The Kindness of Stars

I cannot write of him yet. My hands stop at the keys. But writing will be good for me, it always is.

Woke at 4.05, went to the window to see a star hanging bright in the sky, clouds banded above and below it. Confused, my head throbbing because last night I got drunk in a way I have not done in years. How can it be Venus? I thought, this is the window through which the sun comes up. Took me a moment to remember she is the Morning as well as the Evening Star.

Bereft yesterday, I did something else not done in years; I cast an horary chart. The question Is he OK? was fatuous but pain is not clever. The ascendant was in a last degree which traditionally warns that the question comes too late and nothing can be done. Moving on, the chart seemed determined to bring me kind stories and lovely mythological profiles. First his parents; here Papa was represented by Mercury undergoing a rare astrological event; Cazimi it's called, when a planet is considered purified in the centre of the sun, the mind elevated and conjoined to the heart of the King. Mama? Signified here by Jupiter in its sign of exaltation, abundant, generous, Big.

But of him, where is he? I do not mean his dear little body but the spark, the soul of him. What was I asking exactly? Does the little girl want to know if her kitty is in Heaven? The pathos stings but still.

He was represented by the ruler of the sixth house, the portion of the chart which governs pets. Aries on the cusp gave him Mars, feisty boy, as his significator, find it and the astrologer finds him. Mars was in the eleventh house, the genial mansion of allies that classical astrologers called Bona Fortuna, the House of Good Spirit. The seventeenth century astrologer William Lilly called it the place of 'comfort and relief,' the safe harbour, all about security and restoration. There now. He's with good friends and all is kindness. Be comforted, child.

I have so many great memories about him, why bother with this stuff? Venus shining in the dark beyond my window. The reality is that I have lost him, and as I write it, begin to cry again. So yes, time to wrap myself in stories and stars. Tomorrow I will be wiser. Or not.