Pets in horary.

I know that the 6th house represents pets such as an African grey parrot, but what happens when one treats the bird as a close friend, does one use the 7th instead?

Also I asked the Bird's location, relative to a school he was last seen in front of. I am 1st house but how does one read for the Bird and his present location relative to a place where I am not at? I am currently about 10 miles away from the school but I need to know Bird's location relative to the school and not from my current position. I know from my position Bird is in a north easterly direction but that isn't helping me locate his present position.


I also wanted to calculate the approximate distance, as well as direction that Bird was from the front gate of the school. It would help narrow down my search.

I would still use the sixth, even for a much loved pet. I think the most important thing here is to ask the right question and also recognise the difference between Astrologer and querent - even if the same person is playing both roles.

For the question, try rephrasing it to 'Where is my parrot (you can use his name here) in relation to the school gates, where he was last seen? That will remove any need to think about turning the chart or complicating geographical issues which are already complicated enough.

That allows you to cast the chart from your home location (though I would guess that even if you cast it from in front of the school gates it would be very much the same, if the distance is only 10 miles). The reason you can now cast the chart from home is that the Astrologer does not have to be in the same place as the querent - I can answer a question relating to a lost item in Australia and if I get the answer that it's in the bedroom, I know it's not my bedroom but that of the querent. In the same way if you ask the question in terms of the school gates you are not locating the question at your home but in relation to the last sighting.

Lilly has a complex procedure for locating lost or stolen articles (and animals) but to me the most relevant seems to be his section on lost animals. You seem familiar with direction using the sign in which the lord of the sixth is located. Lilly also provides descriptions of the type of ground as well as it's compass direction, so you could use the descriptions to help identify likely possibilities (for example it's unlikely that your pet is out in the open on the ground with no perches in sight).

On distance, in the same section Lilly uses the separation of the Moon from the Lord of the Ascendant, though these are rough estimates - for example less than 30 degrees it's in your house - or in our modified question still at the school, 30-70 it's in the locality of the town/place in which you live - modified question the town or locality of the school over 90 it's far away from there.

Lilly uses a slightly different version in his section on fugitives, taking the distance between the Moon and the significator of the fugitive. For each degree in a cardinal sign he takes 1 degree to equal 17 furlongs (about 2 miles) in mutable signs five furlongs (just over half a mile) and in fixed signs, one furlong (one eighth of a mile). He does say to use this rule with discretion, so it's clearly not fixed.

I hope this helps but get back to me if you have any further queries or try posting the question in the Astrology forum, horary thread. I know how hard this situation can be for you as we lost a pet cat. It was a stray for more than a month, and my horaries did not give any clear indication of where it was, or at least when I checked possible locations it wasn't answering. Eventually I got it's significator retrograde in a chart - a signal that it was likely to return and sure enough a couple of days later it actually came to our front door. Don't give up hope!!

The chart was done yesterday, the 20th, the 6th ruler is Sun which in Libra 27 ° 8th house, Asc ruler is Jupiter(Pisces on asc), Jupiter is in Cancer 5th house 20°, Moon is in Taurus, 2nd house at 13° 22".

So Libra is west and 8th house is west but a bit south of west of the school front gates suggesting a large area of "wasteland" across the road which I have been to calling him everyday for the past 11 days and not a whisper.
Now distance between Sun and Jupiter is 7° or 97°, so is he close by or some miles away which is difficult to believe as his wings were clipped but obviously not good enough. I need to know approximately how far away he is from the front of the school.
Beyond the wasteland, more west, is a fairly big river.

Can you give me the time and place of the chart - PM me if you don't want it public. Then I'll not miss anything else signified in the chart

October 20th, 3.24 pm, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2013

Thanks, I'll take a look but I have to point out two things - one the obvious one that birds fly (even with badly clipped wings) can move about as this situation shows, so where he was yesterday is no guarantee that he will be there today.

The second is an astrological point. Lost and found horaries are the most difficult. John Frawley in his book on Horary says that this is the area of his lowest success rate. The reason is that the Astrological symbolism can't be easily applied to places we don't know. I've got some description from you but it's a relatively small bird in a big area, so I can't give any guarantee.

But I'll try my very best

Some observations

The Sun is in a separating square from Jupiter - which describes a situation of a forced separation or loss. That is one that was not under your control. There's no application of Sun to Jupiter, so as things stand the bird will not return naturally. The Moon is not applying to a major aspect with the Sun, so again there's no indication of a natural return as things stood yesterday. Don't worry to much about that - I had several such readings for my strayed cat and the cat did not return till I got one with Lord 6 retrograde.

The bird is not in good shape, it's significator is the Sun which is in fall in Libra and it's in the eighth house which is an unfortunate placement. However there is no afflicting aspect from either Mars or Saturn. Moreover Lilly's test for whether the animal is alive or dead (Moon applying to Lord 8 suggests it is dead) shows the bird to be alive. The eighth is inconjunct the Ascendant and signifies the obvious, the bird is out of sight, even when deliberately looking for it. So finding it will not be easy.

The eighth is a succeedent house (to the Descendant) so the distance is neither close to the school gates or a long way off - it's in the general area. The direction from the gates is south west by house placement (which Frawley reckons to be the only reliable method) - more west than south (the Descendant is due west). The eighth is associated with waste and elimination and your comments on the wasteland seem to identify the correct area but you may be too near the school gates. Libra (which is significator of West) is an air sign, so we would expect the bird to be high up (which is natural for them anyway). High up is relative to the area but it's worth looking upwards as well as ahead.

Looking at distance The Moon is the natural significator of lost things or strayed animals. If we take Lilly's first measure, then we take Moon to Jupiter. we get approx 66 degrees, which again points to it being in the general locality of the school but further rather than nearer (again keeping to the West South West area).

Lilly's second method looks at the separation of the Moon from the significator of the object. In this case the Moon in Taurus is over five signs from the Sun in Libra and that doesn't seem to fit the description of the situation - we would be looking at something like 70-80 miles. (130km).

I don't think I've really added much to your own reading of the chart, other than to confirm your actions and deductions so far. I'll give it 24 hours and if you haven't found the bird by then, I'll cast a further chart and see if it gives another alternative.

No I still haven't found him but if you go to Google maps type in the following, "Ban Tha Luk San Sai school San Phi Suea Chiang Mai Thailand", then press on the address, then a street view of the school appears, press on it to enlarge it, then turn the picture 180° and that will show what the terrain looks like. Its about half a mile deep and then the river.

I don't think he's been captured, and I know he's not doing well as he's never ever lived in the wild before he's always been looked after and hand fed. Did he cross the river? I don't think so but there is a huge amount of vegetation on the otherside all be it in private hands.

Actually this chart was only asking direction and distance from the school gates, so Libra may well be ignored as to show Bird is on high ground as there is no high ground in that area only a few big trees that I am sure he cannot climb. Bird loves climbing small trees and ripping the thin bark off of them, big trees he can't get up.

On the left hand edge of the waste ground, and placed up near the river is a house, basically a lean to, bamboo walls, old metal roof, earth floor, big tree outside, one large red brown dog, and lots of blue plastic water pipe lying around but surprising I saw two fairly new pickups parked outside. Anyway I have asked them on quite a few occasions if they had seen bird and they said no. I think if bird was there he would have made a noise. You can see this shack off to the left when you look at the street view, its basically south of west.


So that's basically it.

Another chart done at 3.34 pm today indicates that I will not find Bird ever.

Unless the chart shows that bird is dead, that's too sweeping a conclusion.

I've looked at the Google Maps location as you gave it and to be honest, even in the area between the river and school, there seem to be plenty of 'hiding' places that he could be. The trouble is, that if he's anything like mobile, he could be anywhere in that location, or even outside it by now.

I'll do a horary as promised and see if I get anything useful