Horary 0014: Where Is @jonathandubin’s Jacket?
Overview
The chart is for a lost object.
The querent reported losing a blue down jacket “with [redacted for opsec] in the pocket.” He suspected it had been stolen or “otherwise may be at a friend’s house.”
Casting the chart, I saw no signs of theft, though I immediately noticed the affliction of the 2nd house cusp by Mars (L12). Despite Mercury’s rule of the ascendant, I assigned Mercury (L2, the querent’s possession) to the jacket — and thus the Moon to the querent — for four reasons:
The jacket is blue, and Mercury is in a water sign.
Mercury is in the 11th house, i.e. with a friend.
Mercury is applying immediately to Neptune, which I instinctually associated with the [redacted] in the pocket.
Mercury was combust, i.e. invisible.
The only other significator I specifically assigned was Jupiter (L11), to the friend, but I did lean heavily on that Mars in my judgment. After what happened with Mercury on the cusp of the 1st house in horary 0001, how could I not? And my delineation of Mars did turn out to be quite radical. However, it turned out to be even more radical than I supposed in a way that has me considering whole new principles for this kind of horary chart.
Judgment
I judged the Moon immediately separating from Jupiter (L11) in my initial reply as “you figuring out where it is,” i.e. that it was at the friend’s house, given Mercury’s presence in the 11th house. The Moon’s very next contact is with Mercury, which would seem to settle it — the querent will find the jacket — but the actual transits for this event were too extraordinary not to delineate, to the point that I pulled the chart of the perfection of that sextile.
Mercury is just five arc minutes from conjunction with the Sun at the moment the sextile from the Moon perfects, making it cazimi — “in the heart of the Sun” — and momentarily no longer subject to the affliction of invisibility under the Sun’s rays.
Strikingly, this happens just 14 arc minutes past Mercury’s square with Mars — which, remember, is exactly on Mercury’s significant cusp in the root chart and is skewered on a house cusp AGAIN in this second chart.
The Moon, being five signs away from Mars, is averse, and so the Moon’s application to Mercury is not prohibited.
It still seems overwhelmingly clear here to judge that the querent will find the jacket, but Mercury’s affliction by Mars is so loud that I had to delineate it somehow. These were my observations:
The Moon (the querent) in Capricorn is fallen, and it exalts Mars.
Mercury (the jacket) is in the term and face of Mars, within the domicile of Jupiter (the friend).
Mars is in Mercury’s sign, but with it hounding that cusp — as I learned in the aforementioned sports horary — this is a sign of Mars dominating Mercury rather than vice versa.
Jupiter is within the domicile of Mars in Aries.
Mars rules the 12th house of the chart.
Mars is in the sign on the ascendant in the chart.
This is a lot of involvement for Mars in a lot of different ways. I ended up focusing on the afflicting nature of it, especially given its rulership over the 12th house of anguish and adding in the fallen Moon and combust Mercury. I ruled that the querent would certainly find the jacket at a friend’s house but would find it in displeasing condition.
While this turned out to be completely true, it turns out that the principles of lost object horaries can be taken even further than I thought!
Outcome
Two weeks after the judgment, the querent found the jacket at a friend’s house. It had been left outside and was somewhat weathered. “I should probably wash it,” he said, indicating it was possible it had been rained on.
Fascinatingly, the specific location of the jacket at the friend’s house was radical in a way I would not have dared to guess before this result: It was in the carport.
Analysis
Why is the carport interesting? Because the garage — traditionally the stables, obviously the garage of the ancients — is one of the classic 12th house significations in a lost object horary. The reason I wouldn’t have guessed it is because that’s not where the object (Mercury) is in the chart! Mercury is in the 11th house, the friend’s house.
Now, as I mentioned, Mercury is in the term and face of Mars within the domicile of Jupiter, and these minor dignities are constantly described in general astrological discourse as “rooms within the house” or similar. The garage within the friend’s house is right there in this chart. But my teachers wisely and frequently caution against over-delineating minor dignities in a horary, because you’ll get lost! And indeed I didn’t need them to find the object this time… but how cool would it have been if I had found the jacket with that level of specificity!?
The question is, how was I supposed to know to go there? To pay attention to these minor dignities this time, so that I would consider Mars itself to signify a 12th house location within the context of this question, rather than just standard 12th-house yuckiness in general?
I’m going to say it’s Mars’ precise placement on the cusp of the 2nd, from which Mercury draws its signification as the querent’s possession.
As — again — we saw in my first public horary judging a soccer game, a planet bulls-eyed by a house cusp can flip the matters of that house completely on their head, which is exactly what I missed in that chart.
Here, the testimony of the location of the jacket by domicile, and the querent’s recovery of it, couldn’t be more clear, but this Mars is also demanding to be considered in the matter of the querent’s possession by virtue of being exactly on the 2nd house cusp. That should be the signal to go, “Hm, Mars is in control of this possession, and Mercury is in two minor dignities of Mars within Pisces. This object must be in the 12th house of the 11th house!”
I didn’t need to take it this far, because the object was found where I said it would be found. But the best astrology I do always seems to teach me something completely new, and I am thrilled about what I learned here.
It is not my practice to share my own chart details, but those who know my chart will see multiple ways in which this chart is absurdly well rooted into my own nativity. This factored into my enthusiasm to judge it, and it’s rewarding to see it bear out.
When I started studying astrology, I noticed right away the obviously benevolent, creative way in which the Oracle provided me with exactly the right charts at exactly the right times to teach me exactly the right lessons. As I proceed as an actual astrologer, this experience continues to deepen.
