The Surrealistic Pillow :
Parts gone wild, Venus, a couple of pumpkins and a white rabbit

Venus was having a day off the charts.  It was raining, it was cold. But despite the fact that she wasn’t feeling her best she decided to throw a Halloween party. All the planets would come and a few royal fixed stars too. Her Alice in Wonderland costume was ready and she was about to have another facial made from something that was flashing green, while singing one of her favorite tunes. She had more than enough time to relax before her guests arrived at midnight, so she decided to lie to her sofa for awhile, waiting for that green stuff to work. Candles burning inside a few carved pumpkins were the only source of light in the room; the music played …

‘One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small’…the dormouse fell asleep by her feet, she felt like falling into the ground...

The phone rang. It was Mercury and his news was distressing.  Some human had left the Arabian Parts cage door open and some of them managed to find their way to freedom. Following they organized a small but very flexible special forces group, with the Part of Marriage in charge and started attacking receptions, planets and judgments from above, with heavy ammunition.  All he finally said was that if those attacks continued, the planets would be forced to move to another solar system! 

She started walking up and down thinking that a solution had to be found – and very fast, before all was lost. Suddenly a crazy idea hit her. She had to visit the famous Arabian Parts master, the smoking caterpillar, called Al Beer-uni. He knew the ways of the Parts and was a genius in constructing them! 

A dream within a dream

A White Rabbit passed her in haste. After a short walk in fields of Gold she got there. It was easy to tell his house. The Part of Doors was, well of course, at the doorstep to greet her and smoke was coming out the windows. Mr. B. was over excited to finally meet her in person! After the usual formalities, spicy teas, autographs and rhetorical questions like ‘are you Cold and Moist or Hot and Moist? ’ she finally got the chance to tell him about the problem caused by the renegade Parts and about the urgency to find a solution. 

He was shocked and then stood up in contemplation. He suddenly crawled out the room, went to his office and started to look through his books and packs of papers that were thrown all over the place: ‘Part of Alice, Part of Coffee and Part of Parts… Part of Parts Squared ….AHA! There, I found it! ’ he cried and started to wave a piece of paper! Beer-uni was a wise caterpillar and knew that he had to inform Venus about what the Parts are and how they are properly used.  Only then would the planets be capable to strike back. He puffed a cloud of smoke and then he said:

‘The Arabian Parts are only points that show the nature of specific things in the chart. They are calculated by adding the distance of two things and the subtraction of a third.’ 

He saw a big question mark formulating on Venus’ face. She hated calculations, this was a job for Mercury, not for her!

 ‘Hmm, ok, let’s try this: we could say that in a way the Parts are the children or the result, of planets and/or cusps, as their construction is based on them. Each Part takes after the nature of the things used to calculate it. An example could be the recipe for a cocktail, for instance...you have a Daiquiri Floridita written all over the chart. But you want information about the Daiquiri Classic specifically: Rum + Lime - liqueur maraschino.

 In the same way someone asks you a horary question about their marriage: you already have all the information you need in the chart. You check the receptions between the significators; Lord 1 and Moon for the querent, Lord 7, Sun for the Boy, You (Venus) for the girl, as extras. These’ll give you all the basic insight about their relationship, behavior and intentions. However you find that you need more insight about the marriage itself. And this is when you calculate the Part of Marriage. What is the marriage made of? Well of course the marriage is the ‘result’ of the querent, his/her spouse and Love, and so the formula is Asc + Dc – Venus.  Now, the result will give a placement of a specific degree, which will show were the Part falls. But beware, that doesn’t say much. You must check its Lord in order to derive information. ’

-‘And who is its Lord?’ she asked. 

‘Let’s say that your calculation shows that the Part falls in Leo. Its Lord will be the Sun. If it fell in Gemini, its Lord would be Mercury and so on. Nevertheless it is important to understand that the Parts can give more insight in situations that vary according to the query, but they are the last thing to examine, not the first. And most of the time they are not of any use, of course. If you ask “when will I get a job?” there is no reason to calculate a Part to judge it and especially not something irrelevant like the Part of Artichokes!’

Venus now understood more than she would admit. The minute Parts became renegade, the hierarchy of the chart’s examination, used to reach a sound judgment, flew out the window. Oh, dear!

Beer-uni then informed her that there is a Part about everything. ‘Some of them are very useful in Natal Astrology but I will not go into specifics right now. Strictly speaking for Horary, we are more likely to find useful the Part of Marriage- for ongoing relationships of course, sometimes the Part of Divorce- when this is a real choice for the querent, and occasionally the Part of Fortune. There’s also a Part for Vocation, Death, surgery and other gothic matters (-the expression on her face stopped him and he thought that he’d better talk about those with Mars or Saturn instead!). We always check the receptions of a Part’s Lord with our players in the chart and in this way we can have deeper insight to the situation at hand. 

An example: A woman asked among other related things about the situation of her marriage. The receptions of the significators already showed a declining relationship, with negative receptions and different priorities of the people involved. The Part of Marriage fell in Sagittarius, so its Lord was Jupiter. Jupiter was located in Gemini: in detriment and in a mutable sign, pointing to an unstable and unhappy marriage. So the Part repeated what the chart already showed and the context the querent had given to begin with. Next step as always is to check the receptions of the Lord with the significators and so on. Read more in the Horary Textbook.’

‘Yes, I understand now ’, she said, feeling sad as she always does when she hears about Love matters going bad.

Beer- uni realized that time had passed so he gave Venus the secret formula that would bring harmony back to the chart: the calculation for the mighty “Part of Sending Parts back to their cage”!  She took it, thanked him for his valuable assistance and beamed herself to the chart where warfare was in full progress.

‘…And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you're going to fall’… colors and Parts, the dormouse is talking in its sleep…

The White Rabbit

Jupiter had turned retrograde in order to avoid a rock thrown by the Part of Victory and the Moon was crying because the Sun had jumped into his Fall screaming ‘Geronimo!’ in a last attempt to lure the enemy with him and had broken his leg. A White Rabbit passed by in haste.

By now the Parts had taken over the Midheaven. Venus was petrified! Luckily Mars saw her, he run decidedly, avoided hostile fire and landed with her into a ditch. She trusted him with the secret weapon formula. He painted his face red, took his shield and weapons and waited for the night to fall. When the time came he kissed Venus goodbye and went off to his mission. He could see the Parts dancing around a bonfire and came from behind to catch them by surprise. Then, in a supreme act of courage, he stood up and threw the formula straight to…

The phone rang!  Venus fearfully jumped up, feeling confused and disoriented. She looked around and realized that everything she’d seen was just a bad dream! She picked up the phone. ‘Trick or treat!’ said Mercury with enthusiasm and before she could answer he analyzed all his costume details – he was coming dressed as a giant bean! After awhile she finally said goodbye.  What a bizarre dream I had - maybe it was that last marshmallow I ate, she thought. Yet, something deep inside was telling her …

‘…Remember what the dormouse said; Feed your head’…The door bell rang. She opened the door and faced a White Rabbit in haste!

A candle’s flame flickered; a frozen feeling pierced her; the clock struck twelve.

References:
‘The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology’ – Al Biruni
‘The Horary Textbook’ – John Frawley