No matter the astrological system, every chart has 12 houses. There are 360 degrees in a circle so each of the 12 sections has approximately 30 degrees depending on the House System used by each astrologer.
For our journey together, your charts are created using the Placidus System which is a time based model. “This is in contrast to the space-based systems that are built on astronomical great circles, rather than on time curves.
It gained popularity in the late Renaissance era, yet the origin of the system has not been clarified to this date.” (AstroWiki)
Some consider these are slices of life and many note they are chapters of a storyline that can last short term cycles or the story of a lifetime. Many astrologers chunk groups of houses together to add more simplicity and/or complexity to the themes weaving through our lives.
Four quadrants or life themes are each made up of three houses that represent stages of those areas of the house mandala. Like the four seasons of the year, they are independent of each other. Together they represent a cycle that starts at the “ascending” dawn and like the sunrise it promises new beginnings and new potentials for the cycle. Your individual rising sign (ascendent) is our individual “Life Task”. In the first house there is something you need at the arrival of this life – it is the OBVIOUS REASON while the end of the cycle in the twelfth house resides the HIDDEN REASON or that which is to be discovered.
The main theme in your life can come from the Ruling Planet of your Ascendent. The houses each have a ruling planet (or two) but they can express themselves differently in each of the quadrant’s houses. Remember the Ascendent is the Life Task and the placement of The Sun in your chart is the way you deal with or set out to accomplish these tasks.
The book recommended for my coursework at Pacifica Graduate Institute was “The Twelve Houses” by Howard Sasportas.
by Howard Sasportas – Chapter 2, page 27.
Alexander von Schlieffen, a German astrologer, was a regular tutor at the world renowned “Center for Psychological Astrology” (CPA) that was founded by Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas. In his online course “The Ascendents and Their Rulers” on the Jungplatform, he outlines the four quadrants and the big themes of each of the houses. This offering is a fascinating 4-hour course that does a deep dive of every zodiac ascendant through all the quadrants and houses. What is important to note is that like other cycles, the quadrants represent a story that includes a journey through the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual worlds.
Quadrant 1: SELF-DEVELOPMENT
- Me, Myself and I | Personal Identity and the Awareness of Self
- Basic elementary things in life in the PHYSICAL body
- “The Survival Quadrant”
- Self Discovery – how to embody the body
- House 1 (Aries/Mars): First step into something new: What is survival? How do I survive?
- House 2 (Taurus/Venus): Resources, beliefs, values: Do we have enough? Nourishment? Money?
- House 3 (Gemini/Mercury): Practical exploration of new ideas and experiences: What can I do with the things in my immediate development?
Quadrant 2: SELF-EXPRESSION
- The Tribe | Personal Expression – Integration of Self with Environment
- Belonging
- Immediate/Personal Environment via EMOTIONAL themes that change the relationship in the family as the journey moves outward.
- House 4 (Cancer/Moon): Redefine the meaning of what family means to you: Where is my family out in the world?
- House 5 (Leo/Sun): Me, Myself and I getting visible on the stage of life. How can I get noticed?
- House 6 (Virgo/Mercury): Accepting the role in the family and what it means to be part of something: What is the best way to serve and fit in for belonging to the group?
Quadrant 3: SELF-EXPANSION
- Relationships | Social Identity – Awareness of Others
- Interactions – MENTAL
- Partnerships in all realms of outer life – School, Work, Travel and Beyond
- Everything I want to do includes you/the other
House 7 (Libra/Venus): Redefining something in ourselves with the help of others: Should I partner with you? My idea of relationships meets how we grow together in relationships. Negotiating what was modeled. - House 8 (Scorpio/Pluto): Symbiotic relationships can be good for all: Can I trust my next steps? Can I trust others or trust my own intuition? What we think commitment and control should be in interactions. Finding your network.
- House 9 (Sagittarius/Jupiter) : Future and Perspective: Where do we go? How do I get oriented onto my path? How do I understand differently?
Quadrant 4: SELF-TRANSCENDENCE
- Social Environment | Integration of Self with Society
- Transpersonal SPIRITUAL – is to be in service to something that is bigger than yourself.
- Relating to what is in the outer and how can one can contribute to the exterior world.
- Fate based on decisions or the influence of the world where you live
- House 10 (Capricorn/Saturn): Beauty of Responsibility. What can I bring into life that has social responsibility? “With no responsibility there is no personality” (Alex).
- House 11 (Aquarius/Saturn & Uranus): Looking at life from a birds’ eye view. A perspective that is beyond the status quo. How can I detach from what has been done before?
- House 12 (Pisces/Neptune): There are hidden realities in the world that are non linear and it is okay to go with the flow and follow a bigger journey path. Can I bring something to the world that is beyond the status quo and/or non-hierarchical?
As you move from the first quadrant of your physical body into the emotional family structure it involves your inner world or the bottom half your chart. As you cross the horizon and move upward into the outer world of interactions you gathering greater mental activity until you pass the midheaven of your chart into the fourth quadrant representation of the universe where there will be an impact from:
- who you chose in your 3rd quadrant
- the way you acted in your 2nd quadrant
- who you were in the 1st quadrant
…while you move into the transpersonal section where you relate to what is out in the world as you look for ways to be part of contributing to your social environment. There is never a point that there is nothing more to discover and life is bigger than you, your tribe, or your relations. Alex notes that deep “friendship” can be a blend of the personal and the transpersonal and suggests you keep your true friendships contained in the fourth quadrant.
THE HOUSES
Just as there are many resources and references to the archetypal energies of the planets, there are multiple descriptors of the houses. Benebell Wen outlines the houses on her website and offers a free PDF of her research on “Understanding the Twelve Astrological Houses” (Click to download and print) The following descriptors are excerpts of Benebell’s work.
First House
House 1 is the first point where the sun rises. It is the house of consciousness awakening. This house is an expression of who you are in your body. In Hellenistic astrology, it is the helm and leads all areas of your life. It is your free will, your attitudes and how you will approach life.
Second House
House 2 is your material foundation. Wealth, property, assets, liabilities, and personal resources are found here along with your approach, outlook, and attitude toward commerce and money. The second house is of financial matters and tells how the money is earned and how we find security in our earthly existence.
Third House
House 3 is our mental intellect, courage, and the ability to achieve your goals, complete your tasks and how you use your voice. It includes early childhood education and the social environment where we grow up and learn to communicate with the world. It is the house of siblings, relationships with neighbors and places of residence.
Fourth House
House 4 is where you come from. It is home and family, but more importantly, it is the seat of your soul. House 4 holds your cellular or genetic memory and allows you to tap into the subconscious in the unconscious parts of your mind. It the link to family heritage and lineage and past lives. It is the ancestral home and can influence the karma of your present life.
It is the domestic environment of where you were raised and the relationships with the feminine energy and can bring forth the impact and influence of the biological mother.
Fifth House
House 5 is the house of heart and happiness. It can hold your recreation, hobbies, and what you love to do with your time but it also holds fertility and your “children” born from creative endeavors as well physical procreation. The fifth house is your production and what can be passed along as a legacy of what you contribute to the world. The fifth house reveals what you enjoy and what brings you bliss. It is the place of inspiration and motivation. The house of desires.
Sixth House
House 6 holds the everyday living and the necessary duties you have taken on in life. It is the daily work and what you may do for a living – your job or professional lifestyle. It is the house of health and body where one can find information about physical health conditions that impact your physical body.
In traditional Hellenistic astrology, the sixth house is the house of service. How you serve your community and society. This is the role we play for greater social good – our social contribution and we get the motivation from the fifth house.
Seventh House
House 7 is where the sun sets and it the house of who loves you. It is the house of partnerships, domestic happiness, civil unions and marriage, and the alliances you build. It is social relationships, not just romance, and impacts who you are and who you become. This is the house of our earthly ties, unions, legal bonds, social contracts, and conjugal life. As we look for qualities in our partners that we find attractive we will project them so it is said that we will most easily “give the seventh house away”.
Eighth House
House 8 is the house of sex, money, transformations, death, and rebirth. It is how you manage your sexuality and your financial relationships with assets and currency. It is known as the “death and taxes” house where inheritance, estates, and legacies reside.
In Hellenistic astrology, it is said to denote one’s longevity and lifespan. It can reveal how you achieve power and the nature of power that you gain in your present life.
Ninth House
House 9 is where you expand through religion, learning, books, writing, voyages, and distant travels. It is how you connect to your higher consciousness and begin to ponder spirituality. It is the house of higher education and denotes how you expand your mind, your ways of thinking, and your understandings.
As the house of long voyages, it can show displacement or immigration to new lands, but also new possibilities and shifts in philosophies.
Tenth House
House 10 is the house of ambition, destiny, and achievements. It is your social status and who you become. This is the house of your highest potential, highest personal gains, and your public reputation. The tenth house shows what you aspire to be and sits at the top of your chart as mentors and models to show you how to manifest those aspirations. This house can reveal your masculine role models and reveal relationships to father figures.
Eleventh House
House 11 is the house of community and how you relate in social groups that you join. The eleventh house also shows the ways you are involved with humanitarism, the collective, and what you want to do to contribute to the world at large. It is a visionary house and shows how to implement visions to benefit the greater good that was mapped out at your birth to reveal your social responsibility.
“Here in this house, what you are intended to contribute to the greater social collective is unveiled. The tenth house was about your glories and the midheaven directs you to your higher purpose. The eleventh house is about how you give back to your community through your glories and manifesting your higher purpose. House 11 is the house of good karma you accrue in this lifetime, so that you can neutralize the bad karma accrued from previous lives and so you can ensure an optimal future, both in terms of the future for you in this lifetime as you progress and into the afterlife” (Benebell Wen).
Twelfth House
House 12 is self-knowledge that is endured through conflict and pain. It is the house that reveals adversaries, enemies, difficulties, and obstacles. The twelfth house limits or confines you and holds the things that are hidden. It will reveal the shadow self which is what you are not proud of or what you try to conceal about yourself and/or what we are afraid to confront.
On the positive side, the twelfth house will reveal hidden talents and gifts we have locked away inside and may not have been fully developed in chosen life paths. House 12 reveals secrets about yourself that you may not be conscious or aware of, but intuition tells you to go and access what has always been inside of you since the moment you were born.
VIDEO OVERVIEW
Produced by “Astro Butterfly” for the platform AGE OF AQUARIUS from the 12 month learning experience: The Twelve House a Journey Through the Natal Chart
RESOURCES to PRINT
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