Horary 0118: Where Is My AirPods Case?
Overview
The querent was leaving for an international trip the next morning and could not find the charging case for their AirPods. They were wearing the AirPods the previous evening and were unable to find the case when they were leaving for dinner. They searched their home more exhaustively the next day and could not find them. They felt confident it was in their home, but it was possible it was not.
Judgment
I noted the late ascendant as a consideration before judgment, but the chart appeared radical, so I continued.
I gave the AirPods case Saturn as ruler of the 2nd house cusp. Saturn is in the 2nd Placidus house, but it’s actually in the fourth sign from the ascendant. Since I just had a lost object chart with the same significator in a similar position, I made sure to delineate the object’s location using a mixture of 2nd-house and 4th-house significations.
The simplest delineation of this was that the case was at home (4th house) and in a 2nd-house place. I described the kitchen as the “classic 2nd-house place at home,” but in the same sentence I gave the other common description of “a coatroom or mudroom or similar storage place adjoining the entrance (the entrance being the 1st).”
I described Saturn’s sign of Pisces in terms of its modality, explaining that a double-bodied sign is often an indication of being stuck between things, and to that I added the 4th-house indication of being at the bottom of something, the 4th house being the bottom of the sky (and thus the chart).
Because it had been a weak delineation in that same L2 Saturn chart last week, I intentionally refrained from my usual description of the sign’s element, namely that Saturn in Pisces indicates the object is in a watery or water-related place. I wish I hadn’t left that out, but I assure you I wrote it down in my notes and left it out on purpose out of hesitancy.
Saturn’s only recent contact had been with the Moon, which I delineated as meaning no one else had been in contact with the object, especially since Cancer is intercepted in the chart, which I have come to take as an indication that the Moon definitely represents the querent and no one else.
I saw the Moon’s imminent application to Mercury — ruler of the 9th house of travel and the 7th house of endings — in the 9th house of travel, having separated her last aspect from Saturn, as a sign that there was limited chance of recovering the object before the querent left for the trip. Combining the Mercury conjunction with the late ascendant, I figured it was almost too late. But I did encourage the querent to search again. Since the ascendant ruler and Moon could see Saturn, I judged there there to be a possibility of recovery.
Outcome
The querent went to bed but was unable to sleep well, and then they woke up with a flash of realization that the AirPods case must be in their raincoat.
The raincoat had been stored in the closet for two days, and the querent had taken it out and packed it for the trip that day. The suitcase was on the floor, next to the door, and the case was deep in a pocket.
Analysis
Funnily enough, the querent would have brought the case on the trip anyway, but without the horary, they might not have been aware of it and certainly wouldn’t have had it during travel. This turns out to be the indication of the late ascendant and the Moon’s translation from L2 to L9: They were already going to bring it!
It’s way too bad that I chickened out of describing Pisces as a water sign, because that would really have been icing on the cake for the raincoat part. Regardless, “at the bottom of something” (deep in a pocket in a suitcase on the floor), “in between things” (packed in with other clothes, previously hanging on a coatrack), and “in a storage area near the entrance” (packed by the door ready to go) were all plenty to get the querent looking in the right place. Take half a point off for leaving out the water, but add it back for explicitly using the word “coatroom,” I suppose.
The querent felt the horary jogged their awareness and led directly to finding the object, and had they not spent the money on this, they would have spent it on crappy wired headphones for the long-haul flight the next day.
