Astrology Learning Series, Lesson One: The Twelve Houses

I've started to write a series of lessons designed to help readers understand some of the more technical language I use in my writing. While it's becoming more and more colloquial to understand some of the qualities of fire, earth, water, and air signs, the Houses often incite confusion for people newer to astrology. So, consider this a quick-and-dirty guide to the Twelve Houses.

In astrology, we know that there are planets, signs, and houses. When we speak about the planets, we more or less are speaking about what action is happening, while the sign speaks to the quality of that action. For example, Mars acts, and if Mars is in Scorpio, we'd say perhaps that Mars acts in a penetrating, intense way. The houses speak to the part of life where this action with this quality is most obviously happening; a person with Mars in Scorpio in the Tenth House, or the house of career and public life, might become an investigative journalist, while someone with their Mars in Scorpio in the Second House, the house of assets and values, might intensely seek money or value intensity and action.

There are whole books written on the houses and the different systems used to calculate these, but essentially: the houses are a division of space and time as seen from Earth.

When you look at the wheel of an astrology chart, you're looking at a picture of the space surrounding Earth. You can see the horizon line running through the middle of the chart, and above that are the planets above the horizon line (the day part of the chart) and below that are the planets that are below the horizon line at that time (the night part of the chart); remember, an astrological chart is simply a chart of a moment in time, so this whole wheel is, in theory, in motion. The left side of the chart is the east side, and the right is the west. We know that the planets do not move around the earth with the exception of the Moon, but from where we stand on earth, this is how it appears. An astrological chart shows us where planets are in relation to Earth.

The houses are numbered one through twelve; just as there are twelve signs in the Zodiac and months in the year, so there are twelve parts of the sky that represent the twelve parts of life, from the ego and identity to our relationships with others, career, work, education, whathaveyou. I will write individual posts about each of the houses and more about the reading of a chart, but for now, I'll give a brief overview.

ASCENDANT

First of all, before we even get into the First House, there's the Ascendant, which represents the exact degree placement of the sign rising over the horizon line on the eastern side of the chart at the time of birth. The Ascendant is the initiator of the chart, the start of the First House. Astrology says that we are shaped by our first breath and take on the qualities of the cosmos as they exist in that moment in time and then project that moment, our natal chart, for the rest of our lives. The Ascendant informs us from that first breath, at the same moment that that degree of the sign is being born, what life is about and how we perceive it. It writes upon us and determines how we will appear to the rest of the world, how we show up to life.

Howard Sasportas describes this beautifully in his book The Twelve Houses (which I recommend all who are new to astrology or who just want a lovely reflection on the Houses to read):

"Whatever is born in a moment in time reflects the qualities of that moment. The Ascending sign comes into light and distinguishes itself from darkness at the same time that we emerge from the dark, hidden, and undifferentiated environment of the mother's womb. In other words, the Ascendant appears as we appear, and its qualities reflect both who we are and how we meet life."

So, the Ascendant marks the beginning of us as we are outside of the womb--the beginning of our agency. We create our worlds for ourselves based upon the influences around us in the moment just as we are created by that moment, by this world, and we will embody these according to the tenets of the sign of our Sun sign, the ego.

THE FIRST HOUSE

The First House is the first of the personal houses, initiated by the moment of the Ascendant. The House itself reflects the qualities of the sign of the Ascendant, and the planets within continue to add layers to our identity as it appears to ourselves and to others. The planets contained within the First House have a heavy hand in determining our identity and our approach to life itself. A person with Uranus in the First House, for instance, will be someone who ruffles the feathers of the systems in our world; rebellion and doing life their way is important to this person's identity to themselves and to those around them. The First House, along with the Ascendant, has less to do with action and more to do about what is--what are the the attributes that show up for this person wherever they go? What is their purpose in living life? This is answered by the First House.

THE SECOND HOUSE

The Second House is the second of the personal houses, and it is the house that represents what we value and possess, referencing both physical (monetary) and less physical implications. The planets a person has in their Second House can speak to how a person makes, spends, or otherwise interacts with finances. Pluto in the Second House can signal that a person finds their power through money, while a person with Jupiter in the Second House can indicate a person who expands through money but can also overdo on spending and generosity. But beyond the physical implications of the planets in the Second House is what a person values--a person values the tenets of any planet in their Second House. A person with Venus in the Second House might particularly value beauty, and perhaps they find a way to make their living in a Venutian way, for example.

THE THIRD HOUSE

As we move around the wheel of the chart, the development of the self moves from birth and ego outward towards relationships and community, and the Third House represents this transition. The Third House begins to move us away from the more physical implications of the First and Second; the Third House is the house of the concrete mind, or of communication and our relationships with those friends, siblings, and close kin who make up our inner circle. The Third House is one at the foundation, or base, of the chart, and so the planets within can define something about early childhood when we were just starting to really come into our understanding of ourselves and the people and world around us. The planet or planets contained within this house can sometimes be quite literal; I have one sibling, and the one planet contained in my third house is in the sign of their sun.

THE FOURTH HOUSE

The Fourth House continues to build on the expansion of a person and their world and comments on a person's family, origins, and lineage. It is also the house of the Father, so father-child dynamics can sometimes be quite present here as can the indication of early familial struggles or bolsters that were formative in nature. The Fourth House and the Third House represent the base of the chart; they represent where we come from, in a sense, and how that contributes to identity. Think of the First House as a House of "being" and that by the time we've made it to the Third and Fourth, we're looking at the world around us and how to communicate with those immediately around us (Third House) and also considering where we came from.

THE FIFTH HOUSE

The Fifth House is a continuation of our soul's journey into fully conscious individuation and expression; it is the house of creativity, ruled by the Sun. People with strong planetary placements here will have a Sun-like quality to them, shining brightly and creatively by what they dream up into reality. This is the House that defines how we consciously differentiate ourselves in a sense as well as how we seek to shine our light onto others. This is also the house of children--both childlike play as well as our relationships to children. There's an expansiveness and an abandon here; there's a joyful tendency toward excess associated with the Fifth House.

THE SIXTH HOUSE

The Sixth House brings this expansion back down to earth and to the corporeal realities of life, speaking to our physical bodies and health as well as the physical necessities of the required work of being alive. This is a house of craftsmanship. The kind of work that is denoted in the Sixth House is different than that of career or public personae, which we will get to moving forward. It's more earth-bound and could refer to relationships with people we work with but mostly comments on the requirements of staying alive and making a life for oneself, so as far as relationships go, it speaks more to the people who service us in order to stay alive--the handyman, the doctor, etc. People with strong placements here can be almost obsessively concerned with health and fitness, which means that through growth, they might have a predisposition towards becoming a healer. The Sixth House builds upon the Fifth House, which speaks to inspiration, by giving the chart the way to bring the inspiration to life.

THE SEVENTH HOUSE

The Seventh House is immediately across from, or opposing, the Ascendant line and the First House, and so it is the Descendant of the chart. While the First House is about the I, in the first person, the Seventh House is about the other, or our deep and committed partnerships and relationships. (Sasportas defines the First House as "the house of self" and the Seventh House as "the house of not-self" or "the point of awareness of others.") The Seventh House defines who we are attracted to as well as who is attracted to us, but it also defines how we are relational and the importance relationships have in our lives. Just as the Ascendant is born and becomes seen just as we are born and become seen, the Descendant disappears from view just as we are born; so this house holds what we cannot know, the universes inside the people around us.

THE EIGHTH HOUSE

More than any other house, the Eighth House is often a point of confusion for people; it is enigmatic and esoteric, representing underlying principles that have to do with others and a kind of unconscious collective. The Second House is the house of "my stuff" and the Eighth House is the House of "other people's stuff." It speaks to how we merge with those around us, and this can sometimes be literal, referring to financial agreements between couples, for instance. But this House, associated with Scorpio and Pluto, is also the house of death and regeneration. It's the house of sex (again, how we merge with others). Following the Seventh House of relationships, the Eighth expands into transformation--how have we merged with the world around us, killing part of our own ego to expand? In keeping with darker themes, the Eighth represents our relationships with all that exists behind the veil of this life, it is less philosophical than the Ninth as you'll see in a moment, and more about our spiritual connectedness with what is unseen.

THE NINTH HOUSE

The Ninth House builds further upon this transformative connective with others and the other and speaks to our more philosophical connections. The Third House is the house of the concrete mind but the Ninth House is that of the abstract. This is the house that comments on our inclinations or strengths in areas of education, theory, wisdom traditions, and belief. It's the house of the elevated mind that moves beyond the physical and beyond the creative. The Third and the Sixth House are left brain houses, and Ninth and the Twelfth are right brain houses. The Ninth House gives meaning to our more concrete experiences and therefore is associated with belief and religion. People with strong ninth-house placements often find themselves attracted to learning, academics, and the teaching of wisdom traditions.

THE TENTH HOUSE

Immediately opposite the Fourth House, which deals with our private selves, where we come from, and origins, is the Tenth House, which references who we are to the world around us and the parts of ourselves that we present as impactful to the world. The Tenth House is often a good indicator of a person's career, or their ambitions that bring them onto the world's stage in one way or another. A person with Mercury in the Tenth House likely is inclined in some kind of Mercurial pursuit or publicly recognized for Mercurial talents, like writing and other forms of communication. A person with Sagittarius in the Tenth House might be drawn to travel, politics, or sports. But the Tenth House can also suggest how a person behaves in their career; an air sign like Aquarius here might indicate a person who has an individualistic approach to their work or who is driven towards humanitarian pursuits, while a person with Virgo here might be driven by a need to be of service. The Tenth House is a high point in the chart--it is aspirational and shows how the soul finds ultimate fulfillment of expression.

THE ELEVENTH HOUSE

After the basic qualities have been established in the early houses and the soul has gained definition in more abstract senses until it really is somebody special and seen as such in the Tenth House, we arrive at the Eleventh House, which has to do with becoming now one with all that is around us. This is the House of community at-large, both in terms of people as well as ideology; it is the place where our relationship with social consciousness and the manner in which we connect with the whole is defined. Placements in Eleventh House can indicate the kinds of groups and communities to which we are drawn or the way that we behave within groups. Libra in this placement could suggest a person who works in a diplomatic field of communication or justice but could also suggest that this is a person who often is the diplomat in their social circles; this is the person who calls a spade a spade while trying to encourage everyone to get along. By the time we're at the Eleventh House, we're looking at almost the whole person--who they are at their deepest core, what they need to be that way, where they come from, how they imagine and create, who they love and how, what drives them intellectually and how, what their contribution is to the world, and now how they connect with the All. The last house, the Twelfth, is all that's left to explore.

THE TWELFTH HOUSE

The Twelfth House is a part of deep subconscious and often karma; it deals with both what is pre-birth as well as our more soulful part of existence. It is the ultimate becoming one with All. The Eleventh House begins to bring this together through collections and groups, but the Twelfth House, like the First, simply is. It is, in a sense, a returning to the First House, but knowing all that the soul knows; it is often in this way symbolic, larger than life. Ruled by Pisces, this house is about the depths, about a kind of peace in being in the muted depths of the ocean of human consciousness. Gandhi is regularly referenced in texts about the Twelfth House as he, with a Sun in Libra in the Twelfth House, is a symbol now for all of the Libran tenets of peace. There is a secretive and behind the scenes kind of energy to the Twelfth House, and placements in this house can also represent our areas of self-sabotage, or the subconscious drives and desires that thwart our conscious ones. I often see that people with impactful placements in the Twelfth House live life with very hard lessons that expand broadly towards others, which is not necessarily negative. If we look to Gandhi, we can see that he lived a life of struggle that expanded positivity and gave lessons learned to the whole world.

Like I said, I will write more about each of these Houses as well as the different House Systems used for interpreting astrology, but these should give you a sense of what a house in astrology is and what it refers to. Astrologers all read charts differently, but I prefer to immerse myself in the psychology of the Houses and what needs each represents as a way of exploring personal desire and the physical manifestation of these. To learn the most about astrology, look to your own chart; walk around your own wheel and see how the planets and signs in your chart show up with you through the space they take up in your life.