covenrochester

A missing persons case will occasionally come to my notice. Within an hour of being alerted to this one, I had cast the above chart and knew the story.

The missing person here is symbolized by Lord 7 inasmuch as the person was unknown to me. So, it is the Moon. The Moon is also the natural ruler of missing persons, but we don't need to rely on a natural rulership here.

One can see that the Moon recently crossed from an Air sign (say, 29 Aquarius) into a Water sign (say 1 Pisces), and as it did so, it immediately hit the Sun, Lord 8, by antiscion, and then immediately hit Saturn, turned Lord 8, bodily. When I cast the chart, the Moon was on Fomalhaut, in the Mouth of the Fish, and also conjunct the South Node by antiscion. I picked one person to whom to announce my findings: fell into water, death by drowning. And so, unfortunately, it was.

This is a chart that an apprentice astrologer asked me to look at for a second opinion.

FACTS: The Querent is a woman. She was married recently, but the husband now wants a divorce. They no longer live together and the divorce is scheduled to take place next month. Q is working on some projects with a male colleague in her field, although they live in different cities. Q thinks that she and the male colleague both have feelings for one another, and she wants to know whether this will turn into a romantic relationship? Unfortunately, it is not known whether MC is currently in a relationship.

The Querent (Q) is Lord 1, Mars in Libra, and the Moon in Leo.

The Male Colleague (MC) is Lord 7, Venus in Leo, and the Sun in Virgo.

When I first read the facts, I thought it could be possible that Lord 7 could be the ex-husband, and that we would have to find another significator for MC, but from the receptions, I think the apprentice was quite right to give Lord 7 and the Sun to MC. The receptions also make it clear that the Ex-Husband (XH) is Saturn.

Q as Mars in detriment is feeling down on herself, but is very keen on MC as Venus by rulership and term. It is a bit unfortunate to see that Mars is in the other Venus-ruled sign, and not the sign on the 7th house cusp. That usually indicates that Q's feelings for the other person are not real, but masked by the fact that she is feeling sad or depressed, and so she thinks this other person in her environment is going to cheer her up, rather like a beneficial distraction or a rebound relationship. Mars also carries the Sun into fall, so her head is disappointed in men in general. Mars is exalting Saturn, the XH, but this is a very common thing to see at the end of a relationship. It doesn't mean she is holding up the XH on a pedestal, but that she is daydreaming about "what could have been" -- oh, this could have been a great relationship XH, if you were other than you are. But, Mars carrying Saturn into triplicity means she is not bitter toward him as a person.

Notably, Mars is on the fixed star Vindemiatrix, the Widow Maker. So, that naturally signifies the divorce process. Mars has yet to perfect the conjunction with the star, so it is not a helpful testimony at all, for a future relationship with MC, either.

Q as the Moon is very much infatuated with MC as the Sun. And the Moon also carries Saturn into detriment: her heart/emotions are very much disappointed in the XH. We also see that the antiscion of the Moon is just past the conjunction of Uranus on the 7th house cusp. That was the scheduling of the divorce that recently occurred.

So, both of her significators have contacts indicating the divorce from the XH, as we would expect.

The Part of Marriage/Relationship in this chart is at 8 Virgo 2, with Mercury as the dispositor. So, Mercury could represent the role of a potential relationship with MC.

MC's Venus is in strong dignities of the Sun, and the Sun is in strong dignities of Mercury. MC thinks highly of himself in many ways, and he would like a relationship, but he also values his own manly freedom. Mercury is under the sunbeams in its own sign, so if MC is already in another relationship, I would take Mercury as being his partner. That would make sense of the Sun's strong Mercury dignities. Unfortunately, we don't have enough facts to clear that up.

What is abundantly clear, though, is that both of MC's significators are completely indifferent to Q's significators. Even if he were in the market for a relationship, it would not be with Q.

We do have an aspect here, though. Q's Moon is going to sextile Mars and then conjunct Venus. This signifies an OPPORTUNITY for a relationship to develop. But, inasmuch as MC is completely uninterested in Q's significators, there will be NO MOTIVATION or NO INCLINATION on his part to start a romantic relationship.

After that lunar aspect the Sun is going to oppose the antiscion of Mars. Even if MC gives some kind of informal or sexual relationship a shot, he is going to regret it.

Then the antiscion of Venus is going to apply to conjunct Jupiter, which is MC's turned Lord 10. After the above, he will call off the work projects.

Judgment to the question: No.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

I gave a two-hour lesson on Tarot this weekend. It mainly concerned the mechanics of reading, and was not focused on meanings. The more experienced I get, the firmer I become in the belief that card reading is mostly an inborn thing. If you were born on earth and get some basic instruction on how the cards must be interpreted in the framework of cosmology, you can read cards. The language of the universe is not particularly difficult to learn, but you must learn it if you want it to communicate to you. The universe will not learn your language and quirks, it should perhaps go without saying. Moreover, a Tarot deck, and even a regular card deck, is something like a Book of Life and Time. So it should be allowed to express that as cleanly as possible. A Marseille deck is good. As is a regular playing card deck. A Rider Waite deck is not good because the images on the Minor Arcana are often at odds with the Universal language. Anyway, so much for meanings.

One thing I advise people to do when reading for others is to try to tell the Querent some minor thing that has just happened to the Querent. Immediately give an event -- something you could not possibly know except for the cards -- in order to instill confidence in the Querent of your abilities. This is usually easy for me because my favorite spread is an unstructured 21-card Gypsy Spread -- 3 rows of 7 cards each. Something usually pops up at the beginning of the spread that you can mention.



The Empress, 5 of Pentacles, 9 of Swords, 3 of Cups

Above, for instance, I was reading for a woman in her 40s. She had a friend tag along because the friend was visiting her from out-of-state. I laid out 21 cards (a Marseille deck, which is not the deck picture above), and saw these four together at the beginning of the spread. I said: "I see that you are planning to renovate your kitchen. Do it. It will go smoothly without any problems or delays." She gasped and turned to her friend, who exclaimed: "We were just talking about that this morning!" Nothing earth-shattering, but it helps to indicate to the Querent that you are not a fake.

I think it is reasonable for a Querent to ask a diviner about something that has recently happened. If the reader says something like, "That's not what Tarot is for," one would be entirely justified in getting up and walking out. Tarot is absolutely for the telling of events --- past, present, and future. It can be for other things, too -- clarifying one's emotional state, exploring possible options in making a decision, and so on. If a reader says, however, that Tarot is not for the telling of events, there is something seriously amiss in the reader's training.

I cannot emphasize it enough . . . the Universe will speak clearly to you if you learn its language. Initially, this requires humility and ignorance. They are easy possessions, but virtue seldom gets willing heirs.

A couple other clear examples:



Empress, 9 of Swords, Ace of Cups, 7 of Swords: A break-in of a residence, and the beginning of a police investigation.



Knight of Swords, Chariot, 4 of Swords: A speeding ticket.



King of Wands, 9 of Cups, 3 of Swords, Moon: The Querent's grandfather is not feeling well. He has high blood pressure and takes medication for it. The medication is off in dosage and causing his problems. The grandfather needs to go to the doctor to have the medication adjusted.



Ace of Cups, 6 of Swords, 10 of Cups, 9 of Swords: Something will go wrong with the Querent's water pipes, and the house will be without water. I told her to stock up on jugs of water. The Querent literally scoffed at me and assured me that it could not be true. The house had just been built within the year, and it had been inspected 6 months before, when she and her family purchased it. She called me a week later and told me that the water main supplying the neighborhood had burst.

So, that one was true, as were all the others.

In a future entry, I will write about methods of divination in which the Querent says nothing. The reader must tell the Querent the question, and then answer the question. That can be done in horary astrology, horary numerology, geomancy, and in the sangoma bone-reading tradition.

This was a question asked to one of my students. The Querent, himself, was an astrologer, and he was working on a certain technique to help him make money in the stock market. And that was his question -- could he make money in the stock market by the technique he had devised?

I think it is extremely prudent to check with an astrologer in matters such as this. If the technique is not sound, and if you aren't going to make any profit, you can abandon the thing right away, as opposed to getting stuck in a delusional hope that one just needs to "tweak it a little more." On a related note, I am forever hearing from people things along the lines of . . . geez, I don't know whether I made the right decision in TAKING THIS JOB OVER THAT ONE, GETTING THIS SURGERY, DATING MISS X INSTEAD OF MISS Y, etc. And I am continually responding sarcastically with, "geez, its too fecking bad you don't know an astrologer who could help guide you with such matters." :D But, the above lad . . . good querent. Find out the answer before you join the Fifty Danae pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

In any event, the answer here is that the technique will be useless and a waste of time. The technique itself (Lord 9, the Sun) has little power. Any benefit/profit from it (Lord 10, Mercury) is in horrible condition, in detriment and fall. Moreover, the benefit/profit is slowly getting burned up by the Sun (the technique itself) combusting it. You can tell by the placement of the Moon that the Querent is focused on the profit, but the Moon will soon be peregrine, then in the Via Combusta, and then in fall. He will gradually be deeply disappointed.

This is sufficiently terrible to end the judgment right now. But you can also see that the Sun is just past the opposition of Jupiter (Lord 1, the Querent) by antiscion, indicating that the technique itself will be a waste of time and lead to regret for the Querent. This is the aspect that the Querent was feeling, internally, and which motivated him to ask his question of the astrologer. Mercury is soon going to follow suit with an opposition to Jupiter by antiscion. Also a bit notable, the Sun is going to conjunct Neptune in several degrees: the technique is discarded as delusive, unworkable.

The Querent's own money, Lord 2, Saturn, has just lost a ton of dignity upon entering Pisces. This is not a good time for him to muck about risking his money. Also notable is that neither the technique nor any potential profit therefrom increases or benefits the Querent's money.

Jupiter, Lord 1, is in Aries. It carries Saturn, Lord 2, into fall. Who has the potential of damaging the Querent's finances? The Querent, himself.

Judgment: Cease and desist.

Note: I wrote the question and data in witchoglyphics, so that's the mess at the top of the page, and you can ignore it.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

Diviners in these days of readily accessible pregnancy tests often do not get the question: "Am I pregnant?" They still get, however, questions from both men and women on the subject whether the person will ever have children. The above question came from a married woman in her mid-30s.

We examine the fertility potential of the couple from the Moon (the natural ruler of babies), and Lords 1, 5, 7, 11. We have some fertility potential here, but it is rapidly evaporating.

The Moon in Aquarius: Neutral.

Lord 1: The Sun in Cancer: This is a sign of fertility, but the Sun is just about to shift into Leo, a sign of barrenness.

Lord 5: Jupiter Rx in Capricorn: Neutral

Lord 7: Saturn in Virgo: A sign of barrenness.

Lord 11: Mercury in Cancer: This is a sign of fertility, although Mercury is somewhat afflicted by being under the beams of the Sun, and will continually be so until it follows the Sun into Leo (Mercury enters Leo when the Sun is at about 4 degrees Leo), at which time Mercury becomes severely combust in a barren sign.

This is, accordingly, a very doubtful fertility potential. But there are other factors in play strengthening the conclusion.

(1) The Moon is Void of Course: not much will develop or matters will proceed only with difficulty. Moreover, the Moon (again, natural ruler of babies) is just about to conjunct Neptune over the 7th house cusp (and likewise oppose the ASC). Neptune is the Earthshaker, and the Lord of the Ever-Crashing amd Ever-Tiding Oceans. This is fairly malefic symbolically -- the womb will continually be in motion. No calm seas here for a baby to gestate.

(2) Lord 5, the significator of children, is in fall and retrograde in the 5th house. There is a sign boundary on the cusp, but this still constitutes a minor affliction to the house.

(3) Very significant is the presence of Pluto on the 5th house cusp, and getting closer to it. In mythology, Pluto was generally regarded as an infertile god inasmuch as the god of the dead was thought not able to sire living children.[*] With Lord 7 in a barren sign, and Mercury afflicted, the judgment was that the couple would have no children owing to the husband's infertility issues -- a thing that the couple had never considered as a factor.

And so it was. The couple never had children because of infertility problems with the husband. They divorced for other reasons about 12 years later. The Querent is now over 50 years old, and has not had children.

If there had been sufficient fertility potential in the chart, I would have calculated the year that the first child would be born. But the chart shows that such would have been extra and fruitless work.


[*] Persephone was said to have had three children, but these are regarded to have been sired by Zeus after he had taken the form of Hades/Pluto. You can see that Jupiter (Zeus) will not help the Moon (Persephone) in this chart, anyway, inasmuch as Jupiter carries the Moon into detriment.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

This is a set of 28 cards created by Mike Richmond (ShiningMoonStudio on Etsy). I thought it was a cool concept, although somewhat limited in the number of cards. When they first arrived, I shuffled them up and got this reading:

FEATHER ----> HAT ----> PUMPKIN

The deck contains two cards that list potential interpretations but, of course, everything is up to the diviner. Some of the listed meanings make sense to me; some of the meanings I alter or extend. I wrote down:

Message, Work, Prosperity

That seemed positive. And so I waited. Two days later, I had not yet received a message at work about prosperity. I decided to use the cards again. I got almost the same message:

FEATHER ----> PUMPKIN ----> RING

I wrote down:

Message, Prosperity, Promise/Wealth

As if the cards were saying, "Yep, the message of prosperity is still coming, I promise. And its going to be big!"

And then I forgot all about the matter. Until the message about work prosperity hit me square between the eyes today.

A nice little deck, if your mind has the power to guide your hands to pick out the future.




Mr. Richmond also sells a set of 13 oracle dice marked with the letters of the Theban Alphabet and various symbols, like the symbol of the Moon Goddess, the Horned God, a Pentagram and so on. I also have them, but I find that they require almost a prophetic mania to use. It is very much like operating akin to the Cumaean Sybil, who wrote down letters on the leaves of laurel (sacred to Apollo) and then cast them to be all mixed up in a drum-like vessel. The last time I used them, the oracle came from the Horned Father, and He said:

THE GATES OPEN AT SIX.

Somewhat mystifying, yes? Unless you are a Qabalist. Then it is perfectly clear. And wise and funny at the same time, too. Even if you aren't a Qabalist, but know something about occult geometry and numbers (for instance, from cosmology or from card reading), it still makes sense. The Divine Powers, I find, have a sense of humor.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

The Querent (Q) has a friend (Friend) about whom she has been concerned for about a year. Q recently thought it might be prudent to ask an astrologer, "Is my friend being negatively affected by an occult being?"




The short answer is "no, she is not," but you can read the details of the astrological analysis here:

( Magister's Analysis )

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

FACTS: The Querent, a student of mine from Ghana, asked this question by way of Geomancy, and he cast the chart, himself. He asked whether Ghana would win its match against Portugal in the World Cup yesterday.

The Querent's Analysis: Ghana in House 1 had a CONJUNCTION with the figure of House 10, PUER, since PUER jumped to House 2. Portugal, in House 7, had perfection only by TRANSLATION with House 10 (ACQUISITIO in HOUSES 8 and 9). Ghana also had better reception than Portugal with House 10. Because CONJUNCTION is stronger than TRANSLATION, the Geomancer thought it was very clear from the chart that Ghana would win, and was very surprised when Ghana did not.

He wrote to me asking for an explanation inasmuch as, according to my instruction of him, Ghana should have won.

I respectfully dissented, and explained to him his errors. This is an extremely easy chart to judge if you have had a geomancy master and if you pay attention to him.

The Querent ignored two important rules: (1) The Rule of Benefaction: Portugal's House 7 is bounded by benefics and in company with one of them. (2) The Rule of Combustion: a single Fortuna Major in the chart will destroy whatever house it opposes. Here, Fortuna Major, Portugal itself!, opposes House 1. Ghana will definitely lose the match. There is no stronger affliction than combustion. It outweighs everything else in the chart. Even without the benefaction to House 7, Portugal would win because of the combustion.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

A geomancer in Africa asked me to take a look at this missing person chart. I am going to talk him through it by the Socratic method so he can learn from the chart, but I thought I would point out a couple of things.

FACTS: The Querent's wife went on a business trip to Dubai. After a couple of weeks, her telephone stopped working, and the husband has not heard from her since. Is the Wife alive? Where is she? Is she coming home?

If these questions were asked of me, I would want to know more information before I decided whether I would give the Q the correct answers. The geomancer himself cast the chart on behalf of the client. That makes the Geomancer HOUSE 1. The client is HOUSE 7. The client's wife is HOUSE 1 again. So, Ms. Wife is HOUSE 1, ACQUISITIO. ACQUISITIO jumps from HOUSE 1 to HOUSE 3. Do dead people jump? No, they do not. :D Therefore, at the time the chart was cast, Ms. Wife was alive. That is confirmed by both HOUSE 1 and HOUSE 3 being inconjunct to HOUSE 8 (Death). CAUDA, the figure of HOUSE 8, jumps to HOUSE 11 and makes aspects with ACQUISITIO in HOUSES 1 and 3, but their reception figure, PUELLA, is not persuasive testimony of death.

Whether I would tell the Q where the Wife is, I am not sure. I looked at their relationship. HOUSE 1/Wife (ACQUISITIO) + HOUSE 7/Husband (TRISTITIA) = RUBEUS, a violent, passionate Mars figure. Well, that's kind of horrible, innit? So, I would answer the "is she coming home?" question with this: "I don't know, Mr. Querent. Were you nice to her? Or were your horrible to her? Were you violent to her? Have you hit her? Would you want to come back home to you if you were she?"

If he was an abusive husband, I might not answer the other questions. In all likelihood, I probably would not answer any of the questions, including whether she were alive.

VIA is the natural ruler of fugitives. Another relevant testimony: VIA in HOUSE 12: someone fleeing and in hiding.

When teaching divination, the Witch under whom you study will cover such touchy questions as this. There are several classes of question which I will not answer, or will not answer without the greatest justification. The Witch will also teach you to reject questions with false logic built into them. They must be rejected inasmuch as even the most expert diviner cannot answer them. False logic in questions is a huge problem in published divination material. When a Witch teaches divination, the most important thing she is teaching you is HOW TO THINK IN ACCORDANCE WITH REALITY. Everything else pales in comparison.

You might think: "How can I get the job I just applied for?" might be a reasonable question. It is not. It actually has an assumption built into it, and there is not a single person on Earth or in the Otherworld that could answer it as stated.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

8 October 2012
2:20 pm EDT
Rochester, NY
Regiomontanus Houses

I've done quite a few of these "When will I get pregnant?" questions for women in their 20s and 30s. Oftentimes women become nervous when they are trying to get pregnant, but it doesn't happen within the first 5-6 months. An astrologer -- or a Witch trained as such, as I am -- can often put their minds at ease.

Here, the 32-year-old Seeker and her husband were trying for several months to get pregnant, but had been unsuccessful. She was starting to get a bit worried, so she asked me:

Question: When am I going to be pregnant?

My answer: The Heavens say by the third week of September 2013.

Result: And so it came to pass. The Seeker learned on September 12, 2013, that she was pregnant.

( If You Want To Read the Full Technical Judgment )

The end.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester