other points when you have worked further through the book I suggest that you

read through this judgement several times, following as best you can with what you have learned so far and stretching to comprehend the other points. Work with this, referring continually to the table of dignities: you will learn far more by actively working with these judgements than by passively reading them.

The querent wrote that she had married young, only because she was pregnant. Then she had met another man, who 'told me such wonderful things about myself'. Then she discovered that he was sleeping with another woman. He didn't want to do this, but she was blackmailing him into it. 'Did he really love me? Is there a future in our relationship?'

The chart is set for the time and place at which I read her letter. She, as querent, is given the Ascendant and LordI, which is Venus. As querent, she has the Moon as her cosignificator. Because this is a relationship question - and only in relationship questions - we would also give her Venus as significator, as natural ruler of women; but she already has it.

As it is a relationship question, we look to the 7th house. There are two 7th- house people involved in this situation: the husband and the lover. They can't both be signified by Lord 7, so we must choose. Take the one about whom the question is asked, which in this case is the lover: he is given Lord 7 (Mars) and - only in a relationship question - the Sun, because he is a man.

His main significator, Mars, is in the 12th house. So is the Sun, his second significator, because a planet within around 5 degrees of a cusp is counted as being in the next house if it is in the same sign as that cusp. With both his signi- ficators in the 12th, the house of things hidden from the querent, we can dismiss any ideas of his blackmail story being true.

What does he think of our querent? To determine this, we must look to see if either of his significators is in any dignity or debility of either of hers. Neither Mars nor the Sun is in any reception with the Moon. The Sun is not in any reception with Venus. Mars is in the detriment of Venus: he hates her.

But she is not asking about his attitude to her now; she is asking what his attitude was in the past. So we must look into the past, which we do by backtracking the planets, sending them back in the direction from which they have come.

Mars, at4Aries, has only recently changed sign. Ithas only recently entered the detriment ofVenus: he has only recently started hating her. Before that it was in Pisces. What was his attitude to her then? In Pisces, Mars exalts Venus. He worshipped her!

All the time that Mars was in Pisces, he was exalting her, so yes, he did really love her: he was perfectly sincere in his protestations. But exaltation tends not to last, and once the bubble burst he did not merely become indifferent to her, but began to hate her, no doubt for failing to live up to his glorious illusion. This change of attitude is shown by the change of reception as Mars moves from Pisces into Aries.

When I say 'all the time that Mars was in Pisces', I am not referring to Mars' real-time transit of that sign. Here, Mars' passage through that sign can be read as 'for a long time'.

With practice, you will find you begin to know what a chart will look like before you cast it, from the information you are given in the question. As soon as we read the words 'he used to say such wonderful things about me', we can be sure that we shall find exaltation in the chart.

'Is there a future in our relationship?' Much as we might feel that his blackmail story makes this question redundant, it is important that we answer the question asked and answer it from the chart, not from our own assumptions and preju- dices. From what we have seen so far, things do not look promising: he hates her. Mars is not going to turn retrograde and go back to exalting Venus: once the bubble of exaltation has burst it may be replaced by something more enduring, but it cannot be put back together. But his other significator, the Sun, is aboutto

enter Pisces, where it will start exalting Venus. Maybe there is hope.

What does she feel about him? Venus is in Capricorn, the exaltation of Mars. She is still besotted with him. Venus and the Moon both signify our querent, but they show her in different ways: head and heart. LordI shows the querent as thinking being and sometimes as body; the Moon is more the querent's emotions. The opposition between them here shows graphically head and heart at odds with each other, and is common in such charts. People tend not to ask relationship questions when they are happy.

The Moon, her heart, is in both the triplicity and the fall of Mars (the lover). Her emotions still feel warmly towards him; but this warmth is overshadowed by loathing: she must be feeling very hurt.

Venus is in the last degree of Capricorn. It is about to change sign, on which its receptions will change. This change of reception shows that she will undergo a change in her attitudes - as her lover did, as shown by Mars moving from Pisces to Aries. How will her attitudes change? She will stop exalting Mars. As soon as Venus enters Aquarius it is no longer in any dignity or debility of Mars: she will become indifferent to him.

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The Moon too is about to change sign. Itleaves this troubled ambivalence of triplicity and fall of Mars for Leo, where it too has no interest in Mars. She is very soon to fall completely out oflove with him. Is there a future in this relationship? No; largely because she will soon no longer want it.

That has given the brief answer to the querent's questions. We may wish to put flesh on these bare bones by looking a little deeper. What else is going on here?

We might notice that Saturn is playing a big part in this chart. Venus and the Sun are in signs ruled by Saturn; Mars is in Saturn's fall; the Moon is in Saturn's detriment. When Venus changes sign and stops exalting Mars, Saturn is going to become even more importantto the querent: in the first degrees of Aquarius Venus will be in the sign, triplicity and term of Saturn. So what does Saturn that will suddenly become so much more significant to her as soon as she stops exalting her lover?

In charts cast about affairs, presenting us with two 7th-house type people, if the lover is given Lord 7 as his significator, Saturn can be taken to the cheated spouse. If the querent is exalting the lover, the spouse is usually perceived as 'the great malefic' frustrating their possible happiness. Does this fit with the chart?

There is a weak (peregrine) planet in the first house. This is an affliction to the querent. What is afflicting the querent? Saturn: the husband.

Venus is in the sign of Saturn. This could mean that the querent loves her husband. But if your heart is busy exalting someone, there isn't enough room there to love someone else. So here it makes better sense to read this as the husband having great influence over the querent, or ruling her, or even totake it

quite literally: she is in his house.

Saturn is in the sign of Venus. The husband loves her. Itis in the exaltation of the Moon. So what does the husband really really want? The thing that he exalts: the querent's heart.

What does the querent's heart think of him? The Moon is in the detriment of Saturn: her heart hates him. And also in Saturn's term: her heart sees some minor redeeming features in him.

Note that the querent's head/heart split, by the Venus/Moon opposi- tion, makes perfect sense in her attitudeto both the lover and the husband.

Once Venus has changed sign, losing interest in the lover, it will become much more dominated by Saturn. The powerful mutual reception between these two planets will become yet stronger. This must mean a strengthening of her relation- shipto the husband. Note that we do not needtosee an aspect between her and

him to show this, because the relationship is already in existence: we don't need to prove an event. Note also that although she is going to become more centred on the husband (moving from sign and term of Saturn to sign, triplicity and term of Saturn) she is not suddenly going to start exalting him (both her planets move into signs where nothing is exalted). As is only to be expected.

The Moon, meanwhile, is entering Leo, which is also the detriment of Saturn. Her heart will still hate him.

Why is her attitudeto these two men going to change? Our attitudes do not change of themselves: we do not awake one morning to find that we love this person or hate that. There is a trigger that sets off these changes. The change of attitude is shown by the change of receptions (as here in the changes of sign). The trigger is shown by the aspect happening immediately before this change of reception.

What aspect happens immediately before Venus and the Moon change signs? The Moon/Venus opposition. This must be the trigger - the reason for the change of attitude. What does this aspect mean?

Yes, we can read it as showing her head/heart split reaching a climax; but this doesn't help us much: we are still left wondering why.

When a significator is placed right on a house cusp, it is often there for a reason. Italmost is as if the chart puts it there as a way of attracting our attention, of saying 'Hey, look over here!' The Moon is right on the cusp of the 5th house - the house of children. The Moon is ruler of that house, so could be playing a secondary role as Lord 5. The Moon is natural ruler of babies and is in the fertile sign of Cancer. So the Moon applying to Venus must show her getting pregnant. By opposition: she is not happy about this. But it is this that concentrates her mind (Venus) on her marriage. Even though her heart (Moon) will still hate her husband. Itis probably in the pregnancy that the position of Jupiter, natural ruler of fertility, so prominent on the Ascendant, its significance.

"But who's the father?" The aspect showing her getting pregnant (Moon to oppose Venus) has not yet happened, so the event is still in the future. Had the aspect been separating (perhaps Moon at 29 Cancer separating from opposition to Venus at 28 Capricorn) we would have judged that it had already happened, hence that she was already pregnant. So she is not yet pregnant; the boyfriend hates her; she is still in the husband's house; the chart does not show any other suspects: the husband must be the father.

We saw in passing the boyfriend's attitude to the husband: the Sun is ruled by Saturn; Mars is in Saturn's fall. As with our querent's head and heart, the two

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