The client’s cat, Emily, had been missing for over two weeks. It was the dead of winter, the area was shrouded in snow, and the client feared the worst. Worse still, Emily was an indoor cat; other than trips to the vet in the carrier, she had never been out of the house before. The client had searched high and low and was desperate for any information about Emily’s condition and location.
When I read the client’s notes, I have to admit I didn’t think there was much hope of finding Emily. My gut reaction was that the cat was probably dead and that I was going to have the fun job of breaking that news to my client.
But then I told myself to set aside my personal views, cast the chart, and see what it says.
Small animals are signified by the 6th house and its ruler. In this chart the 6th house is Sagittarius, so Jupiter signifies the cat. To figure out what happened to the cat, we need to examine Jupiter’s placement in the chart.
In this chart Jupiter is placed in the 6th house at 22° Sagittarius. I was hearted to see that Jupiter was dignified by domicile, hinting that the cat might be okay. It was also good to see that Jupiter was in aversion (i.e. not in whole-sign aspect) to the malefic planets Mars and Saturn; according to William Lilly, aspects from the malefics indicate that the animal is lost, far away, or has been driven off (Lilly, Christian Astrology, p. 325). So the lack of aspects from Mars and Saturn was very encouraging, suggesting that nothing particularly bad had happened to Emily.
It was also good to see that Jupiter was not placed in the 4th or 8th houses, which signify death in traditional astrology, and it was not in any close aspect with the rulers of the 4th or 8th houses either. The lack of connection to these houses suggested to me that Emily was probably still alive.
The chart also had a few testimonies of recovery (horary astrologer jargon for “indications that whatever has been lost will be found again”). Firstly, Venus beholds Jupiter by whole-sign sextile aspect; Lilly writes that if the ruler of the 6th is beheld by either of the benefics, it indicates that “the Beasts will be had again” (ibid., p. 325). Secondly, the Moon (ruler of the 1st house) beholds Jupiter by a whole-sign trine; as the Moon signifies the client, this suggests that the animal will be found by the client. Thirdly, the Sun beholds Jupiter by whole-sign square; this is doubly good, as the Sun is a luminary and thus “sheds light” on the lost thing, and also because the Sun rules the 2nd house signifying the possessions of the client.
Having satisfied myself that Emily was alive and that there was a reasonable chance of finding her, I proceeded to the rest of the judgment, and tried to get some info about Emily’s location.
House placement is often our best clue for locating lost objects and stray animals. In this chart the planet signifying the stray animal was placed in the 6th house. Both Lilly and his student John Gadbury state that if the ruler of the 6th house is placed in the 6th house, it signifies that the animal has either been impounded, taken into custody, or locked away (Lilly, ibid., p. 325; Gadbury, Doctrine of Horary Questions, p. 280). This made me think that the cat was probably in a local pound or animal shelter.
Jupiter is also in a fire sign, and Lilly writes that if the ruler of the 6th house is in a fire sign, it shows that the animal is “under fetters and locks” (Lilly, ibid., p. 324) which again suggested to me that Emily was impounded.
To help my client out, I decided to narrow it down a bit further by trying to find an approximate location for Emily. The old horary books give rules for finding the direction and distance for a lost object or stray animal, and while they are a bit arcane I thought I may as well give them a go.
There are two systems for finding direction in a horary chart – one is to consider the house placement of the relevant planet (ibid., p. 323) and the other is to consider the element of the sign it is placed in (ibid., p. 324). According to the house-based method Emily would be roughly towards the west of the client’s home, because the 6th house sits just below the western horizon. But with the sign-based method we get a contradictory indication: Jupiter is in a fire sign, which indicates eastward.
What are we to do with this seeming contradiction? Thankfully Gadbury has a solution for just this scenario – after imparting both the house-based and sign-based methods, he notes “You must always prefer the Sign before the Quarter” (Gadbury, ibid., p. 280). In my quandary, I decided not to question Gadbury’s wisdom; the chart was saying that the cat was somewhere to the east.
For distance, the rule is fairly simple – look at the planet signifying the client and the planet signifying the stray. If they are in the same quadrant, the stray is close by; if they are far apart, the stray is far off. In this chart Cancer rises so the client is signified by the Moon, which is quite far off from Jupiter, the planet signifying Emily. So I judged that the cat was far off.
In summary, I told my client that Emily was probably still alive, probably locked up somewhere, likely in a pound, somewhere to the east, and far away. I advised the client to get on the phone and start calling local animal shelters, focusing on ones that were to the east of her home.
So, what happened? Well the client told me she was really inspired when I judged that the cat was still alive – this gave her a renewed sense of hope, so she got on the phone and started calling animal shelters in her local area. She even piled in the car and visited a few in person. But sadly, she had no luck. Shelter after shelter informed her that they had not seen a cat fitting Emily’s description. The client was disheartened, but because of my judgment that Emily was still alive she refused to give up hope.
A few days passed, and my client was staring out of an east-facing window in her home, thinking to herself “I just need to walk east and see if she turns up.” Then she went downstairs, prepared some treats for her other cat April, and in the process she thought she heard the distant sound of Emily mewing for a treat!
My client left the house, walked eastwards, and the first thing she encountered was her garage. Now the client had been in and out of the garage several times over the past three weeks, and had checked in there a few times for Emily without success. But something told her to check the garage once more – and when she opened the garage door, there was a very skinny and very bedraggled Emily staring up at her.
We will never know for sure if Emily was in the garage for the whole three weeks. The client certainly thinks it’s unlikely, and I tend to agree – it’s hard to imagine that the little blighter found enough food and water in there to survive for such a long time in the freezing cold. Whatever the case may be, over the next few weeks my client lovingly nursed Emily back to full health, and I’m happy to report she is still doing well today.
What lessons can we take away from this chart?
I think the first lesson is to not pre-judge the question using your intuition or your reason, and just see what the chart says. When you first read a horary question and understand the context, it’s natural to start wondering “What is the likely outcome here?” But honestly, this kind of speculation can be a stumbling block. My intuition told me that Emily was probably dead, but in this case my intuition was dead wrong. If I had given weight to my gut instinct instead of the chart, I may have produced an inaccurate answer.
Second lesson – Gadbury’s rules for finding directions seemed to work really well, as Emily was definitely to the east. But the rules for finding distance did not work for this chart; I judged the cat was far away, when in fact the cat was still in the boundary of the client’s property. This is always the trouble when you read a delineation straight off the page of an old book, you just can’t say whether the rules will work or whether the author knew what they were talking about. There is a lot of trust involved in traditional astrology, and sometimes that trust can be misplaced. So the key with these dusty old books is to take everything you read with a big pinch of salt, and don’t expect results every time.
The third and final lesson is a simple one, but rather profound I think. This was not a perfect judgment for me; I got most of the details right, but I also got a couple of important things wrong. I was right that Emily was alive, that she would be recovered, that she was locked up somewhere, and that she was to the east; but I was wrong that Emily was in the pound, and I was wrong that she was far off. And yet despite these inaccuracies, we had a successful outcome. Why? Because my judgment gave the client hope.
If I had not told the client that Emily was still alive, and that it was possible she would be found, I fear the client may have stopped searching, and may not have found the cat until it was too late. But with that hope in her heart, the client poured over my judgment again and again, trying different things until she eventually found her beloved cat.
This just goes to show that your role as a horary astrologer is not necessarily to be 100% accurate, but rather just to do your very best to help the client with their concerns. No amount of hard work or study will ensure that your readings are always accurate, but if you strive to be diligent, honest and compassionate, your readings will always be helpful, and ultimately that’s what counts.
Emily the cat.