Horary 0104: Where Is My Phone?
Overview
The querent had lost their phone, which they needed for multi-factor authentication. They had turned off the phone’s remote location features for reasons unknown to them. They thought it was in their pocket when they left their apartment and went down the stairs to their mother’s van for a short family trip, because they had a sense memory of its weight into their pocket. A ways into the drive, they realized it was missing and could not find it in the van.
They remembered going up and down the stairs outside twice, once to grab something, then again for one more bathroom stop and thermostat adjustment before locking the door. In their inquiry, they speculated that the memory of the phone in their pocket could have been from the first round trip.
They wrote, “Possibly I left it in the bathroom because I do that all the time when at home, leave it on the tub or counter and then wonder where it is when I’m on the couch (then have my partner call it and realize oh [of course] on the counter.”
(Guess where their phone turned out to be.)
Despite this rather solid intuition, the querent was preoccupied with a worry that it had fallen out into the parking lot. They called maintenance to check, but they did not find it.
Judgment
I identified the phone as Venus, ruler of the 2nd house (the querent’s possession), but I saw her in the 5th house and went, “That’s not a bathroom.” Considering the querent’s story, I concluded that the 5th must mean “after the 4th,” or “outside/next to the home.” I reinforced this belief by considering Cancer, the sign on the 4th, as naturally signifying home. Leo, by contrast — where Venus is, along with the Sun — signified the summer heat next to the comfortable home.
Entirely on that basis, I advised the querent to take another look in the parking lot.
Outcome
The querent found the phone on the bathroom countertop, just like their instincts told them they would — and as they all but told me they had.
Analysis
This one was a little bit tricky and will require some updates to my horary instincts, but I am quite satisfied with the solution I found once I had to figure out how to make a 5th-house Venus manifest in the bathroom.
The answer lies in how many signs point to Mars. Mars rules the ascendant and thus signifies the querent, but he also rules the 8th house and thus signifies the bathroom. The Lot of Spirit is just past the 8th house cusp, too, as if to point it out. I surely could have noticed that this aligned well with the querent’s awareness of their tendency to leave the quesited object in the bathroom.
Then there’s the Moon one arc minute past an exact opposition to Mars. The Moon signifies both the home and the querent here, and this extremely close contact should have been the second clue to scrutinize Mars closely.
Then there is the real indication, which an astrologer who doesn’t check minor dignities might never have found, and neither did I, even though I do check them. I would never delineate a mutual reception between two planets in a single minor dignity with no aspect in any way that could overrule basic house significations. But what about two minor dignities?
Even though they can’t see each other — not a terribly surprising situation for a misplaced object — Venus and Mars are both in each other’s term and face. This is an unlikely situation, and it seems completely reasonable to consider this, the tight Moon opposition, and the Lot of Spirit pointing at the 8th house cusp and go, “Venus is in the Mars place, i.e. the bathroom where the querent always leaves their phone.” Indeed, I often hear the metaphor “a room within the house” used for the terms, and while I wouldn’t delineate it that way if that’s all it was, the fact that this is a double mutual reception by minor dignities seems like plenty of emphasis.
I am always grateful to learn on the job!
