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Houses

Okay, so you’ve learned what planets in astrology represent and now you want to know more, relatable (and if you haven’t learned what the planets symbolize i’ll link it here.) So now, what are the houses? The houses are found through a mathematical system used to divide the zodiac into segments. There are many astrological housing systems but today we’re discussing the Placidus housing system which divides the zodiac into 12 individual “houses.” We read the houses in a counterclockwise motion, going from first to twelfth. Remember houses are time and place sensitive.

Here we go:

Our First House

Here is where the zodiac starts, where everything begins. Naturally ruled by the sign of Aries, who in turn is ruled by Mars. These are the energies that influence this house. Our first house can be characterized as simply, “me.” It’s your physical body, your appearance, how you meet people for the first time, your first reaction to any outward situation. It’s your personality on a surface level. The “mask” you wear in public. This house is where we find the “Ruler of our Chart,” your ascendant, the sign on the cusp of your first house, sometimes abbreviated as ASC/AC. This sign will greatly influence our personality and physical attributes along with any planets that fall into this house. This house is what we project out into the public, so planets in this house will be projected outwards. 

Our Second House

This Venusian house is ruled by Taurus. This is a very earthy house so it covers things that are material and tangible. It rules over our five senses: taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound. Material things we find pleasure in. What makes us feel comfortable, whether it’s a cozy blanket or a new pair of Louboutin heels. This house is our money. How we make our money. What we value. Our own personal self esteem, how we value ourselves. This house reflects our outlook on wealth and how materialistic we are. Planets in the 2nd house will impact our material belongings, income, and our immediate surroundings. This house also rules the vocal chords/throat so it’s also how we sound when we speak, maybe even if we can sing. Do we have any hidden talents? Do you find yourself yearning for a flashy car or are you content with your 2001 Camry that gets you from point A to point B? These can be answered by our second house. How much we indulge in material things as well as how often we treat ourselves. 

Our Third House

This house has a knack for chatting. Mercury’s home under the sign of Gemini, I give you the Third house! The third house is rules over our communication, our “lower mind.’’ The third house is how we learn, our day to day thought processes. Here we find how we connect to the world around us on a personal level. This house includes our relationship with our siblings, how we interact with our neighbors, how we travel on a smaller scale, for example a road trip or going to school. This houses covers electronics and all our gadgets, our internet use. This is how we think, our intellect. Are you a gossip? How strong is your focus? Do you jump around from topic to topic? This is indicated through our third house and it’s sign. How quiet and reserved one is, is reflected here. Whether or not our brain to mouth filter functions is found in this house. The third house shows us whether we were the one to blurt out an answer in class or silently keep it to ourselves due to our lack of confidence in our personal knowledge. Here is how where we find how we feel about learning. 

Our Fourth House

The natural home of the moon, ruled by Cancer. This house can be characterized as the center of our being, where our soul feels at rest and comfortable. The sign on the cusp of our fourth house is called our Imum Coeli, or “IC” for short. This is the lowest point of our chart, the foundation, where we came from. The IC is where we find our “astrological DNA,” our roots and connections to our ancestors. Our IC is considered by some astrologers where we reincarnated from and what lessons we brought to this life to learn through the most intimate of settings, our home and family. The IC is a very tender part of the soul and the sign on this point is extremely important and personal to us. Planets in this house intensify the effects of this house especially if they form aspects (conjunctions, oppositions, squares, etc.) to our IC. The fourth house is where we find our security, or lack thereof. This where we feel the most safe to be our real selves. The fourth house is our childhood, the setting and characteristics of the home life. Our parents, our mother in particular. Did we grow up in a stable home? Maybe your home was always nicely decorated. Did you have to make sure you took your shoes off at the door before entering? These attributes can all be found by the sign on the cusp of your fourth house as well as planets within the house.

Our 5th House

Now this, this is a fun house. Naturally ruled by Leo who’s ruled by the Sun himself, this house shines bright. Here is where we come into contact with our creativity. Where we are most alive. This is how we play around. How we express ourselves in a confident, light-hearted manner. The home of the arts, ranging from theater, to painting, or even fashion design. This is where we are most childlike, after all this is the house of children. This is the house of the heart, the house of romance. Where love is sweet an fun, casual flings you remember with warmth. This is the house of that one summer you spent at the lake house ;)….if you know what I mean. Here is where we find casual sex and relationships. This is the house of baby-making, starting a family. This house is an outlet to express all of our passions in a creative light. Here we are shown how much we let loose or if we can’t. How we handle criticism from outside forces is also highlighted here. “This is a happy house.” “We’re happy here.”

Our 6th House

Mercury returns, the sixth house is ruled by Virgo, the sign of service. Here we find our daily routines. Wake up, brush your teeth, shower, make your breakfast of waffles and exactly two strips of bacon on the side, yeah..that house. This is the house of health and diet. How prone we are to illness, the strength of our immune system, the sixth house has got you covered! Are you “up in the gym just working on your fitness?” Let the Instagram fitness gurus say amen! This is that house. This our personal hygiene and how cleanly we are. Our skills. How we handle work. How good we are at our job. How we serve others. This is an important house to look at as planets that fall in here can effect your health and work ethic!

Our 7th House

So you’ve been shot by Cupid’s arrow? Well this is where we lock the relationship down, and uh, put a ring on it. This house is where we make long term commitments, business relationships, even friendships, and yes, marriage too. This is where our 5th house casual fling goes from the “what are we talk” to the “let’s make it official,” conversation. This house is ruled by Libra, who is governed by Venus. This house is about peace and harmony, two things needed for a successful relationship of any kind. This is how we relate to people close to us, using the sign on the descendant. The descendant is our seventh house cusp, it’s directly opposite of the ascendant, it’s who and what we are attracted to in relationships. Since this is the opposite of our ascendant, this is another house of projection; however, this is the what the world projects back to us, it’s like a mirror, we are what we attract we just don’t see it, others do. 

Our 8th House

Ruled by Scorpio, here is where we delve beneath the surface straight into Pluto’s underworld. This house is the threshold between life and death. Where life starts and where it ends. This is a house of healing. But for something to heal here it has to die and be reborn, transformed, as something completely new. Nothing leaves this house the same as it went in, so this highlights where we are transformed in life. How we handle and see death as well as how we handle and see life. This house governs sex, in it’s truest, rawest form. This is sex on a deeper, psychological level where we are literally fusing ourselves with someone else. This house is the house of obsession, manipulation, and jealousy. There’s no yellow brick road here. This is also where we find how we deal with power and control, are we power hungry, controlling? This house rules over mystery, crime, and investigation. This house is why for whatever reason we find ourselves fascinated with studying serial killers or watching American Horror Story. This house is occultic studies, uncovering the real truths about the world. In contrast to its opposite, the second house, the eighth house rules over other people’s money. Your joint bank account with your spouse, or being written into your parent’s will. Are you a sugar baby? How do you pay your taxes? Did you inherit a large sum of money? The eighth will likely answer those questions. The eighth house can also allude to many spiritual gifts, especially for those with planets inside the 8th. These people can have a special ability to see into the spiritual realm through clairvoyance, or even become a medium between the two worlds. 

Our 9th House

Welcome to the house of “higher knowledge” ruled by Sagittarius who is governed by Jupiter. Here lies our philosophies, our belief systems, our religions. The 9th house is the direct opposite of the 3rd house which focuses on learning on more simpler terms, the ninth house is more scholarly. This house rules over travel on a larger scale, traveling over seas to foreign countries. Adventure. This is the house of our dreams and wisdom. Our knowledge at its highest point, where we learn and understand the world. Learning in the abstract, while the third is house is learning the basic fundamentals. The third house is where we develop our writing style and skills, whereas the ninth house is where we write and publish a book. Get it? Do you love to travel, or are you afraid of planes? Are you always trying cuisine from various cultures? Have you always wanted to be a teacher, professor, or priest? Maybe you dream about life where you can just jump on a plane and see the world. These traits are connected to the ninth house and planets that fall into it.

Our 10th House

We’ve reached the highest point of our chart, the Midheaven, or “MC” for short, which is the cusp of the tenth house. It’s the direct opposite of our Imum Coeli (IC,) which is our fourth house cusp, where our soul came from, the MC is where our soul is going. It can be characterized as our “destiny.” What our soul feels the most happy doing for work. The MC can show where our best career choice would be, this is another area where we project ourselves however it’s projection on a larger scale rather than the one-on-one projection from our ascendant. The MC is how we project ourselves to society as as a whole, how we are seen by authority figures. The tenth house is ruled by Capricorn, who in turn is ruled by Saturn. This house isn’t about the tangible portion of success (2nd house) but more so the status and praise that comes with it. Saturn is the Father, so in the house we see our masculine parent’s energy here. Maybe they push you to work hard, they set the rules. The tenth house is how you respond to authority and rules. Planets here will influence that. This house is your public reputation, whether or not you will have a “good” or “bad” one, but that’s subjective. This is your career, the job you dedicate your life to. This is a very public house.

Our 11th House

“Friends, How many of us have them?” The Eleventh house is ruled by Aquarius, governed by Uranus. This is where we find our friends and how we act in social groups. Are we someone who likes to have a lot of friends around, or maybe has stuck with the same two buddies from high school? This house houses our ambitions, our biggest dreams and wishes for ourselves. Our humanitarian side. Maybe you like to help the poor. Maybe you’re more reserved when it comes to making friends. The Eleventh house will definitely have something to say. Here is where we are liberated, and go against the grain, here we are individualists. This house is eccentric, scientific, and everything progressive. This house is the New Age. Planets in this house will impact how we relate to others in a social circle, how we impact our friends and vice versa. 

Our 12th House

We’ve come full circle, and reached the end. The twelfth house is ruled by Pisces who is also ruled by Neptune, which makes for a very hazy house. This is the hidden house, the house of things that don’t see the light of day. It’s our unconscious being, the us that exists outside from our tangible reality. This house is where we escape the real world, and isolate ourselves. This house holds our Karmic baggage, the karmic debts that must be paid. Sometimes this house is where we feel most confined, after all it does rules over prisons, mental asylums, and hospitals. But there’s power in this house, this house is where find our true selves, stripped away from the outside world. This house is highly spiritual and can also point to spiritual gifts like the eighth house. The twelfth house is where our soul transforms. Planets in the the twelfth house make for a very private person, sometimes this road can get very lonely, and it can feel that you have to try ten times harder to complete tasks and get to where you want in life more so then others. It’s okay. You’ll get there, it’s not about how long it takes you to complete something, it’s about completing it. You got out of bed today, that’s something to congratulate yourself for twelfth house planet people because sometimes even that isn’t always easy. Planets in the twelfth can sometimes feel harder to reach, because these things are hidden deep in our subconscious but it doesn’t mean they are inaccessible. You have to delve deeper and learn yourself better in order to pull these hidden strengths out of you. I recommend meditation for anyone with a strong twelfth house. The twelfth also rules over hidden enemies while the seventh house rules over open ones.

The astrological houses blend together to create an in depth image of ourselves and the potential energies of our lives. It’s an essential tool to assist in self-awareness and growth. 

“Wait, so i’m not just an Aries?!”

No, you’re not. In fact none of us are just one anything. So let’s dial it back to day we were born. The stars and planets in the sky aligned to convey a story completely unique to you, and thus your natal chart was born!

   Our Sun sign

“Playboi, what’s a Sun Sign?”

Well, the Sun Sign is the sign everyone typically knows about themselves. It’s the sign you were born under that immediately correlates with your birthday. Meaning, “I was born in April so I’m a Taurus!” Your sun sign is the sign the Sun was in on the day of your birth. So what does the sun represent in astrology? Our vitality and ego, “who we are.” The thing about the Sun is we’re constantly growing into ourselves and our egos, constantly learning ourselves and strengths, so we’re constantly growing into our Suns. Many people write off astrology due to their inability to relate to their Sun signs when so much more goes into a person. Your Sun sign is less “who i am” and more so “who i’m becoming.” And sometimes we never fully become the poster child of our Sun signs because we grow at different rates and resonate with different things, not to mention the housing of the Sun plays a heavy role in how our “egos” will play out. Also aspects made to our Sun by other planets are most important as they shape our Sun’s characteristics, but that’s another post!

Our Moon Sign

“…okay, so I understand Sun Signs now, but what’s a moon sign?”

The moon sign in astrology is of immense importance. This is where we feel most comfortable and secure and our primal emotional reactions. As I mentioned previously, the sun is “who we’re becoming’’ while the moon can be defined as “who we always are.” Unlike the Sun who illuminates everything, the moon is a softer, dimmer light. It lights up the dark sky at night and it does the same for our personal dark sky emotionally. Simply put, the moon is our emotions. Emotions can be simply irrational and erratic, so we suppress them because throwing a hissy fit in public is not that endearing. My point being that our moons can sometimes be overlooked by others as well as our selves because the attributes of our moons are highly subconscious at times.The moon is how we were nourished, and in turn how we nourish others. It’s an extremely sentimental and personal part of our being.It’s what makes us feel safe as well as habitual patterns we carry. A balanced moon is very important as an unbalanced one can take a toll on us physically. When the needs our moon requires aren’t met, we can start to display it’s negative attributes and fall into a bit of a depression, eat less, and never leave your bed. Or perhaps become more aggressive and angry depending on your moon sign. It’s also equally important to understand that others around us have different moon placements then us natally. Everyone requires different things to feel emotionally secure, sometimes we’re harder on others because their love languages differ from our own.

   Our Mercury Sign

“What does Mercury have to do with anything?”

Well, everything. Mercury rules over the mind, how we think, how fast we think, how we learn, our speech, and even our style of writing. He’s the fastest moving planet in the solar system so it’s fitting that he rules the nervous system. The poor guy gets glossed over a lot until he turns retrograde and everyone starts running around like chickens missing their heads because that’s when we notice most how strong Mercury’s influence is on our lives. Mercury is not an emotional planet but more so an intellectual one. It’s how we asses things and use logic before we act, if we use logic before we act.

Our Venus Sign

“I KNOW THIS ONE…LOVE RIGHT?”

You’ve guessed it, Venus rules over romance but a lot more as well. She’s our social graces, if we have any social graces at all. How we charm others as well as what we personally find pleasurable. Venus rules over our attitude towards money and material things. How much we spend and how often we treat ourselves. What we like to eat, what tastes good, what feels good. Venus is also our attractiveness, and what we’re attracted to. She gives us a clue to our love language on a more superficial level, what it takes to woo us. How we like to be seduced and pursued. Venus is diplomatic, she shows us how we make peace with others. Venus also rules over artistry and how appreciate the arts and even the possibility of having artistic gifts as well. Venus also highlights our sexual nature in terms of what we find pleasurable, what feels right, and what we find acceptable.

Our Mars Sign

“Mars is our…anger?”

He can be, yes. After all he is the God of War. Mars in astrology represents energy. Our physical energy and vitality, and especially our sexual energy. He’s all about action, what it physically takes us to do…well, anything. He’s our day to day strength and drive. He exemplifies how aggressive and assertive we are. Our ambitions, durability, temperament, action, and drive. Do we exercise? How sexual are we? Our sexual style? Our competitiveness? All can be answered by our mars sign. Mars showcases how quick we are to anger, what makes us tick/explode. He’s also the last of the personal planets.

Our Jupiter Sign

“……”

Jupiter is the first non personal planet as it stays in the same for an entire year. Everyone born within that year will have the same Jupiter sign. That doesn’t negate Jupiter’s importance in anyway, so don’t skim over him. It just means we have take a closer look at him in our natal chart by examining his house placement and aspects made towards him by other planets. Jupiter rules over good fortune, philosophy, travel, and higher level learning (different from mercury.) He is expansive and optimistic. He’s a grand catalyst to spiritual growth. He’s where we overindulge, our generosity, and wisdom.

Our Saturn Sign

“So what does Saturn do?”

Saturn is like our astrological father. He sets the rules and regulations, the routine. And like when we disobey our paternal father there’s consequences the same applies for Saturn. Saturn is not out to punish anyone, he just returns anything we put out into the universe. “What goes around comes around.” Sound familiar? Saturn rules over Karma. Saturn in our chart shows us where he grounds us, where we must be held responsible, where we must work hard. Our careers, the practicality of how we achieve success.

Our Uranus Sign

“and Uranus?”

Uranus is a much slower moving planet. His energy is very erratic, spontaneous, and rebellious. He’s extremely progressive and an advocate for originality. Uranus has to be looked at by house placement to determine its effects on us individually, as people from the same generation will share the same Uranus sign. Uranus in our charts will show us where we are unpredictable and rebellious. How and where we go against the grain. Our humanitarian side. How interested in activism we are, where we are liberated ourselves.

Our Neptune Sign

“that Sea God?”

Indeed. Neptune is the God of the Sea. In astrology Neptune rules over spirituality, all things hazy, confusion, love and romance on a deeper, ethereal level. He is illusions and our dreams. Intuition and psychic abilities. Neptune has dominion over deeper creativity and artistic abilities. He also shows us where we might try to escape reality and what we may try to use to escape reality with. He is addiction, substance abuse, and deception. Our fantasies. 

Our Pluto Sign

“isn’t Pluto like not even a planet anymore?”

Yes, technically Pluto is a planetoid, but we still refer to Pluto as a planet in astrology so he will be respected as such! Despite his small size and the grand amount of distance he is from us his effects are undeniable.Pluto in our charts shows us where we are transformed and regenerated. Where we must die to be born again. His energy is very subconscious, we don’t always see it, but we feel it.  He is obsession, and our hunger for power, where we struggle for power. He is how we react to sex on a deeper, subconscious level. Where and what we become drawn and attached to. His energy is very primal. He also highlights where we’re manipulative or jealous if we’re displaying the negative attributes of Pluto. 

Our Ascendant Sign

“our…what sign?”

Our Ascendant sign is crowned the ruler of our chart, and is of equal importance as our Sun and Moon signs. It’s specific to our birth time and location. The Ascendant is like the mask we put on to face the world. It’s our initial reaction to external forces. The lens we see life through on a day to day basis. Our ascendant is our physical bodies, how we look and how we act in public. It’s how people initially receive you, our first impressions, our mannerisms. Our outer personality. If people were to describe you they’d likely describe this sign.

So, as you can see a lot goes into a persons personality even more than what’s been mentioned above, humans are complex beings who can’t be described as just one sign, or one anything. We are more than our sun signs, we are more than signs period.