Horary 0023: Will I Find an Apartment Where I Can Feel at Home?
Overview
The querent was moving cities and had not yet found a place to live. They had some anxiety about it due to past unpleasant housing experiences and wanted to know if the next place would be better. As “a bonus,” they requested details about the place or a time frame for finding it.
Judgment
I assigned the querent the Moon, ruler of the ascendant, and noted it in the 9th house of travel applying immediately to Jupiter, the benefic of sect in a day chart. I judged this to be a beneficial sign about the move overall.
Using a fairly complex delineation, I judged that the move would feel like a loss or sacrifice at first. The South Node, a sign of reduction, is in the 4th house of home topics. Venus, ruler of the 4th and significator of the querent’s current home, is dignified in Taurus and angular in the 10th, and separating from the North Node, a sign of enlargement. Venus also exalts the Moon, the querent’s significator, in Taurus.
In delineating this to the querent, I made a mistake I should note. I described Venus’ exaltation of the Moon as meaning “your status in your current home looks and feels quite good.” I failed to note that this positive reception is one-way; with the Moon in Aries, the Moon has negative reception for Venus, so the home likes the querent, but the querent doesn’t like the home. The querent would respond to my initial delineation that “looks and feels quite good” was not accurate, and indeed, that’s not what the chart says. The chart says while the home is supportive of the querent, the querent still doesn’t like it, which was actually the case.
Meanwhile, the significator of the next home — taken as the ruler of the sign after the one on the 4th — is Mars, a malefic planet in contrast to Venus, and is in the 12th house, a place of anguish. This contributed to my delineation that the move would initially feel like a sacrifice.
However, the reception story is soon to change. I judged that the querent would want the new place nevertheless, given the Moon’s reception for Mars in Aries. Once the move was made, I judged the querent would settle in very well. Mars is also about to enter Cancer, gaining favorable reception for the Moon, and the Moon is about to enter its exaltation in Taurus, which I described as “greatly gaining in comfort and distinction.” So despite the clunky wording and the missed detail about reception, I did still clearly describe the importance of the Moon’s exaltation in Taurus in terms of this prediction.
For the bonus, I judged that it would take “about two weeks” to find the apartment, given the 13º–14º degrees in which the Moon would contact Mars in a cardinal sign and a cadent house, which I judged to give a unit of “days” according to the rules of thumb for timing in horary.
Outcome
The querent viewed an apartment that seemed like a good fit on the exact date given by the predicted timeframe, but it turned out to be small and inadequate. They ended up finding their apartment of choice two weeks after that, so about four weeks from the horary. Given the well-documented wiggliness of timing in horary and the near-miss on the exact predicted date, four weeks feels like a not-too-bad prediction. But this was the bonus, anyway.
The querent reported that this move — from a large city to a much smaller one with fewer social resources for them — would indeed feel like a sacrifice at first.
As mentioned, the querent corrected my delineation about the previous home feeling comfortable, but that was my mistake; the chart actually did radically describe their uncomfortable relationship with their previous home.
I went over all this with the querent to see if they were comfortable with me judging this chart as correct, and they were.
Analysis
This chart is quite clear, and I’m glad it was of use to the querent. I continue to watch the results of horary timing closely; this one feels pretty good, but not super impressive. This is, to be sure, what both my teacher and my teacher’s teacher say to expect from the technique.
I regret my mistake about the reception, as it sounds like it may have been mildly triggering for the client, but we talked it over. I am glad it wasn’t material to the prediction, and overall, I am satisfied with this result.
