The Houses

Click on a House for an explanation

Ascendant	Midheaven	1st House	2nd House	3rd House	4th House
5th House	6th House	7th House	8th House	9th House	10th House
		11th House	12th House

The Wheel of Houses

The chart wheel or mandala of 12 houses can be seen as a circle, or cycle, with each house leading to the next house, and so on, in a counterclockwise direction.

The Ascendant

The Ascendant or rising sign indicates how we make an entrance or come across, thus our appearance. It is that particular activity that others come to know as us, our trademark, the way we appear or come on. It is what is fresh and new about us.

The way we express or present ourselves is indicated by the Ascendant, which is said to be the most personal point in the natal chart since it is dependent upon the time we were born. If we do not know the birth time, then we do not know the Ascendant.

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The Midheaven

The Midheaven or MC tells us something about our vocational and practical abilities. It is here that we can see to do and manipulate. This point is usually associated with our outer standing in the world, our fame, reputation, and fortune.

The MC represents fame and honor since it is here that we have our most practical sense and vision. We can see and use; it is our vantage point or perspective. The Midheaven is also the cusp of the 10th house for most astrologers.

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1st House

The 1st house shows the result of what we managed to bring across from the world of ideas, plans, and commitments. It's what remains when our new idea and impulse meet our reality. It is what overflows the status quo. It is a direct indication of how much we are able to accept.

The first house has to do with how we appear or the way we come across, thus our appearance and personality. This is the essential stuff that bubbles up in us spontaneously and that is obvious to others as our trademark or activity. It is what makes us each so personally different. This house rules our personal self, and everything about us that draws a reaction from our surroundings or others.

	news
	impulse
	start
	live action
	what's "happening"
	appearance
	persona
	head
	identity

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2nd House

The 2nd house is the reaction of our life and environment to whatever was new in the 1st. It has to do with how our life changes because of, or in response to, this new energy. It has to do with how we adapt to, possess, or have something.

The second house is concerned with how we respond or field whatever impulses or unique and personal qualities we manifest via our first house. This is how we hold or "have" things, possess them, if you will, and thus possession, material goods, money and the like. The second house always refers to how we secure ourselves, the kind of response we get from life and those around us to who and what we are.

	possessions
	money
	receiving things
	· evaluation
	embodiment

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3rd House

The 3rd house continues the drama set forth in the 1st and 2nd. The 1st is the new start, the 2nd is the new body or what is drawn forth in response to the 1st, and the 3rd is how the situation develops to its fullness. It has to do with the working out and exploring of all the details and ramifications of what is forming.

The third house is concerned with explorations, investigations and inquiry and research of all kinds. It also rules connections, communications, wires, tubes -- anything that we can get thru with our body, mind, voice, letter, what-have-you. It is here that we explore and search for the limits of our life, whatever we are working with at the moment. A very mental house, concerned with finding, furthering, peering, and all manner of questioning. Traditionally rules short journeys, siblings.

	searches
	investigations
	inquiries
	explorations
	communications
	thinking
	writing
	letters
	gossip
	media

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4th House

The 4th house marks the extent to which this body develops its limits. It is also one of the angular houses and starts a new series of three. The 4th house has to do with fullness of experience -- the body or meat of it. Development has reached its physical peak and can go no further. Instead, we can feel or move within the experience.

The fourth house is where we send down roots, find our limits and generally secure ourselves. It is the end of any searching that we might have done in the third house. Here we find or end our search, settle down and manage to get in possession of the whole situation. This is our home, and the base from which we can work, feel and experience. This is the root of our experience, the core or thick of it.

	home
	property
	environment
	sensate body
	experience
	heart of the matter
	body
	incarnation.
	finding

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5th House.

The 5th house signals the end of the simple feeling of the experience and the beginning of consciousness of what it is that we have experienced. We are pouring forth or leaving the body. Emote, emotions. Offspring, self-consciousness, pride, and the like.

The fifth house has to do with awareness, emotion (to move out), and expression (press out). Here there is always a growing sense of self-confidence and even a pride of ownership, since we begin to recognize and own our experience. We are aware that we have had, or are having, an experience. All forms of expression and offspring are connected to this house -- children, animals creative expression, etc. A sense of direction and ownership takes hold at this point in our experience.

	awareness
	pride
	self-discovery
	self-expression
	emotions
	stepping-out
	offspring
	creations
	teaching
	acting
	playing
	sports

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6th House.

The 6th house signals the end of the vitality of the body and marks attempts to prolong, conserve, and take care of the experience or body. The experience or "party" is over. The sixth house has to do with salvaging and preserving what is good and healthy in our experience.

Here we separate the wheat from the chaff. We begin to care for ourselves and our experience and thus health, nutrition.

The idea here is that we are able to analyze our experience and have thoughts as to what is pure and what not. The sixth house is an attempt to save the heart of an experience, one that already by that attempt is beginning to pass or not cohere.

	· maintenance
	· salvage
	· conservation
	· purity
	· harvesting
	· service
	· repair
	· working for others
	· analytical skills
	· health and sickness
	· detailed work
	· crafts

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7th House.

The 7th house, another angular house, marks the beginning of a new series of three houses. Here we cross over from the personal houses to the impersonal houses. The personal experience of the first 6 houses is finished. It falls away from us and we see it as a complete stage in our development or whole. We leave the body and start into the mind. A turning away from the attempt for personal salvation toward a concern for others. Marriage.

The seventh house is the house of partnerships, relationships, social life, and all that carries us beyond our personal self into an awareness of other people, community and the like. This includes spiritual awakening and the discovery that we are more than just our personality. Here we begin to respond to our own personal needs (and those of others) for the first time. We can see what is going on and are committed to it; thus marriage and yoga or union is indicated in this house.

	· marriage
	· partner
	· union
	· compassion
	· response
	· spirit of cooperation

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8th House.

The 8th house results from our fully grasping the nature of the completed personal experience in the first six houses... what was right about it and what was wrong. Here we strip away and can do without what was wrong. The extra baggage is unloaded.

The eighth house, traditionally the house of death, involves getting rid of excess parts of ourselves that we have seen that we no longer need. Thus this house also covers initiation and any activities where we are transforming toward a more integral position, getting to the heart of things. The no-nonsense quality of the eighth house makes it good for business ventures since here we are stripping away the dross to reveal the truth, or essence, of the subject

	· obligations
	· debts and assets
	· excess
	· death
	· initiation
	· purification
	· purgatory
	· dross
	· furnace

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9th House.

The 9th house has to do with what remains when all extra is stripped away. It is what remains or is enduring from the entire episode. The seed essence. It becomes the light for a new idea in the 10th, where the whole cycle repeats itself. The ninth house covers long journeys and religion (the longest journey of all).

Here is what remains of the purification that takes place in the eighth house, the seed or essence of an entire cycle of experience. Religion comes from a Latin word that means to bind back, and thus refers to all things that last or endure, such as the truth. Essential ideas, philosophy, and all that is the very heart of things belong here.

	· seed essence
	· bare facts
	· relics
	· religion
	· philosophy
	· enduring thoughts
	· ideas
	· long journeys

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10th House.

The 10th house at the peak of the chart, represents the most ideal or out-of-the-body part of the wheel. It is directly overhead, up-there, and to the south. It is the house of clear, practical vision (clairvoyance). Ideas can take their start here as planets pass through the 10th house. In the natal chart, the 10th house represents where we have our head above water and can see what to do -- clear practical vision. It is therefore associated with career, vocation, and the like.

The tenth house holds a clear idea about something -- what is often called an out-of-the-body vision or experience, a time when we really get an insight in its totality. The 10th house is a house of practical vision and clairvoyance, for here we can see clearly what is. Reputation and career are often connected to this house, since the areas where we can see with greatest clarity are those we most often can put to use, and make a living with. In summary, this house is where we have real vision and can see to do and work

Planets transiting this house may provide moments of insight and clear-seeing as well.

	· career
	· practical talents
	· ideals
	· clairvoyance
	· particular management
	· practical vision
	· supervisory skills

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11th House.

The 11th house is a movement away from the 10th and down towards the lower hemisphere of the chart. The 11th house takes the clear idea seen in the 10th and resolves to put it to work, to keep it in mind or make it "matter. We make a commitment to carry the idea into our daily life; that is, carry it across the ascendant (1st house cusp) and into the lower part of the chart, our personal life. The 11th house has to do with plans for action, group goals, cooperation.

The 11th house has to do with putting our visions and dreams to work. We have been on the mountain, and had a vision (10th house). Here we take our vows to never forget what we have seen and to work hard to make these dreams into reality. Thus this house has always been connected with altruistic and humanitarian goals and trying to set them in motion.

It is the house of friends and community, because when we are powered by a real insight or vision, we share with all irrespective of differences.

	· larger goals
	· putting ideas to work
	· working with others in groups
	· organizations
	· friends
	· planning
	· humanitarian
	· community

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12th House.

The 12th house is even closer to the ascendant and the sphere of action.

The bright idea that we had in the 10th, and the resolve to do something about it that we made in the 11th, is coming up against the status quo of the ascendant in the 12th -- our day-to-day reality. In the 12th house we are faced with a choice.

We are about to cross over from the more impersonal realm of ideas and planning into our actual day-to-day circumstances. In the 12th, we begin to face the difference between our idea and our reality.

We can either forget the whole thing and let the idea go, or we can care enough about making the idea matter in our life to buckle down and accept the way things are (status quo) and try to overcome them... to bring our new idea through and get it across the ascendant.

The 12th house is about all that we go through in order to make our dreams into reality and manifest them in the world around us. It covers what we are willing to put up with, the sacrifices we will make in order to bring across what is really important

This is connected to prisons, institutions, betrayal, self-undoing and the like because it is here that we must choose to absorb and take some possible abuse for the sake of the message we are carrying, or blow it all away with a negative reaction.

	· limits
	· confines
	· hidden
	· faults
	· confinement
	· prisons
	· dues
	· karma
	· attitude
	· psychology
	· acceptance
	· sacrifice
	· forbearance

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