Recently, Radu submitted an article on AW about the importance of making absolutely sure we understand the nature of that which is being asked of us before proceeding to interpret a horary chart. It's very easy to presume that we understand what is being asked, when further inquiry might reveal that the true nature of the question has been misacknowledged. So it is important to quiz the querent, to make sure that we know exactly what we are looking for so that we do not end up barking up the wrong tree. Although the fun and interesting part is to jump straight to interpretation, I think that we ought to spend more time making inquiries of the people who ask us to offer interpretations, not just in horary but in natal as well, so that we are absolutely clear what we are looking for. So often there a questions such as 'Does he love me?', but knowing the circumstances surrounding this question, such as who 'he' is, how long she has known him, how things are between them, and many other important considerations make all the difference in interpretation, yet so often we jump into it both feet first. Knowing whether or not the querent is a young school girl referring to a crush on a school teacher, or a middle aged woman who has been married for twenty years asking about her husband will yield a vastly different slant on the reading, but yet it is not so uncommon that we are not provided the background detail, and not too uncommon that we do not ask enough questions.
I wanted to start a thread about another important issue relating to horary, and that is keeping our own emotional investments out of the situation where they may arise, particularly when reading for oneself, family or friends, and to keep our value judgements of what should be or could be correct, and remaining as impartial as possible.
I provide an example of a horary chart which went terribly wrong, due to my own set preconceptions concerning the situation, causing me to interpret into the chart what I believed and not what was more plainly there. I will show how the chart came to reveal the true nature of the situation.
I saw my mother and she told me that she had lost a bundle of notes constituting a large sum of money. Naturally, she was very upset, because this was all the cash she had on her at the time. She informed me that the only way that she could have possibly lost this money, was while she was paying for petrol at a petrol station. This was the only time she had reached into her purse to pay for something that day, so as far as she was concerned, there was no other possibility that she could have lost the money anywhere else. She felt that when she had taken some money from her purse to pay the assistant, she must have accidentally dragged out the bundle of notes and they must have fallen to the floor, without her noticing, because she was in a rush to get somewhere and was running late. She made a futile attempt at going back to the garage to ask if any money had been handed in, but obviously, if it had, this would have been a miracle. All the assistant could do was to say he would inform the manageress the next day and ask her to review the CCTV to see if anyone had picked up any cash. I felt that if she had dropped the money in the petrol station, which she was certain she had, and that either a later customer or the attendant will have had the money.
These preconceptions in mind, I decided to erect a horary to investigate this:
'Where is the Money? Will she get it Back?'
The first thing that I notice in this chart is that the ascendant is very early indeed at Taurus 0.55, suggesting that the question is being asked prematurely, before all things have been considered, and not only that, but the significators of both my mother and her money are one and the same, and this combined with the very early ascendant is saying - 'don't worry, she and the money are still with one and other, it is close at hand, you are asking the question too early, the money just needs to be found'. Had I accepted this, the only thing left to do would be to locate where the money actually was according to the chart (which would have been so easy). However, even though I considered this, I was already very set in mind that the money had been lost in the garage as she had said, and had been stolen by either another customer or the garage attendant, so I dismissed what was obvious in order to suit my preconceptions and emotional investment in the situation.
Here's how I went about the chart so very wrongly, and how, had I remained impartial, I should have gone about it:
I wanted to know if it was the shop assistant that had stolen the money, as far as I was concerned, someone had stolen it, and I just wanted to find out who, so I counted the sixth from the tenth (servant of mother), in order to see what his significator was doing in the chart.
The garage attendant is signified by Mercury, Mercury is the patron of thieves and Mercury is all the more devious for being in Scorpio and retrograde, furthermore, Mercury is conjoined with a malefic fixed star, Unukhalkai, meaning, 'the knowledge of the serpent', implying a measure of sly and dishonest knowledge on behalf of the garage attendant, and this star is associated with theft and dishonesty. Without looking any further, I took this as strong testimony that the assistant had took this money.
I wanted to know if the manageress of the garage, when she was to review the tapes would catch him picking up the money, so I looked for her significator, the tenth from the sixth (assistant's superior). She is signified by Saturn detriment, from which I questioned the manageresse's ability to do her job properly, and that she would probably not bother reviewing the tapes anyway. My conclusion was that the garage attendant had stolen the money, and the manageress would either not bother reviewing the tapes or not do it properly, so the money was lost for good.
How stupidly wrong I was because of my determination to read into a chart to confirm my own point of view rather than being impartial!!!
As it turned out, a couple of days later, I learned that my mother had found the bundle of money. She must have absent mindedly placed the money on the mantel above the fireplace in her living room, where it had dropped off and fallen behind a wooden carved ornament of a cat which sits by the fireplace.
The shame here is, that this is the first time I had ever attempted a horary for my mother, and I'm not quite sure that she is at all convinced by astrology, and here was my chance to prove it and I failed miserably. Of course, she doesn't believe in it now, and that is my fault, but I have taught myself a good lesson, which is the advantage.
Looking back at the chart, it is all so very obvious, and had I used my common sense, kept my preconceptions out of it, and kept it all very simple, I feel that I may well have located this money rather quickly:
The ascendant is very early, and the significator of the mother and her money are one and the same - this is so very clear - the question is premature because the money is somehow still with her, it just needs to be found, so the next thing to do is locate it. Bear in mind that the significator is not angular, even though the money was in fact close at hand, in her house, but it is not neccesary in this case for the close proximity of the money to be shown by being angular, because the early ascendant and the two significators being one and the same is very strong testimony all on it's own.
So we don't have to look for absolutely everything in a chart by the book, as Lilly used to say, 'discretion with art', or in other words, keep it simple and use your common sense!
So where was the money, how does the chart show that it had fallen behind an ornamental cat next to the fireplace? All this is so clear!
The significator of the money is Saturn, Saturn is in exile, so the money is somewhere that it should not be because it has been mislaid. Saturn is in the fixed fire sign of Leo, there are two main symbols of fixed fire I can think of in a house, ovens and fireplaces. So should I look to the oven or the fireplace?
In fact, considering compass directions does not show the location of the money in this case. Had I have gone to consider the oven and the fireplace, it might have became obvious which is the better representative of the fixed fire of Leo, because the fireplace has ornaments of cats next to it, and Leo is feline, so surely it is the fireplace! In fact, the cat that the money had fallen behind is one of a trio of wooden cats, one small, one medium and one large. It is behind the large cat because Saturn is in the last, most senoir decan of Leo. These cats are yellowish (Leo) with black (Saturn) stripes on them!
How clean and simple, and how beautiful it would have been if only I had payed due attention to my very first observation and recovered the money quickly, which I do feel sure I could have done, because it is all so obvious.
Those of you of a Virgoan nature may empathise that it is difficult for me to keep things as simple as possible and to accept that my convictions are not necessarily correct.
*In this chart, all that was needed to find correct judgement was consideration of the early ascendant and but one, single significator. Not all charts must necessarily have the Moon, aspects and receptions considered to the fullest extent in order to deliver judgement, this creates great confusion, and answers can often be arrived at so very simply. I have learned not to continue exploring the chart once the answer already seems obvious, just to try and extract further detail, as it wil lead me astray.
In this case, it wasn't even necessary to look at the Moon to find out where the money was, so perhaps we don't need the Moon as a secondary significator, unless we need it.
*In this chart, the significator of the person and the money were one and the same, so it was totally not neccesary for the money to be shown in an angular house to show that the money was close at hand, as there was already testimony more potent than this in that the person and the money were one and the same. In fact, compass directions did not apply in this case - all that was needed was planet in sign - Saturn in Leo's last decan = the money is concealed by the fireplace behind the largest black and yellow cat ornament.
I have a tendency to try and factor in every single consideration into the chart, I race around considering every planet, every cusp ruler, every aspect, every reception etc. and then end up getting into a mess, because I think that horary is rarely this complicated, depending on the nature of the question, but most questions are simple - and so are the answers. I often overdo it, and I think this can be a common problem. I think this example shows how beautifully simple horary can be, and it has taught me a lesson.
I wanted to start a thread about another important issue relating to horary, and that is keeping our own emotional investments out of the situation where they may arise, particularly when reading for oneself, family or friends, and to keep our value judgements of what should be or could be correct, and remaining as impartial as possible.
I provide an example of a horary chart which went terribly wrong, due to my own set preconceptions concerning the situation, causing me to interpret into the chart what I believed and not what was more plainly there. I will show how the chart came to reveal the true nature of the situation.
I saw my mother and she told me that she had lost a bundle of notes constituting a large sum of money. Naturally, she was very upset, because this was all the cash she had on her at the time. She informed me that the only way that she could have possibly lost this money, was while she was paying for petrol at a petrol station. This was the only time she had reached into her purse to pay for something that day, so as far as she was concerned, there was no other possibility that she could have lost the money anywhere else. She felt that when she had taken some money from her purse to pay the assistant, she must have accidentally dragged out the bundle of notes and they must have fallen to the floor, without her noticing, because she was in a rush to get somewhere and was running late. She made a futile attempt at going back to the garage to ask if any money had been handed in, but obviously, if it had, this would have been a miracle. All the assistant could do was to say he would inform the manageress the next day and ask her to review the CCTV to see if anyone had picked up any cash. I felt that if she had dropped the money in the petrol station, which she was certain she had, and that either a later customer or the attendant will have had the money.
These preconceptions in mind, I decided to erect a horary to investigate this:
'Where is the Money? Will she get it Back?'
The first thing that I notice in this chart is that the ascendant is very early indeed at Taurus 0.55, suggesting that the question is being asked prematurely, before all things have been considered, and not only that, but the significators of both my mother and her money are one and the same, and this combined with the very early ascendant is saying - 'don't worry, she and the money are still with one and other, it is close at hand, you are asking the question too early, the money just needs to be found'. Had I accepted this, the only thing left to do would be to locate where the money actually was according to the chart (which would have been so easy). However, even though I considered this, I was already very set in mind that the money had been lost in the garage as she had said, and had been stolen by either another customer or the garage attendant, so I dismissed what was obvious in order to suit my preconceptions and emotional investment in the situation.
Here's how I went about the chart so very wrongly, and how, had I remained impartial, I should have gone about it:
I wanted to know if it was the shop assistant that had stolen the money, as far as I was concerned, someone had stolen it, and I just wanted to find out who, so I counted the sixth from the tenth (servant of mother), in order to see what his significator was doing in the chart.
The garage attendant is signified by Mercury, Mercury is the patron of thieves and Mercury is all the more devious for being in Scorpio and retrograde, furthermore, Mercury is conjoined with a malefic fixed star, Unukhalkai, meaning, 'the knowledge of the serpent', implying a measure of sly and dishonest knowledge on behalf of the garage attendant, and this star is associated with theft and dishonesty. Without looking any further, I took this as strong testimony that the assistant had took this money.
I wanted to know if the manageress of the garage, when she was to review the tapes would catch him picking up the money, so I looked for her significator, the tenth from the sixth (assistant's superior). She is signified by Saturn detriment, from which I questioned the manageresse's ability to do her job properly, and that she would probably not bother reviewing the tapes anyway. My conclusion was that the garage attendant had stolen the money, and the manageress would either not bother reviewing the tapes or not do it properly, so the money was lost for good.
How stupidly wrong I was because of my determination to read into a chart to confirm my own point of view rather than being impartial!!!
As it turned out, a couple of days later, I learned that my mother had found the bundle of money. She must have absent mindedly placed the money on the mantel above the fireplace in her living room, where it had dropped off and fallen behind a wooden carved ornament of a cat which sits by the fireplace.
The shame here is, that this is the first time I had ever attempted a horary for my mother, and I'm not quite sure that she is at all convinced by astrology, and here was my chance to prove it and I failed miserably. Of course, she doesn't believe in it now, and that is my fault, but I have taught myself a good lesson, which is the advantage.
Looking back at the chart, it is all so very obvious, and had I used my common sense, kept my preconceptions out of it, and kept it all very simple, I feel that I may well have located this money rather quickly:
The ascendant is very early, and the significator of the mother and her money are one and the same - this is so very clear - the question is premature because the money is somehow still with her, it just needs to be found, so the next thing to do is locate it. Bear in mind that the significator is not angular, even though the money was in fact close at hand, in her house, but it is not neccesary in this case for the close proximity of the money to be shown by being angular, because the early ascendant and the two significators being one and the same is very strong testimony all on it's own.
So we don't have to look for absolutely everything in a chart by the book, as Lilly used to say, 'discretion with art', or in other words, keep it simple and use your common sense!
So where was the money, how does the chart show that it had fallen behind an ornamental cat next to the fireplace? All this is so clear!
The significator of the money is Saturn, Saturn is in exile, so the money is somewhere that it should not be because it has been mislaid. Saturn is in the fixed fire sign of Leo, there are two main symbols of fixed fire I can think of in a house, ovens and fireplaces. So should I look to the oven or the fireplace?
In fact, considering compass directions does not show the location of the money in this case. Had I have gone to consider the oven and the fireplace, it might have became obvious which is the better representative of the fixed fire of Leo, because the fireplace has ornaments of cats next to it, and Leo is feline, so surely it is the fireplace! In fact, the cat that the money had fallen behind is one of a trio of wooden cats, one small, one medium and one large. It is behind the large cat because Saturn is in the last, most senoir decan of Leo. These cats are yellowish (Leo) with black (Saturn) stripes on them!
How clean and simple, and how beautiful it would have been if only I had payed due attention to my very first observation and recovered the money quickly, which I do feel sure I could have done, because it is all so obvious.
Those of you of a Virgoan nature may empathise that it is difficult for me to keep things as simple as possible and to accept that my convictions are not necessarily correct.
*In this chart, all that was needed to find correct judgement was consideration of the early ascendant and but one, single significator. Not all charts must necessarily have the Moon, aspects and receptions considered to the fullest extent in order to deliver judgement, this creates great confusion, and answers can often be arrived at so very simply. I have learned not to continue exploring the chart once the answer already seems obvious, just to try and extract further detail, as it wil lead me astray.
In this case, it wasn't even necessary to look at the Moon to find out where the money was, so perhaps we don't need the Moon as a secondary significator, unless we need it.
*In this chart, the significator of the person and the money were one and the same, so it was totally not neccesary for the money to be shown in an angular house to show that the money was close at hand, as there was already testimony more potent than this in that the person and the money were one and the same. In fact, compass directions did not apply in this case - all that was needed was planet in sign - Saturn in Leo's last decan = the money is concealed by the fireplace behind the largest black and yellow cat ornament.
I have a tendency to try and factor in every single consideration into the chart, I race around considering every planet, every cusp ruler, every aspect, every reception etc. and then end up getting into a mess, because I think that horary is rarely this complicated, depending on the nature of the question, but most questions are simple - and so are the answers. I often overdo it, and I think this can be a common problem. I think this example shows how beautifully simple horary can be, and it has taught me a lesson.
