Houses in astrology

If you've studied natal astrology at all, or even looked up your birth chart with an online calculator, you're probably familiar enough with the houses. The houses are one of the 3 basic pieces of astrology as a whole, but it's often one of the most overlooked and misunderstood by beginners. I believe this is mainly because most modern, pop astrology sites and magazines mainly focus on the significations of the signs, so they almost never touch on the importance of houses and planets.

Another big issue that sort of stems from this is that most modern sources support what some astrologers call the "alphabet method". If you've read a relatively new book or website, I'm sure you've seen it before. It basically says that Aries and the 1st house have the same meanings, or that the 1st house got its meanings from Aries, and then Taurus is similar to the 2nd house, Gemini is similar to the 3rd house, Cancer is similar to the 4th house, and so on. Some even call this the "natural zodiac/house system". Unfortunately, this somewhat easier method for remembering what the houses represent not only strips the houses of their actual significance, but it also creates a messy, unstable and unclear basic understanding of natal charts and how they work.

There are a few reasons why this way of thinking is so troublesome. It implies that "signs" and "houses" are synonymous, when they're not at all! Even if they know that the houses and signs aren't the same thing, lots of beginners end up believing that every 6th house is ruled by Virgo and Mercury, every 9th house is ruled by Sagittarius and Jupiter, when that's only true if you have Aries on the ascendant (rising). Say you have a Capricorn rising, your 1st house would be in Capricorn, which is ruled by Saturn. Your 2nd house would be in Aquarius, which is ruled by Saturn/Uranus. Your 3rd would be in Pisces, which is ruled by Jupiter/Neptune. Your 4th house would be in Aries, which is ruled by Mars, and so on. Completely different from the "natural zodiac", right?

As I'm sure you've read before, the planets represent "what", the signs represent "how" and the houses represent "where". People (especially some on Twitter) say that a lot, but still apply signs' traits to the houses, so what is the actual difference between them? The signs color how a planet expresses its principles. The houses themselves represent different areas of your life. The house that a planet is placed in tells you which area of life and what types of things the expression of that planet is focused on.

--So, for example (this is just a short and plain interpretation of this placement), Venus in the 5th would be concerned with having a harmonious relationship (Venus) with their children (5th house). In this example, Venus is specifically concerned with 5th house matters. The only way a 5th house Venus would be "like a Leo" is if Venus was in Leo in the 5th house. If Venus is in Capricorn in the 5th, that person would treat their relationship with their kids a lot differently than someone with Venus in Leo. Houses are NOT the same as signs.

So to summarize all that, no, your sun in the 5th house is not "basically a Leo sun", your Venus in the 8th is not "basically a Scorpio Venus", your moon in the 12th is not "pretty much a Pisces moon".

I've been using traditional astrology a lot recently to ground my knowledge, and it's made me realize that a LOT of modern significations of the houses got their meanings from the "alphabet method". Even though we've established that the houses don't get their meanings from the natural order of the zodiac, the houses are still often given significations that sound kind of like the signs' traits just worded differently.

--As another example, a lot of people use the 8th house to represent sex. I (and a lot of others) don't think that connection makes complete sense, especially since the 5th house represents children, romance and creation. The only connection I see between the 8th house and sex is that using the "alphabet method", Scorpio "rules" the 8th house and Scorpio is associated with the genitals, so people filled in those gaps according to the method they use. (Disclaimer: a lot of people don't agree on which house is associated with sex, but I won't get into that right now)

Now that we've established a difference between the signs and houses and how the significations of the houses are confused a lot of the time, let's (finally) get into the basic meanings of the houses. I won't go into the meaning of "angular, succedent and cadent houses" right now because that's a whole other post itself. I'll list my sources at the end of this post so you can read it for yourself too.

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The 1st house:

• Life's conditions, the body and overall health, general character and personality, "the capacity of the intellect", physical appearance, motives and objectives.

The 2nd house:

• Self-esteem, values, income, assets, material and moveable possessions, wealth and poverty.

The 3rd house:

• Siblings, close relatives, short-term travel, travel by land, reports, thoughts, communication.

The 4th house:

• Heritage, culture, genealogy, parents, family, houses, properties, land, immoveable possessions, agriculture, life after death.

The 5th house:

• Children, pleasure, joy, creativity, art, romance, passions, affairs, sports, gambling, hobbies, entertainment.

The 6th house:

• Illness, exhaustion from overworking, employees of the native, small animals, bad habits, responsibilities, daily tasks,

The 7th house:

• Partners, marriage, associates, social events, partnerships, confrontation, opponents, known enemies.

The 8th house:

• Death, penalties, losses, weaknesses, trials, fears, worries, taxes, wills, legacies, inheritance, partner's resources.

The 9th house:

• Travel, foreign places, travel by sea or long trips, education, "attainment of knowledge from the stars and divination", philosophy, wisdom, religion, gods, prophecies, visions, fate, morals.

The 10th house:

• Actions that have a social impact, status, reputation, authority figures, law enforcement, honor, career, business, judges.

The 11th house:

• Hopes and dreams, good fortune, friends, allies, gifts, trust, "optimistic expectations", triumph, social recognition, praise,

The 12th house:

• Conditions the native is born into, misery, sadness, envy, hostility, bad luck, self-destruction, self-deception, danger, sabotage, hidden enemies, betrayal, prison, exile, seclusion, limitations.

Those are some general house matters! There are a lot more to them, of course, especially if you use derived houses (for example, the 6th house could represent aunts and uncles since it's the 3rd house from the 4th), or different branches of astrology like horary, mundane, etc. I may add more to this later on!

Sources:

- On the Heavenly Spheres by Helena Avelar & Luis Ribeiro

-The Houses: Temples of the Sky by Deborah Houlding

-The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest

-The 12 Houses by Howard Sasportas