Horary 0094: Where Is My Cat?
Overview
The querent had started letting their cat, Paws, go outside three months earlier. Thus far, he hadn’t wandered off much, but the querent contacted me for a horary after not seeing Paws for two days. Feeling confident in my cat horary skills, I plowed ahead.
Judgment
Any experienced or recently trained horary astrologer will note the presence of two classic considerations before judgment: an exceedingly early ascendant and Saturn on the descendant. Honestly, looking at this chart now, I don’t love that Mars in the 1st applying to Jupiter, ruler of the descendant, either. But since Mercury — the ascendant ruler — is right on the ascendant and gloriously dignified there, and Saturn rules the 6th and thus signifies the cat, I must have found the chart radical enough to carry on unbothered.
I described Saturn in Pisces on the descendant as a cat out of his element (i.e., wet) in the domain of others. I observed Mercury — who, as ruler of the ascendant, signifies the querent — very much in their element and applying to Saturn (albeit by opposition), and I judged the querent would find Paws in a few days.
I took the Moon — who can signify the querent but also a wandering animal in a question like this — applying a trine to Venus, ruler of the 3rd house of neighbors (and siblings) as a second testimony that the querent would find this cat with a neighbor.
(I did not note that Venus was in the 12th house of permanent exile, ruled by a co-present Sun, who had just made contact with Saturn.)
Outcome
After not hearing from the querent for some time, I wrote to ask if they’d found Paws. They replied to tell me they had not, though they noted their whole family had been dreaming of him frequently recently.
Analysis
It’s really a very elegant chart, and I just ignored the two considerations before judgment, which one should never do. If I had observed them faithfully, it would have caused me to be circumspect about what appeared to be a positive chart, and as you can see from my write-up here, the signs that all was not as rosy as it appeared were right there. It didn’t even appear that rosy — an opposition is not a good aspect! — I just must have been blinded by that glorious Mercury.
The 12th house Venus and the family dreaming about him is really the chef’s-kiss moment. Venus rules the 3rd and 10th, thus signifying both siblings and the mother, with Mercury (the querent) so close to moving from the 1st to the 12th, and that’s just such a loud way for the chart to say, “You’ll all find him… but only in your dreams.”
Ah well. I am terribly sorry to the querent for giving them false hope.
