We’ve all seen references to the houses in Astrology. You know you’ve seen them. Your sun is in the 10th house or here you can see that you have a stellium in your 7th house, your house of partnership and marriage. Oh look, Pluto is in your midheaven. I know. You bypass this and move on to everyday language leaving the technical mumbo-jumbo behind. I don’t blame you.
However, if you would like to understand more, I can make sense of the houses here. Just keep reading and learn what those houses mean, how they affect your horoscope, and the information they can give you about yourself.
What Are the Houses in Astrology?
Astrologers of the past, in their great wisdom, understood that our journey through life was subject to many events, emotions, work, ambitions, hopes and dreams, and relationships. Astrologers from Babylonia created and named twelve separate categories of life which are now known as our Astrological Houses. It’s amazing how they were so accurate that they have come down through time almost completely unchanged.
Houses are like “existential arenas”, places that represent each function of our lives. These “arenas”, when filled with the placement of the sun, moon, and planets, at our birth, tell us what our life could look like, tell us about personality traits we hold, and are more often than not a bit scary in how accurate they really are.
What Are The 12 Houses and What Do They Tell Us?
Each house depicts a different part of our personalities or character traits. Each house has a ruling zodiac Sign that governs how it reacts to other aspects in your chart.
1st House: The 1st House is the house of self and reveals how you present yourself as well as how the world sees you. It is seen as your most important house because it is the house of You. It’s been described as a “giant lens through which the rest of your chart is seen and interpreted (Woolfolk, 2012).”
This house is ruled by Aries and symbolizes your mannerisms and disposition. It determines your likes and dislikes and style as well as behaviors. It also symbolizes your physical characteristics, especially your head and facial features.
2nd House: The 2nd House is ruled by Taurus and is the house of Money and Possessions. This house governs what you own in life, what you will acquire, your income, and your financial prospects. Everything has to do with monetary wealth.
This house includes information on your movable possessions, the things that you take with you. It houses your feelings about money and possessions as well as what kinds of possessions you want in your life. Are you a border, a minimalist, or somewhere in between? It also houses information on how you might obtain what you want in life including clues to the kind of jobs, projects, or opportunities that might help to get you where you want to be.
3rd House: The 3rd House is the house of communication and is ruled by Gemini. It’s the house of self-expression. This includes your family dies as well as day-to-day travel. It governs how you think, write, and speak, your logic, memory, and manual skill. It also tells about our education and your ability to learn.
4th House: The 4th House, ruled by Cancer, is the house of home. It symbolizes your past, present, and future. It dictates your relationship with your parents and what your childhood looked like. It also governs what you brought with you into this world from your ancestors. It looks at the kind of home you are you make for yourself as well as your domestic affairs.
It also houses information on the things you keep to yourself, the spiritual and emotional sides of you that you choose to keep hidden from the outside world.
5th House: The 5th House, ruled by Leo, is the house of creativity and sex. It rules over everything you do for pleasure and creative expression. Your sexual nature is the largest part of this domain as it’s also the most basic creative urge in your psyche. This house also determines how you feel about children.
This house determines entertainment. This includes holidays, amusements, and the arts. It houses love affairs, inspiration/spontaneity, and risks you might take. It also determines talents and your ability to enjoy yourself in life. It also determines how you show affection.
6th House: The 6th House is the house of Service and Health. Ruled by Virgo, this house indicates the level of our need to help others in the world. It rules relationships with the people you work with, your subordinates, and your employees.
This 6th house also determines your health, especially illness caused by stress or emotional upsets. This house can tell if you are going to be more sturdy, healthy, or have a more delicate constitution, and what kinds of illnesses or diseases you might be subject to.
7th House: Ruled by Libra, the 7th House is the house of partnership and marriage. This house governs who you will have for a mate, the kind of marriage/relationship you will have, and whether you might divorce or remarry.
This house also governs your partnerships at work, business, legal affairs, and sometimes politics. It covers contracts and other agreements you might have and both sides of any disputes you might engage in. The 7th House also governs your enemies or adversaries.
The 7th House is opposite the 1st House, the house of self. The two together determine how you will blend personalities with others to reach a common goal.
8th House: The 8th House is the house of death and regeneration and is ruled by Scorpio. It’s one of the three mystical houses in the chart (along the with 5t and the 12th) and is one of the more difficult to understand. As the house of transformation, this house rules life forces such as sex, birth, death, and the afterlife.
Included in its walls are legacies and what you inherit from the dead, materially and spiritually. It houses money that belongs to your partner, taxes, and debt. This house can give some insight into the conditions surrounding your death although not always and never precise. This house also determines psychic powers and occult studies as well.
9th House: Ruled by Sagittarius, the 9th House is the house of mental exploration and long-distance travel. It’s kind of like an expansion of the 3rd house directly across from it. Study, travel, and mental pursuits, just on a wider level. This is the house of higher education, philosophy, and in-depth study.
Long journeys, both of the mind and physically, live in this house. It also governs the meeting of foreigners who expand your growth mindset and the study of language.
10th House: The 10th house, the house where you will find your midheaven., is ruled by Capricorn. This is the house of career and public standing. Directly across from the 4th house, the house of home, it ties to and is the opposite of home. This house rules matters away from home including your career, your community status, and your public reputation.
Ambition and attainment live in this house as they reflect the image you put forth for others to see. This includes how you accept and handle responsibility, your self-esteem, and the persona that you put forth to attain your goals or desires.
11th House: The 11th House is ruled by Aquarius and is the house of friends as well as hopes and wishes. Opposite the house of immediate pleasure, the 5th House, this house governs long-term dreams and goals along with intellectual pleasures. This includes groups or clubs relating to work or family.
This house determines the kinds of friends and acquaintances you prefer or need to future your interests and goals. It reflects your ability to enjoy your time with others whether socially or for work and also represents how well you work with those around you.
12th House: And here we are at the 12th House, ruled by Pisces. This is the house that secrets, sorrows, and self-undoing. The most mystical of all of the houses, this is the end of the circle. This doesn’t make it negative, sad, or gloomy but it does rule over the limitations that are put on life. These things could include your own self-worth or lack of confidence, disappointments, accidents, and difficulties that life throws at us.
Some call this house the house of Karma or the house of Spiritual Debt denoting that it contains the rewards and punishments for deeds done, in this or our past lives. This house is also connected to psychic ability and the ability to discover the meaning of life.
Wrapping It Up
So that was a lot but is no way all of the information you need to truly understand the houses and how they work. There are entire books written on this subject. I do hope you now have a better understanding of what the houses are as well as how they affect your natal chart and the many other aspects that are involved when you talk about Astrology.
All of these aspects, the planets, the houses, the locations of the sun and moon, and the Zodiac signs involved with each planet and hose, all play into what Astrology can tell you about yourself.
If you would like to learn more about these aspects in Astrology, check out these articles and watch for our many horoscopes that are published daily and weekly.
References
Woolfolk, J. M. (2012). The only astrology book you’ll ever need (1st ed.). Taylor Trade Publishing.
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