For context: This question was posed to me by a relative a year ago who was concerned about her daughters exam results. This exam was very important to her daughter as the acceptance into a school hinged on good results. Since this horary is a year old, the result will be shared at the end of this post.
Disclaimer: I don’t specialise in horary (yet), but I enjoy delineating horary charts and prefer horary over tarot for divination. I also cast the horary in whole signs and skip over the ‘considerations before judgement’ as I don’t find them particularly meaningful one way or another.
So, this question was posed on a Saturday, 13th March, and I casted it during Mercury’s hour at 11:31 am. As Mercury rules the horary ascendant and is the hour ruler, this chart can be considered radical.
So, we see that the Querent (the mother) is represented by Mercury who is placed in the 9th house widely conjunct Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius. Mercury is in Saturns triplicity and in Saturn is in domicile. Being cadent, and in a fixed sign, Mercury is unable to act or respond. It just is feeling slightly powerless or stuck.
What’s the moon doing? The moon is combust and (applying 2 degrees conjunction) to the Sun in the 10th house. Because I decided to keep the modern planets, we can see that the moon is also conjunct Neptune in Pisces. So, that’s a sorry state for the Moon and it indicates the Querent’s (not daughters) state of worry, confusion and anxiety.
Let’s look at how the daughter is doing:
We turn the chart to signify the 5th house (children) as the first house. So, in this turned chart, Libra is the 1st house indicating the querents daughter. Therefore, the 9th house in this turned chart would be Gemini (radical 1st) and 10th house would be Cancer (radical 2nd).
The daughter is signified by the 5th house,Libra, whose ruler Venus is placed in the turned 6th house (radical 10th). Unfortunately, Venus is also combust (applying 3 degrees conjunction) to the Sun. And Venus is conjunct Moon and Neptune showing someone who possibly is in her own world with little sense of grounding. i.e. slightly disconnected from reality.
From the turned chart, 9th house of education/exams is signified by Mercury (Gemini) who is placed in the turned 5th house. Although Mercury is in Saturn’s sign and peregrine, it is in a relatively fortunate house placement from the ascendant that it rules.
The turned 10th (radical 2nd), which shows the results of the exams, is signified by the Moon in Pisces in the turned 6th (radical 10th), which as we saw earlier, is in very bad shape being completely combust. The ruler of the Moon is Jupiter who is placed in the turned 5th (radical 9th) in Aquarius.
Then, we check for the turned 11th house of gains/wishes(radical 3rd) which is signified by the Sun who is placed in the turned 6th (radical 10th) in Mercury’s (ruler of turned 9th) debilitation.
So, we have:
3 planets in the turned 6th house (radical 10th)- Sun (signifier of gains), Moon (signifier of exam results) and Venus (signifer of querents daughter).
The signifier of querent’s daughter: Venus (Libra) combust in the turned 6th house (radical 10th).
The signifier of Exam: Mercury in turned 5th (radical 9th) in Aquarius with no aspect to benefics and only one aspect to Mars (applying square).
The signifier of results: Combust Moon in the turned 6th (radical 10th).
Signifier of gains/wishes: Sun in turned 6th(radical 10th) in Mercury’s debilitation.
And finally, there is no aspect between Venus, Mercury and Moon.
Given the turned 6th house focus which houses the turned ascendant lord(Venus) and turned 10th house lord (Moon), it would seem plausible to conclude that if the daughter passes the exam, it would be after overcoming multiple obstacles, and gaining acceptance into the chosen school would be challenging at best.
What actually happened:
The daughter did not pass the exam.
But, but, but, she did gain acceptance into the school! Because, as it turned out, the very many students who did pass the exam and did get accepted- chose another school. So, the querent’s daughter, who was waitlisted despite not passing the exam, was accepted.
It was a head scratcher at first, but maybe it was the exalted Venus, which although combust, did have more than enough power to bring fortune and overcome obstacles with a little help from Saturn in its domicile who coincidentally, is in Sun’s debilitation. So, it could have been Venus and Saturn working together to pave the way. Or it could be the new moon in the turned 6th house (radical 10th) which is known to be volatile and unpredictable.
But, that’s a non-answer answer right? The ‘why’ was not answered and I was left with a vague feeling of unease. Traditional western astrologers would possibly scold me for not following the horary rules as written, and might allege that not following the rules is giving me unsatisfactory answers. But, my gut tells me the answer might lie someplace else.
Since I also practice Jyothish, I casted the chart in sidereal/whole signs.
I used a cut and dry (modified by me) technique which I’m embarrassed to share as its disbelievingly simply. The essence of this modified (by me) technique is that I have to check the relative position of the signifiers Mars and Venus to each other. If they are placed in the same house, in opposing houses, or in a quadrant house to each other, the event will happen. Why I chose those particular signifiers is another post for another day. I can share the source if a reader is interested in learning this technique.
If the two signifiers are placed 2 or 12 houses away or 3 or 11 houses away, it will still happen, but have to look at the whole chart. And lastly, if the signifiers are placed 6/8 houses from each other or 5/9 houses from each other- the event might not happen or the querent has to overcome great challenges to ensure the event takes place.
So, using that technique, Mars to Venus is 10 houses and Venus to Mars is 4. They are quadrant to each other. . Competitors (Mars) is debilitated and in Venus’s sign who signifies the daughter. Net result? The daughter gained acceptance, not withstanding the exam results as the competition worked in her favor.
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