An Example of 8th House Matter

A worried querent wanted to know whether her grandma would survive the following couple of days. The old lady was 88, very feeble and constantly in bed for the last few weeks, her condition going from bad to worse with each passing day. On the day of the question, she slept almost incessantly, and even her pains were not as strong as usual.

The hour ruler was Mercury, which made the question radical. The old lady’s significators are Venus, lady of the 4^th in Sagittarius and, of course, the Moon in Pisces. It is very interesting to find the twelfth-part of the ascendant (the ‘real’ focus of the querent’s thoughts) in the 5^th house/sign, the place of Venus but also of Mercury, which rules the derived 8^th in Gemini and disposes lord of the radical 8^th, Jupiter in Gemini (Mercury/Jupiter mutual reception).

The POF as another possible significator of the querent’s thoughts is in the 10^th  in a feminine sign of Taurus, which also makes sense as the question was about  her mother’s mother. Venus as the ruler of the Lot falls in the 8^th from it, which is the house of death.

Additional testimonies of the question’s radicality are found  in the Moon – separated from Mercury, lord of the derived 8^th and placed in the radical 8^th,  joined to Mars in Capricorn in the radical 6th which also happens to be the ruler of  the derived house of illness and afflicts the IC by a partile square aspect – thoughts/indicators  of  illness/death all over the chart. Venus is also heavily involved in providing  convincing testimony – she’s in antiscia with  Mars. Finally, Saturn as the contrary to sect malefic and the natural ruler of  old age and death is placed in the 4^th  as the lord of the radical 6^th and Mars’s dispositor  (again, there’s the mutual reception by sign between the two malefics.)

What will happen next, and when?

Peregrine Venus is joined by malefic opposition to Jupiter which is himself ‘doubly’ malefic i.e. lord of death for the already mentioned reasons and he’s also contrary to sect, out of its domain, in detriment and retrograde while sitting upon a malefic fixed star which is a potential cutter – Aldebaran.

Though  Jupiter receives Venus, we have to bear in mind that the old lady’s  condition makes it highly unlikely for the reception to prove a life-saving influence.  The slightest sign of the deterioration is a sure testimony of death in this case – the opposition coupled with the return of light represents just such a kind of exacerbation, even though the return is with amelioration (due to reception and succeedent position of Venus).  Four and a half days left…?

The Moon offers a similar testimony, by its perfection of sextile with  Mars in two degrees. Mars does receive the Moon by triplicity/bound/face BUT he’s also in a bad cadent house which doesn’t behold the ascendant and in the sign of the Moon’s detriment – again, an aggravation which may turn out deadly. I judged a major turn for the worse in two days, probably resulting in death. And so it proved – she died in two days, around 14:00. Though the Moon/Mars perfection denoting two days is a sufficient testimony in itself, Mars’s dexter square to the IC perfecting  in two days and lacking only 15′ to be exact is also a very powerful indicator of the same.

If one chooses to delineate the chart from the perspective of whole-sign houses, the same result is obtained. Grandma is Saturn in the 4^th and  Mars in the 6^th, in antiscia with Venus which rules her 12^th. The Moon in the radical 8th is translating the light between Mercury, lord of the turned 8^th and Mars, grandma’s significator. But even if the Moon didn’t translate the light from Mercury, its contact with Mars out of the radical 8^th would still prove fatal.