The Houses by Dana Gerhardt

The First House
by Dana Gerhardt
There are houses on the coast built right to the cliffs, with breath-taking views of sea and sky. What would life be like
being born into such a home? Or how different might one’s perspective be, starting out in the desperate tangle of a
South Bronx tenement, or a bleak stretch of the Australian outback? As in life, in astrology, one’s birthplace has a
shaping power. When you’re born arranges the planets into signs and degrees. Where you’re born drops them into
particular houses. It assigns you an altogether different celestial citizenship than someone born at the same moment
in another part of the world.
Location counts. And it makes its strongest statement in the 1st house of your chart. If you could have stepped to the
hospital window when you were born and scanned the skies on the Eastern horizon, you might have seen the cluster
of stars and space that marked your Ascendant, or 1st house cusp. The 1st house suggests your overall vitality, your
height, your weight, the shape of your jaw, the expectations you have of beginnings, how you interact with others, your
overall approach to life. Some say it’s the house most descriptive of personality. John Frawley in The Real Astrology
Applied calls the 1st house “the title-page of the chart,” with all the other houses expanding and amplifying its text.1
How does one’s birth environment translate to all of this?
It's holistic. Imagine that you began life in a box. As you grew, your body might adapt to its shape, becoming stooped
or squared. You’d probably like to hold on to things, and meeting others, you’d be closed and secretive. Likely you’d
enjoy working in the dark. The Ascendant is a symbolic description of the psychic container you first entered, when
you left the womb for this world, and with your initial gasping breaths realized, “I’ve landed somewhere new.” The 1st
house holds first impressions -- the ones you make on the world, and the ones the world makes on you.
More than country, town, or street, family may be the strongest environmental pressure. As a child, your family is your
world. The psychological school of astrology reads the rising sign as the role one plays in this first environment.
Family systems theory argues that each child inevitably adopts a unique position in the family system, driven less by
the child’s true nature, than by the needs of the whole. Family dynamics might require the first-born become its hero,
the third-born its scapegoat. Cancer rising may need to be the family caretaker; Virgo, its goody two shoes; Pisces, its
lost child; Sagittarius, its clown.
Eventually children leave their families for more spacious environments, with new possibilities and pressures. Their
initial web expands, but its center remains the same. The 1st house role is an enduring location. No matter where you
go, it conditions what you see and how you instinctively respond.
This is useful information to have about people. If I think the world is hard like rock and everybody ought to climb, and
you think the world is fluid like water and everybody ought to swim, what's going on when I tell you that your problem
is you aren't ambitious enough, or you tell me that I'd be happier if I would just go with the flow? Do you think we're
really "communicating"?
The Houses by Dana Gerhardt.docx 1

My mother and her sister haven’t spoken to each other in years. The particular coal that sparked this fight has since
faded and cooled, so that now, when one talks about the other, their pools of childhood memories are stirred for
grievances. When they speak I swear they're talking about strangers instead of the women I know. Says my mom of
her Scorpio rising sister, the aunt I've always known to be sensitive, tenacious, and perceptive, "My sister was cruel.
She never wanted me to have anything or be happy." Says my aunt of her Capricorn-rising sister, the mom I’ve often
heard lament her lonely, latch-key childhood—“Your mother was spoiled rotten. Always the center of attention, got
everything she wanted."
Do you think they share the same reality? They came from the same family, but born seven years apart, along
different horizon lines, they were spun into the family on different webs, growing up in vastly different worlds.
Not only is Capricorn rising in my mother's chart, her 1st house holds Saturn in Aquarius. With Saturn in Aquarius one
can suffer a fear of insignificance, of not being noticed, of disappearing into the crowd. My mom was conceived late in
her mother's life. For months my grandmother thought she had a tumor, not a baby growing in her womb! It's not really
Saturn's fault that my mother is so short, over a foot shorter than either her brother or sister, but it's certainly part of
my mother's metaphysical gestalt. A psychic once named my mother's life mission as "to stand up and be counted."
It's a phrase my mom often repeats.
My mother grew up in a 1st house Saturn/Capricorn world, full of adults and loneliness. Being sensitive to the
Depression years of her childhood further refined her Capricorn lenses. Though ambitious and quite successful, my
mom still fears not having enough. She’s forever strategizing about how to earn money beyond the retirement she
kept postponing, worried she’d become a bag lady wheeling a shopping cart through the town. She still has goals,
keeps making plans and lists. And all this, good and bad, filters into her daughters' charts as a kind of astrological
inheritance: as a Moon/Saturn square in my chart and a Capricorn Moon in my sister's.
The year I gave birth to my son, my solar return mirrored my mom's 1st house, with Capricorn rising and a Saturn in
Aquarius. It was as though I walked in my mother’s shoes that year; I found I could empathize with her more deeply
than before. Being a new mom and sharing her natal 1st house brought a poignant, bittersweet experience of seeing
the world through her eyes.
Years ago I attended a party full of astrologers. The talk had turned to rising signs. "He’s a Scorpio rising, so you
better watch your back... Well, of course, she's got Leo on the Ascendant, always the drama queen..." Generalizations
like this are the bread and butter of astrology, but they make me queasy. Along with intelligence, empathy, and a
certain technical expertise, a good astrologer must see people as people, and endeavor to find the person in the chart.
Individuals are reduced, labeled, and treated like objects most everywhere they go, but in an astrologer’s office, they
should be seen in their fullness, as alive, complicated, gifted, and whole. The Ascendant suggests the key to working
this way.
The rising sign is one of the most tender doorways into an individual's psyche. This was where, as a child, they were
all wax and impressionable, where they first discovered the need for a mask, and so constructed one. The next time
you read a chart, try starting by entering its 1st house depths.
Immerse yourself in its elemental basis, water if it’s in Scorpio, fire if it’s in Leo. Imagine being a child enveloped by
this element. Invite your intuitive mind to tell you a story from this person’s past. What might have wounded them?
What made them feel safe? How were they encouraged? Stay with your imagining until that person’s Ascendant mask
begins to replace your own. Grow them up again. What does the world now look like from their eyes? Look across to
their 7th house of partnership. What sort of people do they meet? How do the career challenges of their 10th house
feel from this vantage? Once you’ve fully experienced the chart from its 1st house point of view, you’ll be able to honor
the person in the chart with more gifted sensitivity.
Some astrologers believe the Ascendant offers a truer, more intimate portrait of an individual than the Sun sign. Sun
signs are the same for everyone born within a 30-day period--while Ascendants differentiate within this group, being
more precisely tied to each one’s birth moment. In the Sun-versus-Ascendant argument, I'm more inclined to agree
with Howard Sasportas, that our Ascendants lead us toward the identities promised by our Suns. “The Ascendant may
be the way we hatch but what we grow into is the Sun sign. … The Sun is why we are here; the Ascendant is how we
get there.”2
The 1st house represents the starting point on the path to self-discovery. It’s a comfortable, but early identity. Like a
well-worn coat, and much like the South Node, it's a cache of mental habits and survival mechanisms that got you
going in life, but can eventually hold you back. I’ve noticed that the people who seem most frustrated in fulfilling their
destiny are often invisibly bound by the web of their 1st house. I'm thinking in particular of a Gemini friend, who puts
Gemini activities--social interaction and the discussion of new ideas--at the top of his list of life's most meaningful
activities. And yet, his Scorpio rising persona inhibits him from mixing in social gatherings. He'll stand silently to the
side and watch, protected. We've attended a number of workshops together (the Gemini in him wouldn't miss it), yet
invariably, at the first break I'll find him in the defenses of Scorpio. He is angry and distrustful. "The speaker is too
charismatic and false. He’s manipulating the audience," he scowls.
Then there’s Paul. He called me from his car phone; his words kept fading in and out. "I saw your picture and felt you
could help me, I'm used to getting psychic impressions of people ... now I need focus ... goals ... I don't know ... I'm at
a crossroads ... my relationship just ended ... maybe I'd like to develop my skills as a healer ... I'm also into the arts."I
t's not my habit to guess someone's chart from their conversation (the game's much richer the other way around), but
when I saw Paul’s chart I wasn’t at all surprised. Paul spoke straight from his Neptune in Libra Ascendant.
Before Paul's session, I thought about his chart and what he wanted from the reading. Should you give a Neptune
rising "focus" and goals? Can you? Or could you sooner move the heavens and put Pluto or Saturn there instead? I
entered his Ascendant. I saw fog. I meditated on fog. Can you focus on the distance while traveling through fog? Do
you see the destination ahead of you? No. You can see the hand in front of your face and that's about it. When you're
driving through fog you must go slowly, alert to what's near rather than what's far. You must use an almost sixth sense
of trust to feel what exists in the shrouds. If I were to be of much help at his present crossroads, it was this skill that I
needed to raise for Paul.

I found Paul to be an intelligent, creative, compassionate man. As he spoke about growing up in his family, I
understood why the boy Paul had to draw on the chameleon-like ability of his Libra Neptune mask to balance and
blend in. To survive, he became whatever anyone needed him to be. The cost, of course, was that the authentic,
creative and passionate Paul, the Paul of his Sun Pluto conjunction, had to check out. And each time he dissociated
from his present reality, his desired future slipped further away.
Paul wanted to talk about options --- going back to school, or apprenticing with a master, perhaps relocating to a
different part of the country. I wanted to talk about his present. I asked him, if he focused on where he was, making his
choices from his present feelings, did he trust he would reach the place he'd always wanted to reach, whether it was
going to school or making art, in this part of the country or elsewhere? His voice came a bit more deeply into his body:
“Yes... When I can quiet my mind… I know this is true.” For the rest of the reading we talked about his relationship, the
one that had just ended. Even Paul could sense through his pain that this was best, for both of them. His chart
agreed.
Two weeks later I got another call from Paul's cell phone. His voice was softer, fading in and out again. He'd just
called his old girlfriend, who was already living with another man. He'd begged her to take a vacation with him, to that
magical place where they'd first fallen in love. "She said she'd call me back ... she was confused ... she didn't want to
hurt me ... she didn't know what to do." Paul had lost his way in the fog again. He'd slipped out of his present feelings
(the agony of his loneliness) and into the faraway fantasies of his Neptune mask.
This brings us to the crucial 1st house question: How do we keep this early container from becoming our prison? The
Jungian psychologist James Hillman once said, “You have to give up the life you have to get to the life that’s waiting
for you.”3 This was the secret message coded in the stars on the Eastern horizon at your birth. Newly born, you’d just
proven the truth of it: you had to relinquish the womb in order to reach the new life awaiting you. This is a natural law
of development. Understanding this is the key to mastery of your 1st house.
Writing about the 1st house, astrologer Dane Rudhyar stresses the need to separate yourself from its early influences,
the personal, social and cultural conditioning that mothered you.4 The work of the 1st house is to keep birthing
yourself, which means to keep separating, to keep honoring what’s different about you. Your “difference,” says
Rudhyar, is not the same as a self-involved burden of alienation (“Nobody understands me”). Rather it’s about
accepting the gift of being distinct. On a deeply spiritual level we may recognize we’re all one, interconnected and
interdependent. Yet it’s also true that the whole does its most productive and creative work through individuals. When
you embrace your individuality, you come closer to fulfilling your destiny. You gain access to more inner resources.
You become more authentically formed.
The sign on your Ascendant isn’t the goal of individuation, it’s rather the means. It’s less the authentic person and
more the persona, the style through which you express your spirit in the world. This image is more properly a work-in-
progress, a becoming that continues throughout your life. See your Ascendant as a flexible, elastic covering, that can
stretch and reshape as you grow. Imagine for a moment that your 1st house, its sign and planets, are a mask you can
take off and study. Put it on the table in front of you. What does it look like? What expression does it wear? How might
a person wearing such a mask maneuver through the world?

Notice this mask is made of pliable material. How might you alter its expression? Without tearing the whole thing apart
and installing a different rising sign, how would you redesign this persona so it could get you more of what you want?
Pick the best qualities from the sign, its ruler, and any planets in your 1st and decorate your mask anew. How different
does it look from the mask you first put on the table? Does it more successfully express what’s distinct about you?
Consciously or unconsciously, this is the work you’re doing when progressed and transiting planets cross into your 1st
house. Celestial logic requires these planets transit the 12th house first. This is the house of endings. During 12th
house transits, the old approach unravels. You’re emptying out, so that you can inhale fresh spirit and recreate your
mask, when this transit moves into 1st house.
I learned astrology using the contemporary “alphabet” system, which teaches that Aries, Mars and the 1st house are
the same astrological letter. This makes Mars the natural ruler of the 1st house. Its spontaneous, impulsive, energetic,
and assertive energy suits the feeling we can have when a transiting planet enters our 1st house. We’re urged by
modern texts to take initiative and put ourselves out there, cook up new opportunities, go after what we want. It was
initially disorienting then, when I learned that traditional astrology makes Saturn the 1st house ruler. But as John
Frawley points out, Saturn rules doors and boundaries, and there may be no stronger boundary than the Ascendant in
defining what’s alive from what is not.5
Mars may suit our 1st house urge to begin, but Saturn describes its essential task. Saturn rules form. And during 1st
house transits we are reforming – both ourselves and the world we see. Saturn rules both separations and society –
the two forces that collide—or collude—in this house. We meet the world here, and under its pressure, we discover
our difference. Traditional astrologers also give Mercury special dignity in this house. It “joys” here, understandably,
because as we redefine ourselves in the 1st house, we also recharacterize our surroundings. We do Mercury things:
we name what we see, we tell stories.
During 1st house transits we get a chance to reinvent our self-image and retool our perceptions of the environment.
Recently I spoke with Julie. The Sun was transiting through her 1st house. Though astrologers don’t often talk about
solar transits, I’ve found the Sun’s annual circuit through the chart to be quite profound. It names our personal
seasons, the months where each house’s work becomes important. Julie knew very little about astrology, but when I
explained what the Sun in the 1st house meant, Julie laughed in recognition. “So that’s why!”
As a child Julie had crooked teeth. This imperfection made her feel insecure, wary of smiling or laughing too loud.
Perhaps it was from having no money or perhaps it was indifference, but her mother never took her to an orthodontist.
“My mom always said I looked fine, but I knew otherwise." This year, when the Sun entered Julie’s 1st house, this 45-
year-old woman made the appointment herself. She was finally going to have her teeth corrected. This physical
change hailed a separation from her past, and a birth into a brighter, more confident persona. May you make good
use of your 1st house transits too!

Notes:
1. John Frawley, The Real Astrology Applied, (London: Apprentice Books, 2002), p. 154.
2. Howard Sasportas, The Twelve Houses (Wellingborough, Great Britain: The Aquarian Press, 1985), p. 40.
3. Quoted from Sacred Contracts by Carolyn Myss (New York: Harmony Books, 2001), p. 2.>
4. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (New York: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 58-59.
5. John Frawley, op cit. 152

The Second House
by Dana Gerhardt
Like a mischievous boy releasing a mouse in a roomful of cheerleaders, try dropping the subject of money into a
gathering of metaphysical people. Watch how many scramble for the tabletops. When you're discussing the 2nd
house, you have to talk money. Yet in most spiritual circles, money is a dirty word. Craving dollars is an affront to spirit
and decidedly uncool (except of course, for those spiritual teachers whose hands are always open for donations). Nor
is astrology exempt. More than once I've heard that charging for readings is blasphemous, since astrology is a “gift”
(this might explain the profession's drive to prove that it's a “science”). New Agers, on the other hand, like money.
They'll recite affirmations and magic mantras to get more of it. If you don't have enough, they argue, it's a sign that
your thoughts are uncool.
Whether money is dirty or evil--or spirit-inspired--or as is more likely the case, energetic but neutral, “How do I get
more of it?” is one of the top three questions on most clients' minds. Frequently it's followed by the lament, “If only I
didn't have to make money!” What a tragedy the world expects us to be house painters, insurance salesmen and loan
officers, when our souls cry for grander personas, to be artists, philosophers, adventurers. Having to make money
seems a wretched detour. I've heard it said that God needs more dishwashers than kings, but why then, wouldn't God
plant in us a burning desire to wash dishes instead? This dilemma is especially acute for the Pluto in Leo generation,
whose dream of creative self-expression is so keen—despite being raised by Pluto in Cancer parents, for whom
money, the security of it, the status of it, was the greater prize.
Aside from love relationships, little provokes so much longing, anxiety, resentment, or confusion. Astrology locates
one's financial status, along with the attitudes and conditions that help or hinder it, in the 2nd house. If you want to
unravel your own money mysteries, it's through this house you must travel. What you encounter there, however, will
hold the key to far more than just your bank account.
In Sacred Contracts, medical intuitive Caroline Myss identifies the energetic ground of the 2nd house. (1) Though
Myss is not an astrologer, she has a keen grasp of archetypal energies. To diagnose the condition of your 2nd house,
she suggests looking at an area of life where you feel continually disempowered. Though this conflict may surface in
areas associated with other houses--your relationships (7th) or your career (10th)—your disempowered approach, she
suggests, will likely source from the negative attitudes in your 2nd house. In other words, the key to your power in the
world—or the lack of it—lies here.
The 2nd is a “succedent” house. This means it succeeds or follows an important house on the angle. The angular
houses (1,4,7 and 10) are, as John Frawley writes, the “structural key to the chart, like the main beams in a roof.” (2)
Planets in angular houses are stronger, have more power to act. They define the pillars of your life: your personality,
your home and family, your relationships, your career. A planet transiting through an angular house will often bring
more dramatic changes than the same planet transiting another house. Angular transits can initiate a theme that
survives long after the transit has passed.
This doesn't mean succedent houses are less important. Rather, their significance is bound up with the house that

came before. Succedent houses play a necessarily supportive role. They're meant to stabilize whatever the angular
house has launched. The succedent 5th, for example, rules children, romance and creativity-—but together they have
a job to do. As activities, they further encourage the self-essence nurtured by home and family in the angular 4th.
Likewise, the deepening intimacies, financial and sexual, of the succedent 8th test and/or strengthen the partnerships
forged in the 7th. Similarly, social networks in the 11th can affirm or undermine the professional status developed in
the angular 10th.
The role of the 2nd house, therefore, is to support whatever entity was birthed in the 1st. A vigorous 2nd house not
only ensures your survival, it can make you a force to contend with. If you were a nation, for example, your 2nd house
would describe your national assets, your banking system, the health of your exports and crops. If you were a country
declaring war, in the war chart's 2nd house you'd find your allies, your ammo and your guns. Similarly, if you were a
plaintiff in a lawsuit, the lawsuit chart's 2nd house would show the people testifying on your behalf. A strong 2nd
house can make the difference between winning and losing.
The 1st house shows your emergence into life and the 2nd shows what keeps you here. It holds everything you can
call “mine.” Through the 2nd you extend into the world and ground your being. As a baby, this begins with
acknowledging your very own fingers and toes, the food you possess with your mouth, the teddy bear that no one can
sleep with but you. As you grow, you must continue the process of grounding, which keeps deepening your 1st house
process of self-discovery. You keep learning about who you are through the things you want to own, the resources
you have to use, the value you place on yourself.
The 2nd rules both what money can buy (possessions and material resources) and what it can't buy (talents, self-
esteem, and values). If you're unhappy in your career, the work you're doing may not utilize your natural talents--
described by the collection of sign and planets in and ruling your 2nd house. Moon in or ruling the 2nd, for example,
suggests strong intuitive resources, emotional sensitivity, a desire to nurture. Unless this Moon is in Capricorn, Virgo,
or Taurus, a career as an accountant might be torture. Maybe you like what you're doing but it doesn't pay enough.
Why does your co-worker march into the boss' office and demand a raise when you couldn't do it if your life depended
on it? He's got an assertive Mercury/Mars conjunction in the 2nd while you have a self-defeating Sun squared by
Pluto.
Your 2nd house ground must be worked. You have to transform what you find there. As an infant, this house was a
veritable Garden of Eden. Everything you needed—toes, food, and teddy bears--was magically supplied. Yet as you
grew, you learned that gardens must be maintained. Vines need pruning, fruit trees must be planted, flowers have to
be fertilized. Earth is a paradise, but it's also full of reality. Pests can destroy your garden, predators can steal your
crops. If you don't learn how to increase your garden's yield, your needs won't be met, your desires can't be satisfied.
If you wait for manna to drop from the heavens, you'll starve.
In other words, you have to get real in this house. You must learn how to use, protect, and manage its resources, or
you'll suffer a fall from grace. Anyone who has a problem with money is just plain naive about that.

John is forty-nine years old. He has no savings to speak of and plenty of debt. For much of his adult life John has
struggled to hold various minimum wage jobs. For the past ten years he's lived off his girlfriend's income. Benefic
Jupiter in diligent Virgo rules his 2nd house cusp. John is a gifted artist and craftsman. His mosaic jewelry designs are
truly inspired. “They're like paintings in stone,” a friend once enthused. Yet John produces his jewelry infrequently.
Even during his prolific times, he's been unable to support himself. Talking with John, I learned that his father, a
carpenter and set designer for the Hollywood studios, had repeatedly warned his son not to work with his hands.
Resenting his blue collar life, his father concluded that if you work with your hands, you won't make any money. The
artist in John's 2nd house lay pinned and wriggling under this heavy pronouncement.
John's 2nd house ruler Jupiter is itself ruled by the planet of hands and craftsmanship, Mercury. Both these planets
are in a tight hard aspect to Pluto. One is generally powerless to use planets in difficult aspect to Pluto until something
is transformed. Mostly John has felt paralyzed--unable to do his art, unable to do anything else. Given John's hands
are his best resource, by devaluing them, his father had essentially told him he was worthless. And for much of his
adult life, financially and otherwise, John has unconsciously been proving this was true.
Patti has a 2nd house Jupiter in Cancer, conjunct the Moon and Uranus. When she first came to see me, she had
money troubles too. Patti is a talented, well-educated woman, but her recent work history included a string of relatively
low paying jobs, none of which she particularly enjoyed. In fact she'd just left such a job and wanted to know where to
turn next. She hated being economically dependent on her husband.
It took a few sessions to unravel the financial secrets of Patti's 2nd house, but slowly the picture came clear. As a
child, Patti observed her father's relentless criticisms of her mother whenever she spent any money. Patti decided to
hold onto (Cancer) whatever money she got. By saving her allowance, she could win her father's approval. Working
for her own money would later become important too, because that meant independence and freedom as a woman
(Moon/Jupiter/Uranus). At the least, it meant freedom from a husband's criticisms!
Patti's 2nd house conjunction is a gifted combination; she has an abundance of talents to explore. As a teenager she
Patti interested in music, but her father's ringing disapproval hit hard. "You can't make any money at that," he scowled.
So Patti followed her father's footsteps and got a degree in his field. But curiously, she couldn't make money at that
either. Patti eventually unraveled the mystery at the bottom of her 2nd house: Her father's devaluing of her creative
gifts translated to the subliminal equation "You only make money when you do things you don't love." She complied
with a history of jobs that she hated. Her resentment against this bargain kept her salaries low.
One of the biggest problems with 2nd house attitudes and values is that, initially at least, they're received. I remember
sitting in a therapist's office years ago, complaining I was a failure because I didn't drive a Mercedes. “But Dana,” my
therapist replied, “you've never struck me as someone who cares about such empty status symbols!” It was a
liberating moment. My father wanted to see me in a Mercedes; that would have signaled his daughter had finally
arrived. The irony is that years later I actually did buy a luxury car (though not a Mercedes). Venus rules my 2nd
house cusp; I like luxury items! By the time I bought the car, I had raised my income considerably. I had finally grown
into my own money values.
Writing about the 2nd house, Dane Rudhyar makes an important point: We must transform this territory to suit our
individual purpose and destiny. (3) If we don't, we're merely servants of the past, agents of ghosts, our lives being
lived by our ancestors. Possessions must be used, says Rudhyar. This means impressing them with the rhythm of our
individuality--—whether that's material possessions, our natural gifts, or the money we spend. We need to lead in the
2nd house and give its holdings a personal significance (which is how the 2nd truly supports the 1st). Rudhyar advises
we dedicate what we have to who we are, for it's being that gives meaning to having. “Nothing is more futile and
spiritually empty than having without being, and this is true of all kinds of possessing.” (4)
John is lucky to live with a woman who believes in his talent. But years of her loving support did nothing for John's
development as an artist. It was only when Lysa got fed up and demanded he start earning his share, that John took
the emotional risks of supporting himself. Lysa has a good business sense and supplies a lot of the drive for his now
budding career. But the excruciating steps of putting his work out there, whether sitting in a booth at a craft fair or
even just hearing how customers received his commissioned pieces, are all John's. He is maturing, though shedding
the old skin and growing the new one is painful. It takes courage. John couldn't have done it without the prickly need
to make money.
That's why I'm suspicious when I hear people complain how the pressure to make money ruins the spiritual life or
interferes with one's personal quest. Spirit and matter are inextricably bound. We find ourselves in physical bodies, on
earth, needing to make relationship with other material things for good reason. Matter gives form to spirit. What better
way to grow and develop soul than against the hard edge of materialism. If we could simply fantasize or "intend" our
way to growth, would we ever descend from the ethers?
Modern astrology grants Venus rulership of the 2nd house. Traditional astrology makes Jupiter and Taurus its co-
significators. All three may be important in getting the full 2nd house picture. Venus certainly describes one's tastes,
the style one prefers to be kept in. To assess someone's self-esteem, aspects to Venus may tell an important story.
But it's also helpful to look where the grounding, stabilizing force of Taurus is applied. Further, the North Node
currently in Taurus (through December 2004) adds emphasis on 2nd house issues. Collectively, some will react with a
greater desire to spend money on security (funding the war against terrorism, for example). Others will feel this as a
need to clean up the nation's finances (addressing the deficit and unemployment). Individually, many will be focused
on getting their financial act together.
Jupiter is the planet of wealth. You can't accurately assess someone's wealth potential without determining this
planet's strength. That said, I've long puzzled over the following observation: People I've known with the greatest
money difficulties often have Jupiter in or ruling the 2nd--while the more successful ones often have a 2nd house
Saturn. This runs counter to conventional wisdom, which says Jupiter brings good fortune and Saturn brings bad luck.
Maybe this is because we no longer live in the traditional world—where the family fortune spelled one's own financial
fate, where jumping class lines was difficult, where Saturn described the limits of a life, rather than the efforts to
overcome them. Jupiter brings an expectation of privilege--although most I've known with Jupiter in or ruling the 2nd
come from middle class lives. Even so, their sense of entitlement is strong. No matter the actual balance in their bank

account, about their future, they tend to feel secure. “Something will come,” they say. And something usually does.
John, for example, always had a roof over his head and a good meal, also money for shoes, his masseuse and his
dental bill, despite going years without any income.
Jupiter rules my sister's 2nd. Saturn sits in mine. When we both were pregnant, I worried about how I'd manage the
coming obligations, the costs of day care, my baby's health insurance, clothes, diapers, food. My sister was relaxed
and happy. She was living on disability and the state paid for it all. I made six times my sister's income—but who had
the greater fortune may be a toss-up! The difference between Jupiter and Saturn reminds me of the fabled
grasshopper and ant. The ant works all summer while the grasshopper plays like there's no tomorrow, until winter
comes and there's no food. I've been a 2nd house Saturn ant. I save and work hard. But I know a lot of Jupiter
grasshoppers who play all summer and still don't starve when the winter bill comes due. There seems to be room for
both in this world. So I'll leave it to you to decide--which planet is a blessing in the 2nd and which is the curse.
You can hear me speaking my 2nd house Saturn throughout this article. But I got a taste of the grasshopper's
carefree spirit the last time Jupiter transited through my 2nd house. A new spirit of confidence entered my life, bringing
an orgy of self-esteem that started the day Jupiter crossed the 2nd house cusp. It was as though some fine trade wind
had just blown in and puffed up my sails. I started to value myself. A lot. And to the raised brow of my cautious Saturn,
always in guilt and fear about buying things, I started to spend money without apology. Almost every weekend
became a shopping trip.
Once Jupiter entered my 3rd house, I lost some of the excesses of that time (who could go shopping, I was too busy
with paperwork!). Yet my newfound self-esteem remained. In fact my income rose dramatically not with Jupiter in my
2nd, but after it entered my 3rd. Clearly this was due to the positive seeds planted by the previous transit. I began a
new twelve-year money cycle that was very different from the one that came before
Of course money isn't everything. It isn't even what I enjoy most about my 2nd house. All of its struggles and
successes run much deeper than dollars. Yet for a quick diagnosis of your 2nd house health, money is a good place
to start. Look at your assets and bank account. What do they say about your relationship to earth? Next look at your
possessions. Do they reflect your individuality? Do you own them, or do they own you? How about your 2nd house
talents? Are they being used? And most importantly, do you keep transforming this ground, ensuring that your 2nd
house holds attitudes of power rather than defeat?
I used to work with a man who had a stellium of planets in the 2nd, including a Venus in Virgo. Money was not the
driving force of Ed's life, but he liked what it could buy. In fact, one of my favorite lunchroom pastimes was listening to
Ed romance his latest purchase. Whether food or furniture or the hardwood floors in the new house he just bought, he
had a way of describing material possessions with such love and appreciation, you'd swear each was the finest, most
delicious thing in the world. Occasionally I'd see or taste the thing he talked about and it actually seemed small and
lackluster to me. But what a gift to have first seen it through Ed's more developed 2nd house eyes. The 2nd house
after all sets the stage for our physical pleasures and comforts. It reminds us to take joy in earthy things!

Notes:
1. Carolyn Myss, Sacred Contracts (Harmony Books, 2001), p. 342.
2. John Frawley, The Real Astrology Applied (Apprentice Books, 2002), p. 156.
3. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS Publications, 1972), p. 64.
4. ibid., p. 65.

The Third House
by Dana Gerhardt
When my son was three, we'd often walk to the small park fronting the neighborhood swimming pool, so Branden
could ride the “wee!” (his toddler word for "slide"). I remember the time we were joined by an elderly woman. She was
chauffeuring her grandson in a little red wagon, or as Branden called it then, a "ride."
The boy was some months older than Branden, and as the boy crawled out of his wagon, my son studied him
carefully. Briefly the boy eyed him back, then scrambled over to the bushes, where he picked up pieces of redwood
bark and started throwing them at the plants. All the while his grandmother was running a polite monologue about how
he should say hi to the nice little boy, how he shouldn't hurt the nice plants, how none of the people would like it if he
kept throwing the bark--none of which the boy appeared to hear.
After a few minutes, my son walked over to the boy. Without acknowledging him, Branden also gathered a handful of
bark and threw it at the bushes. It wasn't anything he'd done before. For some minutes the two just stood there,
throwing bark side-by-side, silently engaged in a rite of communication only they understood. After Grandma broke up
the game, the two played separately, with no further acknowledgement of each other's presence--for this wasn't a
budding friendship. It was a 3rd house thing.
The 3rd house rules siblings, neighbors, short trips, grammar school, the acquisition and use of language. But
underneath these keywords lies a profound mystery: our fundamentally human dance of development--of curiosity,
imitation and communication, of adapting to and connecting with our immediate world. It is not so much a house of
"things" as it is a zone of activity. The way a plant reaches for light, in our 3rd house, we reach for the world with our
minds. The essence of all 3rd house nouns might be collected in a single verb: in this house we learn.
We learn from our siblings and neighbors; from short trips around town; from the words that shape our world; from the
social and informational structures we meet at school. The mystery, of course, is that we do this before anyone tells us
to be doing it. It's as instinctive as a baby's urge to crawl across the carpet. It's as fundamental as a toddler's delight in
made-up words or discoveries like bark-throwing. We take the cues from our surroundings and grow. A child follows
her siblings, feeling so accomplished when she mimics their language and behaviors. A child with no brothers or
sisters will find facsimiles. Many times I used to spy from behind the fence, watching Branden and his daycare pals
sputter around the yard. On the surface they were a flock without pattern, ducklings with no guiding duck -- yet behind
their moves lay a complex 3rd house dance of curiosity, competition and imitation, of learning about, and gaining
connection to their world.
The 3rd is what's known as a “cadent” house. "Cadent" derives from the Latin "cadere," meaning to fall away. The
cadent houses are where we fall away from the game plans we initiated in the cardinal houses and stabilized in the
succedents. We must adapt to outer forces. Our success there depends on flexibility and versatility. It's wise in these
houses to regard all that we meet as a teacher. In the cadents above the horizon, we're brought to worlds beyond our
familiar narrow streets. In the 9th we encounter foreign concepts, stretch into new perspectives, discern the bigger
meanings behind events. In the 12th we go beyond the limits of ordinary logic and touch what's unconscious,
incomprehensible, and divine.
By comparison, the cadents below the horizon may seem less interesting or exotic. Their terrain is certainly more
confined. In the 6th we must adapt to the limits of our bodies (in traditional astrology, this is the house of sickness); or
we must adapt to the workplace (in modern astrology, this is the house of co-workers and routine tasks). In the 3rd we
must concern ourselves with familiar drudgeries: phone calls, emails, our daily drives through town. The keyword list
that signaled new adventures for a child evokes for an adult the boredom of already conquered territory. Grammar
school is over. Siblings and neighbors cease to expand us. We've already mastered many thousands of words.
This may be why John Frawley writes of the 3rd house: “Of all the houses of the astrological chart, it is probably the
third that arouses the least interest. In most birth-chart readings it will be quietly skated over, as the astrologer can
usually find nothing there that warrants closer examination.”1 If an astrologer does talk about planetary transits
through the 3rd or a strong 3rd house in a solar return, the usual suggestion is that we take a workshop, improve our
communication skills, learn something that might update our resumes. Or an astrologer might say it's a period when
we'll be busier than usual, in which case, meditation or stress-relieving practices might be necessary.
The problem with such advice is that it misses the underlying delight and ongoing purpose of this house. Just as the
6th provides intricate feedback on the changing requirements of our bodies or our workplace, through the 3rd we
collect a stream of information about the changing contours of our environment. Nothing-not even our familiar world-
stands still. Lose interest in these changes and your mind will lose its potency. When you cease to wonder about
what's strange in your day-to-day world, when you lose your willingness to taste new words and imitate without self-
consciousness, when you forego the thrill of acquiring new masteries, however small, you will lose the vast richness of
this house. The issue here is not what we learn so much as that we learn. In the 3rd house we're performing the good
work of keeping our minds alive and, in Bob Dylan's words, “forever young.”
Last Christmas I got a Harry Potter wand. I had fun waving it around, pushing its buttons and generally pretending to
be magical. Then one day my son announced he had beaten the game. “What game?” “Your Harry Potter wand.” It
was a game? I checked the wand's package and read every line. There was no mention of a game, no manual of
instructions. And yet, Branden had discovered how to push its buttons in such a way that accumulated points and
defeated imaginary companions. Though I was a stellar grammar school student and got A's throughout high school, I
got my come-uppance with that wand. At almost 50 years old, I was suddenly in a classroom where I was the dunce!
The 3rd house brings opportunities to keep updating ourselves. Recalling grammar school, on whose model the 3rd
house stands, its education was largely mandatory. We didn't get to pick and choose our course of study until the 9th
house of higher education. Third house learning, therefore, is more about what our environment dictates as important.
You don't use the Internet yet? You haven't learned how to greet your new Slovakian neighbors in their native tongue?
Answer “yes” and you may be shutting the door on continued 3rd house adaptability and effectiveness.
Perhaps the best approach to 3rd house transits is to take an honest look and see where you've fallen behind.
Although new technologies like digital cameras and palm pilots may be ruled by the 11th house, their appearance in
your environment becomes a 3rd house matter, especially as these transfer information. You may not need all the
options on your cell phone, but mastering them may expand your awareness of the world in ways you cannot predict.
Learn how to navigate its menu and your brain may start thinking in new updated paths.
Though Branden and I share the same house, we live in different neighborhoods. In his neighborhood, electronic toys
are commonplace. Technological Aquarius is on his 3rd house cusp. My son doesn't need a book of instructions. For
him this knowledge is in the air, as though all he had to do was soak it up. Our 3rd house mind is often sponge-like,
absorbing without concern for the particulars of content. This may be why traditional astrology says the changeable
receptive Moon “joys” in this house. In the busy 3rd, there is much to reflect and receive. Last week Branden came
home quite pleased with a rap he'd made up with his friends: “I'm down at the street drinking liz bliz with the chiz niz at
the biz ness.” When I asked him what it meant, he had no idea, a fact which diminished none of his pleasure.
Branden doesn't watch MTV yet, but on the wings of Hermes, Snoop Doggy Dog's language still travels through
Branden's neighborhood where it's absorbed. This is a fact parents can never fully reverse. It's suggested by the very
layout of the horoscope: the 3rd house precedes the 4th of home and family. The neighborhood is an influence that
strolls into the home, rather than as parents and educators might prefer out from the home and onto the schoolyard.
Planets and signs in the 3rd house act as a filter on our immediate environment, predisposing us to meet what they
symbolize. When Branden and I drive through the neighborhood, his streets are filled with an eclectic Aquarian
community: “Mom, I know so many kids on this block. I think I know someone on every street in our town.” Scorpio--
cooler, more secretive and withdrawn--is on my 3rd house cusp. My streets are filled with strangers whose doors are
always closed. And this is fine by me: I value my privacy and presume my neighbors do the same.
Years ago, when I bought my first home in a condominium complex, I wondered if I could shift my 3rd house
experience. After all, along with taciturn Saturn in Scorpio, I have curious Mercury and charming Venus in the 3rd. I
resolved to become more "neighborly." As the movers unloaded our belongings from the van, I smiled and waved to
everyone I saw. I was ready to learn their names, welcome them into my new digs, share cups of sugar, or whatever it
is that neighbors do.
Two weeks later I was avoiding eye contact with my new neighbors-though I swear I only did this because they
avoided eye contact first. Perhaps I was in a feedback loop, seeing only my own projections. Had my chart forever
doomed me to live in Scorpio neighborhoods? Briefly, during the week after the earthquake (a Scorpio crisis!) my
neighbors and I learned each other's names and exchanged phone numbers in case of emergencies. Then we
snapped back to mutual invisibility. Over the five years I lived in that complex, I'd only occasionally give or get a
“hello,” usually from some new face unloading belongings from a van.
It's the belief of some astrologers that we're doomed to keep reliving our charts and childhood patterns. Yet more
interesting, I believe, is how we can transform them (my 3rd house Scorpio talking). In this case, I think it's the very
concept of neighborhood that could use updating. Neighborhood is fundamentally the locus of our daily gossip and
personal news. For children (or those ancients whose worlds were collected in a single village) the streets around
home were indeed the center of such information. But for someone in the 21st century with money and a driver's
license, this locality is vast. And in that larger one, I've got plenty of friendly neighbors with open doors.
Last year one of my neighbors moved from Ashland Oregon to San Marcos Island in Florida. Thanks to free weekend
time on my cell phone, we haven't missed a minute of personal news. Through emails I still know what's going on with
my California cohorts. And when those web-based political action groups invite me to sign electronic petitions, aren't
they much like the guy who used to sit at a card table outside my neighborhood grocery store? When morning TV
shows like Regis and Kelly or The View broadcast from sets that look like living rooms, with hosts drinking coffee and
discussing the latest gossip, doesn't my 3rd house neighborhood expand to include these celebrities too? I spy on the
romantic exploits of The Bachelor, the back-biting of Survivor tribes, and aren't The Osbournes just another wacky
family on my block?
The sign on the 3rd describes not only the streets around our home. Perhaps more importantly, it describes the type
of mental stimulation we seek in our day-to-day environment. I have 3rd house neighbors around the world who satisfy
my Scorpio needs for depth and intimate exchange; regularly I invite Oprah and Dr. Phil into my living room too. The
3rd house tells what types of communication we'll find interesting--which suggests another means for keeping our 3rd
house experience fresh. When your daily round grows routine or too overwhelming, examine the neighborhood you've
been frequenting. Where do you get your news? Whose influence are you absorbing? Does this neighborhood serve
the archetypal hunger of your 3rd house planets and signs?
For years I resisted allowing video and computer games into Branden's world, hoping he would prefer more benign
childhood pastimes like book-reading, playing Legos, or inventing imaginary games. He didn't (“Mom, I'm sooooo
bored.”). He was also scared of being left alone. Given the Aquarius on his 3rd, I finally relented and bought him a
Play Station 2. Now he claimed I could go to my five-hour class at the Buddhist temple and he'd be fine. He spent that
afternoon wandering the streets of (shudder) Vice City's video game. When I got home, he announced he was the
happiest boy in the world.
If you feel others don't understand you,” writes Donna Cunningham, “look to the third house to see how well you make
yourself understood.”2 With Sagittarius on the 3rd house cusp, she suggests, an open, easy-going approach might
invite communication from others; with Scorpio, reserved or biting and sarcastic speech might discourage easy back-
and-forth exchange (not with me of course… but don't ask my loved ones!). Whatever the style, the 3rd house's
affinity with Mercury, the planet ruling communication, is clear, which is why modern astrologers claim Mercury is the
natural ruler of this house. Mercury rules all types of messages-letters, rumours, reports, speeches, and debates-all of
which belong in 3rd house territory.

Carolyn Myss writes that the 3rd house “reveals how you direct your energy into the world.”3 The sign on its cusp may
describe how you put your ideas into motion and, ultimately, how you wield your personal power. According to Myss,
the challenge of the 3rd house is to become conscious of your motivations, as one's every thought, word, action, and
deed invoke the laws of magnetic attraction. What you put out in the 3rd is what you'll receive. Action and movement
are certainly features of this house. But it might surprise modern astrologers to learn that in traditional astrology,
action-oriented, desire-inspired, power-wielding Mars, not Mercury, is assigned rulership of the 3rd.
So which ruler should we use? I confess I'm not scholarly enough to settle this debate. I only care how astrology can
help us live a richer life, in which case, it seems that monitoring both our thoughts and deeds can improve our
experience of the 3rd.
An actress friend once told me about an improv game called “mantras.” All the actors in a scene would pick a guiding
sentence (or mantra) and silently chant it as the action unfolded. Someone chanting "I'm angry" sat down to share a
bowl of popcorn with someone else repeating "I'm special," and the spontaneous results, my friend told me, were near
Pulitzer prize-winning scenes. It quickly became clear that the mantras determined all the actions in the scene. I
wasn't surprised-for the same is true in life. We act according to how we think, and what we think about our world,
depends a lot on what we've been doing. Thought and deed, or Mercury and Mars, are deeply intertwined. The next
time you feel others don't understand you, or worry that your power to achieve your desires has dimmed, study the
field of your 3rd. How are you thinking and acting in your day-to-day world?
Of course, sometimes it's just nice to get away from it all-to abandon the noise and distraction of the 3rd for the more
spacious skies of the 9th. Whenever you've got trouble with a particular house, it helps to stand in its opposite for
awhile. Opposite the 3rd is the 9th, ruling faraway places, philosophy and religion. Most religions encourage us to love
our 3rd house neighbors, but they also advise we avoid some of them too. The 9th can act as a kind of quality control
on negative 3rd house influences, both inner and outer. Go to a faraway place that's quiet and your mind clears.
Abandon the distractions of your town and you'll achieve a new perspective.
Some say the 9th house rules higher mind and the 3rd house rules the lower. This is an accurate enough distinction,
but it has an uncomfortably snooty sound. To my mind, the 3rd and the 9th are equal in importance. One without the
other is incomplete. This is especially clear in charts where the Moon's Nodes fall across these houses. The familiar
comforts of the South Node house consumes energy and diverts us from our path; the North Node house offers an
antidote to this enchantment, but actualizing it isn't easy.
Anna's South Node is in the 3rd house. She's had a busy life, having achieved success in a variety of careers. She's
competent in the ways of business-computers, accounting, engineering-yet is utterly mystified about her true life
direction. She doesn't know why, but her busy life has often felt empty, like it was going nowhere. She's forever on the
road, marking its twists and turns, but has never seen the full perspective from a map. Like many with the South Node
here, she's missing the 9th house visionary gene.

Eric, on the other hand, feels quite sure of his life direction. But he's utterly mystified about how to make it happen. His
North Node is in the 3rd. He visualizes his destination clearly; he just can't find the road that will take him there. He
gets overwhelmed by the kind of 3rd house details that most people take in stride-phone calls, errands, letter writing,
organizing his papers. He's quick to give his 9th house opinion on all sorts of things. For years his ambition has been
to publish editorials in The New York Times (why start at the bottom?), but he's never gotten around to actually writing
one, let alone sending one in.
Clearly Eric needs a little more 3rd house savvy and Anna needs more soaring in the 9th. For all of us, it's balancing
the higher and lower minds that's key. You can do this by designating your 3rd house mind as a 9th house sacred
space. Nourish it carefully, cleanse it religiously. Stop the chatter. Discard useless information. Select your
neighborhood carefully. Find one where you can breathe in plenty of fresh invigorating air. You'll know you've
succeeded when your daily mind is eager for the simple pleasures of reaching for the world, for learning and listening
without judgement. These are the priceless 3rd house joys.
Notes:
1. John Frawley, The Real Astrology Applied (Apprentice Books, 2002), p. 161
2. Donna Cunningham, An Astrological Guide to Self Awareness (CRCS Publications, 1978), p. 144.
3. Carolyn Myss, Sacred Contracts (Harmony Books, 2001), p. 213.

The Fourth House
by Dana Gerhardt
When I was growing up, at least once or twice a summer my mother would command my sister and I to toil on the big
hill in our backyard, weeding the dandelions and mustard grass that flourished there. Weeds must be pulled by the
roots or they'll just grow back again. But perched on the hill with my cardboard box, while the kitchen window that held
my mother's warden eye was so small and distant, and the earth below was so hard and rocky the weeds were fixed
to the ground, I took the easy way out. I yanked the damn things off at the stem.
Unhappy feelings are a lot like weeds. Neglect to take them up by the roots and they'll just grow back again. Yet who
probes willingly into the soil where emotions grow? Finding the roots of feeling can be hard. You might learn this under
the gray skies of a Saturn/Moon transit. If you're like most people, you'll try to ignore your depression. You'll put on a
happy face for loved ones. You'll pretend to be caring, cool-headed or commanding at work. You'll send energy to
your 1st house image, your 7th house partner, or your 10th house career. But eventually, inexorably, you'll fall. And
the 4th house is where you'll land.
The 4th is where we go when we collapse. It rules home and family, ancestors and homeland. It provides a literal
retreat. Push ourselves too hard and we'll likely end up at home, sick in bed. Suffer a devastating loss and we may
knock on the door of a family member and ask to be taken in. But the 4th is just as much a retreat of the imagination.
It is our psychic hearth. It holds the memories that both comfort and haunt us. As the base of our chart, it represents
both the ground and mystery of our being. If we lean over the chasm of the 4th, we'll find, as the poet Rilke wrote,
“something dark and like a web, where a hundred roots are silently drinking.”1
This is not the definition I got from my astrology books. I have a 4th house Sun. The books said this meant I'd care
deeply about my family. As a child I did, but then most children do. As an adult, I was never happier than when my
family moved a thousand miles away. Holidays became a spacious new ground. The books said family relationships
would sustain me. I've seen my father twice in twenty years. My sister has cut me out of her life a dozen times. And
now my adventurous Aries mother is buying a home in Slovakia. When I hear others speak in gooey tones about how
they miss their families, I am an anthropologist observing an alien culture. I have knowledge of their rituals, but I don't
understand them.
The books said I might cherish my extended family or get into exploring the family tree. Family celebrations with aunts
and uncles and cousins stopped when I was five. Aunts from both sides of the family have done extensive
genealogies. I've had little curiosity about those pages full of names. Nor do the old photos of great aunts and
grandparents inspire much connection. When my son was born, I gave him neither my last name nor his father's. I

made one up, something alliterative. I liked the sound of it - which seemed more interesting than his carrying the name
of ancestors I didn't know.
The books also said with a 4th house Sun, I'd be lucky in real estate. This was interesting. For years this was my
dream. Not that I wanted to chauffeur Lookey Lous around or hold "open houses" every weekend. I just wanted to be
gifted enough to buy my own home. In my twenties and thirties, I couldn't walk or drive down a residential street
without feeling pangs of envy. How was it all these people managed to own homes? Why hadn't I? It seemed an
impossible dream. If it's true the Sun's house identifies your hero's journey, then perhaps buying a home was mine.
It was definitely a milestone when I bought my first property. I sold it during a market slump and lost money. On the
next home I made triple what I'd lost before. But my luck seemed more market-based than astrological. Everybody
made and lost money at the same time I did. Last night a friend called with an urgent investment opportunity. “Rogue
Valley is starting to boom!” he said. “If we pool our money and buy some rental properties in Grants Pass right now, in
five years we'll be set for life. Really, we should do this!” I remembered my 4th house Sun. It was tempting. I searched
for some inner confirmation of my destiny as a real estate magnate. There was no affirming spark.
None of the textbook readings for the 4th house seemed quite right. I needed to go deeper--back to the basics. The
Sun in the 4th house literally describes a birth near midnight. This was in fact the origin of the horoscope's angles.
With the four angles, the ancient Egyptians marked the Sun god's daily round. The Ascendant symbolized sunrise and
beginnings; the Midheaven, the Sun's noontime zenith and one's public success; the Descendant evoked sunset, the
descent and dissolving of the solar self. The angle marking the 4thhouse, the IC, recalled midnight, a time when the
Sun god lay hidden between death and new life. The IC represented a transformation point, between the old day and
the new.
Whatever your birth time, any planets in the 4th will have this “midnight” reality. Fourth house territory is what you find
when, late at night, you close your eyes. It's what you encounter when you're all alone in the dark. Planets here lie
beneath your surface. They are as deeply private as those in the opposite 10th are inescapably public. It's difficult to
talk about 4th house planets with clients. The meanings are clear enough. Pluto in the 4th suggests a childhood full of
hidden agendas and power struggles. Neptune indicates a family secret that permeated the air but was never spoken.
Saturn suggests a home suffused with the dynamics of fear and control. You can talk about such histories with clients.
But opening them up and touching them, for they do live on, is difficult.
Close your eyes now. Who or what is there? That's your 4th house reality. And that's how I've asked people to enter
this house for years. Your family will be there, in your memories. Your ancestors will be there, in the rhythmic pulse of
your blood. Your home will be there, as the secure base that allows you to connect with your innermost self. But you'll
discover even greater mysteries. In the 4th you'll find your spirit center, your life source, your inner country of renewal.
There will be times when you need to recreate yourself - and you'll do this by descending into the 4th house first. With
the Sun in my own 4th house, it's taken me years to learn that my hero's journey was not so much to buy a home.
Rather it was to learn about creating home and being at home in my world. I've had to learn this not just once, but
many times.
The easiest way to discuss transits or progressions to the 4th is to start with the literal home. Pluto or Uranus in the
solar return 4th is a likely indicator of moving to a new one. Neptune in the 4th may imply plumbing leaks or water
damage, the discovery of toxic substances in the basement - perhaps an infestation of ghosts! Saturn transiting the
natal 4th suggests a period when the house feels cramped or burdened with family duties and obligations.
What happens in the outer house often mirrors its domestic situation. Pluto transiting a 4th house planet can inspire
both renovations and marital struggles. Jupiter transiting the 4th can bring a year of feeling blessed--with a spacious
home and an abundance of family support. Mars in the 4th might bring an intruder, but more typically it suggests
conflict. This is a time when family anger won't be suppressed.
Less easy to articulate, but perhaps more universally true, is how transits to the 4th are experienced on an inner level.
Unwanted memories may flood to the surface. Dream imagery may be particularly shrill. Your body may feel
exhausted. You might notice a persistent urge to stay at home with the bedcovers pulled over your head. These are
signs. They're calling you to the task of “homing” - the cyclic return to oneself.
The homing process is described in rich detail by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With the Wolves.2 As
archetypal template for this recurring need, she offers “The Seal Maiden,” a story that appears in various forms across
many Northern cultures. It goes like this: One day a lonely hunter discovers a remarkable sight--a group of laughing,
shimmering, and utterly naked women dancing on a cliff. They are seal sisters, who have shed their skins to dance
briefly in the topside world, before returning to the sea. The hunter can't help himself. He steals one of the skins and
strikes a bargain with the hapless seal maiden. If she agrees to be his wife and bear his child, he'll let her go in seven
years.
What can she do but say yes? In the seventh summer, when it's time for her to don her pelt and go back home, the
hunter changes his mind. He refuses to return her sealskin. Her human skin begins to dry. Her hair falls out. Her eyes
grow dull and her body withers. Limping and nearly blind, she is like one of the homeless ones from whom we typically
avert our gaze.
“ Homelessness haunts us all,” writes J. Edward Chamberlin. “One of the reasons we walk so nervously around the
homeless on our streets is that we don't want to get too close to something we fear so deeply.”4 Or is it something we
already know. Chronic depression and fatigue are epidemic. They suggest a kind of psychic dispossession - an inner
form of homelessness. It is what happens when we go too long without touching the life source in our 4th.
We've all experienced a sealskin theft. We've said yes to something in the topside world. Perhaps it was a promotion
that would bring more money. Or a relationship that stole our heart. Maybe it was a pregnancy. Sometimes it's naivete
or sheer stupidity that makes us vulnerable to psychic theft. We might have gone on an over-the-top buying spree. Or
joined a questionable religious group. But not all our sealskin thefts are bad deals. It could be anything - even good
things - that take us away from ourselves.

There is an inevitable conflict between the needs of the soul and the demands of public life. From the 4th we're called
to serve society in our 10th house role. Our 2nd house wants us to put food on the table. Our children call us into the
5th. Our partners want attention in our 7th. In the seal maiden's story, we can read the hunter as ego. It's his job to
take us into these outer worlds. But if the hunter leads us too far from our psychic skin, we will lose sustaining spirit. It
doesn't matter how good our initial choices were.
Transits and progressions to the 4th can restore our spirit. This includes transits to the Midheaven. We often forget
that these are also transits to the IC, so focused are we on problems of career and public identity. But to keep our
outer lives informed by soul, we cannot neglect our psyche's foundation. To live in balance we must stay close to our
sealskins and keep a natural rhythm of going and returning.
The sign on our 4th suggests how best to replenish ourselves. It hints at what it feels like to have our sealskin on.
Taurus on the 4th will need to ground in earthy sensuality, to be nourished by touch, familiar habits, or the security of
material things. Aquarius on the 4th will feel restored by shaking up routines or having the freedom to think and move
without entanglements. Aries on the 4th must periodically don the pelt of “me, me, me!”
I can forget the most important things I know.
Some months ago, past midnight, I awoke suddenly. It was dark, I was alone. My partner had gone on a book tour.
The stepkids were with their mom. My own son was with his father. For the first time in the two years since I moved to
Oregon, I was sleeping by myself. With a start, I remembered this was my definition of the 4th house. Okay, I said, it's
time. Inwardly, I felt for the familiar walls of my midnight self. But it was awkward, strange. Like that uncomfortable
period of silence with an old friend that lets you both know you don't really know each other anymore. I didn't like the
silence. I wanted to get back to sleep, read a book, turn on the TV.
“ When did you grow uncomfortable with the territory of silence?” This is one of the questions shamans ask of patients
who are depressed, displaced, or disheartened. 3 They also ask “When did you stop singing?” and “Why did you quit
your dancing?” I was no longer singing or dancing at home--signs that the seal skin woman needed her pelt. There
were other signs. I was suffering from unbearable fatigue and so many food allergies I couldn't keep track of them. My
life had grown thick with entanglements, new demands on my time, new pressures to succeed; as well, many
unconscious attachments had returned, old relationship patterns, inner messages of self worth, an addiction to doing.
And the part of my root system that used to extend deep into reverie, wonder, and peace, the part that knew deeply
who I was and why I came here, was now withering, nearly dry. Could I draw water into those roots again?
I don't know if what happened next was a step forward or backward in my hero's journey. But with Sagittarius in my
4th house I needed freedom. I moved out. I bought my own home down the street. For the first two months I was in a
state of collapse. But eventually I began to sing again, inane impromptu tunes. I started to dance in the way that
makes my son roll his eyes and groan “M-om,” like it's a two-syllable word. I could sit in my living room and peel off the

outer roles I'm known by, mother, lover, astrologer, daughter, writer, sister, friend. I could dissolve my pressures,
fears, the memories of successes and failures, the ache of my desires. I could be nothing but the one who sat there,
breathing. And the world around me grew large again. My health and love relationships improved. These things
happen when your connection to the 4th is right.
In Deborah Houlding's excellent little book on traditional house meanings, the 4th house rulerships read like poetry:
“Everything that relates to the foundation and roots of our existence. ... It rules hidden treasure and the treasures of
the earth, such as mines and minerals, gems, oil, wells and water supplies. ... It rules land, the quality and nature of
the ground (whether it is fertile, swampy, woody, stony or barren), and all the buildings and structures on it. ... It is said
to indicate the beginning and end of all things, representing childhood experiences that give rise to an unconscious
emotional experience of life, the vulnerability of old age, the process of death, and funerals.”5
To look only at the 4th for family or real estate matters diminishes this rich legacy, as does the contentious debate
over which parent the 4th house signifies - mother or father. The parent confusion springs from a conflict over
planetary rulers. In traditional astrology, the Sun rules the 4th - hence, its association with fathers. Modern astrology
says the Moon rules this house - hence, its link to mothers. But I agree with Howard Sasportas that it's impossible to
fix the 4th house to either parent.6
The role each parent plays in a child's development - not planetary rulerships - may be the safest means for locating
parents in a chart. Sasportas makes a convincing argument that we'll find the “shaping parent”in our 10th. This is the
one who had the greatest influence on our societal development. The 4th describes the more “hidden parent” - the
one whose influence may have been less outwardly visible, but possibly stronger at an unconscious level.
In The Astrological Houses, Dane Rudhyar sidesteps the parental debate altogether. He acknowledges the traditional
view of the 4th. It indeed holds our earthy foundations - from the superficial facts of real estate and home, to all that
land implies - the soil from which things grow and to which things return. But this view also suggests an archaic “flat
land” mentality. It forgets the earth is a spinning globe, not a solid floor stretching on that way forever. If, says
Rudhyar, we instead imagine our roots descending into a sphere, we'll reach a new and deeper meaning for the 4th.
We'll discover “the experience of center.” We'll find the matrix of our feeling nature. To be in the 4th is to be centered
in the self. The 4th house holds the same kind of life-giving rhythmic power as our heart.
The more one explores the depths of the 4th the less it seems like a place one can point to on a map. It seems more
like a state of mind. This is not so different from Clarissa Pinkola Estes' definition of home: “Home is that sustained
mood or sense that allows us to experience feelings not necessarily sustained in the mundane world: wonder, vision,
peace, freedom from worry, freedom from demands, freedom from constant clacking.”8 In this home of the
imagination, there is room for both the Sun and Moon. This 4th house nurtures us like a lunar mother, it sustains us
like a father Sun. It invites us to sing and dance to its shifting rhythms. It holds that castle where we are king.

Notes:
1. Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours, Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, translators (Riverhead Books,
1996), p. 49.
2. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves, (Ballantine Books, 1992), pp.256-297.
3. Angeles Arrien, Gathering Medicine (Sounds True Audio, 1994)
4. J. Edward Chamberlin, If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), p 78.
5. Deborah Houlding, The Houses: Temples of the Sky (Ascella Publications, 1998)
6. Howard Sasportas, The Twelve Houses (The Aquarian Press, 1985), p. 57
7. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS Publications, 1972), pp. 73-79
8. Estes, ibid., p. 284

The Fifth House
by Dana Gerhardt
If you've seen the movie Chocolat, you'll understand an essential problem with the 5th house. This is the house of joy
and spontaneous self-expression. It's the house of risk-taking, creativity, children, and love. There's a simplicity and
innocence in this house that revels in the unbridled pleasure of being alive. What could be wrong with that? This is the
house about which many are curious when they schedule astrology readings: Is a romance on the horizon? Will a
child be conceived? Will a creative project come to fruition? The allure of 5th house territory is undeniable. Yet just as
the heroine discovered in Chocolat, strangely, unhappily, many people resist their 5th house garden of delights.
In the movie, Vianne Rocher is a scandalously single mother, whose wanderlust takes her to a sleepy village in post-
war France. It's the kind of place where people know what's expected. They go to confession. They dig their
flowerbeds. They understand their place in the scheme of things (and if they forget, someone will surely remind them).
When they see things they shouldn't see, they know how to turn their heads. When life disappoints them, they learn
not to ask for more. But one day, following a sly wind, Vianne arrives with her daughter. Wearing bright red capes,
they bring vital new energy to this stone gray town. Soon enough Vianne opens a chocolate shop. During Lent! Made
from ancient Mayan recipes, her chocolates have mysterious powers. They unlock hidden yearnings, awaken passion,
instill new conviction and strength. The priest condemns her as Satan's helper. The mayor wants her run out of town.
Her daughter cries "Why can't you go to church and wear black shoes like the other mothers?"
Vianne is a wild one. Within your 5th house lives a wild spirit too. It wants to shake up your sleepy life. It wants to
stimulate your ecstasy for being in the moment. Vianne has an affair with a gypsy. She is clairvoyant too, knowing
exactly which chocolate remedy - the rose creme, the chocolate seashells, or the cacao and chili drink - a person's
soul might be craving. Your 5th house likewise holds a gypsy spirit that knows just how to make your heart sing.
Traditional astrology gives this house a double association with Venus, planet of pleasures and passions. Venus
"joys" in this house, which means her natural tendencies find fortunate expression here. The Chaldean order of
planets, which assigns Saturn to the 1st house and Jupiter to the 2nd, gives fun-loving Venus to the 5th. It is well
known that when transits or progressions energize the 5th house, people do uncharacteristic things. They have affairs.
They buy flashy new cars. They dream of running away to the circus. They behave, in short, like children.
There is vital life force energy in the 5th house. This is a natural progression in the wheel of the houses. The emerging
self is given a supportive container through 4th house home and family. When the emotional life is thus nurtured,
power gathers. There is energy to create. Or procreate. There is enthusiasm for life. One is vibrant and radiant. This
may be why modern astrologers assign rulership of the 5th house to the Sun. The Sun has star quality. It says "I am
here!" It needs to express itself dynamically. It wants to feel special. It wants to love and be loved. Do we really need
to choose either Venus or the Sun when judging which matters more in this house? It might be wiser to keep both in
mind. In the 5th, you must express your Sun without apology. And you must pursue what brings your Venus joy.

People often come to astrology readings because they feel stuck. A question I usually ask clients before the session is
"What, if anything, have you been neglecting lately?" The stuck ones usually reply "Myself." What they typically mean
is they aren't having any 5th house fun. They aren't taking time off to play. They are being good little girls and boys
and doing what's expected of them. They're working without a break, in hopes that some day, all the delayed
gratification will pay off. They are like the villagers before Vianne arrives - the widow still wearing mourning black forty
years past her husband's death, the village mayor who drinks bitter lemon water and writes sermons about the virtues
of denial. They are gripped by a sneaky malady known as "anhedonia," the inability to indulge in fun.
Among working adults in particular, this disease may have reached epidemic proportions. At some point people
realize something is missing from their life. Maybe they respond by placing an ad in the personals column. Maybe they
visit a therapist and try to locate their inner child. Maybe they buy a book like The Artist's Way to help release creative
passion. If they visit a good astrologer, they will be encouraged to open the chocolate shop in their 5th house. Its
sweets are no mere luxury. They're critical. When 5th house happiness no longer feeds the psyche, there is little
power to move forward in other houses. One's 10th house career grows stale. One's 7th house partnership feels
unfulfilling. One's 2nd house income stays flat. Deny your 5th house and your whole chart may suffer.
If resisting pleasure is not your problem, congratulations. Put this magazine down right now. Go out and have some
fun! But if your days are overwhelmed with obligations, if your romantic life feels dead, if you have children who drive
you nuts, read on. I'll share with you what I've learned from bouts of 5th house anhedonia of my own.
Astrology books make intriguing claims about signs and planets in the 5th. They say that 5th house placements show
how you like to be creative and the ways your creativity is best brought out; they reveal your attitude towards children
and how you treat your child within; they indicate the ways you like to create romance; they describe how you tackle
the "art" of living. There is truth in these assertions. When you catch yourself having fun, you'll find your 5th house
archetypes indeed are tingling. But when you're not having fun, trying to strategize from astrology keywords in order to
shift your life can be close to hopeless. Try buying a book with suggestions about how to have fun and you'll see what
I mean. It's like when my eleven-year-old complains "I'm bored." With loving intentions and all my best creativity, I
brightly list several delightful things that he could do. Naturally, he glares back at me, daggers shooting from his eyes.
Sorry: there are no pre-fab instructions for waking up a dulled 5th house. It can only be discovered by doing it.
I have Capricorn on my 5th house cusp, which means that Saturn rules this house. From my astrology books, I
learned that this is an unfortunate placement. Nothing squashes fun like grim-faced Saturn. (Now you know why I'm
writing about 5th house anhedonia!) With Capricorn on the 5th, the astrology books said I likely couldn't have children;
if I did, they would bring me grief. I did have my son late in life (Saturn can delay matters). But so far Branden has
brought me far more joy than trouble. The books further suggested I would experience inhibitions and insecurities in
my creative life. Because I knew nothing about astrology, I spent my twenties as a freedom-loving hippy, I wanted to
be creative. I wanted to write the great American novel. Then I decided to be a short story writer. Finally I was hoping
to at least write some haiku, but none of these artistic dreams, even as they shrunk, panned out.
Eventually circumstances required I take a job in the corporate world - the very thing I had avoided for years. To my
complete surprise, it was fun! I loved it. I found the joy that was missing from my hippy decade. I stayed at that job for
16 years and happily climbed its corporate ladder. Even more surprising, in my spare time, my artistic life blossomed. I
finally became a published writer. The structured Capricorn world stimulated the energy in my 5th house. Had anyone
suggested this beforehand, I would have thought them nuts. Nor do I think working in the corporate world is the
solution for everyone with Capricorn in the 5th. You have to experiment. Especially you must be willing to try things
you might otherwise resist. The key to this house is spontaneity - and the willingness to take new risks. Pleasure often
arrives in surprising packages.
For many people, opening the 5th house chocolate shop starts up a chorus of inner voices: "You shouldn't! How dare
you! Who do you think you are?!" There's a logical reason for this. The 5th house describes one's experience of
childhood. And most childhoods are filled with "No's." Parents need to fit a child's wild spirit into society. Their own
wild spirits have already been tamed. Some will project their unfulfilled 5th houses on their children, trying to foist on
them their repressed ideas of fun. When your 5th house gypsy goes underground in childhood, anhedonia takes over.
You doubt your instincts. You deny the very things that would make you feel glad to be alive. You worry that if you
tried them, others would call you naughty or self-indulgent - even when you're not.
I learned about this when my son was two (and my progressed Moon, incidentally, was traveling through my 5th). It
was a typical day. I was rushing to get us both out the door, taking Branden to daycare and me to work. I asked my
son which jacket he wanted - the red one or the gray. "Red one." I put the gray one back on the hangar. Branden
shook his head and cried, "No!" So I gave him the gray one and put the red one back on the hangar. He stamped his
feet, "No!"
I went through several rounds of asking which jacket he wanted. It was always "That one," which, it turned out, was
never the one I had. I tried a new strategy. "Maybe you want the blue jacket?" "Yes," he nodded. But as the other two
jackets went back in the closet, the screaming fit returned. After a few more minutes of this, with the terse,
exasperated gestures I swore I'd never acquire, I finally grabbed all three jackets and threw them into the car. We
drove for five minutes in a steely silence that made me feel far too much like my mom. I tried digging my way out. I
explained to Branden that I was frustrated, how I had a meeting to get to that morning, how I needed his cooperation.
From the backseat, he seemed to understand. When we arrived at daycare, I thought we'd reached an accord. "Which
jacket do you want?" I asked. "That one," he pointed. Instantly, I knew it was starting up again. So I grabbed all three
jackets and threw them at his feet. What happened next stunned me. For the first time that morning, Branden looked
genuinely pleased. In a voice so innocent and sweet, he said, "Thank you, Mommy."
Of course! It was a three-jacket day. And what was so wrong with that? Breaking the rules is an essential feature of
creative action. An outlaw attitude helps us to jump grids and make new connections. What seems unreasonable to an
adult may sometimes be necessary to an artist or a child. Tragic of course is how we fail to hear the special call of
every moment. Branden wasn't the unreasonable one that morning - it was me!

In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron has wonderful suggestions for unleashing your inner 5th house gypsy. (1) In one
exercise, called "Forbidden Joys," she suggests listing ten things you would love but aren't allowed to do. Often, she
says, the very act of writing your forbidden joys breaks down your barriers to doing them. Doing them is even more
liberating. Last week I did one of my forbidden pleasures. Of course I can't tell you what that was! What I can tell you
is that doing it brought a bright smile and new energy to everything else I tackled.
One of the basic tools of Cameron's program for releasing blocked creativity is what she calls an "Artist's Date." This
is a fun excursion or play date with yourself alone--that you must commit to once a week. It can be something quite
simple and inexpensive, like walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood, just to take in the sights, sounds and smells.
You could go bowling or to an art museum, as long as you leave all sense of duty or proper education behind. Watch,
Cameron warns, how your inner killjoy wants to avoid or ridicule the experience ("This is a stupid distraction. It's a
waste of time.").The trick is letting yourself do it anyway. The rewards, you'll find, are magical. I don't know if Cameron
knows about astrology, but it's interesting that she connects the artist date with other 5th house relationships. She
notes how play dates can revive a stale romance. And they can increase the affection between a parent and a child.
Making time for fun can heal many 5th house wounds.
As you invite more play into your life, you might start recalling some of the dreams you had as a child. These can be
another rich source for adult 5th house joy. Sam Keen, author and workshop leader, writes about visiting the circus as
a boy. His world stopped when he saw the trapeze artists perform: he wanted to become a flying man too! He rigged
pipes and a rope in a front yard tree and acted out his fantasy. Decades later, in his sixties, at a time when his life felt
stale, he saw an advertisement for trapeze lessons. The nay-saying voices started up: "You're too old. You're not
strong enough. You'll make a fool of yourself." He listened to his inner flying man instead: "Do it!" He enrolled in the
school. His body was aching and bruised, but his passion for life was renewed.
Of course, it's fair to wonder: If we jump on all 5th house desires, won't we at times make an ass of ourselves? We've
all seen people who've done this: the ridiculously untalented ones at "American Idol" auditions, the software engineer
who gets a nose ring in his fifties, the stock broker who leaves a decent marriage for a lap dancer. Shouldn't we apply
some 5th house restraints?
In The Golden Ass, the Roman writer Lucius Apuleius tells a pertinent story. The book's hero Lucius visits Thessaly, a
place famous for the magical powers of its women. At the home of one such woman, he befriends a maidservant. The
maid helps him spy on his hostess as she casts her spells. Lucius watches as she rubs an ointment into her skin, then
sprouts feathers and flies out the window like a bird. "What fun!" thinks Lucius. He begs the maid to steal this ointment
for him. Unfortunately, she picks up the wrong salve. When he rubs himself with it, he turns into a donkey. He is of
course a joyously lewd donkey - and the maid has fun with him. But he remains a donkey for most of the book,
enduring many unfortunate ordeals and punishments, until at last he feeds on roses. Roses are sacred to Venus.
Eating them restores his human shape.

The desire to fly is embedded in our 5th house. It is a call from the inner gypsy who wants to let go and be free. But
there is a journey here. You must learn to pay attention to what you want. And you must be willing to learn from the
inevitable mistakes you will make along the way. It is significant that a friend gives Lucius the wrong ointment. Friends
are ruled by the 11th - the house opposite the 5th. A natural, even useful, tension exists between these two houses.
The 11th gives us social feedback. It describes other people - on our playground or in the office lunchroom. Others
may join us in 5th house pleasures - at the tavern or the racetrack. But they can also lead us astray, as the maid does
Lucius. That Lucius hides behind a curtain and someone else secures his 5th house magic suggests his ego is weak
and undeveloped. "Ego" here is not a dirty word. A healthy ego is necessary to face the dangers and vulnerabilities of
5th house risks. Lucius is unconscious when he asks the maid to steal the ointment. But for those consciously trying to
fly in the 5th, fears will be strong. Listen to the fears Sam Keen had approaching the trapeze bar at sixty-two. It might
sound a lot like your own list before taking a 5th house gamble: "I am afraid of failure. I am afraid of what others will
think of me. I am afraid I will lose control. I am afraid I can't trust you. I am afraid I will be abandoned if I do not
measure up to your expectations."(2)
Without a healthy ego, we could never face such fears. Ego supplies the confidence and courage to take risks, create
art, take up roller blading at fifty-five, or fall in love. Ego is the spark that keeps our passion burning. Children have lots
of ego and that's a good thing. Their worlds revolve around their desires. Their innate self-centeredness may be
Nature's way of ensuring their survival. Yet all things in proper measure, which is what the 11th house is for. It
balances self-centeredness. It will reprimand an out-of-touch ego that disturbs the group and threatens the integrity of
the whole. The 11th asks us to be ourselves - but within social reason. If the group likes us enough to applaud our
creations, our ego will win the love and appreciation it craves. Yet if we pursue fame and prestige alone, we will
eventually lose the self we first expressed so boldly. The challenge of the 5th is to remain an individual.
The 11th represents the love we receive. The 5th is the love we give. The love in our own hearts is symbolized by the
redemptive rose in Lucius' story. The arbiter of 5th house success is how freely and deeply we can love - our children,
our romantic partners, our creative work. Writes Dane Rudhyar, "In the fifth house the great test involves the ability to
act out one's innermost nature in terms of purity of motive and using in a "pure" manner the means available for the
release of one's energies." (3) This then is the only restraint: We must do what we do in the 5th from the purity of love.
In this way we serve both others and the energy that flows through us. We lose ourselves in a higher purpose,
something only a healthy ego can do.
One of the greatest gifts of the fifth house is its invitation to moments of unself-consciousness. This is the divine self at
play, moving with spontaneity and joy. We forget ourselves in the moment. Here, children are the masters. Spy on a
couple of kids at play for an hour. Watch how easily they move from one thing to another. No plans, just doing what
they please. Count how many times they break into laughter. Can you remember the world ever being so funny? If you
try to analyze what's funny, you'll get nowhere. Sometimes I think children laugh just because they can. Their inner
gypsy is still free. Your gypsy can endure long past childhood, but she must be continually renewed. This is the
opportunity in all transits and progressions through the 5th.

Years ago, when the progressed Moon moved through my own 5th house, I gave birth to my son - a golden event that
opened my heart like no other. True to the cliché, I "expressed myself" with a flashy new car. I collaborated on a
manuscript with a writing partner. I ended a relationship rather than began a new one, but the motive was love. It
became impossible to ignore that my relationship had none. By the time the progressed Moon entered the 6th, I was a
different woman. I was in love with my life all over again. May your 5th house bring the same delights to you. Now go
out and have some fun!
Notes:
1. Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way (Tarcher, 2002).
2. Sam Keen, Learning to Fly (Broadway Books, 1999), pp. 36-37.
3. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS, 1972), p. 84.

The Sixth House
by Dana Gerhardt
Anna Lee was one of my first clients. I gasped when I saw her chart. She had five planets in the 6th house: the Sun,
Venus, Mercury, Pluto and Uranus. What’s more, they were all in Virgo, the natural sign of this house. To my novice
mind this information jumped from the page with exclamation points. But what did it mean? At the time, I had no idea. I
looked forward to the day when I could look at charts and instantly "know." But frankly, that day has never arrived.
I'm alternately envious and suspicious of those who can make instant analyses of a chart with no knowledge of the
person who’s living it. But there's enough disagreement about the right and wrong ways to practice astrology. I don't
want to add to that here. I'll just make a confession: I'm lousy with maps. I have to touch into the territory before the
map becomes sensible. Even something apparently simple, like a cluster of planets in the same house and sign, will
keep me guessing. For some individuals it does indeed mean an intense and focused life. For others, like Anna Lee,
the stellium acts more like a confusing tangle of wires, criss-crossing, by way of rulership, the entire chart. I remember
thinking if anyone could teach me about 6th house mysteries, it would be Anna Lee. Saturn was about to oppose her
6th house Sun. I watched the effects of this transit with interest.
Work or health problems often appear during transits to the 6th. It was a good bet that for Anna Lee, one or both areas
would be affected. What actually happened, in the months of Saturn's applying orb, was that Anna Lee's boss Jerry
suffered work and health problems. He was asked to leave the company and had a heart bypass operation.
Sometimes close associates will do our transits for us, but rarely do we escape untouched. Anna Lee was concerned
about her boss' health. But his leaving the firm turned her own world upside-down. She was afraid of two possibilities:
upper management would ask her to leave next, or possibly worse, to stay and take his place.
Over the next few months, at Saturn's grueling pace, Anna Lee struggled with her situation. Initially she panicked.
Then she interviewed. She got two offers and turned both down. When rumors surfaced that she was leaving, she
went straight to the company president and made it clear that she wasn't. It took her boss Jerry months to find a new
position, and the company even longer to name his replacement. But as the Saturn opposition became exact, Jerry
finally left, and an archenemy was put in his place. Anna Lee was miserable.
" So why didn't you leave?"
Her eyes flickered. She took a breath, "I don't know, I guess I like it there." Moments earlier she'd described her
workplace as an intense time-pressured environment that rarely gave her a full lunch hour; upper management never
appreciated how hard she, her boss, the whole department worked. She considered her department the nerve center
of the company. On the days when Jerry was out, she felt she was holding the whole company together. A Saturn
transit sometimes rewards past efforts and brings a promotion: "So why didn't you apply for your boss's position?"
" Oh, I don't think I could do it. It's a lot of pressure..." Her voice trailed off. Her eyes moved to a spot in the distance,
then came back. "I just like to work. I don't mind working hard. But I don't want to run things. I'm not ambitious, really."
Victimization, insecurity, a loss of options, plus the willingness to work like a steamroller—I checked these qualities
against other 6th house Suns that I knew. There was a similarity in their stories. Not all 6th house Suns are hard-
working insecure victims. Yet often enough their voices have the same tentative tone when discussing their jobs or
their futures. It’s not unusual to hear them complain about being overworked or under appreciated. Their resident
inner 6th house critic doesn't help. "Do better, work harder" are common 6th house strategies. But they don’t always
make the best life solutions. Perhaps this is the downside to the 6th’s upside of service—6th house Suns tend to wait
on others. When the others don't come through, these Suns are stuck.
Ancient astrologers considered the 6th a malefic house—not a happy place for a planet to be. John Frawley, a
contemporary practitioner of traditional principles, writes about the 6th: “This is the house of the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune: of all the things that the harsh, cruel world and that odd bunch of people who inhabit it conspire to
inflict upon us.”1 Planets in this house are weakened and can harm the other houses that they rule. This is not the
house of health, Frawley contends, but the house of illness. The 1st house indicates one’s health or vitality; the 6th
describes what undermines it. Nor is it the house of work or service, says Frawley. This is a modern invention, loosely
based on the 6th ruling servants and tradespeople—those who work for us. Our own work is still described by the
10th. Contemporary interpretations of the 6th, says Frawley, are simply wrong. They derive from the happy-talk
tendency of modern astrologers to whitewash any bad celestial news.
Frawley’s views sound harsh to anyone raised on modern interpretations. Yet they fill in a missing note: planets here
are often mysteriously under stress. If you’re a counseling astrologer, however, it’s pretty unproductive to tell someone
“You’re screwed.” Perhaps more useful is Dane Rudhyar’s perspective. He describes the 6th as territory in crisis—
requiring reorientation and adjustment. Following the 5th house of creativity, children, and romance, the 6th describes
what happens when our 5th house dreams collide with the real world. We realize our creative expressions don’t sing
with immortality. We notice our romantic life has lost its radiance. Despite our best efforts, our children grumble and
disappoint. In the 6th we notice life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We can drown in our failure. Or we can do something
about it. We can change our approach, acquire new techniques. We can either suffer or grow.
“ Because the sixth house represents fundamentally everything that deals with personal crises and the way to meet
them,” writes Rudhyar, “it shows, more than any other factor in the whole of the astrological field, how an individual
can grow and become transformed.”2 To a traditional astrologer, this might sound like happy talk. It depends on
whether you side more with fate or free will. Where traditionalists and moderns can agree is that the 6th often brings
the test of suffering. Planets here require patience, endurance, faith, and above all, the effort to learn from one’s
experience. Anyone with an emphasized natal 6th house, says Rudhyar, cannot escape the call to transform.
As Mars was crossing Anna Lee's 6th house cusp, I received a surprising phone message. Anna Lee had accepted a
new position with another company. I was thrilled about the burst of confidence that had brought this change. As I
listened to her news, I couldn’t help but note the ironies. She was taking a management position—the very thing she’d
resisted before. She would be heading a whole new department, in fact, building it from the ground up. It was funny

she was leaving now, she related, because she'd discovered that her new boss at the old company was much better
than she'd feared. Upper management was finally making the positive changes she’d longed for.
I wondered at her leaving the old company just as things were finally getting better. But I remembered the 6th house’s
association with illness. As Frawley reminds, illness is a temporary crisis meant to restore one’s system to balance.
Anna Lee’s unhappiness with her work was perhaps a useful fever. It allowed her to burn through her passivity and
meet life at a higher level. Once this fever passed, she was free to move on. The ancients linked the 6th with alchemy.
Perhaps this supports Rudhyar’s view that the 6th is a transformational house, where one is meant to turn life’s lead
into gold. As for Anna Lee, the last I heard she was doing very well.
Both ancient and modern astrologers agree that the planet which naturally rules the 6th is Mercury. Mercury is
associated with the mind, in particular the ability to reason. If the 6th brings crises, it’s the logic of Mercury that helps
us respond appropriately. Through Mercury we analyze and organize our experience. We divide our time into useful
units of activity. We conjure proactive strategies to keep both crises and illness at bay. Sometimes astrologers talk
about the 6th as though they were nagging mothers, reminding us to make our beds and hang up our clothes. When
this house is emphasized by transit, progression or solar return, modern astrologers advise: "Eat your vegetables,
take your vitamins, exercise, quit smoking; streamline work routines, reduce your stress, get organized."
A few astrologers speak of the 6th in metaphysically trendier terms, a nod perhaps to its alchemical roots. They advise
activities like “spiritual centering,” “sacred ritual,” “discovering magic in mundane details.” An emphasized 6th house
by transit might prompt a need to bind the sacred to the ordinary. No doubt such statements would make Frawley
squirm. But they do address a common 6th house problem. Mercury rules machines. In the 6th, we often act like one.
When my progressed Moon entered the 6th, I suffered no monumental crises. My life revolved around work; my days
were dull. If I suffered from anything, it was a lack of imagination. I hungered for a more magical perception of my
days.
The 6th refers to daily time and how we spend it. Here most of us defer to the cultural norm—which is to do time
mechanically. We fill it with productive activity: We work. Most of us have no choice. This could indeed be the “bad
fortune” the ancients were talking about! However, most of us would admit that working is not entirely bad. There is
something in us that likes a regular structure in our days. Studies have shown that the most depressed individuals are
not the ones who have nine-to-five jobs, but the ones who don't—the unemployed, the infirm, the retired—those who
have nowhere to go and nothing to do. The ancients said that action-oriented Mars “joys” in this house. Our 6th house
likes to be in motion. But does it carry the potential for magic too?
More and more, I find myself taking my cues from children. They are, of course, the undisputed masters of ordinary
magic. Initially I laughed when my friend told me the following story about his three-year-old Zack. Now I see it as a
koan of 6th house wisdom. Zack has two toothbrushes: a blue one for bedtime, a green one for mornings. One
morning Zack's dad inadvertently squeezed the toothpaste onto the blue toothbrush. Zack was undone. Thinking this
was a good time to teach Zack flexibility, Dad tried to cajole him into brushing with the blue one. Zack threw such a fit,
his father had to carry him down to the breakfast table, stiff and screaming, teeth unbrushed. The tantrum continued
until Dad gave in. He carried Zack back up the stairs. They reeled the day back and started it over again, with the
green toothbrush this time.
I thought my friend was raising an unusual child. Then I had a toddler of my own. Branden taught me the importance
of childhood rituals: the right activity, with the proper objects, at the right time. When he was two, Branden had
breakfast in the green chair, watched TV with the checkered pillow. Mom had to drink her coffee out of the mug with
the bird on it, and Dad had to drop his keys on the top (not middle!) shelf. One morning Branden and I left the house
after giving the dog one cookie instead of two. The relentless sobs from the back seat "dog cookie, dog cookie" meant
I had to drive two blocks back home and right the wrong. I was not happy about this (something the dog knew
instantly, cowering in disbelief as I stormed in to toss another cookie her way). That morning was one of those "battles
of wills" between parent and child that the old child-rearing books warn about. All is lost, they say, if the child "wins."
Yet when I caught the look on Branden's face that morning, it wasn’t triumph, but relief. His magic spell had been
preserved. The day had started right.
This is the 6th house for a child, who has neither work nor health concerns, nor even a good grasp of time. Children
experience the 6th through their organizing rituals. Adults have routines, but children have rituals. Rituals create
energy; routines drain it. Rituals invite assistance from the invisible world. They serve a magical protective function—
acting as the garlic and sacred cross that keeps the 6th house vampires at bay. What draws a child to certain objects
and sequences is a mystery, but the power of this attachment can't be denied. To children what happens in the
present matters. The 6th house holds the personal holy rituals that give meaning to their world.
When children enter school, these meaningful attachments are gradually severed. Their unique experience of time is
relinquished to society's more efficient rhythms. Personal magic gives way to productivity and practicality. The older
one gets, the worse this becomes. The year I had my Sun plus four more planets in the 6th house of my solar return,
my daily duties were overwhelming. I was hopping with productive, efficiently scheduled activity. I kept waiting for the
avalanche of responsibilities to disappear. They never did. Towards the end of that year I heard Ray Merriman speak
about the solar return 6th house Sun. He nailed me when he said, "These people have only themselves to blame.
They over-schedule themselves, not realizing they should do the opposite: relax, float, and flow."
Merriman was suggesting that to balance the 6th, we should look to its opposing house, the 12th. This is the house
belonging to the invisible world. It is Neptune’s territory. To keep Mercury’s efficiency in proper measure, we can
evoke more Neptune—imagination, spirituality, the unconsciousness of dream. Just as our dreams carry images from
our days, we might allow our days to remember images from our dreams.
Jung teaches there are two roots to psychological disease: the gods we forget to honor and the gods we overdo. Too
much of Mercury’s “doing” without Neptune’s “floating in the empty spaces” makes "stress" a common 6th house
syndrome. When Neptune is forgotten, this uninvited and quietly vengeful guest lies in wait, to throw us under his
spell. Driving the freeway home, we suffer brief comas, waking up just minutes before the off-ramp arrives. We forget
why we opened the refrigerator or entered the bedroom. Our bodies working like efficient machines, we go numb to
the day. When we lose touch with our present, we fall prey to addictions. It's dishonored Neptune who puts the drink,
the cigarette, the remote control in our hands.
If the 6th is a dull or harried house, perhaps we have only ourselves to blame. We might buy books like the Goddess
in the Office. We might wear red on a Mars day, burn incense at night, or mime a few spells. But it's not finding the
"right" magic ritual that will save us. It's finding the ability to attach to it—to have what happens in the present matter
again. I’m not suggesting we should throw tantrums like a child when our personal routines are disturbed. Rather let's
balance Mercury with Neptune. Let's use our reason to preserve spiritual imagination. Like children, let’s become the
high priests and priestesses of our daily lives.
This is easy enough to say, but how is it really achieved? I don’t think simple formulas will do, although Merriman was
on to something. I’ve noticed that those who do the 6th house well tend to have a good relationship with the 12th.
They enjoy floating in the empty spaces, as well as being alert and absorbed when the work of the moment calls. I’ve
wondered if the sign on the 6th house cusp might prescribe one’s optimum daily rhythm—and the best approach to
6th house crises. What I discovered was that most people move through the day in the style of their Ascendant. I’ve
got Virgo rising, which means I adore planning, making schedules and lists. "An hour for Tibetan prayers, another for
reading, then onto my work," I’ll tell myself. But then there are phone calls, emails to answer, the electrician who
doesn’t come when he said he would. Aquarius is on my 6th house cusp. Aquarius more accurately describes the
unpredictable rhythms that I meet. Despite my best intentions, my Virgo plans usually break down. If the chart
describes one’s daily rhythm, its formula goes more like this: The Ascendant shows how you want the day to happen.
The 6th describes how it actually does.
In most charts, the sign on the 1st house is inconjunct the sign on the 6th. Inconjuncts are an aspect of disequilibrium.
They keep us off balance and require constant adjustments. This natural tension between the Ascendant and the 6th
house cusp is like a perpetual motion machine, constantly returning us to the primary work of this house: Reality
knocks and we must transform. In the 6th we break down experience and absorb its feedback. We improve our
techniques and skills, urged forward towards a perhaps unattainable perfection. This marks the difference between a
human’s work and a machine's. It's impossible to write perfect articles, give perfect readings, or be a perfect mom. But
I keep trying. The awareness of how I fall short is often painful. Yet in the disequilibrium between my intent and its
realization, I'm also urged forward again—toward new techniques, approaches, understandings. All of this is unlike my
computer, who performs its tasks the same way each time, never caring how they’re received.
The 6th is where we build mastery of our craft. We may want nothing less than consistent success, but disequilibrium
is where the magic is. Creativity often springs from failure. We can learn from our 6th house crises. And isn’t that the
key to mastery of our life?

Images©fotolia.com
Notes:
1. John Frawley, The Real Astrology Applied (Apprentice Books, 2002), p.177.
2. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS Publications, 1972), pp. 90-91.

The 7th House
by Dana Gerhardt
Dear April,
Writing about the 7th house of partnership, I don't trust myself. That is why, dear friend, I'm asking you to share my
column. Not only are you happily married, you have an expressive 7th house Moon. If anyone can balance my
approach, it’s you. You know how I squirm when clients request “relationship readings,” how I try talking them out of
chart comparisons (“Tell me--are Jake and I a perfect match?”), and if they're insistent, why I refer them to you. The
7th house raises my guilty secret: I don't believe in soul mates. Searching for that “perfect someone” is (to me) as
doomed as hunting down a unicorn or griffin.
You can see why I don’t trust myself. It’s a risky point of view. Most people call astrologers just to hear some good
news about their “soul mate” (as in, “Will the love-of-my-life be arriving soon?”). I worry that my theories here are
wrong. But I understand why people look for soul mates. Blame the 7th house. This is where we yearn for, and
receive, "the other." It urges us to play duets. We strive to harmonize here, one-on-one, with not just one but a parade
of significant others—teachers and counselors, business colleagues and lovers. We can dance with these partners for
just a moment, a season, or for all eternity. But through them we step outside ourselves. They provoke us to grow.
Through 7th house people we become more whole. That sounds nice, but it’s often painful in practice, for the 7th isn’t
just a dance floor. It’s a razor too, scraping the rough edges off our personalities. This is in the horoscope’s design:
our 7th house partners stand opposite our 1st house self. That is why the 7th rules “open enemies” as well as our
"true loves." (And isn't it unfortunate how many true loves become open enemies in the end.)
So if by soul mate one means that idyllic partner who, just like us, loves anchovy sandwiches and hates The Lord of
the Rings, who appreciates fine Italian marble and is undaunted by our moods, who understands us, as no one else
can, then to hunt this person down in the house of opposites is a risky proposition. It’s sad we often finish our romantic
fairy tales hating our partners for the very reasons we were drawn to them in the first place.
But why should this be so?
It starts with the Ascendant, our first mask or rising sign. Here’s the persona that worked best for us in our earliest
environment. It represents but a fraction of our full potential, yet it draws a useful boundary (“I’m the kind of person
who does this and would never do that.”). As we crafted this story about ourselves, we had to do something with the
rejected qualities that didn't fit our Ascendant myth. We gave them to the 7th house, to meet up with at a later date.
This sets up our deep longing to retrieve what was unconsciously tossed away. When people wander on our stage
carrying those potentials we repressed, what a mysterious and potent attraction we feel. Yet as we get to know them
better, they grow strangely less desirable. Our entrenched resistance has emerged. Walk through any mall and you’ll
hear the endless bickering of rising signs with their 7th house cusps.

Mr. Taurus Rising was once intrigued by his lover’s mystery and depth (the forbidden fruits of Scorpio); now he’s
frightened by that brooding dark intensity. Ms. Capricorn Rising’s heart flutters at the nurturing sensitivity of her
Cancerian prince, until before her eyes he transforms into a needy, childish frog. Alas—the poor men who’ve been
with me! My Virgo rising finds Pisces irresistible; I’ve been drawn to poets, spiritual seekers, and musicians. We move
in together and, Presto Change-o! Mr. Perfect is suddenly a lousy dreamer—chaotic, impractical, and vague. If you
look at the charts of any two people in partnership, you’ll find each holds a prominent echo of the other’s 7th house
planets or sign. That’s the hook. But I confess: this is where my interest in chart comparisons ends. I could care less
whether Jake’s Venus trines Sue’s Mars. It’s the natal chart that mostly makes and breaks relationships. Here are our
rose-colored glasses… and the paper bag pulled over our heads. Jake may be a lovely man, but if Sue can’t get past
her own projections, their love affair is doomed.
A good rule of thumb is that any individual who provokes us into a strong emotional response, who affects us, has
unwittingly invited a shadow dance with our 7th house. Keep your wits. Hold your complaints at arm’s length and study
them. Let them send you on a scavenger hunt for those very qualities inside yourself. Of course this spoils the fun of
righteous indignation. But it’s worth the effort. You can actually do something about your deeper misery—being
internally out of balance. Left to my own devices, I see nothing Pisces-like in me. I’m Virgo--analytical, organized,
efficient. But through my partner’s sundry imperfections, I gain a mirror into the parts of myself I hide. Imagine this: I’ve
discovered I can be forgetful, deceitful, and escapist too! Accepting my partner now gets a little easier. What’s more,
embracing my darker Pisces side allows the positive one to emerge. I become more relaxed, more present, more at
peace. Perhaps my partner, Robert, is my soul mate after all—if by “soul mate” we mean those people who patiently
provoke us… into mating with the forgotten fullness of our souls.
The 7th house holds many stories. Another is told by its ruling planet. Its placement suggests a central or recurring
theme in one’s relationships. Someone with the 7th house ruler in the 10th of career might find her calling in her
marriage, start a business with her partner, or go it solo, being married to her life’s work. My Descendant is ruled by a
Libra Neptune in the 2nd house of money. I tend to make my financial relationships personal, and my personal
relationships financial. This is as romantic as I ever got about marriage: "Darling, we can save money together and
buy a house!" And on that dream two of my long-term relationships spun and then dissolved. Neptune has been quite
the trickster: it’s raised my income as if by magic, but it’s dissolved my partners’ funds. All three have traveled to the
verge of bankruptcy.
Money was the central fact in my parent’s relationship: they argued about it constantly. Dad let money slip through his
fingers; mom had a green thumb to make it grow. Only recently did I notice my 7th house cusp lies trapped within six
opposing planets in my parents' charts. There I've always been, a small fish, stuck in that long net those two fishing
trawlers dropped in my unconscious sea. Aren't we all subject to the power of our marriage myth? By "marriage myth"
I mean that story of our parents' pairing. Those early gods in our unconscious kingdom held as much sway as Zeus
and Hera ever did. We can decode the Ascendant by looking at the story of our birth. Perhaps we can unravel the
Descendant’s mysteries by looking at our marriage myth.

Here's my parents' story: Neither claims to have known happiness in love. They married and divorced each other
twice. My father left my mother when I was eight; she left him when I was fourteen. They stayed together after that,
buying homes together, sometimes living together, in a cranky business partnership that recently meant living in
separate homes in the same town. Never did I plan to repeat their unhappiness, but my relationships have been
mostly cranky too. They ended at intervals that echoed my parents’, the first after eight years, the second after
fourteen. As happened with my mother, my mate left me the first time, I left him the second. Now I’m in an “LAT”
relationship, what my friend suggests the Europeans do, “living apart together.” She says it like it’s trendy and
continental, but I know better: it’s exactly what my parents did in their later years. Yikes.
Thank goodness there’s more to the 7th than marriage alone. Interestingly, this is the one house on which modern
and traditional astrologers wholly agree. Both assign it to relationships, though in horary astrology, the 7th can
describe any old “other” we might be curious about. One such “other” important to my self-employed clients is
potential customers. Rarely do astrologers talk about developing a clientele as a 7th house matter. It's typically seen
as a 10th house marketing challenge. But isn’t this a relationship issue too? Over the years I’ve heard a number of
unsuccessful astrologers complain that it’s their potential clients who are to blame: "This screwed-up town won't
support a decent astrologer!" (Note the emotion. Could a projection be at play?) What do you think, April, after starting
your own practice fresh, in three towns in a little over three years?
My first year as an astrologer was a lonely one. If the phone rang once in six weeks, it was a busy month. My daily
visit to the PO Box was just to catch that once-a-month query should it arrive that day. I was advertising, perhaps in
the wrong places, but in retrospect, I think the real problem was with my 7th house: I wasn’t ready for these
relationships! Above ground I was begging for clients; below ground I was terrified. What could they possibly want
from me?! Whatever it was, I knew I couldn’t give it to them. My resistance was stronger than my desire. It’s the same
when an astrologer suggests new love is on the horizon and the client returns a year later complaining no one ever
showed. I know it sounds like a convenient rationale for the failed prediction; nonetheless, it’s a pretty safe bet: this
person had a “Keep Out!” sign on their 7th house.
I began attracting more clients once I made a key decision: I told myself I would only deal with the type of people I’d
like as friends. Perhaps this simply took the edge off my terror, but in truth, this is exactly who showed up. Over the
years I noticed another curious phenomenon: most of the charts showed that my clients were highly intuitive. This is of
course a Pisces quality (ie, my 7th house). The 7th suggests the kind of people we’ll attract; what’s more, it tells the
purpose of our meeting. I gradually adjusted my practice to tease out what my intuitive clients already knew. Together
we explore their feelings, unconscious symbols, and their rich imaginations. In other words, we have a Pisces tea
party! I provide the cups. They’re the ones who bring the tea.
But enough of my 7th house stories. Now it's time for yours!
Fondly, Dana
Dear Dana,
Ok, I confess—I love the 7th house! Your wonderful hypothesis notwithstanding—and I can certainly appreciate the
theory—my 7th house doesn't seem to be the repository of my least-loved traits. Philosopher, clown, know-it-all:
certainly, I am my Sagittarius Ascendant. Journalist, gossip, communicator: I claim the traits of my Gemini
Descendant, even as I am happy to have found them in my nearest and dearest.
I was, however, intrigued by your concept of the 7th house "marriage myth" and its impact on our expectations of
marriage; it provided a wealth of insight when applied to my own chart. Mercury rules my 7th, and third
house/Mercury/Gemini concerns (communication, letters, even cars) figure prominently in my myth. I have only a
handful of memories of my parents together, because my father died when I was young. But I remember the sound of
their voices from their bedroom down the hall, soothing me to sleep as they rehashed the day—voices, that sweetest
of Gemini lullabies!—and the two of them sitting at the kitchen table, chatting and laughing easily with one other. One
summer my mother took my siblings and me on vacation, while Dad stayed behind to get the crops in. Many years
later I ran across a bundle of letters he wrote to her while we were away—beautiful, sensitive, funny letters. The kind
you write to your best friend. My Gemini Descendant expectation: The person you marry should be your best friend
and confidant. My relationship with my husband was founded over long chats over coffee. In fact, all the important
relationships in my life can be traced back to a common Gemini source: conversation.
But there is, ultimately, a tragic ending (my 7th house Moon squares Pluto) to my myth. One day Zeus topples off a
cloud (or dies in a car accident, in the case of my dad), leaving Hera without her best friend. What do you do with a
script like that, when you're young and impressionable? I opted for a series of romantic relationships with built-in
expiration dates. "Oh, he'll be leaving to go off to jail." "He's a zillion years old, he'll die long before me." I could plan
on the leaving, you see? I felt a sense of control (there's that Moon/Pluto again). And my romantic projection—loosely
based on my parents' situation—was that you only open up to someone when you're sure they're going to leave you.
When I did eventually find my best friend and confidant, I was immediately in a bind: I didn't want to live without him,
but on the other hand, he lacked a clearly-defined expiration date! I was terrified by the lack of control. To be happily
married I had to get past my fear of being left, and learn to trust and love someone whose estimated time of departure
is not well-defined.
As for how all this relates to clients—how would I know, this crummy town won't support a decent astrologer! (Hyuck
hyuck). Oh hell, Dana, I don't know. I sort of subscribe to the "read everybody" school of astrology—a dragnet
approach. Works well when you move a lot. I figure, if I see enough people, by sheer dint of numbers I'll end up with a
clientele. And a varied one, at that—gotta keep that Gemini Moon happy!
Whereas your position—to only have clients whom you'd want as friends—sounds wise and perfect for you. A Pisces
Descendant has only one speed in relationship: total immersion. It's lovely, but exhausting, I'm sure. So you're wise to
be discerning (helpful Virgo Ascendant!) about your clientele, because you honor the fact that each consultation subtly
changes your cosmic DNA in some profound fashion. Each of your consultations is a beautiful, soulful, artistic little
gem—sound Piscean? Whereas for my Gemini Descendant, each consultation is an opportunity to play Barbara
Walters—"Let's talk about you!" I just find people incredibly interesting. I like to hear their stories, and then tell their
stories back to them in a way that, hopefully, helps them get some perspective on their situation. But I don't
necessarily become one with them.
I guess if I'm honest, my interactions with clients are the ultimate "built-in expiration date" relationships. ("They'll be
leaving in 90 minutes. It's ok to open up.") In applying my "marriage myth" to this other kind of 7th house relationship,
it's easy for me to see why I occasionally find myself in power struggles with clients, usually over the issue of time. I
can't stand it when people are late, don't show up, don't send payments on time. I feel a lack of control, and the
ensuing power struggles serve to remind me that in order to let others impact me, I have to get past the safety barrier
of expiration dates and make peace with powerlessness.
There is a time-honored astrological chestnut that claims that the 7th house describes the kind of partners we'll have,
and I don't discount that. But it seems to me there is another dimension to the 7th house: namely, that it's a portrait of
what others encounter when they enter into close partnership or enmity with us—the kind of relationship environment
we provide for others.
For instance, although you focus on the fierce emotional pragmatism of your Virgo Ascendant, Dana, I don't
experience you that way. I can see you that way—that is, if I observe your personality, I can see the meticulous,
down-to-earth side of your nature--but that is not the side of you I experience in relating with you. What I feel, in
stepping into your Piscean 7th house, is Timelessness. In relating to you, lovely friend, I step into a garden of fun,
imagining, free associating, and—wonderfully, gloriously—wasting time. It's like a wonderful mini-vacation having a
long chat with you, or reading one of your letters. It's play. And this is an often forgotten aspect of the Pisces
experience—living ecstatically in the moment. Enjoying the process.
Once someone enters our 7th house (whether as spouse, business partner, or mortal foe), they experience a side of
us which is often very different from the initial, welcome-mat Ascendant version of our personality. In sifting with us
through the rubble of our rejected dreams, impulses, and personality traits, and mirroring us back to ourselves through
our own 7th house, our partners are like Peter Pan's Wendy, sewing Peter's shadow back on: they "sew" the shadow
(7th house) self back onto our personality (Ascendant) and make us whole again.
I see the Descendant as a screen through which all the other issues we bring to a relationship must pass. Having
rounded up potential relationship candidates, we "interview" them and, based on our Descendant expectations,
promote a select few to our 7th house. Perhaps we even charge a gate fee, expecting our partners to act out one or
more planets in our own 7th as their price of admission. In the end, does this mean we choose a succession of
partners with whom we enact the same relationship patterns over and over again? Maybe. Or maybe we learn to
make peace with the Descendant qualities we find.
Saturn's natural exaltation in the 7th house implies that we're responsible for creating the 7th house environment that
we want. But it's frustrating to keep running into the same blockages time and time again on the way to formulating
satisfying relationships! It's maddening to feel that no matter how hard you try to change, you're doomed to repeat the
same old unsuccessful relationship patterns. And the last thing we want to hear when we're frustrated and maddened
is that we alone are responsible for changing an unsatisfactory situation. Instead of being empowered by that
perspective, and accepting the challenge of reconciling with our shadow self, we insist that others validate our
conviction that the universe is picking on us!
My 7th house Moon has made me a life-time student of relationships, and has placed me in the role of astrological
"Dear Abby" more times than I can count. Even so, Dana, I by no means have a definitive "take" on the 7th house. But
I feel, and I think you would agree, that it minimizes the 7th to call it simply the house of "finding others"; just as
legitimately, it is the house of finding ourselves through their eyes. But if you think the 7th house was a toughie... wait
'til you tackle the eighth house in your next column!
Yours, April
April Elliott Kent is an astrologer, writer, and website designer in San Diego, California. Along with readings by
phone and in person, April offers customized reports based on her astrological specialties, wedding date electionals
and natal eclipse cycles. April's writing has appeared in The Mountain Astrologer and Wholistic Astrologer
magazines, and she is a contributor to Llewellyn's 2005 Moon Sign Book.

The 8th House
by Dana Gerhardt
Writing about the 8th house isn’t easy. “After all,” says my friend Geraldine, “who truly feels comfortable talking about
their experiences of love, death, and sex outside the privacy of personal conversation?”
The 8th comes up in most of my astrology consultations. But usually I’ll enter through a side entrance, discovered in
the course of conversation, without announcing I’m going in. I’ll step out just as gingerly. This is the house of secrets
after all. It rules sex, other people’s money, taxes, debts, loss, and death. As a beginning astrologer, it’s easy to be
intimidated by this house. Planets in a solar return 8th can make you quiver. Transits to the 8th might suggest years of
calamity and doom. Over time, however, this knee-jerk fear gives way to deep respect. Survive an 8th house transit
and you’ll be reborn. Valuable lessons will be learned. Eventually you’ll regard the 8th as a kind of spiritual master
who only shatters you for your higher good. Your ego holds no dominion here. In this house greater forces run the
show.
It’s difficult to talk about the 8th, but we all know 8th house territory. From childhood onward, we crawled through this
archetypal jungle on our knees. There was that mysterious tension in the air whenever your Aunt came to visit. Or
how, with a single word, your grandmother could turn your dad into a child. It was the odd feeling you got when your
uncle invited you to sit on his lap. The 8th carries your psychological inheritance—the potent invisible currents that no
one talked about. Here were the electric fences strung across the rooms when your parents argued about money or
sex. Here too was the power of your mother’s purse, full of mysterious totems and the smell of money. Maybe you
tried a few magic spells to make it come to you. But mostly you were under others’ spells here, shaped by rituals and
defense mechanisms absorbed without your comprehension—your father’s deep self-loathing, your mother’s rage,
handed from female to female down your family line. In later years, perhaps when a transit touched this house, such
legacies might be painfully stripped away. Buried 8th house secrets might suddenly spring to light. This is the house
that keeps the therapists in business.
Transformations here aren’t always bad. The 8th describes important sexual initiations. A financial inheritance or an
insurance settlement could be indicated by the 8th. Also your first joint bank account, loan approval on your first
house. If you practice divination, the 8th can help you answer questions like “Will I get Aunt Melanie’s millions?” But if
you’re a counseling astrologer, you’ll likely be working with the part of this house that’s known by feelings more than
words, the unspoken contracts, the irrational fears, the pull of the past, its compulsions and obsessions.
Like the 7th, this is a house of “others.” In the 8th we can be rocked by our relationships—into desire, anger, ecstasy,
insecurity, or greed. If the 7th house describes relationships forged through equality, in the 8th house we suffer (or
profit from) relationships based on inequality. When others enter the intimate waters of this house, they get some
power over us. Whether it’s the bank, our parents, the IRS, our sexual partners, even a stranger who happens to push
our buttons, and let’s not forget the scythe-master Death—through the 8th we become painfully aware of forces

beyond our manipulation and control. In our struggles here, how should we proceed? Most journeys here require a
guide. Along with unflinching, courageous “awareness,” “surrender” is the most useful 8th house word.
Monsters in the Closet
I remember a client who used to call me every couple of months, always with the same question. Her progressed
Moon was in the 8th house. “Is it over yet?” she wanted to know. Rebecca was nervous about spending money; she
told me she couldn’t afford a session. She just wanted to know which day the Moon would be out of the 8th and into
the 9th. Because I’d told her this several times already, I knew she’d dialed me up for another reason. She needed to
talk. There were no tangible crises going on in her life, but ever since the progressed Moon had entered her 8th, she’d
been suffering from anxiety and depression. The 8th, writes John Frawley, can show “fear and anguish of mind.”1
Especially with the progressed Moon in this house, the mind can become one’s own worst enemy, particularly when it
resists the call to either get help or let go of an attachment.
Rebecca lived alone. Her husband had died years before. Her daughter wanted her to sell her house and move to a
seniors condominium complex. That meant she’d have to go through all her old possessions, including her dead
husband’s things. She’d have to say good-bye to her garden and her trees. She’d have to deal with loan officers and
real estate agents. She’d have to meet new people who might not welcome her. She didn’t have the heart to face any
of this. She avoided the decision and tried to go on as usual, which meant she would call me every few months, in
tremendous pain.
The 8th house can describe the monsters hiding in our closets. I’m thinking of Mercer Mayer’s children’s book by the
same name (There’s a Monster in My Closet). A little boy hears a frightful noise, and night after night, quaking in fear,
with a flashlight ready, his toy soldiers gathered around him, he barricades the closet door. His fear only grows bigger.
Finally he decides there’s nothing left to do but face the beast. The monster is big and scary, but in a surprise turn, the
demon goes jelly-kneed and begs to crawl into bed with the boy. The same can happen with our own 8th house
monsters. Our fears want comforting so they can dissolve. But if we refuse to face them, their power only grows. To
deal with 8th house feelings, we may need a “Charon” (the mythological guide who ferries souls across the river Styx).
Our Charon could appear in the form of a therapist, an astrologer, or a friend who’s been there before. But if, like
Rebecca, we stubbornly resist help or change, we will never claim the healing power that lies beneath our fears.
The progressed Moon finally entered Rebecca’s 9th house. Six months later I heard from her again: “Is it over yet?”
she moaned. Nothing had changed. She was still debating whether to sell her house, worrying about all the work it
would take, fearful that she wouldn’t be happy in new circumstances. Even though her progressed Moon had entered
the more spacious territory of the 9th, Rebecca still wasn’t free. She had never opened the door and released the
monster from her closet. For the two years of the Moon’s progression, she had steadfastly refused to surrender her
old life. That meant a new one couldn’t be born.
The last time Rebecca phoned, she had finally put her house on the market. I never heard from her again. I like to
think this means she finally sold her house, cleared her psychic closet, and began to enjoy a new adventure in the 9th.

There’s a saying among astrologers, “It’s a transit; it will pass.” The suggestion is that when the planets move on, so
will we. But if we resist the work required, especially in the 8th house, we might remain there long after the transit has
moved on.
Quicksand of the Past
We can resist the 8th—but we can get mired there too. This heavy house can draw us down like quicksand. My friend,
astrologer Lucy Pond, tells a story about one of her clients, Linda, who got stuck in the 8th when Jupiter transited
there. It wasn’t until Saturn came along that she woke up. Traditional astrology says Saturn is the ruler of this house.
Saturn in his home territory can act as a karmic cop. If we’ve been evading our responsibilities—material or
metaphysical, he will bust us. Lucy describes it this way: “Saturn in the 8th house is the bill collector. What is hidden
will be flushed to the surface—even if that is your own lost self.” The following story is in Lucy’s words. She wrote this
for a previous TMA column of mine on the 8th house.2 It’s worth reprinting.
LUCY’S STORY
A couple years after Linda started working with me, she announced she had taken my advice and found a good
therapist; they were dealing with her repressed memory syndrome. She was remembering having been raped by her
father and her two brothers, a recollection that threw her into a tailspin. Transiting Jupiter had just entered her 8th
house—a good time to delve into the secrets from the past, especially deeply buried secrets. Pisces was on Linda's
8th house cusp and repressed memories seemed to fit with her style of dealing with intense emotion. I shared my
findings and encouraged her to stay with her therapist.
As the years moved on and Jupiter entered her 10th house, therapy became Linda's identity. She had recalled the
exact details and circumstances of all her rapes. Though seemingly cut off from the real world, she formed friendships
with others in the incest survivors group. She was devoting more and more time to counseling and almost completely
stopped working to pursue what seemed a virtual addiction to therapy. She had passed beyond the door of the 8th
house, but seemed to be stuck there emotionally.
As Linda's astrologer, I was often frustrated with her obsession with the past. Regardless of how I encouraged her to
be in the present, she translated all astrological information as an opportunity to go deeper into the past. I reminded
her that she was living through the rear view mirror—that she had no idea where she was, or was heading, only where
she'd been. There was no "present time" in her life. And because I believe astrology is best used as a tool for living
more fully in the present, I felt futile as a resource.
Several months ago, on the event of transiting Saturn conjuncting her 8th house cusp, Linda asked my astrological
advice on falsifying some federal assistance papers. To remain on the public assistance program that allowed her to
pursue therapy rather than working, she had to swear that she received no outside money. We both knew this was
untrue; for the past four years her father-perpetrator had been quietly sending her money.

Among the many meanings of the 8th house is taxes. Frequently, when transiting Saturn is here, a person is audited
by the IRS and financial secrets are brought to the surface. My advice to Linda was "No, don't do it. Don't risk being
audited, as you could very possibly be caught."
The next time Linda walked into my office, she was a strikingly different person. She was finally and quite clearly in
present time. Rather than her usual wounded and hidden presence, she seemed fully alive. I could hardly wait for her
to sit down. "What's going on with you?" I asked. "You look better than you have in years."
Linda told me she was being audited by the federal agency that had been providing her benefits—that the agency did
not believe she could exist solely on the monthly stipend they were sending her. The agency was contacting her
neighbors, her landlord, even her parents to discover how she had made financial ends meet. She was possibly going
to be charged with a felony—no joking matter.
Linda was frightened, and with good reason. Yet I was amazed at how whole she now seemed. No spaced-out lost
soul here. Linda was scared, but fully awake. I asked about her various therapies. She said she had cast them all
aside. "That's over. I don't need that anymore. I want to get a job, make some money, and start paying the
government back." What a response! She was starting to reclaim her life and live in present time.
Facing Death
The 8th is the house of death. It might seem paradoxical that in this house we can renew our life; yet there is a
connection. According to the Buddhists, nothing gets our spiritual priorities straighter than death. “Keep Death to the
left,” the shaman Don Juan advised Carlos Castanada. Acknowledging death can be a powerful means for moving us
into present time. Almost universally, those who’ve suffered near-death experiences report that it blessed them with a
keener sense of life.
Modern and traditional astrologers disagree on death’s importance to this house. Dane Rudhyar suggests this
meaning is overrated.3 As spokesman for the traditional view, John Frawley argues otherwise: “In any astrology that
purports to say anything of concrete and verifiable accuracy, the eighth is the house of death. This is not death in any
poetic or metaphorical sense, as some modern authorities claim. This is death in the very real sense of someone no
longer being alive.”4
That a person will die is one prediction we can make with full accuracy. The trick is nailing when. Recently I heard the
story of a woman who visited an astrologer and was told her death was imminent. She was thrown into turmoil. When
the time passed and she didn’t die, she was relieved, then mighty angry with the astrologer. Last week a dear friend
confessed that on her recent trip to Nepal a palm reader had told her she would die in five years. Choking back tears,
my friend asked if I saw the same thing. I checked her chart. I saw nothing remarkable and she was relieved. Still I
wondered, if the time came and I was wrong, would she go hurtling through the afterworld mighty mad at me?
Frawley suggests that modern astrologers are squeamish about giving their clients anything but happy news.
Traditional astrologers were more practical: it was pointless to predict a client’s Wednesday if by Tuesday he’d be
dead. To locate the time of death, Frawley suggests looking carefully at the 8th house cusp and ruler, also the
condition of the 8th in the solar and lunar returns. It’s true that most modern astrologers haven’t developed this
technique. Rarely does “Timing Death” appear on conference schedules. When I ask my astrology buddies their
means for timing death, their responses are as vague as mine. The mother of one of my astrologer friends had
terminal cancer. We looked at possible times for her inevitable death. We suspected it would happen the year Pluto
squared my friend’s Moon, but her mother ignored the transit and continued living.
Perhaps as the Buddhists say it is enough to know that we will die, even though the time is uncertain. In the
meantime, when my clients show an 8th house emphasis by transit, progression or solar return, I’ve found it useful to
suspect that “something” in their life will die. However poetic and metaphorical my view, it’s also practical; the majority
of my clients survive these transits and gain new meaning from them. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether we
moderns are dumbing down the tradition or expanding the symbols to speak to a contemporary culture’s needs.
Planets in the 8th of a solar return can signal a year of crisis or instability. There may be a significant lifestyle change,
difficult adjustments to a divorce, a move, a new job. An emphasized 8th in the solar or by transit or progression can
indicate a death or emotional crisis for someone close to us. Often our own ego gets a traumatic hit, suggesting it’s
time to let go of some notion it holds about itself. Recently my friend, astrologer April Elliott Kent, posted an article on
her website about Saturn transiting through her 8th house. “Saturn,” she wrote, “is stomping through my eighth house
like Godzilla humbling Tokyo, holding up a mirror to my trembling second-house natal Saturn with its many
insecurities.”5 The 8th house rules our partner’s money; April’s husband was currently without an income. Together
they owed the IRS a chunk of change and although their stock portfolio wasn’t dead, it was on life support. They also
became victims of credit card fraud. “Really,” April wrote, “eighth house transits don’t get a whole lot worse than this.
It’s enough to make you want to… take a nap. And drink heavily.”
April emailed me the day after posting her article. “I just received the most mind-blowing email I’ve ever received from
a reader, accusing me of writing only about ‘(my) life, (my) house, (my) husband’ and ‘suggesting’ that I return to a
more ‘generic’ approach (when did I ever have that?!). You can imagine my reaction, and my response... I'm
considering writing an addendum to the article with this extra illustration of the Saturn opposition at work. Second
house Saturn: ‘You think you're no good, unworthy, your ideas unacceptable?’ Eighth house transiting Saturn: ‘Well,
you're RIGHT!’”
Here’s where it’s helpful to know astrology: April could lay down and die or recognize something else needed to die.
“And that's exactly what's coming out of this,” April emailed the next day. “It's like a whole lifetime of people picking at
my creative efforts with their ‘who do you think you are?’ attitude is bubbling up and I'm just standing there and saying,
you know what? This is bullshit!” Not all 8th house deaths are bad. Because of her courageous awareness, April’s
insecurities tumbled under the Grim Reaper’s axe.
What About Sex?

“The idea of sex as an eighth-house activity is quite horrific,” writes John Frawley.6 Sex in the traditional system is
located in the 5th house. I’m inclined to agree. But I have noticed that for the month the Sun passes through the 8th
each year, my clients report having the most amazing sex dreams. Or they discover an unusual jump in phermones
making them more attractive to the opposite sex.
Fifth house sex is joyful and full of pleasure. In the traditional view this is Venus’ realm. This is a house of play and sex
is a great way for adults to play with each other. But 8th house sex is different. It’s more complicated and mysterious.
It’s the kind of sex Pluto had with Persephone (Pluto rules the 8th in modern astrology). When the 8th is activated, we
might identify with one or the other. We could feel possessive and on the prowl like Pluto. Or be innocently picking
flowers like Persephone, heading for a big surprise. As either character, we’ll land in a bed from the underworld.
Eighth house sex is the kind husbands hide from their wives. Or it’s the kind couples argue about, “I want sex this
way… I need it so many times a week.” This power struggle extends beyond sex and into everything: “I hate your
mother… I don’t like the way you spend money.” Eighth house sexual struggles are the ones that appear
on Oprah and Dr. Phil. But in the myth, we never get a picture of what Pluto does with Persephone. When myths draw
the curtain on certain scenes, it’s a clue that experiences here are wildly varied, and that each one of us must
navigate this passage on our own.
Yet we can’t leave the 8th without hearing at least one sex tale. This one comes from Bronwyn Elko, another
astrologer who contributed to my previous 8th house column (when Saturn was in Pisces). One of the things I
especially enjoy is how it proves that even grim Saturn can have a sense of humor. I leave you with her words.
BROWNWYN’S STORY
After I lost my virginity I wrote in my journal, "Today Peter and I made love. Phosphorescene bloomed into
visions. Now I know there is a God!" Sacred sex is my religion, a portal to mystical ecstasy. Never mind the mucky
consequences of spiritual pride bound up with intimacy, "healing through sex," sacrifice as power, and other
Pisces/8th house delusions. Some part of me stubbornly believes that the "universe of yoni" (Hindu for vagina)
receives a divine spark from a man's lingham, or "wand of light." The stir of sticky fluids is nectar from the gods which
acts like a drug.
All my life I've spontaneously hallucinated during lovemaking. It's as if other worlds breach the surface of our skins. It
sounds crazy, but the universe once enfolded my lover's eyes and biological time flowed backwards into alien
landscapes. With natal Neptune in the 3rd, these visions fuel my fantasy fiction, which is interesting in light of recent
events.
Saturn entering my 8th unearthed subterranean Pisces when I became passionately involved with a man whose
physical condition prohibited sexual intercourse! Devastated but determined, I vowed to stick it out. The more I
"sacrificed and suffered" the worse things got. A power struggle ensued wherein we fought to change each other's

values. Threatened by his nihilistic vision, I promptly donned savior robes in a hopeless attempt to "redeem" him, the
hidden reflection of my own denied cynicism.
My Aquarius on the 7th was hopelessly "hooked": the guy is the brilliant writer my Saturn in the 3rd yearns to become.
But Saturn transiting my 8th forced back the projection in the most painful way possible (via Neptune square natal
Neptune in the 3rd). Can you guess what Piscean currency his Promethean spirit "stole" from me, the coin Charon
demanded I pay in exchange for trying to import his brilliance? In short, the whole episode resulted in a crippling block
which denied all access to imagination. I felt dead for months.
But that wasn't all.
Shortly after our breakup I overheard two women talking about him at a writer's party. "Oh," said the blonde, "his
writing's so passionate." The other blew a smoke-ring and replied, "Yeah, he must be great in bed!"
Notes:
1. John Frawley, The Real Astrology Applied (Apprentice Books, 2002), p. 191
2. Dana Gerhardt, “The 8th House,” The Mountain Astrologer, 12/95.
3. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses, (CRCS Publications, 1972), p. 105
4. Frawley, ibid, p. 188
5. April Elliott Kent: www.bigskyastrology.com
6. Frawley, ibid, p.
7. Dana Gerhardt, ibid

The 9th House
by Dana Gerhardt
I like to think of the 9th house as a happy place. Here’s where we don lederhosen, toss a knapsack on our back, and
stride gaily through the wide world, singing as we go, “Valderee, Valderah, Valderee, Valderah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.” Here
we feel adventurous and free. The 9th holds our personal Alps, where the spirit soars, the mind expands, and life
acquires new meaning. The 9th takes us to uncharted territories and gifts us with new perspectives. It rules travel to
faraway places, higher education, religion, philosophy, mysticism, divination, and publishing—endeavors that increase
our understanding and broaden the scope of our lives. When there is a 9th house emphasis by transit, progression or
solar return, we might get justifiably excited: A new adventure is on the way! Rarely do we worry about planets in this
happy house.
The year my Aunt Nancy had five planets in the 9th house of her solar return, she read voraciously—about past lives,
auras and astral travel. She listened to talk radio shows about mediums, the spirit world and UFOs. She pondered the
meaning of life, the lessons of her three marriages. She soared on the airways of her mind. Clearly she was
experiencing her 9th house. That’s because she had no choice. Shortly after her birthday, she was hit by a car. She
spent most of that year lying flat on her back in bed.
My friend with the 9th house Sun says his happiest memories are the two times he hit the road, without plan, letting
serendipity chart his course. The first time Dave traveled with a hitchhiker’s thumb and knapsack. Fourteen years later
he took to the road in a customized van complete with Nintendo and a mini-refrigerator. What launched his two
adventures? Was it 9th house wanderlust? No. He’d been stunned by the two great setbacks of his life. The first came
when Saturn conjoined his Sun. Dave’s wife left him—for a woman. Fourteen years later Saturn opposed his Sun. He
was fired from the company he had helped to build for the past ten years. Both times his solar identity cracked. Ninth
house wandering was how he put himself together again.
Expatriates often have significant placements in their natal 9th. Astrology concurs that such individuals might find their
fortunes far from home. My foreign-born clients with 9th house planets often do seem free-spirited, broad-minded, and
adventurous. Andre emigrated from France in his early twenties and never went back home. With a 9th house Moon,
he loves travel, philosophy, politics, and women. He has an incredible joie d’vivre. But the year a crisis threatened to
return him to his homeland, he told me several horrific childhood stories. Andre left France because he needed to put
thousands of miles between himself and his family.
When the 9th is strong in a chart, natally or by transit, we should get curious about what’s motivating those planets.
Perhaps it’s a simple urge for adventure, a desire to cruise around the world, find one’s guru, expand one’s future with
a university degree. Or perhaps the individual has paid a "world-upside-down" tuition fee, had her passport stamped
by crisis. The days after President Bush’s re-election, I was stunned to hear so many of my “blue state” friends
threatening to leave for Canada, New Zealand, the south of France. Would they leave everything behind because of
an election? As the weeks progressed, most calmed down. I came to understand their initial reaction as a knee-jerk

9th house response. When the hammer falls, we take out the map and look for a new frontier. There’s nothing like a
distant horizon to repair a shattered soul. Whenever we reach a personal limit, after a divorce, a career gone bad,
when life doesn’t turn out as we hoped it would, to the 9th house we’ll go. We’ll take a trip. We’ll return to school. We’ll
seek advice from a 9th house person—an astrologer, lawyer, or priest. We’ll pray for God’s blessings. As we go
through the outer 9th house motions, inwardly we’re reaching, stretching and struggling to acquire a new perspective
on our world.
The 9th encourages our quest for meaning in life. But generally we don’t go there until life falls apart. Few of us retire
gaily to our dens to pen our personal philosophies. Something upends us and starts our questioning. There is an
astrological connection between the 9th house and crisis. The 9th follows the 8th house of death and dissolution. In
the 8th the ground is razed, monsters crawl up from the basement, our identities are stripped and laid bare.
Something we’ve held onto dies. At such moments, we raise our eyes and seek a higher power’s grace. We want to
connect with something greater than ourselves. Would we look for the gods if our tummies were full and life were
constantly joyful?
The 9th rules the literature of spirit, the metaphors, symbols and myths that bind a culture, its moral codes, its shared
ideals and visions. No other house speaks so eloquently of the dignity and intelligence of the human spirit. The 9th is
a decidedly human house. What other species builds temples and universities or courts of law? Perhaps what most
distinguishes humankind from the animals is our capacity for abstract thought. We look for underlying patterns, the
overarching laws of Nature. We try to master our fates, predicting and planning for the future—based on our
experience of the past or what we can divine from portentous symbols. Animals live in the present. Through language
and imagery, we humans travel in time, building on the foundations of past lessons, drawing new futures out of
imagination's pocket.
Yet we pay a heavy price for this gift. Knowledge of time also brings awareness of the inevitability of death. And this
knowing throws us into an anxious, insecure, even terrified condition. Fear is an unexpected by-product of our
awareness of time. As my dog lies peacefully on the couch, I worry about the future, about paying my bills, about
dying someday, about watching a loved one die. My dog is blissfully ignorant of the daily news. But as I watch the
pictures from Iraq, or Albuquerque for that matter, I wonder, why such suffering? What does it all mean? Against the
suffering and impermanence of life, we seek a more enduring grace. Our 9th ideas feed our spirit. Our religious and
cultural institutions promise that something good will survive after our last breath. We’re comforted by the belief that
when we do die, we will pass into something rather than nothing. By making sense of death, the 9th gives new
meaning to our existence. That’s why I consider this a happy house. This is where we refill our cups—with dignity,
hope, and joy.
We seek truth in the 9th house. But what we get there are beliefs, an entirely different matter. Its opposite, the 3rd
house, is built on facts. The 9th is knit with theories and opinions. While its ideals can open up new worlds, they can
also shut our borders and lock us into conflict. The 9th rules higher mind, but this can be any belief that guides us. It
becomes our personal religion, and religions can cause more wars than peace. Discussing belief systems with clients
is tricky work. Their beliefs will come up in almost every reading. But you can’t predict them in advance, nor pry
troublesome ones loose with any ease.
Let’s say you have a client with the Sun, Mars, and Uranus in the 9th house of her solar return. She’s going to be
(Sun), act (Mars), and change (Uranus) in 9th house ways. You start with outer options. “Are you doing any traveling
this year?” “No.” “Are you going back to school?” “Nuh-uh.” Are you doing any teaching or publishing?” Your client
shakes her head. A little desperate now, “Are you involved in a lawsuit? Joining a monastery? Immersed in
philosophy?” Your client is wondering why her friend recommended you. You’re wondering why her solar return chart
is garbage. Quickly you move on to what your client really wants to talk about: “My husband is an ass.” There are no
transits to relationship planets or houses in her natal chart. Why is marriage on her mind? What’s going on in her SR
9th house? Why is her SR 7th house empty?
Along with houses 7 and 8, the 9th house is in the relationship quadrant of the horoscope. As Howard Sasportas
writes, “The 1st house is ‘I am’ while the opposite house, the 7th is ‘We are.’ The 2nd is ‘I have’ and its opposite, the
8th is ‘We have.’ Correspondingly, the 3rd is ‘I think’ and the 9th is ‘We think.’1
When a husband and wife discover they think—or more precisely—believe differently, they have a 9th house problem.
I don’t necessarily mean that she’s a Catholic and he’s a Buddhist. Let’s say her husband believes cheating means
having physical sex with someone; everything else is harmless fun. But she believes that cheating is anything you do
in secret with another woman, including hopping onto pornographic websites or sending salacious emails to online
partners. When she discovers he’s been indulging his sexual fantasies in cyberspace, she learns that what “I think” is
not what “we think.” Another way to look at it is the 9th house is the 3rd house from the relationship 7th. The 3rd
house describes the mental environment of the 1st house self… the 9th house describes the mental environment of
the 7th house relationship. When there is a disturbance in this environment, a conflict between one partner’s ideals
and another’s, the solar return will reflect this with planets in the 9th.
Conflicting values are among the most difficult relationship problems to resolve. It’s hard enough discussing 9th house
subjects with friends. Steve has Uranus and Pluto in the 9th house. We’ve had countless debates. Like many with
difficult planets here, Steve had a 9th house monkey to get off his back. Raised in a strict Christian household, he
traveled a straight and narrow path, living cleanly to keep in God’s good graces. In his early twenties, his progressed
Moon entered the 9th house. Not surprisingly, he was studying at a university. But he was troubled. He was living at
home, had no girlfriend, no sense of the future, and none of the rewards he expected the Christian life would bring. He
became bitter and suspicious, not just of Christianity, but of any religion. By the time I met him, he was fond of quoting
Marx: "Religion is the opiate of the masses."
I reminded him of the lines that come before that famous sentence. Marx actually said, "Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, and the soul of the soulless condition. It is the opiate of the
masses." Prayers are not the only opiate, I pointed out, also political manifestoes, all philosophy, art and literature—
the many ways we brace ourselves against the incomprehensible sufferings of life. My friend wrapped himself in
existentialist despair. "Okay, so if we just make it all up, then what's the point? If there is no God, no 'something else,'
it's all a lie, and life is just plain meaningless." There was both anger and triumph in his voice. There was no use
getting him to see the irony of his own religion, that his nihilism was how he'd written meaning into his life. Our debate
fizzled because neither of us was willing to change. Several years later, when the progressed Moon again entered
Steve’s 9th house, he sent me an email from faraway India. His 9th house horizons had expanded. He was traveling
with a quantum physics professor who was introducing him to a new religion. “I now know God is consciousness,”
Steve wrote, “existing everywhere in everything!”
The 9th is a cadent house. In cadent houses we adapt to changing circumstances. We are acted upon by the world
and we must adjust. No matter how certain our beliefs at any time, we should remember they’re not fixed. Do you still
believe what you believed when you were 12? Twenty-four? Forty-two? If your client is stuck with a limiting belief,
she’s calling because she needs a door opened in her 9th. The sign on her 9th house cusp won’t tell you what she
does or what she should believe. But it can tell you how she holds her beliefs and how you can help her shift to one
more workable. Water signs will need you to speak to their feelings. Earth signs will want you to speak in practical,
tangible terms. Fire signs want to be inspired. Air signs will enjoy the play of ideas. Sometimes the best assistance
you can offer is simply naming what feels like “truth” as a belief. Let’s say your client or friend is in a relationship with
an unfaithful husband. She’s miserable. It’s slowly killing her, but she can’t bring herself to leave. After some
discussion, the underlying belief comes out. “I’m afraid that Brian is my last chance. If I leave him, I’ll never find love
again.”
To help someone dismantle a limiting belief, questions work better than lectures. That’s because the transformation
must happen inside that person rather than come from you. Questions help till the mental soil so a new thought can
take root. But empathy is important. “I can see how you’d feel that way, and how scary it would be to live alone for the
rest of your life.” Until your friend or client feels heard, she won’t relax enough to shift her thinking. Hold her truth
respectfully in the space between you. Then ask another question. “How do you know for sure that you’ll never meet
someone new? What evidence tells you this is true?” Usually there’s no rational evidence for such beliefs. Of course
it’s every astrologer’s dream to find a lovely Venus/Sun progression in such a person’s future. You’d like to say you
know for sure that she’ll find true love next June. But you can’t prove futures with astrology. You can only make an
educated guess. And if a person doesn’t believe that love is possible, her Venus/Sun progression might arrive as a
box of chocolates or a delightful shopping spree.
“I know that women my age don’t often find romance. And good men are always hard to find.” One of the advantages
of being an astrologer is you that know plenty of real-life examples to disprove such dismal logic. “Just last week I
talked with a woman who met her soul mate at sixty-two. She had no idea that’s what would happen when she
divorced at fifty-five. What would change for you if you believed new love was possible? How would you act? What
would you do?” “Well I guess I wouldn’t feel so weak. Maybe I’d lose some weight. I’d start doing some of the things
I’ve always wanted to do, like taking that metal sculpting class, and seeing if I could get my poetry published.” You

hear a new strength in her voice and reflect that back. Spend some time in the spaciousness of this new belief. You
can’t force people to change their thinking. But you can pluck a thread loose from their personal religion, and hope
that after the conversation, their perceived limitations will continue to unravel.
As a writer, my own confidence routinely wavers. When inspiration disappears, my belief becomes “I’m just no good
and should give it up.” During one such season, I did what I encourage my clients to do. I called an astrologer, James
Braha, a Vedic practitioner. He said my Vedic chart confirmed that writing was my destiny; no bad planets were
standing in the way. Nonetheless, I was stuck. "Perhaps it's the lack of confidence in your 12th house Moon," Braha
suggested. The Vedic remedy? A Hindu ceremony known as a nava graha (or, nine planets) yagya.
I had heard of this ceremony. You pay some money, a priest in India chants for a while, and your problems
disappear—groovy! Here was foreign travel and religious ritual rolled into one, and I could do it all with a credit card
and phone number! "No," Braha cautioned, "you should do it in person. These are powerful ceremonies. But if the
priest gets interrupted, it won't take. Check the yellow pages and find a local temple."
I arrived at a temple in the hills above Malibu on a Monday, the Moon's day. It was an auspicious waxing Moon. I had
the items I'd been instructed to bring: two coconuts, two pounds of rice, 25 sticks of wood, a pack of camphor, a pack
of incense, a pound of ghee, some assorted fruit, a bouquet of flowers, and a check for $101 made out to the temple. I
was given a receipt and told to hand it to one of the two priests sitting by Shiva's shrine.
There was just one priest. When I produced my receipt, he scowled, then hollered in a foreign tongue, perhaps calling
the other priest who was nowhere to be found. I was told to sit near the fire pit. Grumpy, the priest unpacked my rice
and other items and poured them in a silver bowl. He instructed me in placing the fruit and flowers. He started the fire,
then, in somewhat broken English, confessed he had a headache from praying in the morning sun. Braha had said
nothing about a headache ruining the ceremony, but I was beginning to wonder.
The priest lit the fire and began chanting. Then he looked at me expectantly. I was supposed to do something? Yes, I
was supposed to repeat the strange Sanskrit words. I took a deep breath. Real Hindu devotees were coming and
going all around us. I felt like an idiot tourist, then made a split-second decision to abandon myself to the experience.
Over the next hour, I chanted with passion, threw incense and ghee into the fire at the appointed moments
(unfortunately I had brought oil-treated kindling sticks which flamed up so vigorously they nearly singed the priest's
brows). I circled the fire pit nine times, bowed up and down nine times. Then the dreaded event occurred: the other
priest arrived and interrupted us!
Did it matter? Lost in the ceremony, I had almost forgotten why I was there, until the priest, friendlier now, instructed
me to ask the planets for what I wanted. I closed my eyes, tried to formulate the words carefully. Suddenly I felt such a
powerful in-rush of energy, I was almost knocked off my feet. It was brief, but it was strong.

What happened after the ceremony surprised me. No shafts of light poured from the heavens, no divine voice
thundered in my head. I did not run to my computer and start typing. But by the end of that day, a new conviction had
quietly stolen in to replace my lack of confidence. I had a different perspective on my work. I hadn't reached this in any
logical way. I’d leapt somewhere, but how? Perhaps it’s just this mystery that makes the 9th house so appealing--how
your world can change with just an idea, a prayer, or a strange ritual. What is this power we petition here? Why has
every civilization made offerings to it? How has this power poured into us as new concepts, moral guidance, art that
endures for centuries? Certainly our 9th house beliefs can trap us and draw a curtain on our growth. They also can
take us so far beyond ourselves that we conceive ourselves anew. That’s why mankind is so devoted to the 9th,
connecting with God, searching for answers, believing in miracles. There is much in this house to ponder. And
definitely much to love.
Notes:
1. Howard Sasportas, The Twelve Houses (The Aquarian Press, 1985), p. 85.

The 10th House1
by Dana Gerhardt
"I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody-instead of a bum, which is what I am."
Who among us does not ache with Marlon Brando, as the has-been prizefighter Terry Malloy, when he utters these
famous lines in On the Waterfront? Every astrological house has its secret anguish. In the 10th house it's failure, the
discovery that we didn't make good on our dreams. I'll never forget the chilling confession of one of my high school
English teachers, the one with the impressive Jesuit education and the faint smell of alcohol always on his breath. He
stared at his folded hands one day and quietly told me that his life was second rate: "I settled for a second rate job, a
second rate wife, a second rate home, and second rate kids." I stammered a vague reply. But inwardly I vowed-as
perhaps he did at my age?-that I would never do the same.
What you make of yourself is a 10th house matter. The 10th describes your career, your public reputation, your
worldly status. It suggests your optimum contribution to society, the qualities for which you'd like to be admired and
respected. To investigate the "name" you might make for yourself, look to planets in the 10th and the sign on your
10th house cusp. The cusp of the 10th is known as the "Midheaven," one of the four important angles of the chart.
Early Egyptian astrologers associated these angles with the daily circuit of the Sun. The Ascendant signified sunrise;
the Descendent, sunset; the bottom of the chart, or the IC, midnight; and the Midheaven at the top, high noon, when
the Sun reaches maximum glory and strength. The Midheaven represents the Sun's culmination, its highest reach on
the day you were born. Correspondingly, it signifies how high you can go this lifetime. But it doesn't say how high you
will. And therein lies the drama. The 10th describes how society measures your life. Are you a hero? Or a bum.
So intimately is the 10th house tied to success or failure, we can use it to predict success in simple horary questions.
Whatever the endeavor ("Will I succeed on my test tomorrow?"), assess the relationship between the planet signifying
the questioner and the planet ruling the 10th house cusp. Good aspects promise a good result. But the natal chart is
not nearly so definitive. Planets in (or ruling) the natal 10th don't assure us of anything. They will be prominent, but for
what reason, and how widely they'll be seen, is much less clear. The Moon in the 10th could make you famous. Or
notorious. Your face could be on the cover of People magazine. Or the neighbors could discover you sleeping in the
hedges as they drive off to work.
The 10th shows how others see us-especially those who don't know us too well. It suggests our reputation among
acquaintances, bosses and coworkers, our mother's book club, distant relatives, strangers too. We don't care enough
about these people to get to know them better. Yet if their opinion of us is poor, it will bother us greatly. We care about
our public image. And it's nice to have an impressive 10th house calling card. Walk through any graveyard, however,
and the 10th house quickly loses its importance. You won't see "wealthy banker," "top insurance salesman," or "the
sexiest guy on the block" etched onto any headstone. All the worldly success people struggle for and achieve
dissolves at the cemetery into more personal descriptions: "beloved husband," "loving mother," "devoted sister."
1
http://www.astro.com/astrology/in_dgtenthhouse_e.htm
These terms belong to the house opposite the 10th, the 4th, which rules not only family, but endings. In deathbed
scenes, people rarely express regret or gather comfort from their life's career choices. They don't wish for a little extra
time to finish up that memo or earn another few thousand dollars. Rather, they wonder if they loved well enough, if
they used their time to touch life deeply enough, if they traveled far enough on the spiritual path. Rarely do the dying
obsess about 10th house things.
Yet among the living, preoccupation with the 10th is perhaps unmatched by any other house (except of course the 7th
of relationships). Career matters are often the reason people schedule readings. "What's my life direction? Is it time
for a change? Am I in the right field?" Into the 10th we're pushed and prodded more than any other area of life. Meet
someone new and you can't help asking a 10th house question: "What do you do for a living?" And if that person is
young: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" When Branden was in my womb I vowed not to torment him with
this line of inquiry until he was at least 27. I know many people at ages 37, 47, even 57, who still don't know what to
do with their lives. Yet parents will often ask astrologers to look at a child's chart and divine what Junior will be when
he grows up. Why apply the pressure so soon?
As with many of the things I vowed not to do with my own child (like threatening Santa Claus would skip our house if
Branden didn't go to sleep on Christmas Eve. it was two in the morning), I succumbed. There I was, walking with my
dog and my then 3-year-old Branden. The red-tailed hawks floated in wide circles above us, the curious ravens rattled
and cawed from the eucalyptus trees. Suddenly, the dreaded question came out of my mouth: "So, uh, what are you
going to be when you grow up?" Branden's expression was blank, so I offered a few suggestions. "A fireman?" "Yes,"
he said. "Or how about a trash truck driver?" "Mm-hmm." "A space man?" "Sure." Part of me felt defeated that I'd
asked. And part of me felt this was exactly what we should be talking about. Giving my son a sense of destination
seemed a responsible plan.
Perhaps it's not the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" that's so bad. It's the expectation of nailing
down an answer. I like what Bill Herbst has to say about it: "The question is relevant whether one's age is nine or
ninety, for 'adulthood' usually seems oddly far off, in the distance yet to come."1 This is especially true for the always-
a-child Pluto in Leos; for them, being four or forty can feel strangely similar. Their Pluto in Cancer parents would select
a career in their twenties and stick with it until retirement. Pluto in Libras and Pluto in Virgos are being advised to
prepare for a future of two or three different careers, in order to keep pace with the changing world ahead of them.
Whatever the generation, where is it written that we're supposed to answer the 10th house question just once? This is
the house of destiny, after all. When you look at a real life, it's clear that several destinies can appear in the course of
it.
I have a friend with Neptune closely conjunct his Libra Midheaven. He is currently in the enviable position of having
reached one of the few goals of his life: to retire in his early forties with a six-figure income. Yet, surprisingly, Gabriel
recently admitted that reaching that milestone hasn't made him particularly happy. Nor does it much delight or impress
his friends, who seem oddly uncomfortable with him. This is partly due to the circumstances surrounding his
retirement. Gabe's career dissolved with scandal and betrayal, resulting in a lawsuit against the former business
partners with whom he shared ownership of his company. This brought on a severe depression during which Gabe
virtually disappeared from the world. He is beyond that funk now, and though his friends don't much press him, to
each other they frequently pose the question, "So, what is he going to do with his life now?!"
As the most elevated planet in a chart, the one closest to the Midheaven exerts a potent influence on an individual's
life. When Gabriel was born, Neptune took position as sentry to all his future 10th house passages. Neptune works
with veils, sometimes idealizing, sometimes disguising material realities. Neptune acts by dissolving, quite different
from the confident structuring we usually want for 10th house activities. Scandal, betrayal, disillusionment and
dropping out of the world are certainly Neptune-appropriate themes. Gabe's business was Neptunian too-advertising
and marketing-fields that invent fantasies and sell them to consumers.
Gabe's early retirement wasn't the first time Neptune wrote itself into his life script. A decade or so earlier, Gabe left
his position as a successful brand manager for one of the top packaged goods companies in the country. He
voluntarily dropped out of corporate America to work at a dive shop in Mexico, under another cloud of betrayal. His
fiance had been lying and cheating on him. Here was Neptune again, dissolving one public persona, and summoning
him to another. To recover and renew himself, Gabe led tourists on dives into Neptune's sea. He knew nothing about
his chart, but there was that planet, guiding his choices again. Is it cosmic chance, comedic fate, or a kind of divine
love that keeps drawing these planetary energies so vividly into our dramas, timing their unfolding too?
When Neptune and Uranus conjoined in the early 90's, they squared Gabe's Midheaven/Neptune exactly, bringing the
sudden change, disillusionment, and disappearance that followed. Astrologers interpreted the sudden changes the
Uranus/Neptune conjunction brought as somehow necessary, liberating even, despite their sometimes trauma or
shock. Gabriel's experience of the transit was no exception. Though he hadn't planned on leaving his company so
soon, for as long as I'd known him he seemed unhappy in his 10th house corporate role. Neptune on his Midheaven
had always been hard for me to reconcile with his businessman image: "You should be a poet or a mystic, or a liar
and alcoholic" I would tease. The latter was not too far off. He drank alcohol and smoked pot heavily. In the final
months at his company, rumors about his substance abuse and mood swings were high. His psyche was begging him
to shift his professional course.
Like a stone falling slowly through water, a planet in a house drops through all the years of our experience there. It will
somehow touch us at each life stage. Gabe's earliest experience of his Neptune Midheaven was at seventeen
months-he lost his father. In a child's chart, the 10th represents the parents. Neptune here suggests some loss,
confusion, or deception with one's parents. Modern astrology designates the 10th as the father's house; traditional
astrology says it's the mother's. An in-between view is that this house describes the "shaping parent," the one with the
greatest influence on that child's social persona. In Gabe's case, both parents were clothed in Neptune's garb. One
day, Gabe's mom left her husband a good-bye note on the kitchen table and took the kids a thousand miles away.
Gabriel didn't meet his real dad again until many years later, at his Saturn return. When Gabe was six, his mother

remarried. Cornering him in his bedroom, her instructions were emphatic: Gabe was never to let anyone know, under
any circumstance, that her new husband was not his real dad.
This is Gabriel's first memory of a Neptune family message he would hear many times: Hide who you are. He adopted
his stepdad's last name. Here was Neptune again, for "Harper" wasn't even a real family name. It was the stage name
of his step-grandad, who had tried to make it as a Hollywood actor under that handle and failed.
A planet in a house is a cosmic transmitting station. It draws down that energy from the cosmos, and through us,
sends it out again. Gabe claims he can't remember much of his childhood (Neptune can stimulate the imagination and
depress one's consciousness). Gabe does remember figuring out the smartest policy was to pick a neutral corner and
stay out of the way. Watching his older sister on the losing end of many battles with his judgmental, look-good-on-the-
outside mother, he learned how to hide. With Libra on his Midheaven he got good at hiding in a charming, sociable
way. He discovered how to be what people wanted him to be. He carried a world inside his head that rarely spilled
outside of it. Given Gabriel's 10th house, he might have been an artist or a spiritual devotee. Like an artist, he has a
rich inner life. Like a mystic, he can be in the world, but not of it. Yet Gabe spent most of his professional life hiding his
true nature. This was the child's 10th house strategy, not the expression of a confident adult.
Whatever the sign in your 10th house, add the adjective "professional" and that's what you should be when you grow
up. If you've got Gemini on the Midheaven, you should aspire to become a "professional Gemini." Be talkative, be
curious, be versatile. Be a good listener. Tell lots of stories. Surprise people with your multiple skills. These
requirements can serve you well in lots of occupations. But be advised: Gemini traits can make you unsuccessful too.
Perhaps you can't stop gossiping. You can't pick a single direction and commit. Maybe you're too restless to finish
what you start. You change your mind so much, no one trusts you with a responsible position.
How do you ensure your expression of your 10th house is a positive one? Whatever the sign in your 10th house,
you've got to grow your professional image beyond your childhood strategies and take your place in the world with
maturity and strength. To do this, you must take a journey as old as myth. Just getting older won't do it. You have to
kill the king, or in modern parlance, face the boss. Modern astrologers give Saturn the natural rulership of this house.
Saturn is the planet of authority. And claiming your authority is THE 10th house passage. A child has no choice but to
listen to its authority figures. An adult must grapple with these figures, good or bad, and overtake them.
Long ago, the link between your parents and your professional status was easy to understand. In other days and other
cultures, your birthright, your family's social standing, had everything to do with who you would become. Many literally
joined the family business or followed the family trade. Today we're told we can be whatever we want; we can go as
far as we're willing to take ourselves. Yet the shadow of our family legacy still must be faced. Opposite the 10th is the
4th house, that midnight place which whispers to us in the dark, echoing with old, remembered voices that tell us who
we really are. It's these voices we need to examine and confront on the way to claiming our authority. Think of John
Lennon in his 10th house onstage at the Madison Square Gardens. It didn't matter that he had won the acclaim of
millions. There he was alone with a piano, in a howling infantile rage, screaming, "Mother, I loved you, but you didn't
love me," ending with a pain-filled chorus of "Mama don't go, Daddy come home!" One's psychological inheritance
defines the new 10th house battlefield.
For years I worked as a manager in a corporate setting. There were over a hundred people where I worked, and just
as many family dramas. Some days it seemed that mythical parent-child battles were all that was really going on.
Become an authority figure and you'll quickly find this out. Your intentions are misperceived, your praise is never
enough, your criticisms are exaggerated and devastating. In fact you're not really you at all, but some god or monster,
depending on their filter. If you want to be liked, forget it, because everyone really does need to kill you in order to
grow.
Planets in the 10th and/or ruling the Midheaven suggest how you perceive authority figures. Of course this conditions
the way they'll see you too. My sister and I shared the same family nest, but Jupiter occupies my 10th, Pluto hers. We
saw our parents, and our own positions in the family, quite differently. True to Jupiter, I was the "lucky" one. I was
successful. I was encouraged to continually expand my horizons. I won awards in school. I made my teachers happy.
Later I found bosses who encouraged, praised, and promoted me. Still, I was dancing to their tune; if I wasn't
successful in their eyes, I was a nervous child. Jupiter was expected of me. Wherever I went, I was looking for an "A"
from those in charge. It was a highly functional strategy, but a child's nonetheless. Transits and progressions to the
Midheaven time significant opportunities in claiming one's own authority. When the progressed Moon opposed my
Midheaven, I quit my job and did many months of inner work. When I returned to the company, my boss was no longer
the mommy and daddy I was trying to please. He was just a businessman, a plain old human with strengths and flaws.
I didn't need his approval anymore. I had my own. Since that time, I began to give my Jupiter to others, continually
encouraging those who worked for me to expand their horizons and grow.
My sister breathed Pluto in her childhood, sensing hidden agendas and overt power struggles everywhere, a
perception she's carried into her adult universe. Just as bright as I was, she nontheless dropped out of college a
number of times, and worked sporadically at dozens of jobs and careers. Donna Cunningham has called Pluto the "fail
for spite" planet2, and this is never more true than when it falls in the 10th. My sister has spent years struggling with
the powerlessness my parents' authority made her feel. She's lived awhile on money from the state, still supported like
a child. When Pluto squared her Midheaven, she began her inner work, including facing incest issues (appropriate for
Pluto). When her progressed Moon crossed into her 10th, she made some dramatic changes. She enrolled in school
again and started studying for a career as therapist (also appropriate for Pluto). The biggest change in her 10th house
was that she'd recently become a parent herself. She was finally ready to become the boss herself.
Getting married, divorced, or becoming a parent will often be indicated by transits to the Midheaven, for these are
public as well as personal milestones. They change our social status. But for every outer change there must be an
inner resonance. The 10th and 4th houses are in constant dialogue. We could think of planets in both these houses as
having before and after pictures-before we "face the boss" and after. Often the "before" picture is something a child's
eyes would conceive-idealized or exaggerated. The inner child's need for approval often drives one's early 10th-house

dreams. In On the Waterfront, you can hear this child in Terry Malloy's angry and wistful claim that he could have been
a contender. For most of the movie Malloy is trapped in the past. He's nothing but a former prizefighter whose career
was trashed when he was forced to take a dive. Though a man, he's called "kid" by the union boss who continues to
push him around.
According to traditional astrology, no planet "joys" in the 10th house, but Mars is its natural ruler. Mars is the action
planet. It goes after and/or fights for what it wants. Through Mars, we express our will. Wherever Mars falls in our
chart, we cannot go far in the 10th house, if we don't also apply it there. At the end of On The Waterfront, Malloy
finally understands this mandate. He stands up to boss Johnny Friendly and tells the truth about the corrupt union
system. He fights Friendly in a climactic scene, a sloppy fight, where he is outnumbered and badly beaten. Yet his
fearless testimony ultimately brings the union down, and as Malloy struggles to stand on the docks, supported by a
grateful and admiring crowd, he walks like a genuine hero. This is the real fighter he was meant to become. He faced
the boss in the 10th and came out a winner.
Such a victory can belong to you, too. For details, check out the story in your 10th house.
Notes:
1. Bill Herbst, Houses of the Horoscope, (ACS: 1988), p. p.55.
2. Donna Cunningham, Healing Pluto Problems, (Weiser: 1988), p. 19

The 11th House
by Dana Gerhardt
From my cozy vantage in one of the overstuffed reading chairs at the local Barnes & Noble, I heard a strident voice,
followed by a distinctly snotty laugh: "No you're not. That's silly. You're just a little boy." Likely it was the seven-year-
old girl who'd been holding court at the children's table, organizing puzzles and, with an oozing superiority, instructing
the three and four year-olds not to fold pages or run in the aisles. What poor child was she humiliating, I wondered.
Then I heard the voice of my then three-year-old son: "I am too. I am Batman."
Instinctively I got up, my hand in a fist. I sat back down. A middle-aged woman shouldn't take on a seven-year-old girl,
no matter how badly she wants to preserve her son’s innocence. Better of course to watch what he would do. "I'm
Batman," I heard Branden repeat defiantly. A moment later he was running circles around the aisles of books, issuing
guttural hero sounds and stabbing at the air with an invisible sword. Another boy joined him. "I'm Batman and you're
Superman," Branden sang. He had found a friend and all was well. His super powers had been preserved.
The 11th is the house of friends. Opposite the 5th, that sandbox of child-like innocence and fantasies of our
specialness, the 11th house describes our first experience of tribal society, the playground where we meet the world.
In the 11th we discover we're not alone, which, as my son had just found out, can be both good and bad. The 11th
house brings us allies, the comforts of shared experience, the strength of a collective stand. It also turns a critical eye
on our behavior, makes us vulnerable to group opinion, and defines us as "out" or "in." The house of groups and
organizations, the 11th immerses us in the society of others. Like a jeweler's wheel, it grinds and polishes the
individualism and creativity of our 5th house self, fitting us to the larger world.
But that's not all. There's a garage sale of concepts associated with this house. When I began this series, a colleague
wrote to say she couldn't wait to read what I'd make of the 11th house. I replied, "Me too!" For if there’s a theme that
strings its varied keywords together, it has mostly eluded me. We’re told that the 11th symbolizes the social codes that
bind a society and the revolutionary zeal that breaks it apart. It rules both astrologers and the legislators who would
outlaw them. It describes what we have in common and what makes us different. It's a future-oriented house, but its
social web is often sticky with the past. We’re told the 11th is about warm and loving relationships and the ones about
which we feel much less. Here we’re detached. And we subordinate ourselves to collective aims. Yet we’re also
acknowledged. Astrologers like to say that the 5th is where we give love, and the 11th is where we receive it. Then
there’s that most curious assignment, which says the 11th is the house of hopes and dreams. As if that weren’t
enough, the 11th also rules airplanes, computers, varicose veins, electricity, galaxies, ballots, advisors, humanitarian
causes, and unexpected gains.
Multiple keywords are a bothersome feature of many houses. But what troubles me most about the 11th is how little
confirmation I’ve gotten from matching its keywords to my clients’ experiences. When this house is active, I cannot
confidently state, as some astrology cookbooks do, that a person will be inspired to join a 12-step group or volunteer
for the PTA. Or that when this house is challenged, it signals difficulty with friends. When a friendship becomes so

problematic that an individual needs to discuss it with an astrologer, often enough the 7th house of partnerships or the
5th of playmates is involved. Perhaps the most surprising feature of this house is how differently it’s described by
classical astrologers and contemporary ones. Modern astrology is often accused of white-washing all traditional
forecasts of misfortune. But the 11th is one house which modern astrology has actually stripped of its happy fairy
wings!
Classical astrologers called the 11th “Bona Fortuna” (“Good Fortune”) and the “House of Good Spirit.” The logic,
according to Deborah Houlding1, a modern expert in traditional astrology, is that a planet in the 11th is distant enough
from the Ascendant that it can be seen clearly. Symbolically, it has passed the danger of being combust the rising
Sun. And, it has freed itself from the 12th house hazards of incarceration or invisibility. Planets here are elevated
above earth, and in their diurnal motion, are heading toward the Midheaven. Attaining one’s desires are the promise of
this position. Manilus considered the 11th the most fortunate of all the houses, superior even to the 10th. The
Midheaven suggests completion; power in the 10th has nowhere to go but down. A planet in the 11th, however, is on
the way up. And so this house is festooned with hope, optimism, faith, ambition, and triumph. Lucky, benevolent
Jupiter is said to “joy” in this house.
According to John Frawley, another modern expert in the traditional approach, the 11th’s good fortune further derives
from its position as second house from the 10th. It therefore indicates gifts (2nd house possessions) that come from
the King (10th house). By extension, the 11th holds all manner of lucky breaks, from pennies on the sidewalk to lottery
wins, any bounty that drops unexpectedly from above. It’s this logic that first put “friends” in this house too. Friends are
natural benefactors. Full of goodwill for us, they’re ready to help whenever we’re in need; a man rich in friends is
indeed wealthy. But it is a mistake, says Frawley, to keep adding people to this house, going from friends to all the
groups and organizations to which we might belong. The Chaldean order of planets makes the Sun ruler of the 11th.
“As is only fitting,” writes Frawley, “for as the eleventh shows the good things that descend to us from Heaven, so the
Sun is the image of this endless, inexhaustible bounty permeating and sustaining the cosmos.”2
Classical astrologers saw a rainbow in this house and a pot of gold. But what happened to them? How did we fall into
that more turbulent modern zone where we do—and sometimes don’t—belong?
“Traditional astrology speaks feebly of the eleventh house as the house of ‘hopes and wishes.’ How weak a
conception for one of the most vibrant of all the houses!”3 That’s what the father of modern humanistic astrology,
Dane Rudhyar, had to say about the 11th. And what did Rudhyar believe was more vital than good fortune?
"(B)anding together with friends, with companions fired by a similar yearning for vision and creative social or religious
change.” Which makes me think of a beer commercial full of visionaries and humanitarians. The 11th lost the benefits
of its position between the 12th and 10th houses, its planets out of danger and on their way up. Modern astrology
uses the “alphabet” system. That means the 11th house is allotted the attributes of the 11th sign of the zodiac:
visionary, humanitarian, and future-oriented Aquarius. That’s how “friends and benefactors” grew to include
“community” in general. And how we got the assignment to join with others here, to work for the greater good. In the
11th, says Rudhyar, “the power of society, of the collectivity or the group, is released through the individual … or more
specifically, through the activities the individual performs through the social unit.”4 Gone are personal hopes and
dreams, also gifts from the king. We’re now meant to join with our brothers and sisters and map a shiny future of the
world. Go to PTA meetings! Join Overeaters Anonymous! Save the Whales!
Trained as a modern astrologer, I discovered this house’s legacy of good fortune only recently. If planets here attract
unexpected blessings, my eyes have not been trained to look for them. I would like to tell you happy stories of
fortunate 11th house planets and transits. But it’s perhaps an occupational hazard that clients rarely call astrologers to
say good fortune has struck them and they’d like to know what the devil is going on. Nor am I experienced enough in
the art of horary astrology, for which the 11th’s fortunate meanings are largely intended. Horary erects a chart for the
moment a client asks a question of an astrologer. If the question is “Will I get what I’m hoping for?” the condition of the
11th house ruler will indicate whether the answer is yes or no. What I did learn from my clients was that planets or
transits through this house do not always signal a particular delight in saving humanity, joining groups or even sharing
good times with friends. In fact, a number of clients have even told me that after reading the astrology books, they
wondered if their birth chart was wrong. Despite their Sun or Moon, or Mercury or Venus, being in the 11th, they often
felt lost and unhappy in social situations.
Invariably people’s stories about the 11th, their journeys to connect with the family of man, are filled with
vulnerabilities, and more than one emotional scar. Eleventh house memories often go back to that first experience of a
social unit, one’s family of origin. And planets here, by way of aspect or archetypal qualities, hold these stories in
succinct astrological code. Jean has Pluto in the 11th squaring her Sun. Pluto’s position shows where we must
change. It challenges us to find our power, though for a long time we may feel powerless in this particular area of life.
Jean always felt like an outcast in her family. She's been dogged since childhood by the feeling she doesn't fit in, that
perhaps she doesn't deserve to belong. She’s spent most of her adult life working as a freelance computer consultant,
never settling in one place too long. But her real passion is working as a healer. Her greatest success and joy has
been finding the “tribe” who welcomes and accepts her gift.
My friend Bill has both Moon and Saturn in his 11th. Bill's Moon wants to nest in the comforts of a convivial circle of
friends. His greatest joy is sitting at the corner espresso bar, listening to lively debates about politics and culture. Bill
once told me that he’s often had a deep desire to throw himself into a pile of people and merge. But his Saturn has
given him an equally strong need to erect barriers between himself and others. As I watch Bill move through the world,
his rigid body language often sends a Saturn message: "Don't look; don’t touch." For as long as I've known Bill, he's
been searching for community, but his Saturn insists it must be the right community, the right company, the right
neighborhood, the right book discussion club. After years of looking, he hasn’t found it yet. While his North Node in
Aquarius supports, demands, the search, his South Node in Leo holds back in royal isolation.
Moon and Saturn can be reflections of one’s mother and father in a chart. Bill's parents make a spooky haunting of his
11th house world. Both upstanding Christians, they cared what the neighbors thought, but never mixed with them. For
years they roamed the churches of their town, but never joined one. Bill's father opened a one-man law office and

stayed in that isolation his whole adult life, shaking his head at "all the lunatics out there." Mom planted more seeds of
distrust, "Your friends don’t really like you. They just want to play with your toys." Despite an upper middle class
income, the family lived in a lower middle class neighborhood, like nobility in exile. The "rich boys" the other families
talked about, Bill and his brother became the targets of playmates who should have been friends. The neighbor boys
used to lie in wait to throw rocks as they walked home from school.
The modern 11th house is a complicated place. Instead of that warm and benevolent pair, Sun and Jupiter, presiding
over its activities, we have Uranus and Saturn, the ruling planets of Aquarius. The mythology of these two suggests a
never-ending conflict. Uranus had the nasty habit of eating his children. Saturn (as Kronos) was the son who escaped
this fate and struck his father down. Uranus is lord of the sky. Indeed, all innovation, all progress, all revolutions begin
as creative concepts—sky god stuff. When we are filled with Uranian inspiration in this house we are like Prometheus,
stealing the fire of the gods. We are brilliant and daring. But sure as Uranus was cut down by Saturn, so must our lofty
ideals inevitably fall to Saturn’s limits. That’s how it ended for Prometheus too. He was punished and bound to a rock
as birds pecked his liver. The rock is Saturn, the hard reality of this house. Here is the establishment—the group that
disapproves. Uranus may inspire us to breakthroughs, but Saturn resists change or co-opts it. The tension between
these two planets suggests our experience in this house will have its ups and downs. At times our progressive and
unorthodox inclinations will find the utopia of likeminded community that Rudhyar celebrated. Other times we’ll be the
oddball surrounded by a forbidding Saturn crowd.
The 11th house gives us friends and community, but it requires something of us in return. It expects us to periodically
relinquish self, to balance individuality with “hive” mind. What's striking about indigenous cultures is how they can live
in exactly the same way for hundreds, even thousands of years. Indigenous (earth) cultures are heavy with Saturn.
The tradeoff is that in such tribes innovating individuals are shunned. There are no parades for being different;
individuality is death to the group. In the myth, Saturn follows in his father’s footsteps and eats his children too, until
his son, the new sky god Zeus eventually cuts him down. The tension between earth and sky is always present in
society. The too rigid community makes it impossible to individuate. The too individualistic society makes for a
dangerous, unstable world.
I once read (so long ago that I don’t remember where) that prominent 11th house and/or Aquarian placements
suggest a significant experience of social rejection, a suffering of banishment at the hands of the tribe. Starting out as
an astrologer, whenever I met someone whose chart carried this potential, I’d ask if this were true. Most indeed had at
least one painful story of being drummed from a social circle. Years later it occurred to me that I might have gotten the
same response had I asked everyone this question, prominent 11th house placements or not. The needs of the 5th
house individual are inherently antagonistic to the needs of the 11th house group. Who among us hasn’t been
wounded by this collision? Indeed, it’s often this very experience that puts us in touch with our own humanity.
Rejection makes us question our 5th house creativity. It also calls in question the rules of our 11th house community.
We might suffer in this house, but such suffering increases our sensitivity to the sufferings of others. Experiences here
inspire us to dream of a better world.

The modern 11th house is a turbulent and changing field. Its feedback keeps us on our toes. The social organizations
ruled by the 11th are forever in a kind of flux, the tension between the inspiration that set them in motion and the
forces of time that pull them apart. Friends are a constantly shifting circle. Groups are good for a couple years then fall
apart. In the 11th we meet the constantly changing world. Whatever self we set up in the 5th gets jostled here, tested,
to stand or sink in its shifting ground. The 10th describes our role in society. But the 11th shows how we actually do it,
how we must "realize" ourselves in shifting circumstances, over and over again.
When planets transit or progress through the 11th, people often feel the urge to take their interests, gifts or skills into a
larger world. Whatever sandbox they’ve been playing in is no longer big enough. They need to see a new reflection of
themselves. With 11th house transits, we grow bold enough to enter a new field or widen the circle we’re already in.
Something may happen to us that radically shifts our priorities. We may indeed meet fortunate allies and benefactors.
Or we may encounter resistance—especially from the group we might be leaving behind. In her excellent book about
solar returns5, Mary Shea suggests that planets in this house signal a year when you should question all the rules,
particularly your own. Let Uranus challenge your familiar Saturn structures. Investigate what holds you back. Let
yourself ask daring new questions. Why not quit your job and start a new business? Why not sail around the world all
by yourself? You don’t have to act on every crazy impulse that pops into your head. But if don’t have any crazy ideas
stretching your sense of what’s possible, how can wonderful surprises happen in your future?
One way to reconcile Uranus and Saturn is to refine your wild ideas into realistic goals. It is wise to think about your
future whenever this house is emphasized by transit or progression. And that takes us full circle. It brings us back to
the classical view that this is the house of hopes and dreams.
For years I avoided this phrase until I discovered it’s actually useful and true. I was inspired by Robert Cole’s
wonderful book on the annual path of the Sun through the houses.6 Each year, for approximately one month, the Sun
returns to your 11th house. This is the month, says Cole, when you should choose the seeds for whatever you want to
plant in the year ahead. It is the time when hoping and dreaming are most beneficial. The Sun has just transited
through your 10th house—representing an annual peak, when your work has ripened and is most visible. Now you
must start preparing for the next year’s harvest. What do you want to grow in the year ahead? This is the month to list
everything you’d like to accomplish.
What’s even better is that you don’t have to start working on these goals right away. You get a month to think about
them. When the Sun leaves the 11th and enters your 12th house, you need to let these visions soak into your dreams,
like germinating seeds. It’s common, during the 12th house month for your hopes to turn into doubts and fears. But
we’ll talk about that next time, when we reach the final installment of this series!
Notes:

1. 1 Deborah Houlding, The Houses: Temples of the Sky (Ascella Publications: 1998), pp. 43-45.
2. John Frawley, The Real Astrology Applied (Apprentice Books: 2002), p. 206
3. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS Publications, 1972), pp. 126-127.
4. ibid., p. 123
5. Mary Fortier Shea, Planets in Solar Returns (Twin Stars: 1998).
6. Robert Cole (with Paul Williams), The Book of Houses (Entwhistle Books: 1980).

The Twelfth House
by Dana Gerhardt
Over the years, I’ve received more inquiries about the 12th than any other house. The ones who write are usually in
distress. Sometimes they’re new to astrology and are panicked to learn they’ve got planets here: “I’ve heard the 12th
is a terrible house. Am I doomed?” Other times, it’s people who know all about the 12th. In fact, they’ve got a long tale
of 12th house woe and are hoping I can predict the precise moment its trials will end. Classical astrologers have called
this house “the valley of miseries,” “the dark den of sorrow and horror,” the “portal of toil,” and the house of “Bad
Spirit.”
There is karma here. That means bad things will happen to bad people. Even good people will suffer misfortune if
they’re carrying some mysterious past-life debt. This house can bring frustration, anxiety, confinement, and loss; also
slavery, sickness, and imprisonment. It rules hospitals, prisons, mental institutions, and monasteries (the kind you
were sent to when the family wanted to keep you from public view). The 12th also rules hidden enemies. These are
the evil doers you don’t even know about, like the smiling beautician who Moonlights as a sorcerer, and is even now
sticking pins into a voodoo doll tied with a strand of your hair.
Thank goodness Dane Rudhyar, the father of modern astrology, declared, “There are no bad houses.” [1]And so
modern astrologers, like a happy Extreme Makeover crew, took their axes to this structure of doom. They hollowed out
its dingy cells and remade the 12th into a vast womb of invisible potencies. It is now the matrix of divine unity, holding
the Oneness from which we all emerge and to which we all return. Draped in the gauzy veils of Neptune and Pisces,
the 12th has become an inner dream factory, residence of the collective unconscious, wellspring of symbols and
archetypes, favorite haunt of the imagination. It is a house of intuition, compassion and spiritual transcendence. You’re
advised to serve here, so that you don’t have to suffer. For even modern astrologers couldn’t erase all the difficulties
in this house. They warn that in such a potent unbounded space, you can easily lose your bearings. Functions and
gifts of planets here may be hard to access. You might lack a clear life direction or be confused about who you are.
You may feel shy, insignificant, or anonymous—or you could suffer from delusions of grandeur. Saviors and martyrs
live here. Your psychic boundaries might be so porous, you could be an easy mark for predators, or become a slick
predator yourself. All of this could drive you to deception and drink.
“Things you cannot see” would be the game show category for this house. Whether you favor the traditional or modern
view, analyzing this house poses a similar problem: How do you accurately see its territory? All of its dangers are
invisible, whether caused by karma, hidden enemies, or the perverted logic of your own subconscious. According to
Ptolemy, the 12th corresponded to that part of the sky, just above the horizon, where stars were obscured by the
“thick, misty exhalations from the moistures of earth.” According to the Egyptians, stars here were lost in, and
debilitated by, the sun’s light at sunrise. [2] For both traditionalists and moderns, the 12th represents a colossal blind
spot. Therefore with the problem of perception is where we should begin. Consider the cautionary tale of the Emperor
of Chin.

The First Emperor of Chin was a tyrant. Ambitious and powerful, he conquered a vast territory and was the first to
unite the Chinese into a single empire. Obsessed with immortality, he aimed to conquer death too. He secured a
spiritual text that promised to deliver the secret of everlasting life. But the book was written in esoteric language. All he
could understand was a single sentence: "The one who shall destroy Chin is Hu." Thinking "Hu" referred to a tribe
from Northern China, he mobilized his entire country to build a great defensive wall. It stretched for thousands of miles
to keep the presaged invaders at bay. The wall is still standing, but Chin’s empire crumbled a scant few years after his
death. What destroyed it? Not the northern tribe of Hu, but Chin’s irresponsible and idiotic son, who was also named
Hu. Talk about blind spots! Chin literally planted the seed that took his own empire down.
Most of us make a similar mistake with our 12th house, for it too is an esoteric spiritual text. And its cryptic sentences,
coming as intuitions, irritations, and fears, may misdirect us into battle against some “Hu” in the outer world. Like the
emperor, we may exert great effort walling out phantom enemies while missing the real situation. “Self-undoing” is the
most relevant of the traditional keywords to survive in the modern 12th house, and it’s potent enough to make us just
as sick, imprisoned or enslaved as all the others. When you approach the veiled gates of this house, come armed with
a healthy suspicion of your own blind spots. Pay attention to what irritates or frightens you “out there,” because it’s
quite likely this enemy lurks in the shadows of your own nature, described by your 12th house planets or signs.
Katie has a 12th house Moon. On Ingrid’s 12th house cusp is Cancer, ruled by the Moon. Both women have a similar
"enemy" in the outer world. Katie's nemesis is an actress in her community theater group. I've listened to Katie
complain about her countless times. "She drives me nuts! She's always feeling sorry for herself. She's just a high
school teacher but all you hear about is how hard she works, how stressful her job is. She’s forever bringing
homework to rehearsals and cast parties, so she can fall asleep on a pile of papers. Does she think we’ll give her an
Oscar for martyr of the year?"
Ingrid's nemesis is Katie, whom she talks about constantly. Her complaint is surprisingly similar. "I just can't stand
Katie. Listening to her is like fingernails on chalk to me. She drives me crazy, always playing the victim. Will she ever
stop whining and feeling sorry for herself?" I once asked Ingrid why she thought Katie had such an effect on her. "I
guess it's because I've always had it so hard. My mother was an alcoholic, you know, and I had to take care of myself.
I never got to whine like that... No one ever cared if I cried."
Er, excuse me while I get my violin. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but I've got a 12th house Moon too. That’s
why I'm writing about Katie and Ingrid. Their whining about whiners bugs me! Because of her mother's alcoholism,
Ingrid was robbed of much of the emotional comforts of her Moon. But Katie and I didn’t have it much better. Twelfth
house Moons often have mothers who are sick, narcissistic, or otherwise un-nurturing, reversing the mother-child
dynamic so the child has to mother the mother. Twelfth house Moons learn to disguise their own vulnerability and
pretend it isn’t there. They become masters of self-sufficiency. Often they’re particularly gifted at taking care of others.
But repressing their neediness doesn’t make it disappear; it goes to their 12th house blind spot, where it lives as an
emotionally hungry child. Trailing the competent nurturer, the little orphan cries out with an unconscious “Poor me!”—
which everyone but the 12th house Moon person can hear.

Chin had two sons. He gave all his attention to his first-born, Fu, the promised heir to the throne. Overlooked, the
second-born Hu remained ignorant, silly and petulant, in effect never quite growing up. But when Chin died, wicked
insiders prevented Fu from taking power and Hu was installed as a puppet leader. An empire that should have lasted
a few hundred years died virtually overnight. If planets in the 12th were children, they’d be reared much like the
neglected son Hu. Without our conscious attention, they’re neither tested nor trained. They don’t get the same
opportunities to grow and mature. Yet in moments of unconsciousness, they will take over, and can cause plenty of
damage.
Consider the case of a 12th house Mars. Mars is the archetypal warrior, representing the ability to set boundaries, be
self-assertive, get angry when necessary. People with a 12th house Mars often have difficulty going after what they
want. They’re outwardly gentle and agreeable, for the most part lacking Mars’ sharp attacks. You can cross them
several times and get no reaction, but one day, someone, possibly you, will receive a full-blown Mars explosion. The
35-year-old computer programmer will disappear and a 2-year-old in tantrum will take his place. But the person acting
out won't know what hit you. He may have sent you vicious emails, vilified your name in the public square, but when
it’s time for an apology, he’ll brush it off. To truly regret his actions, his 12th house Mars would have to reach
consciousness first.
Our 12th house planets and signs are like children with special needs. They’ve suffered a critical deprivation. In some
way our early environment didn’t encourage or support their expression. They may be usurped, denied or shamed by
our caretakers. Somehow we got the message they're unsafe to express. With Mars or Aries in the 12th, I may fear
the expression of my competitive drive or deny my selfishness. With Pluto or Scorpio, I may be too embarrassed to
reveal my passion, my sexuality, my power. With Mercury or Gemini in the 12th, I may decide to keep my mouth shut.
With Uranus or Aquarius in the 12th, I'll cover up what makes me different, and keep my creative genius under wraps.
With Venus there, or Taurus or Libra, I won’t know how beautiful, how sensuous, how artistic or loving I can be.
Whatever the rejected planet or sign, the subconscious awareness of its loss leads to a kind of victim consciousness,
a conviction, in fact, that it's morally right to feel sorry for ourselves. Weren't we robbed after all? A businessman I
know with a 12th house Mars was keenly aware of his inability to be self-assertive: "My mom co-opted all the anger in
our house. I didn’t dare cross her. But then I never got to be me." When he learned he had a reputation among his co-
workers for being ruthless and cruel—his shadow Mars—he was actually thrilled. "Doesn't it bother you that you might
really be hurting people?" I asked. There was a momentary confusion in his eyes before they glazed over. Lost in the
memories of his past, and unable to fit them with a different picture of his present, he spaced out and forgot my
question.
I like the modern view of the 12th simply because I’ve found it more useful and true. From the modern perspective, to
redeem 12th house planets, you must first become aware that you have them. The next step is to choose—
metaphorically—among the more traditional options: Are you going to put yourself in prison, a mental institution, the
hospital, or a monastery? You can pace a prison cell of past mistakes. You can go crazy with frustration or anger. You
can lie on a sick bed of wounds. Or you can get on your knees and appeal to a higher power. In this vast inner world,
time and space have no meaning. In restructuring your 12th house psyche, you have infinite choices. In imagination,
you can, like a young Dalai Lama, roam an inner residence a quarter mile long with a thousand rooms, enjoying this
precious incarnation, and taking advantage of centuries of history and learning from vast inner libraries. Whatever
your past, shining a light in your 12th can open a field of new possibilities.
The invisible world doesn’t operate like the world of matter, so we shouldn't act like it does. In the visible world if I am
harmed, I can go about crying and blaming. If I am just a material being, and my early environment didn't support my
Venus or Mercury, I can say I’m just a piece of genetic material with the bad fortune to be born in a dismal
circumstance. Not so in the world of spirit. If I accept my spiritual nature, then I must somehow account for my
existence before and after the womb. I may come to believe that my choices influence the course of my soul, that past
actions have determined my situation this lifetime, bringing me to the right place for the next stage of my development,
and that what I do now will affect what happens after I die. If we shift our perspective beyond this lifetime, the 12th
takes on a whole new look. We acquire new responsibilities. Planets and signs here are no longer victimized or
deprived. What looks like loss on the material plane becomes a sacred initiation or ritual sacrifice in the spiritual
realm.
Eric has a 12th house Aries Sun—opposed by Saturn and Neptune. He lost his father when he was five. His alcoholic
gambler dad walked out the door and never returned. The Sun describes our will, our purpose, also our experience of
father (just as the Moon describes our experience of mother). Not everyone with a 12th house Sun loses a father so
literally, but in some way, the fathering influence will be dampened or sacrificed. Dad’s support or encouragement of
the child’s special gifts will be lacking. Eric tried on a variety of identities growing up, becoming a troublemaker, then a
varsity athlete, then a rebel journalist, finally a poet. In college he had the good fortune to find a strong poetry mentor,
and under the influence of this surrogate father, he found his way in the world. Astrology cookbooks often say that
12th house Suns are shy and tend to work behind the scenes. But you can’t always believe the cookbooks. Eric is a
strong and opinionated Aries, who like a true individualist, refused to fit into any corporate mold. He founded his own
publishing company and continued to write prize-winning poems. In spite of his 12th house history—or perhaps
because of it—he became a devoted father of three and served as a father figure to many younger writers, supporting,
encouraging, and publishing their work. His early 12th house sacrifice was the initiation leading to his later success.
When the progressed Moon entered Eric’s 12th house, his publishing company started to fail. The 12th is uniquely
positioned on the horoscope wheel, coming as the last house, before the first begins again. Likewise, transits and
progressions through this house mark an end that precedes another beginning. When the progressed Moon or Saturn
goes through this house, this transition can last approximately two years. Life structures that have served their
usefulness may dissolve. Relationships can go, losses may be suffered. We may be tested on how well we’ve
developed this house, what we’ve learned from our initial sacrifice, how clearly we’ve seen into and mapped our blind
spot. During the Moon’s progression, Eric struggled with his father’s legacy; he started drinking, fighting with his wife,
and losing money just as his father had done. A whole lifetime of saying “I’ll never do what my father did to me”
brought him face-to-face with that same potential in himself. Twelfth house transits and progressions will take us deep.

They’ll show us parts of ourselves we’ve never seen before. This isn’t always bad. New beauty, strength, and talent
can hide in our blind spot too. By the time the progressed Moon crossed out of the 12th, Eric was a new man. He had
cleaned up his life, found an entirely new path, and on renewed terms, was a strong and inspiring Aries Sun once
again.
Paul is a writer and photographer with Neptune in his 12th. I described Neptune to him once, how it speaks through
music, art, and poetry. Astrologers associate the 12th house with conception. I suggested that Neptune’s imprint may
have been knowledge Paul gained in the womb. His eyes lit up. His mother had played the piano throughout her
pregnancy, he said, and he always felt this had made a deep impression on him; his thoughts tend to move in musical
patterns. An intensely private man, Paul has a Scorpio Sun squared by a controlling Pluto/Saturn conjunction and, not
surprisingly, he is known for bouts of intolerance and rigidity. As one might surmise from his chart, his father was
strict. As a child Paul wasn’t allowed to drift and dream or float in Neptune’s sea; that was the early deprivation of this
planet. As a young man Paul served in the military and later went to school for a business career. But in the past ten
years I've watched him steadily withdraw from worldly concerns to submerge in the Neptunian world of his art. For the
past two years he has been so deep in Neptune that he disappears for months at a time. Yet whenever I see him, he
is intensely alive. More than anyone I know, Paul lives an artist's life, completely on artist's time. He will spend hours
catching just the right light for a photograph. He will go days without sleep, living with the characters in his novel as
though they were roommates. His 12th house Neptune has become the center of his life. It is the sunken treasure he
has been working his whole life to retrieve. It is something truly divine.
When I look at an individual’s chart and see planets in the 12th, “doom” and “misery” aren’t the first words that come
to my mind. I rather think that here lies a great gift, in fact, the true wealth of the chart. But it’s like a trust fund. The
12th house individual must come of age first, spiritual age. Ego might greedily appropriate the rest of the chart for its
desires, but this house refuses to give up its goods so easily. There will be sacrifice; there will be immaturity,
weakness, and whining; there will be a long journey requiring self-awareness, humility, and spiritual responsibility.
However long it takes, the 12th house treasure will not disappear. Won perhaps over many lifetimes, it is deep and
instinctive. The potential for a wide appreciation of its gifts is also huge.
I’m not alone in thinking this way. Michel Gauquelin, a psychologist who used statistical models to investigate
astrology’s accuracy, discovered that while many astrology factors have no relevance, planets in the 12th
house [3] did have a strong correlation with an individual’s career success. Mars in the 12th house was often found in
the charts of sports figures. Actors, politicians, and journalists showed Jupiter in the 12th; scientists and doctors,
Saturn or Mars; painters and musicians, Venus; and writers, the Moon. This finding surprised even astrologers, who
typically locate career indicators in the 10th. Contemporary astrologer Maurice Fernandez makes even stronger
claims for 12th house planets. [4] According to Fernandez, people who have positions of influence or fame will more
often have an emphasized 12th house than a strong 10th. Since the 12th house rules both the collective unconscious
and the masses, planets here indicate the potential to tune in to what’s popular and have an effect on a wide

audience. They may also bear the burden of mass projection, sacrificing the personal life to become a product or
symbol. Think of the different measures of fame the following 12th house Suns have achieved: Ghandi, Madonna,
George Bush, and Rodney King.
As with any astrology factor, what really counts is what the individual does with it. I know behind every worried email I
get about the 12th, lies someone with great potential for success. Since I’ve come to appreciate the special quality of
12th house planets, the rest of the chart seems to pale. Without question, this house of self-undoing, confinement, and
loss is my favorite house in the chart.
Notes:
1. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS: 1972), p. 141
2. See Deborah Houlding, The Houses: Temples of the Sky (Ascella Publications, 1998), p. 56 and 115, for a
discussion of the Ptolomeic and Egyptian views.
3. Gauquelin’s studies also showed that planets in the 9th, and to a certain extent, the 3rd and 6th had a
similar influence. See Michel Gauquelin, The Truth About Astrology, (Hutchinson, 1984).
4. Maurice Fernandez, Neptune, The 12th House and Pisces (Trafford, 2004).

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The First House

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5. John Frawley, op cit. 152

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1. Carolyn Myss, Sacred Contracts (Harmony Books, 2001), p. 342.

3. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS Publications, 1972), p. 64.

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3. Carolyn Myss, Sacred Contracts (Harmony Books, 2001), p. 213.

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I can forget the most important things I know.

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3. Angeles Arrien, Gathering Medicine (Sounds True Audio, 1994)

6. Howard Sasportas, The Twelve Houses (The Aquarian Press, 1985), p. 57

8. Estes, ibid., p. 284

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1. Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way (Tarcher, 2002).

2. Sam Keen, Learning to Fly (Broadway Books, 1999), pp. 36-37.

3. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses (CRCS, 1972), p. 84.

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" So why didn't you leave?"

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But why should this be so?

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magazines, and she is a contributor to Llewellyn's 2005 Moon Sign Book.

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Monsters in the Closet

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Quicksand of the Past

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What About Sex?

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But that wasn't all.

2. Dana Gerhardt, “The 8th House,” The Mountain Astrologer, 12/95.

3. Dane Rudhyar, The Astrological Houses, (CRCS Publications, 1972), p. 105

4. Frawley, ibid, p. 188

5. April Elliott Kent: www.bigskyastrology.com

7. Dana Gerhardt, ibid

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