You’ll remember that I put up a horary chart a few weeks ago asking about the weather for my 4th of July family barbecue. (Here’s the original post if you missed it.) My prediction was “a hot summer day, but not an uncomfortable one, and not too dry.” I was right on two counts. What we actually got was surprisingly mild (comfortable) and slightly damp (not too dry) weather - but not what you’d call hot.

We woke up to rain in the morning (the Boston area has had its own monsoon season this year, with regular afternoon thunderstorms almost daily since the solstice), and I thought my prediction had gone astray. But the rain had stopped completely by 3pm, the start time of the party. We had mild temperatures and that not unpleasant hint of humidity that follows after rain. We left all the windows open for the breeze, and half our guests congregated on the back porch where we were grilling, where the fresh air was anything but oppressive. No direct sunlight, as it was overcast, but no extremes of any sort.

My thought on this outcome versus my prediction is that, since the North Node increases what it contacts and the South Node decreases, the presence of Mars on the South Node should have told me to tone down my overall forecast from “hot” to “not too hot.” Also, my notion that “Sun/Venus are also widely sextile Mars, another indication that the humidity is pleasant and not unbearable” proved true. It wasn’t prime suntan conditions, but it was utterly comfortable.

Notes for the future: I wonder if I should have considered the trine from the Moon, which is in closer orb than the wide Sun/Venus sextile? Or maybe Moon opposite Sun indicates the all-day cloud layer that never quite let the sun shine through.

My friend has sent an update on the woman asking, “Is he the man of my life?” two months before her wedding. (See original post and chart.) Apparently the wedding has been postponed for now. I hope everything works out for the client, though, considering she went to the trouble of consulting an astrologer about her relationship, she clearly had her own doubts about it.

Also, that extra-important Mercury - the planet that all her significators and her fiance’s were focused on - turned out to be a close friend who hangs out with them all the time. That was one of the possibilities I considered, as the chart’s 11th house includes intercepted Gemini, ruled by Mercury. How close is close? Mercury’s just a couple of degrees from the querent’s significators, Sun and Venus, so verrrrry close.

I didn’t mean it to happen… but I broke one of my most important rules of horary a couple of days ago. Namely…

DO NOT ACCEPT QUESTIONS ON MULTIPLE TOPICS FROM ONE QUERENT AT THE SAME TIME.

I was asking friends for seed questions for a small project I’m helping a colleague with, and when one person emailed me back with not one but TWO juicy questions (is my marriage in trouble? and when will my big career break come?), I thought, “Oh, I should really tell her to send these in separate emails.” But I didn’t, and now I’m wondering if I need to reject one question or ask her to resend or what.

What’s so bad about accepting multiple questions at once? Say you’re reading an email from a querent, and you read both (or all) of her questions within a few seconds. Then what you’ve got is one single chart for that place and time, and you’ll be stuck trying to answer two (or several) separate questions from the same chart. It’s not impossible, but it can get complicated.

Also, when the querent has multiple concerns, it can mean that they need to go back and think some more before asking. Horary astrology works on the premise that the question and its answer arise from the same moment. The more important the question is to you, and the more you really hone in on what you need to know before you ask, the better the results will be. John Frawley in The Horary Textbook remarks, “The asking of many unrelated questions suggests that none of them is the real issue. It is better to ask the querent to reflect on what is most important and then ask that.”

This doesn’t prevent querents from asking two related questions at once - for instance, “Will I get the job? Will it pay well?” or “Should I go out with X? Will he get along with my kids?” But getting a laundry list of questions is the red flag that tells you, the astrologer, to ask the querent to take some more time and focus on what they need to know.

In the end, I may attempt to read both the marriage and the career questions from the one chart I have. As I said: not impossible, just complicated. If the querent had sent the questions in separate emails, at least I could have read them at separate times, thus giving each one its own unique chart. That’s the wondrous thing about horary astrology: the chart is for the moment the astrologer understands what’s being asked. It may look like I’m imposing some free will on the situation and somehow “choosing” the chart for each question; but I find that the system works.

So now I’ll have to go see how the chart looks. I glanced at it on Friday and there’s an early degree rising. That’s one of those old-fashioned “strictures against judgment” that suggests the question is somehow premature. Maybe I can use that as my excuse to ask her to resend both, separately.

Hooray, a cosmic challenge from Beth Turnage! She’s just answered a horary question for a client who wants to know if she should start a blog; but when I pointed out that Beth’s software was giving her the wrong ascendant, she replied, “Then how would you interpret the chart you propose? I’m sure Catherine would appreciate a second opinion.” Can do, Beth. And awaaaaaay we go…

Question: I’m thinking about starting a blog that deals with world religions and how their beliefs can help us deal with emotions. Would this be a good venture or would I just be spinning my wheels?

(Chart data: 17 June 2008, 6:05pm EDT, Middletown, CT 41N34 72W39. This is the time and place of the question as Beth originally received it. Click to enlarge the chart.)

A late degree of Scorpio is rising, so the querent is signified by Mars and the Moon (co-ruler of the querent in a horary question). Some believe that a late degree rising means the question comes too late or is being asked from desperation, as if the querent has exhausted her other options. It does NOT mean that the chart is not radical, i.e. unfit to judge. You can judge a chart even when it has a late degree rising; it may simply mean that the moment for the opportunity has passed.

What signifies the question? She is not asking, “Should I start a blog?” for its own sake. She wants to know, “Would this be a good venture?” In other words, “Can I profit from blogging?”

In questions of profit from a given endeavor, we must turn the chart and look at the 2nd house from the house that stands for that endeavor. So, “How much can I earn from this job?” The 2nd from the 10th (the job) is the 11th (the salary). “How much can I get from my ex-husband?” The 2nd from the 7th (the ex) is the 8th (his money).

“Can I profit from blogging?” Well, what is blogging? Is it one’s creative art (the 5th house)? Or is it more like publishing one’s knowledge (the 9th house)? (It’s not the 3rd house, as that is related to one’s elementary-level knowledge. John Frawley points out in The Horary Textbook that you could ask something like “Can I profit from my ability to read and write?”, so the knowledge there would be in the 3rd and its profit in the 4th.)

Let us say in this case that blogging is an expression of one’s knowledge, and that the querent is hoping to profit from her knowledge of world religions. So, the blog itself is the 9th house and its ruler; profit from the blog is the 10th house and its ruler. The 9th in this chart has Leo on the cusp, so the blog is ruled by the Sun. Virgo is on the MC, so its profit is ruled by Mercury.

Now you need to find out two things: is there any money to be had (look at the condition of the significator of the profit), and is any of it coming to the querent (see if said money is forming an aspect or otherwise connected to anything representing the querent or her money - the 1st or the 2nd house).

Let’s start with the first part. Profit is ruled by Mercury. How is Mercury? Wow - by essential dignity, its sign placement, it’s very strong! Mercury in this chart is in its own sign, Gemini, so at first glance we would think there is a huge reserve to be tapped. The better the essential dignity of the planet, the better the quality of what it represents. So this Mercury is potentially rich.

But that alone doesn’t tell the whole story. How is Mercury by accidental dignity? Not so good. At 13 Gemini 05, it is still retrograde, just 6 minutes of arc from stationing. It’s moving incredibly slowly, which is very uncomfortable for the winged messenger, and it’s retrograde: traveling “in the wrong direction.” The querent’s own expression “spinning my wheels” is a particularly apt description of the image we get here: a traveler that’s trying to get moving but only becomes more stuck.

So, the money could be good, but something about it is molasses-slow and moving in the wrong direction. Now let’s address the second condition: can we connect the money to the querent somehow? To do so, we want to find an astrological connection between Mercury, the profit, and something representing the querent or her own money: so, 1st house, Ascendant, Mars (ruling the 1st), 2nd house (her money), 2nd house cusp, or ruler of the 2nd (Jupiter).

1. Is Mercury located in the 1st? No.
2. Is Mercury applying to aspect the Ascendant? No. It stations at 12 Gemini 59, long before it can get anywhere near Taurus, the opposite sign to Scorpio.
3. Is Mercury applying to aspect Mars? No, there is a separating sextile between Mercury at 13 Gemini and Mars at 21 Leo. Separating aspects won’t help us. We want an applying aspect to describe what’s coming in the future.
4. Is Mercury located in the 2nd? No.
5. Is Mercury applying to aspect the 2nd house cusp? No. The 2nd house cusp is 26 Sagittarius; Mercury is approaching its station, and for these purposes, we do not carry it through station and allow it to reverse direction to perfect the aspect. Station is the end of the road.
6. Is Mercury applying to aspect Jupiter, lord of the 2nd? No.

So, unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if blogging would be a good source of income for the querent. That doesn’t necessarily mean that she should completely drop the idea. Mars, her significator, is ruled by the Sun, signifying the blog - it’s clear she loves this topic and the knowledge and is more motivated by sharing what she knows than by the money. But if profit is the point of the effort, she may be better advised to seek other ways of bringing in some cash.

Questions, comments, clarifications? I’d love to hear from you.

Where have I been?
Reading, mostly. The Fated Sky by Benson Bobrick is the history of astrology that I couldn’t put down. Loved this, read it voraciously, want my own copy (this and the Forman book mentioned below are on loan to me). Some errors here, but lots of very good stuff. I may write up a full review later.

Simon Forman by Judith Cook I found a good deal drier; it’s the story of a 16th century physician and astrologer, researched in possibly more detail than I needed. Interesting read if you want to know about life in Elizabethan England; not so interesting from an astrological point of view, as the biographer knows next to nothing about astrology. She seems to treat all Forman’s horary & medical astrologizing as slightly embarrassing and only accurate by chance - she sounds surprised when some of his prophecies come true. (Somehow, her side note about William Lilly near the end of the story never mentions his crucial contribution to astrology, Christian Astrology; did she tire of her research in the end, or did she never take the astrology seriously?)

Astrology & aesthetics:
Here’s a photo that doesn’t do justice to a blank book I recently bought. Love the antique celestial maps on each cover.

Also, at a wine shop around the corner, I saw a woman whose freckles seemed to form a constellation - then I realized they weren’t freckles, they were intentional. “Excuse me, is that the constellation Scorpio tattooed on your shoulder?” And so it was.  

Horary questions I’m working on this week:
Is my girlfriend still in love with her ex? (Nah, she’s just combust, it’ll pass. Querent doesn’t sound persuaded.)
Where is the gold ring my father-in-law gave me? (Ugh, lost object questions! The ring is probably gone for good - as seems to be the case in all the lost object questions I get - though it’s possible the querent accidentally left the ring at his father-in-law’s house, & it’s being shipped back to him now.)

My husband loves 4th of July fireworks, and this year we’ve invited his family to come barbecue with us and then go downtown to watch the fireworks. My horary question this afternoon: what sort of weather will we have for the party?

(Chart data: 17 June 2008, 5:12pm EDT, Boston, MA. Click to enlarge the chart.)

I am asking specifically about the weather for a party, so I’ll look at what’s happening to the lord of the 5th house, the house of fun and entertainment. If I had a more general question about, say, the weather all summer long, I’d look at the 1st house, describing general conditions where I am.

Aries is on the 5th house cusp. The ruler of Aries is Mars, so Mars is the significator of the party. (Hot, dry, cardinal Aries is, by the way, an appropriate description of a barbecue (cooking) party with fireworks afterwards.) But note that the 5th house cusp describes the party, not the weather at the party.

How will the weather be? Start by looking at the sign that Mars, the party, is in. In this chart, Mars is at 21 Leo 53. Leo is a fire sign: hot and dry. So the day will be hot and dry. Perfectly reasonable for a July day in New England.

To qualify this description a little, we can look at the dispositor of the lord of the 5th house - that is, the planet ruling Leo, where Mars currently is - that is, the Sun. Sun in this chart is at 27 Gemini 02. Gemini is an air sign: hot and moist. So Sun in Gemini increases the heat and adds a little humidity. I note that Sun is also conjunct Venus, the lesser benefic, also in Gemini; so I would say that Venus lends a temperate and pleasant note to the day. Sun/Venus are also widely sextile Mars, another indication that the humidity is pleasant and not unbearable.

So the judgment is clear: a hot summer day, but not an uncomfortable one, and not too dry. If you wanted to keep tweaking your judgment, you could factor in the trine from the Moon in hot, dry Sagittarius; you wouldn’t consider the quincunx from Jupiter, since the quincunx is not a Ptolemaic aspect. Finally, I notice that Mars is on the South Node, which could mean something goes awry at the barbecue… but hey, at least it’ll be a beautiful day.

A recent comment from astrologer Jeffrey Kishner reminded me of one of the odder notions I had to wrap my head around when I first started studying old-school astrology. It’s this: the planet/house associations you’re used to making - Mars for the first house, Venus for the second house, and so on - are all wrong. Ha ha!

The ancients used only seven heavenly bodies, as you probably know. These were ordered according to their planetary spheres, based on each planet’s relative speed. The list goes from slowest to speediest:

1. Saturn
2. Jupiter
3. Mars
4. Sun
5. Venus
6. Mercury
7. Moon

Thus, the first seven houses of the chart are naturally ruled by those planets in order. Saturn, ruler of boundaries, governs our physical bodies and our entrance into life. Jupiter is all about wealth and plenty, and so is connected with the second house. Mars, natural ruler of siblings and action, is associated with the third house of brothers, sisters, and short journeys. As John Frawley explains, Mars also shows the impulse to speak, the motive behind the expression, thus the third house connection.

Sun, natural ruler of fatherhood, gets the fourth house, which in the tradition is always the house of the father. (Yep, always.) Venus finds pleasure in the fifth house, naturally associated with fun and games and entertainment and pastimes. Mercury, the servant and attendant to the Sun, is associated with the house of servants, the sixth. And the Moon, a constant reflection of the Sun’s light, connects to the reflection of the partner that is the seventh house.

What do we do with the eighth through twelfth houses? Start all over again with Saturn.

8. Saturn
9. Jupiter
10. Mars
11. Sun
12. Venus

Now Saturn who showed us into life at the first house shows us the way out through the eighth, house of death. Jupiter’s expansion takes us on the journey to the divine in the ninth house. Mars describes our action, honor, and reputation in the world through the tenth house. Sun is associated with the eleventh, house of good fortune and our greatest hopes. And Venus’s penchant for pleasure at any price leads to the dumb things we do to imprison ourselves in the twelfth.

This post borrows heavily from The Real Astrology by John Frawley. See pages 101-103 in his chapter on the houses. Then read the entire book. Highly recommended.

Practically every question under the sun has a place in a horary chart. And relationship questions are certainly not beyond the scope of what a horary chart can address. So how come, when you ask a question like, “Is he the one?” or “When will I find my soul mate?”, the horary chart won’t necessarily play along? Why, as I’ve been taught, does the chart about “soul mates” usually instead describe the next significant relationship to come along, instead of the big kahuna?

Maybe the problem is that we’ve got the definition of soul mate all wrong. What is a soul mate, after all? Is it someone who intuitively “gets” us, the one chosen at the dawn of time for us, the one who completes us? I’m starting to think that this concept of soul mate - one ideal partner among the billions available on the planet - is not necessarily one supported by the universe we currently inhabit.

Perhaps the soul actually requires something very different, a completely other education, than what we’ve come to expect a soul mate to deliver. It may not all be the Libran ideal of candlelight dinners and red roses, but there are those who say that the partner you find is the guru you need at that time. I think the chart delivers what we’re asking for; but we don’t realize that we’re being told exactly what we need to know.

Maybe when we ask for a soul mate, instead of expecting “the one who completes us” in some idealized, romantic way, we can expect the one who reflects us: one who shows us what we need to do in order to grow. If the next relationship to come along does not match our expectation of what a soul mate is for, perhaps it’s our expectations that need to change.

Chart example: Is he the man of my life?

(Chart data: 9 June 2008, 9:35am in Paris. Click to enlarge the chart.)

The querent (not a client of mine, but a friend of a friend who showed me this chart) is engaged to be married. The wedding is two months away. If I were her astrologer, I might like to ask her, “What brought this question on? Are you concerned that you shouldn’t go through with the wedding?” This is just to be certain I understood exactly what the question is. I might also ask, “Is there anyone else involved?” before setting the chart… just in case.

For a question like, “Is he the man of my life?”, we want to investigate a few things. One, what sort of person is he? Look at his significator(s). Two, is there mutual interest between the two of them, or is something else getting in the way? Look at the receptions between them. Three, will the relationship last? Look at the Part of Marriage.

Leo is rising, so our female querent is signified by the Sun (Lord 1), the Moon, and Venus (natural ruler of women in a heterosexual relationship question). Aquarius is on the 7th house cusp, so her fiance is signified by Saturn only. (We can’t give him the Sun, natural ruler of men in a heterosexual relationship question, because it is Lord 1, so the querent has first dibs on its services.)

So, what sort of person is he? He’s represented by Saturn at 2 Virgo 52 in the second house. He is probably older, stern, of a scientific or analytical mindset; in her house of finances, he may be interested in her money. Saturn has no essential dignity or debility in this part of Virgo: he is peregrine, without any particular rudder or motivation here. Also, and somewhat troubling, Saturn only has scant interest in our querent. It is in the face of Lord 1 (Sun), so he only barely likes her personality; it is in the triplicity (good) and the fall (ugh) of Venus, so his attitude toward her as Woman is mixed; and it is in no dignities or debilities of the Moon, so - can it be? - he has no special interest in her heart. This is especially strange when you consider that Moon is just separating from conjunction with Saturn. They look like they share similar values, but he doesn’t care for her feelings. To me, that’s not promising for long-term happiness. (She as Sun/Venus in Gemini likes Saturn all right. She’s in Saturn’s triplicity, an essential dignity comparable to friendship. We can’t expect all relationships to show ideal conditions at all times; if both parties were in each other’s triplicity and there were other indications of stability of the relationship, I’d vote yes for its success.)

What is he interested in, then? Being in Virgo, Saturn shows a great deal of interest in Mercury. That’s funny. All the querent’s significators are ruled by Mercury, too. She’s represented by Sun in Gemini, Venus cazimi in Gemini, and Moon in Virgo. And Mercury is retrograde in its own sign, separating from conjunction with Sun/Venus. Could Mercury be someone our querent has recently broken up with but hasn’t gotten over? Alternately, since Mercury rules this chart’s third house and a Mercury sign makes up the brunt of the eleventh, I wonder if it’s a sibling, neighbor, or friend who’s somehow important to the soon-to-be-married couple. (This is why you need to ask the querent what’s going on before you look at the chart. You don’t want to introduce extra characters into the drama without good reason.) This is another red flag to me.

How will they get along after marriage? To answer this, we can look at the Arabian part of marriage, calculated as Ascendant + Descendant - Venus. In this chart, it’s at mutable 21 Pisces 09, ruled by Jupiter in its fall in cardinal Capricorn. The mutable Part of Marriage suggests much changeability and the need to adapt; its ruler in its fall in a cardinal sign suggests a rapid decline, something that’s over soon after it begins. Again, not especially promising for the long haul.

So, is he the man of her life? I have my doubts. Talking to the client, I might gently suggest that there is some unresolved stuff around a third party that she needs to consider before getting married - someone of critical importance to both of them - and explain that this chart doesn’t carry the signs I’d hope to see for a lasting relationship. But I’d choose my words carefully. We are not all-knowing, and we must not utterly destroy hope if we can possibly help it.

Why are the 12 houses of the chart arranged as they are? English astrologer Henry Coley, a protege of William Lilly, provides a neat explanation in his 1676 book Clavis Astrologiae or a Key to the Whole Art of Astrology. Dividing the houses into four triangles, each one grounded by one of the four angles, he explains that each set of three houses shares a single theme: life, love, action, or passion (not as in romance, but as in suffering; that which is done to us, as opposed to action, that which we do). Each house in each set expresses that theme in a complementary way.

The Life triangle is linked to the Ascendant and includes houses 1, 5, and 9. The 1st is the house of our present life and body: our self. The 9th is the house of religion, or, as Coley explains it, our hoped-for eternal life in God. The 5th is the house of our children and creative works; that is, our life carried forward into posterity.

The Action triangle, also called the triangle of gain, is linked to the Midheaven and includes houses 10, 2, and 6. It is concerned with worldly goods and honors we earn. The 10th, says Coley, is the house of immaterial resources: our mastery of a profession, our honors and dignities, even majesty and power. The 6th is the house of material, animate resources: those who work for us, or, as Coley expresses it, “subjects and servants.” The 2nd is the house of material, inanimate resources: our possessions and our capacity to earn money.

The Love triangle is linked to the Descendant and includes houses 7, 11, and 3. The 7th is the house of matrimony: the relationship of love. The 3rd is the house of siblings (”brethren and kindred,” says Coley): the relationship of blood. The 11th is the house of “simple benevolence and favour,” per Coley: the relationship of friendship.

The Passion triangle is linked to the Nadir, which Coley ominously calls the Dark Angle. Remember, “Passion” here means suffering. It includes houses 4, 8, and 12. The 4th is the house of parents and ancestors, or, as Coley darkly puts it, “a sorrowful expectation of the natural death of his parents.” He goes on to link this house to “the stain of Original Sin,” the suffering we each take on by being born. The 12th is the house of secret enemies, imprisonment, servitude - the misery and suffering imposed upon us during life. And the 8th is the house of death itself, the end of this temporal and temporary existence.

You know that drop-down of house systems (Placidus, Koch, Equal House) you see in your astrology software but never think about much? For horary astrology, the one I was taught to select is called Regiomontanus, named for a German mathematician and astrologer born June 6, 1436, in Bavaria. Not that he was born Regiomontanus: that’s a Latinization of part of his German name, Johannes Mueller von Koenigsberg.

What little I know of him, you can learn too from Wikipedia. You’ll learn that he lived to about age 40, and became famous in his lifetime for his extensive writings. During his life, he published maybe 1/4 of what he hoped to write. But his ephemerides were widely used - even by Christopher Columbus, some 28 years after Regiomontanus’ death, to predict a lunar eclipse and use that knowledge to save his skin.

I must admit, trying to understand the rationales behind this or that house system - great circles, right ascensions, prime meridians - leaves my head befuddled. Deborah Houlding has written a quite elaborate and detailed article about house systems which you can read on her website, Skyscript.co.uk if you’re very curious. 

Meanwhile, I like birthdays and will happily observe that of a long-gone scholar, born 572 years ago today, whose efforts influence my own. Thanks, Herr Mueller von Koenigsberg!