Horary Happenings—Why I’m a Believer, Not a Practitioner

©8-15-2011 by Donna Cunningham, MSW

Here are some stories I’d like to share about the magic of horary astrology. I swear to you that they are 100% true. 

 Circa 1969, East Village, NYC. I’d been soaking up every bit of astrology I could for about a year, taking several classes a week, when I started to get intrigued by horary astrology. You can get a definite yes or no answer from a chart set up for the time a question is asked—how cool is that?  

I asked a question: “What is my life purpose?” That’s not a proper horary question, but I didn’t know any better, so I did the calculations. (By hand, folks. This was back in the dark ages.)  The resulting chart was spectacular, though I didn’t have a clue how to interpret it. Every planet had a dozen aspects, and a string of sextiles held them together all around the edge. 

As I finished drawing in the aspects, a pattern began to emerge. Looking at the whole, I began to see that it was a 5-pointed star! It tilted slightly to the left, as did I in the late 1960s.  But a perfect star all the same—clearly it was my fate to become an astrologer!  

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 Fast forward 6 months, still the East Village. Having received a clear mandate to become an astrologer, I decided I was ready to teach class.  For beginners, at least. (I was cocky then. Still cocky but worse for the wear now.) It was time.  A bright, lively crowd of lesbian feminists who called themselves The Radical Radishes heard about it and signed up. The class also had another lesbian member – an affluent corporate officer that people would call a lipstick lesbian. I’ d sat next to her on a cross country plane ride and oversold her on astrology. They all took to their studies enthusiastically and thrilled to astrology’s wonders as only beginners can thrill.

I thought it would be great fun to demonstrate horary astrology. Mind you, I still didn’t know more than the bare basics, like how to find the house that corresponded to the question. I had each of them think of yes or no question to be answered.  When they all had one in mind, I noted the time and quickly drew up a chart. (By hand, folks.) I then went around the circle, answering each of their questions in turn. There was enough variety that 8 or 9 houses were involved. For some, the answer was yes, for others it was no, and for others it was, “too early to tell.” 

Finally, I got to Lee, one of the most beloved members. She and the corporate type seemed to be developing more than a passing flirtation. They explained that she’d invited Lee along on a trip to Morocco.  Lee’s question was,” will I make the trip to Morocco?” The answer the horary chart gave was a clear no – at least three different ways.  Her face fell at the answer, but she shrugged it off philosophically. “Que sera, sera.” 

The next week in class, the Radical Radishes gleefully reported that Lee wouldn’t be there because she had in fact gone to Morocco.” Better check that chart again, Teach!” 

The next class meeting, the Radishes showed up, faces shadowed with grief, eyes red and puffy. They delivered a shattering piece of news.  “Lee is dead.”  “She got in a car accident in Morocco and was killed. They buried her over there.” 

We looked at the horary again, which still said no. I don’t remember anything about it now, but apparently the NO answer to the question, “will I MAKE the trip?” meant to COMPLETE the trip, as in make a round trip. Or maybe, the implicit question was,” SHOULD I make the trip,” and the answer was no. 

The class dissolved in the aftermath of this terrible event. I was so spooked out myself that I never touched horary again for 20 years, and I’d never presume to set myself up as a horary astrologer.    

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A MAGICAL MISTAKE

How many of you astrologers have done a session with an absolutely wrong chart and gotten the absolutely right answer? Most of us have done it at least once, and people like myself with Neptune in the 3^rd squaring Mercury in the 12^th have done it more times than we’d like to admit.

 This was especially true in the early days when we did charts by hand using logarithms and half a dozen tables. I didn’t even know what a logarithm was.  So recently, when I wrote this story, I looked for that horary chart with perfect star that answered my question about what my life purpose was. I’d kept it for 45 years to look at in those intervals when I wondered whether this demanding field was a mistake for my life path.  I wanted to reproduce it in this article so you all could see it.

Of course it was handwritten, so I went to put it into the software for a usable image of the star and the ring of sextiles.  I was shocked to discover that there is no such chart! The time noted on the chart does not produce anything resembling a star. I thought perhaps I’d done the Greenwich Mean Time wrong, but no matter how long I fiddled with it, there was no star! I have no idea what I did wrong back in the 60s to come up with that exceptional chart, but it never existed in real life. 

So, I must conclude that magic was at work–I am convinced that horary astrology IS magic of the first order. Imagine if I hadn’t made a “mistake,” if there was no star in the chart I looked at, and as a result, I’d never became an astrologer? So those are some of the reasons I never became a horary astrologer– another being the hundreds of rules you have to follow to give a good answer!

I do consult it when I’m in need of a definite yes or no answer for a major life decision. I call my friend Diana Stone, a seasoned practitioner with decades of experience and a classical background in this branch of astrology.   She has never steered me wrong on these huge questions, and I will do whatever she advises. If you’d like to consult her or to read her suite of Horary Astrology articles about this ancient branch of astrology, visit her website, http://www.dianastone.com. 

Readers, have you ever asked horary question? How did it work out? Was the answer you were given accurate? I’d love to hear your stories. Leave them in the comment section.

More of Donna’s Life Story:

• Your Interview Questions for Donna:  Part 2
• 10 Quick Questions You Asked Donna
• Jupiter in the 12th—When Does Good Luck Turn Bad?
• Fitting onto a Blank
• The Incredible Vulnerability a Stellium Creates
• Cancerians, Memory and Emotion
• Venus-Uranus Aspects: Two-Minute Friends and other Modern Relationships
• On Being a Weeble at 67
• Button Jar–A Memoir?

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