for separating aspects from benefics. “After [the benefic] has transited [the significator] by 1 minute of arc, it is not perfected, nor does the matter send anything to him but hope…. And the hope which the benefic gives is such that the querent believes that the matter will be perfected for him.” Again: if the desired aspect by the benefic is separating, even by just a minute, at the time of the question, it brings hope but not help.

#9 – “The Moon is always to be put as a significatrix of every matter and every beginning, and every nativity;… And it is her virtue alone, and only her power, that even if the Lord of the Ascendant or another significator of some matter were impeded, indeed so that it could not do or perfect what it ought, and she were found to be strong, nevertheless the matter will be perfected.” So even when Lord 1 is weak, look to the Moon, and if she’s strong enough, what you ask about can still come to pass.

#64 – “Look to see whether the Moon is in Cancer, or in Taurus, or in Sagittarius, or in Pisces:… nor does voiding of course harm her in this case as much in those places as much  as in others, provided that she is not combust.” Note that these signs are dignities of Moon or Jupiter (or in one case, both).

#31 – “A corporal conjunction will prohibit an aspect, and cuts it off, but an aspect will neither prohibit nor cut off a corporal conjunction.” I just used this one the other day, but couldn’t remember where I’d seen it.

I have been summoned to report for federal jury duty on Monday. So I asked myself a horary question this morning: Will I have to serve on a jury? This specific situation isn’t covered in Lilly, but I have an idea about how to find the answer in the chart. Tell me if you think my reasoning is sound or skewed.

First, some background information for my non-US friends: In the United States, citizens of voting age may be asked to serve on a jury for a civil or a criminal trial, for their state or for the federal government. You are called at random, asked to serve for one day or one trial, and then are exempt from having to serve for another four years, I think. Not everyone who reports for jury duty is called to serve on a trial. I have reported twice in the past and not yet been chosen, but this is the first time I’ve been called for federal, not state, jury duty. If I’m asked to serve, I will have to miss work at my regular job.

I asked myself the question while driving this morning, so I looked at nearby highway signs to figure out which city to use for the location. Here’s the chart for my question.

Will I be impaneled?

The key to successfully reading a horary chart is finding the right house to study. To do this, we must think about the essence of what is being asked. It would be easy to jump to conclusions when we hear keywords like “court” or “trial,” because there are clear directions in Lilly and others for horary questions about trials in which the querent is the plaintiff or the defendant. In those questions, the roles are clear: querent = 1, enemy/opponent = 7, judge = 10, outcome = 4. (Note that it’s slightly different for a trial event chart. If you cast an event chart for the start time of the trial, give 1 to the plaintiff and 7 to the defendant.)

But I’m not the one on trial, nor the one bringing the suit. I’m just a citizen, and my government is asking me to go to work for it. Therefore, thinking about the essence of the question, my reasoning is that I’m really asking a form of “Will I get the government job?” And that is a 10th house question.

Now, assigning significators is easy. Gemini rises, so my significators are Mercury in Gemini and Moon in Leo. Whether I call it “getting a job” or “connecting with the government,” the thing I’m asking about is signified by the 10th house. Aquarius culminates, and its traditional ruler is Saturn, currently retrograde in Virgo.

Can we connect me to the government? Mercury looks like it’s applying to square Saturn, and even with Mercury’s intervening sextiles to Venus and Mars, there is so much mutual reception between Mercury and Saturn that I might have said that the square shows me eventually getting impaneled after several intervening events.

But! Mercury is not going to perfect that square to Saturn. It’s not even going to reach the Venus sextile. Why? Because, as a look at the ephemeris shows, it’s just a degree away from its station. At about 1 Gemini 44, Mercury’s three-week retrograde period begins. It never gets close to aspecting the other planets. No aspect, no action. I won’t be serving on a jury this time.

I think it’s interesting to look at the Moon’s next aspect, too. Moon, my co-significator, applies to oppose Jupiter, natural ruler of the law. The opposition is the aspect of regret, things that come together only to break apart. I’ll make the journey to the courthouse, but it won’t actually result in serving on a trial.

Good reasoning, poor reasoning? Tell me what you think. I’ll let you know what happens.

Just kidding. But a couple of people asked to see a picture of our new rescue cat. I am happy to oblige.

Kobe kitty

I don’t have the data for the exact moment we found him and brought him in. It was Sunday night, March 29th, in Arlington, Massachusetts USA, sometime between 8:40 and 9:00 at night.

I do have the data for the question my husband asked that night: Is it somebody’s cat, are they looking for him, and how long until he and they are reunited? March 29, 2009, 11:39pm EDT, Arlington. Note Lord 6 in its detriment retrograding away from Lord 7, also in Lord 6′s detriment, and both planets combust. (Note also our co-significator, the Moon, ruled by Lord 6 – we’re very interested in the kitty – and conjunct Caput Algol – we’re out of our minds. )

Are his owners looking for him?

Here’s how to read a horary chart in about one minute. We’ve taken in a stray cat (not the one from last fall; a new one). I’ve tried to find his owners, with no luck. My husband and I talked about finding him a new home, but now I want to keep him. Last night I asked the horary question, “Will the cat be better off with us or with someone else?”

Will the cat be better off with us or elsewhere?

The technique I learned to answer questions like this is a little unusual. Simply put, you find the significator, then mentally pick it up and “drop it” into the houses representing the places you’re talking about. It works pretty well with questions like “Will I like the job?” (Take Lord 1 and drop it into the 10th; do the same with Moon to know if it will be emotionally satisfying.)

The cat is signified by Mars, ruler of the 6th house. Mars is in decent shape: in its triplicity, conjunct an exalted benefic. (I see that exact Uranus conjunction, which may represent his status as a stray.)

What happens to Mars when I pick it up and drop it just inside my house, the first? In early Scorpio, Mars is exceedingly strong: dignified by rulership, triplicity, term, and face. The cat is extremely well off with me. (Shelter, food, water, bed, toys, cuddles & brushing, medical care – you bet he’s well off here.)

What happens to Mars when I pick it up and drop it in the 7th, the house of “some other person”? Huge loss of status and well-being. Mars in Taurus is in its detriment, plus it’s under the beams of the Sun, which doesn’t help it.

Case closed. The cat should stay here. (Am I biased? You bet I am. That’s the trouble with reading one’s own horary charts.) How would you interpret this chart?