The First Quarter | First, Second, & Third Houses
This part of the chart is connected to the Body & reveals what our Magical Gifts & Tools are. It reveals how we may look but also how we may feel about how we look. This quarter reveals the early stages of our development. We are embodied, we need things to survive (including love & self-worth), and we need to communicate those needs to the others who are closest to us (our siblings, cousins, neighbors & close communal circle of friends).
The First Quarter contains the first group of three Houses
They are easily related to early childhood but do not directly represent them. Consider this as a way to understand how they move energetically and how they connect together. We are born into bodies. Before we speak we are attracted to objects. We taste them, hold them, become attached to them. Our first words are often, "no" and ''mine" because we want to take possession of our things and keep them from the first people we engage with often (siblings, cousins, neighbors). As we toddle out into the world we explore our local community and we begin to learn the rules & rituals of our local culture.
The First House is where we are born into our body, face, personality, character & this house is connected to our physical health. It reveals the first impressions others will have of you. It is the mask you wear and it will be what people see until they know you better & gain access to your Sun, Moon, and personal planet placements. The First House is also known as our Rising Sign.
The Second House is where we discover the objects that populate our lives. These are our resources, assets, money, belongings, possessions, and these objects can connect directly to our self-worth & values. We sometimes find our natural gifts, talents & skills we were "born with" here. These are the things or ingredients we bring to the table when we meet with others to exchange or collaborate. This house is also connected to our self worth & how we value what we bring to the table.
The Third House is your first close-knit clan of caretakers and those you first realized exist outside of yourself however this list does not include your parents directly. This may be because most children do not consider themselves separated from parents until about 2.5-3 years old (just when they start saying "no" and demanding autonomy). The first people we notice are those outside of the child-parent bond. Siblings, cousins, neighbors, and those in our local community. We begin to communicate and become educated about societal norms, rituals & rules. This is also known as the house of the Goddess because it is where we may practice those norms, rituals & rules within the more local context. The desert people worship the lizard goddess and the mountain people worship the cougar goddess because they are local while all these cultures may share the belief that there is ONE larger power or God and we don't meet or understand that education until later in life.
The Second Quarter | Fourth, Fifth, & Sixth
This part of the chart is connected to the Familial & how we engage with our Magical Gifts & Tools. This quarter reveals how we engage with the family unit, whatever that may look like. We first become aware of "other" via our family tree, our creative endeavors, and how we may or may not be built to serve the greater good by examining this quarter.
The Second Quarter contains the second group of three Houses.
As we continue the story about our life cycle from birth to death these three houses continue the story as they show us that our mother is separate from us. She starts to set rules & boundaries around our exploration. She connects us to the home but, as we learn that we also have grandparents, aunties, cousins who have died long ago she also teaches us about our ancestors, the past & how to manage those relationships while maintaining our inner selves & our own instincts. We begin to understand what we find fun & joyful. We develop our creative interests thru play, projects, and games of chance & skill. We develop feelings for friends that range from platonic to romantic. We begin to understand where and how we are required to work & serve our families & communities. We also discover what injuries, wounds & taking good care of your self means. We may learn that animals can be both servants of work and pets that we love.
The Fourth House is generally called the House of the home but that can lead to ignoring the other points of this dark house where some important shadow werk takes place. This is also the house of our ancestors, roots, graveyards, and introspection. We do much inner werk in this house, especially if the IC is placed here. This house is connected to our parents but more so towards the mothering or maternal parent.
The Fifth House is the house of creativity and the things we make. This includes the arts but also children since we make them too. It is connected to fun, romance, games, play & creative problem-solving. This is where and how we express ourselves & find pleasure in life.
The Sixth House is where we learn about how we can & need to work. This work might be for money or just for the betterment of others. In ancient astrology, this house is called the house of servitude. It includes animals or pets because they are domesticated to do work for us OR to provide us with the service of loyalty, friendship & love. The sixth also reveals how we need to werk to retain our health, and not just our physical health but our whole health. This house is complex because it covers these two topics which don't always seem connected but definitely are. We see that more in capitalism because of our beliefs around productivity and our value being tied to our work.
The Third Quarter | Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth
This part of the chart is connected to our personal relationships with the Other & how we share our Magical Gifts & Tools. This quarter reveals how we relate. We need community so this quarter raising us up out of our close-knit familial groups into the world of the other. We learn to make agreements, share resources, keep secrets, & share knowledge here.
The Third Quarter holds the Seventh, Eighth, & Ninth Houses.
As we continue our journey of human development around the chart it is here we begin meeting those outside our families and local communities. We start relationships with others that have meaning and follow certain rules. Some of those rules are set by society but many are set by the individuals involved in the relationship. A marriage, for example, used to be mostly business. Daughters were traded for dowries and sons held the deeds to land and had to marry for the continuation of that property in the family. Kingdoms were fortified and lost due to the quality of a marriage. Relationships and partnerships imply obligations and/or contracts and those move into financial agreements and how our wealth is shared. We meet the other and then we decide to do business with them. Even in marriage, there is a financial part of the agreement that's mandated by the laws of society. These agreements continue into and after our death as we see the property and wealth inherited and passed down thru generations. We also so how these obligations and agreements can be attached to our inherently deviant natures as we mandate the rules of sex, freedoms, desires, & taboos here too. We learn to keep secrets, hide our sexual nature, and feel guilt and shame for wanting the things we are not allowed to have. We learn about the cycles of death and rebirth, pain and suffering, gains and losses which lead us to wonder, what is it all for? This sparks our adventures into higher learning. Our curious intellect seeks out things to compare to what it already knows and for some folx that leads to challenging what was taught in those early years of communication and education. We expand our minds by learning about those who are different from us. We travel, we philosophize, we hypothesize, we expand our horizons.
The Seventh House is boiled down to relationships but it's important to note that this means ALL relationships NOT just romantic ones. This includes our relationship to objects, places, and how we understand where we stop and the world starts. This area is relationships with a focus on contractual obligations. Partnerships in business and marriage are often bound by legal contracts. It costs money to get into them and to get out. There are rules and expectations. This is the house where we meet the other and decide if they are for us or against us.
The Eighth House is about shared resources AND sex AND the taboo AND death. It is another dark house that has a lot of variable meanings that don't seem to go together but totally do. We join together in the seventh house and then we share our resources (our talents, ideas, money, assets, and our bodies - either thru showing up to work or sex). These partnerships create something new; an item for sale or a baby. We must tend to these things according to the obligations set forth in both the seventh AND the eighth. However the eighth is where we stuff our secret, intimate parts. When it's healthy this is where we would be allowed to keep our secrets that we share only with intimate partners and friends. Our deviant nature is natural and a birthright but patriarchal cultures robbed us of a healthy eight house and that has turned this into a place where we store our guilt and shame.
The Ninth House is where our experiences so far come into question and we strive to find answers to the questions we've still been unable to answer in our closer communities and partnerships. It's here we wonder about the Universe, Magic, divinity, and other cultures that survive in ways that are starkly different than our own. We begin to question everything. This is the house of travel because we venture out in search of the bigger picture. It is the house of higher learning because we're seeking answers. It can represent going to college or entering into an initiation like a pilgrimage. We begin to challenge what we learned in the third house about rules, rituals, and culture and it's here that we find new paths to enlightenment. We may also decide that we need to share our new knowledge or ideas with the world so this is where we may teach, write novels or speak on larger stages about what we know.
The Fourth Quarter | Tenth, Eleventh, & Twelfth
This part of the chart is connected to the Communal & how we use our Magical Gifts & Tools to make an impact in the world. This quarter reveals what we're known for in the larger world. We develop our reputation, our friend groups, &...inevitably we discover & embrace our death.
The Fourth Quarter contains the last three Houses.
We leave our period of higher learning to move into a time of "career" or what the ancients considered the time of our reputation. Since most people in these ancient times weren't able to access astrology many of the readings were done for those of a high class or importance. They didn't have "careers" they were born into classes and they had a reputation or duty to uphold. In this part of our lives we become known for things that are NOT related to how we make money. Modern astrology is also infused with capitalism and we see that here in Capricorn's home, the Tenth House. Instead of focusing on how our jobs define us this house asks us to consider all of our goals and achievements. It wants us to strive to make the world better by utilizing what we know, how we use our resources, & what we create. When we're all seen as valuable in this collective for what really makes us us there is a much smaller chance of building systems filled with othering and isms. From here our lives merge with what kind of friend and community member we are. We use all we've learned and what we do to strive to live a life that meets our collective dreams of health, happiness, and freedom...FOR EVERYONE IN THE COLLECTIVE. We want others to be able to love themselves the way we love our self. It is as idealistic as it sounds from where we are in our collective human journey now (aka capitalism and patriarchy) but we look at it thru the eyes of the child who was born and has walked this path for a while we see it as absolutely attainable when we make sure the self is healthy we would never, ever allow anything to exist or continue that hurts another self in the group. This is a place where the creativity & playfulness we embody comes together with friends to be more fun. We strive to spend a great deal of time here utilizing what we know, believe, have, practice, enjoy, and love with those who share these hopes & dreams. We do this until we cannot any longer and thus begin our journey to the end of the cycle where we review our transgressions, process our repressions, make amends, and prepare to return to the beginning again. Sometimes we get stuck here and have to do a lot of shadow werk to get out but it is inevitable that the journey will end for everyone.
The Tenth House is about our reputation and the achievements we've made in the earlier parts of this journey. We've sharpened our inborn talents and gathered new knowledge and partnerships along the way so it's here where all of that comes together to create our "career" or ability to show up and work for the greater good. This is also the house where the father shows up more as a parent. This is in relationship to the fact that we must earn the love and affection of the community thru our hard work and actions rather than the maternal love that is given endlessly without cause (obviously this is an archetype and NOT the lived experience most people have with actual parents). It is conditional to our performance that we receive opportunities to win awards or earn income. This is where all of the tools, gifts & knowledge we've acquired come together to be useful.
The Eleventh House is our community of friends. It is where we group together to share resources but more than that it's where we come together to have FUN with those who share our interests, our hopes, and our dreams for a better future for everyone. It is the house of collaborative projects, activities, and even contests of sport or skill. The culmination of your hard work, your natural talents & your ideals feels so bountiful and joyous when you finally meet 'your peeps'. The people who 'get you' are here. It is another place where we can see othering and isms so it's good to note that it's not all fun and games here, it can also be about rivalries, jealousy, and revenge.
The Twelfth House is the known unknown. This house is so complex and deep that sometimes even professional astrologers struggle to describe it. That has more to do with the demonizing of the shadow than it does about the twelfth house, however. This is where we are meant to go to process the hard things that will happen to all of us. It is where we repress or lock up things we aren't ready or able to deal with. It is the collective unconscious, the recesses of reality, the matrix, and our peripheral vision. It feels like someone standing behind you and, while is the place where dreams are housed, it also contains the source of our nightmares too. We find chronic illnesses here, including mental health issues because most of these illnesses are connected to repressed emotions or experiences that we haven't found ways to process yet. We often need help to navigate the issues residing here. It is very, very important not to see this house fearfully or to resist learning about it. Doing so is continuing harmful lies and distrust the patriarchy has instilled in all of us. The dark houses are not evil or scary. They are a very important part of the process and cycle of life. We will all die, become compost, and be reborn or remade into something new again. You can think of that biologically (our organic bodies will break down) and/or spiritually (where does our energy & animated spirit 'go'?) because both live here in the twelfth.