Ask Christine Astrology

For everyone finding their way to askchristine.wordpress.com for the first time - whether it’s via Lynn Hayes’ and Julie Demboski’s blogs, your own searches, Astrology News, or Astrology Blogger - welcome! Read, comment, browse, explore, enjoy!

I was fascinated to see the conversation that erupted after Lynn Hayes picked up the discussion about the ethics of predicting death from an astrological chart. It’s over here if you’d like to see - especially visit the comments section on that blog post.

The only time I’ve ever been asked directly about death was more than 10 years ago, when I was a modern astrologer. I was doing speed readings at a small, private party; the hostess gave me the birth data for all six of her guests ahead of time, and I met with each one privately for 15 minutes to talk about their charts and provide quick transit-based forecasts for the coming year. I remember one woman asking me point-blank, “I would like to know when and how I am going to die.” I was floored. I believe I gave her a non-fatalistic reply about how it’s not necessarily shown or set in stone, etc., but the truth is that I did NOT want to touch that question. Nowadays I don’t think modern astrology could even have provided her with an answer.

Here’s where I stand on it now, having forsaken modern astrology for the traditional perspective. I believe it is possible to predict death, possibly not to the date and time but certainly to a given season of a given year. I suspect it is possible to anticipate the likely cause of death, too. I don’t know how to do it - yet. I would like to know how it’s done.

Would I ever actually do it? Living in the litigation-happy United States, I probably would not. In an ideal world, I would like to believe that anyone who comes to me with a question they expect me to answer with astrology ought to be prepared to hear the answer. However, I have no idea what to do about self-fulfilling prophecies, or about those who let their own thoughts about the prediction cause them stress or grief. And I really don’t know what to do about clients who, given what they asked for (if not what they wanted to hear), sue anyway.

That said - I would definitely not volunteer information about a person’s death if they aren’t bringing up the topic themselves. I can’t imagine what’s going through the mind of the 21st century astrologer who would actually bring it up without the client’s requesting it. Warnings of danger, sure. But unsolicited information about the end of life? I don’t think we live in a time or a culture that supports having that knowledge.

What do you think? Have you ever been asked to talk about death - astrologically or otherwise?

What do horary questions and the hidden poems in your desk drawer have in common? The connection lies in simple philosophy. If you are creative (astrologically or otherwise), this insight may surprise you - and motivate you to break out of your shell.

When you cast a chart for a baby, a business, or a wedding, the time and place to use for the chart are fairly simple to determine. But what about the birth time of a horary question?

A question is not born when and where the client first begins to wonder about it, or types it into an email, or picks up the phone. It is born when the astrologer receives it, wherever the astrologer is.

A question can turn over in your mind for a week, wake you from your sleep at three in the morning, or burst fully-formed from your head like Athena. But until it is communicated to an astrologer who can understand and answer it, as John Frawley writes in The Horary Textbook, “it is a no-thing.” It does not exist. This, he says, is as traditional philosophy decrees.

When I first read this, I thought, “I’ve heard something like this before.” I ran into a similar concept in college, by way of a French philosopher not commonly thought of as a traditionalist. Jean-Paul Sartre, the French existentialist, expresses a very similar idea in Literature & Existentialism. He was talking about the art of writing.

“The creative act,” Sartre asserts, “is only an incomplete and abstract moment in the production of a work.

“The operation of writing implies that of reading as its dialectical correlative and these two connected acts necessitate two distinct agents.

“It is the conjoint effort of author and reader which brings upon the scene that concrete and imaginary object which is the work of the mind.”

In other words, author and reader are as parents, and the resulting creative act is as their child. The work stands separate from both as a unique entity. Thus, the reader who takes in the work - recognizing it, acknowledging it, understanding it - is as indispensable to its existence as the writer who first set pen to paper.

The point Sartre makes is that we may write a novel, or an essay, or a poem of exceptional skill and expression. But until we allow another to experience what we have created, it is nothing. You may be the most subtle, expressive writer ever to commit words to paper, but if you leave that composition on the shelf, it does not exist.

Let me say that again. Whatsoever you create - be it song, sculpture, or sonnet - until you allow someone outside of yourself to experience it, it does not exist.

So too with the horary question developing within us. To come into being, it must be received, perceived, and understood by someone capable of doing so. Inside, unexpressed, it is mere potential. Just like those poems hidden in your desk drawer.

Now, the analogy between writing and astrology is not exact. There is in astrology, unlike in literature, an exception to the rule which requires “two distinct agents” to bring the question to life. And that is when you, the querent, act as your own horary astrologer.

If you know the rules of horary astrology, you can ask and answer your own questions. However long we’ve allowed a question to turn over in our minds, there is always a moment at which we shift from “I wonder, I wonder, I wonder” to “I wonder whether a horary chart could help me resolve this.” It is that moment of realization that you take as the birth time of your question, at the place where you are when you realize it.

Admittedly, attempting to answer your own horary questions has risks of its own. For some, there’s the penchant to notice only the optimistic sextile between you and that cute guy, and not the Moon careening into Algol shouting, “Are you out of your mind?” For others, the opposite risk: magnifying the perceived disasters while overlooking, say, a translation of light that resolves the difficulty neatly.

The study and practice of horary astrology happily trains us out of wishful thinking and Eeyore-like pessimism alike. We learn to see the question and its answer for exactly, and only, what they are. And the only way to begin to discover what they have to tell us is to note faithfully the real time and place at which they came into being.

I’m getting several questions lately from students of astrology who, seeing my relationship horaries at Seduction Central, have started casting charts for their own horary questions of the heart, and trying to make sense of them. One thing that distinguishes relationship questions from other horary questions is that, instead of just having two or three key planets to study, you may have as many as five significators in play.

It sounds complicated but it’s really not. To find the answer you’re looking for, you need to start by figuring out who’s got which role in the drama you see before you. Here’s how it works.

In any relationship horary…

1. Give the ruler of the 1st house to the querent (the person asking the question), as always.
2. Give the ruler of the 7th house to the person being asked about. This is even if they currently have some other relationship to you in real life: a friend, a supervisor, etc. You’re asking about their partnership potential.
3. Give the Moon to the querent UNLESS it’s already been put to use in Step 1 or Step 2. It stands for the querent’s heart, his/her feelings in the situation.

In male/female relationship horaries only:

4. Give the Sun to the man UNLESS it’s already been put to use in Step 1 or Step 2. In this case, Sun stands for the guy’s libido, his role as Man.
5. Give Venus to the woman UNLESS it’s already been put to use in Step 1 or Step 2. In this case, Venus stands for the woman’s libido, her role as Woman.

This means that in a male/female relationship horary, the querent could have as many as three significators (Lord 1, Moon, and either Sun or Venus) and the love interest could have as many as two (Lord 7 and either Sun or Venus). But you don’t HAVE to fill all of these roles to be able to read the chart.

How does this work? Let’s say you’re running a theater workshop. Today you’ve got some big-name actors visiting - Brad Pitt (who always plays Sun), Angelina Jolie (who always plays Venus), and Natalie Portman (who always plays Moon) - and you’d like to cast them one way or another. Some of your scripts also include other parts you’ll fill with the regulars in the workshop.

In your first script (i.e. the chart you cast for this relationship question), Gemini is rising, and a woman is your querent. So you grab a Mercurial gal from the cast of regulars to play the Querent, and a big Jupiter guy to play the Love Interest (Gemini rising = Sagittarius setting). Natalie grabs a box of tissues, Angie puts on (or takes off) something sexy, and the two of them take on their roles as Querent’s Heart and Gal’s Mojo. Brad stalks over and strikes a pose as Guy’s Mojo.

In your second script, or chart, Cancer is rising, and your querent is a man. This time, Natalie Portman, who always plays Moon, takes the role of Querent (even though querent is a guy). With Capricorn on the 7th house cusp, you find a Saturnian woman to play the Love Interest. Brad, still playing Sun, goes over his lines as Guy’s Mojo, and Angie as Venus continues to pout prettily as Gal’s Mojo.

In your third script, Aquarius is rising, and your querent is a woman. Since in the classical system Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, you hand the Querent’s lines to the Saturnian woman, and Natalie (Moon) and Angie (Venus) take their classic roles again as Querent’s Heart and Gal’s Mojo. With Leo on the 7th house cusp, Brad, the Sun, is put to work as Love Interest, and thus is too busy to play his automatic role of Guy’s Mojo.

Places, everyone. Quiet on the set. And… action!

Somewhere on the planet, a young student of astrology is thinking of turning her hobby into a professional career. She’s pored over her birth chart and the charts of her friends; she’s read some of the contemporary books that go beyond sun signs; she’s joined the give-and-take of one or another astrology forum online, sharing her knowledge and asking for advice. Now she’s talking about finding a way to become certified as an astrologer. “It would be nice to feel legitimized and have some source of credibility other than friends and clients,” she explains. Here’s how I answered just such a student recently.

You can take the four levels of NCGR exams; you can join professional astrology societies. You can even attend Kepler College and get your BA in astrology. But it all comes down to this: Certification impresses nobody but other astrologers.

There’s no government body that recognizes astrologers. There’s no baseline of knowledge you need to have, no astrological bar you need to pass, before you can put “Astrologer” after your name on a business card. Maybe there ought to be. (I suspect some astrologers are happy there’s not.)

More importantly, your future clients won’t have a clue what those letters and memberships mean. Like mine: NCGR III, Society of Astrologers, John Frawley’s Horary Apprenticeship? What do those mean to non-astrologers? Does it mean I know my ascendant from my elbow?

If you want to feel legitimized, then study, practice, and hone your skills.

If you want to prove to your clients that you know what you’re doing, then study, practice, and hone your skills.

If you want to feel qualified to judge a chart… but you get the idea.

As for finding a source of credibility other than friends and clients - actually, there’s none better. If you’re developing your business, honestly, the good words and opinions of your existing clients are gold. Yes, it helps your reputation to publish or blog or contribute to communities - if people think you know what you’re doing. And to know what you’re doing…

Study. Practice. Hone your skills.