Tragic death of astrologer - Fate and free will

A fellow astrologer died recently, someone I knew and worked with, even though we'd had very few personal contacts. Her death was so unexpected and sudden, that the news practically shocked all her acquaintances. She died after having undergone - supposedly- minor surgery, a surgery she chose to have and not for health reasons. After the initial shock, I naturally ran through her charts trying to find some sort of explanation, some sort of indication that this was about to happen. I know that some people prefer not to deal with this sort of questions, but death is a part of life and if astrology deals with all the aspects of life, then perhaps it has something to say about death as well.

I must say beforehand, however, that it has not yet been determined whether the time of death can be safely predicted or not from a natal chart. It is a very difficult matter and it raises all sorts of questions about fate and free will. John Frawley in his forthcoming book on natal astrology says that the natal chart is about the body, but we also have souls. Does that mean that there is a limit to what the natal chart can tell us and that sometimes the soul intervenes and alters the pattern? I'm not sure. The book isn't out yet, so I can't say for certain what he means by that.

But the question still stands. The fact that we seem to be unable to predict a lot of things with any scientifically valid amount of accuracy, is it because the soul steps in or is it because our astrology is still in an infantile stage? And more importantly, why should the soul intervene? If the soul is using the body to experience every possible aspect of life, why would it change anything? The soul doesn't care whether a particular experience is pleasant to the body or not, it just wants to find out what it feels like. If we had unlimited free will, wouldn't our choices be severely restricted? Who would choose to die young, who would choose poverty, who would choose poor health, who would choose the loss of loved ones, who would choose unemployment, who would choose alcoholism, who would choose abuse and so on. The questions are endless. Shouldn't we co-operate with our fate and try to find out exactly what that is? Because only then will we have a chance of actually controlling it and perhaps change something in the process, should we feel the need to do so. So, instead of secretly "rejoicing" when a prediction goes wrong and declare the triumph of free will, I think we must strive to achieve scientific accuracy in our predictions.
Thankfully, horary astrology is much simpler than natal astrology in this regard. It concerns only a limited amount of time and the events it describes have already started taking their course, whether by choice or fate, so we don't have to worry about ethical objections and our personal ideology concerning astrology. Still, how do we use it? Do we actually read a horary chart or do we see only what we want to see? The astrologer I mentioned in the beginning of this post, cast this horary chart before her operation, asking if her doctor is the best possible one. This is the chart:


Of course she had decided to go for the operation regardless of this chart and that raises another question whether we ourselves believe in the validity of astrology. What's the use of erecting charts if we have already decided on our course of action? Anyway, on the face of it, this chart seems to give a positive answer. The doctor (Mercury) is in the 10th house and therefore accidentally strong and about to trine Jupiter, her significator. She did say that she liked the doctor and had confidence in him. So, that was that and she went ahead. That was the answer she wanted and she didn't look any further perhaps. But what is the actual condition of this Mercury? It is under the sun beams, which is not such a severe affliction as being combust, but it is also about to go combust. Which means, that his condition was increasingly worsening. She may have thought that the trine with Jupiter was going to happen first, so she didn't pay any attention to combustion. But this chart also has Mars, the natural ruler of surgery in the 8th house of death. She may have thought that this is not so bad, as Mars has recently left Cancer, the sign of its fall, and so it is not so threatening. But in this chart, Mars' condition actually got worse if we take receptions into account. From Cancer, Mars liked Jupiter (herself) and was ruled by the Moon (her second significator). So Mars had no power over her, but instead she had power over the surgery. From Leo however and still in the 8th house, Mars got stronger and her power was lost. Even more importantly, the Moon was about to enter the sign of its fall (Scorpio), from where it would square Mars. Mars is also the ruler of the 4th house, which signifies the end of matter. So, in this case "end of matter" equals 8th house, the house of death. When would that happen? In approximately 4 time units. It couldn't be hours or days, because the operation would take place at a later date and of course it couldn't be months or years, because the operation was imminent. So, this leaves weeks, as the only logical time unit. She died four weeks exactly after having asked this horary question.
Naturally, it's easy to be wise in retrospect. What would I have said had I seen this horary chart (I found out about this chart after her death) when it was asked? Would I have said "No, don't have the operation, because you are going to die?" No, probably not. This was not a life-threatening operation, more like a run-of-the-mill one. Perhaps I would have simply urged caution, but, not expecting any real danger, I might have interpreted the chart quite differently. And this is another serious problem with our interpretations. How much of what we say is actually based on the chart and how much comes out of our personal views and limitations?