First House
The First House describes your outward behavior. It involves your disposition, appearance, manners, and sense of self. The positive use of the first house is that it helps you to put your best foot forward into the world. The negative interpretation is that you can get caught up in excessive ego issues or the need to show off due to self-esteem or self-worth challenges. The first house indicates your outlook on life. Your physical appearance may correlate with the zodiac sign on your first house cusp. A Libra Ascendant may be graceful while a Capricorn Ascendant may appear conservative and stern. The first house often indicates activities that you take into the world. An Aries first house may be athletic and prefer to wear bright, fiery clothing. A Pisces first house may appear dreamy and illusive, preferring gentle colors like the blue of the ocean. The first house helps you to project your unique talents into the world. When you have natal planets in your first house, the planet flavors the way you project energy into the world. The first house shows you the way to project your special and unique talents into the world.
Second House
The Second House deals with material possessions and your attitude towards the physical world. Although astrologers often talk about money, real estate, and your personal possessions when discussing the second house, it is important to remember that the second house also represents your value system. Every dollar you spend in the world represents a vote in your value and belief system. If you are not experiencing the abundance and prosperity that is naturally yours to experience in this world, the second house of your astrology chart is the first place to look. Read the sign on the cusp of your second house to get a hint about your beliefs related to money or real estate. Taurus on the second house may purchase a luxurious home with solid resale value. Gemini on the second house cusp may prefer a home loaded with books. Be aware, there are many other places to look in an astrology chart for material resources and your value system. Natal planets in a house will influence the nature of that house as well. The second house relates to your throat and voice. It has to do with speaking your truth. The second house helps you manifest beauty and your highest values into the world.
Third House
The Third House contains your siblings, education, communication, transportation, daily life, and neighbors. It represents things that happen quickly, like a one-day workshop, writing a magazine article, or a short weekend trip. The third house represents ideas and mental acuity. It provides hints about how you speak and how you learn. It is one of the places in the chart to look for nervous respiratory system ailments, asthma, and communications problems like stuttering. The third house provides information about how you get your ideas across to the world. A Cancer third house cusp may speak in words that express feelings and emotions, whereas a Sagittarius cusp may speak in broad, altruistic, and philosophical concepts. The third house helps you to open your mind to a variety of new ideas, then to mold those thoughts into a form that can be expressed in the world. The third house can tell you about your brothers and sisters, and it can give you hints about the car you drive.
Fourth House
The Fourth House represents home, family, parenting, traditions, and your general attitude about where and how you live. It is the place of seeking emotional security. The difficulty is that to find true emotional security, you must face your insecurities. A Taurus fourth house cusp may believe that owning a home provides security, only to find that they may lose their home due to unforeseen circumstances. This teaches the person that true emotional security comes from within, not from a physical object like a house. Information regarding your early childhood can be found in the fourth house. An Aquarius fourth house cusp may indicate a home with unusual circumstances. This could include moving frequently, eccentric visitors passing through your home, adoptions, a missing parent, or unusual family relationships. Astrologers differ on whether the fourth house represents the father or mother, usually it signifies the parent that was the most nurturing. The most common thing to say is that the fourth house tells you about how you obtain your nurturing. A Cancer fourth house may prefer a home cooked meal. A Sagittarius fourth house may feel more nurtured by a meal cooked over a campfire stove. The fourth house can be quite a complicated house due to numerous emotional undercurrents combined with its action-oriented focus. This house also indicates your karmic ties and how they might affect you in this lifetime.
Fifth House
The Fifth House represents self-expression, children, romance, creativity, and pleasure. It is one of the places in the astrology chart that calls you to take a risk on yourself. Whether it is showing the world your creative talents, opening your heart to the possibility of romance, or hitting the blackjack tables in Las Vegas, you need to open to your passionate nature. With the fifth house, it is time to have fun. The zodiac sign on the fifth house cusp can give you hints about the way you like to have fun. A practical sign like Capricorn may turn a fun hobby into a business. It may also indicate a person who does not have children, or holds off on children until they are a bit older. Capricorn fifth house people may not be big gamblers, instead preferring conservative risks. Cancer on the fifth house cusp may take great enjoyment in playing with children. They may have difficulty letting go when it is time to end a relationship.
Sixth House
The Sixth House rules work, humble service in the world, health, and domestic pets. It is the part of your job that needs to be done, but you do not get a lot of recognition for doing it. For career issues, you also need to look at the second and tenth houses. The sixth house can relate to military service, domestic help, health-related professions, and service businesses. With planets in your natal sixth house and current planets transiting through your sixth house, you need to simplify and organize your life so that you can be highly efficient. It asks the question, “How can I be of service to the world without becoming a slave to it?” A Virgo sixth house cusp may be a nurse or a veterinarian, whereas a Gemini cusp may provide information or technical services. In terms of health and healing, you need to look at a wide variety of factors to understand health factors in a chart. In general, a person with Aquarius, Gemini, or Virgo in the sixth house may need to avoid overtaxing the nervous system. Scorpio sixth house people may need to pay attention to dental care, reproductive organs, and the elimination system. In relationships, the sixth house represents the practical factors. When the honeymoon part of a relationship settles down, you have to organize your life to accommodate your partner and your worldly work.
Seventh House
The Seventh House relates to close relationships of both a business and personal nature. It determines your experiences with marriage and partnership. Ironically, this also holds your open enemies. On a spiritual growth level, the people with whom you share, be it in love, business, or war, are all here to help you open to a greater level of your spirit. Perhaps an enemy can be viewed as a soul who has agreed to help you grow, much the same as a marriage partner. People want different things in a marriage. An Aries Descendant (the name for the 7th house cusp) may like fiery passion in a marriage partner. An Aquarius cusp may need someone who is as much a friend as a romantic partner. Planets in the seventh house greatly influence the needs of committed partnership. The Moon in the seventh house may show a strong need for emotional connection, or the desire for partnership may go through fluctuations (as in one day you are happy your partner is in your life, and the next you just want your private emotional space). The main point of the seventh house is that you are being called to step away from purely self-serving needs in order to share and cooperate with others.
Eight House
The Eighth House represents sexuality, death, deep emotional connection, fears, inheritances and taxes. The astrology joke is that the eighth house rules sex, taxes, and death – a fertile ground for fears and obsessions! It is where we merge with something greater than ourselves. In sex, you merge with another such that two become one. With taxes, you merge with the collective. In death, you go beyond all boundaries and merge with Oneness. In a relationship, the eighth house talks about how you share your body, your time, and your possessions with your partner. It represents your partner’s income, accounting, insurance, and financial planning. Emotionally, this area is ruled by the planet Pluto (death, obsessive-compulsive, power, regeneration, elimination). The eighth house is where you go into the swamps of those intangible fears. A Scorpio eighth house cusp may need to work with people who are emotionally abused, provide financial planning services, tax accountants, sex-industry workers, or morticians. A Gemini cusp may help people talk about issues of grief, sexual abuse, or fears. The eighth house helps you get in touch with the deepest feelings that you carry below the surface.
Ninth House
The Ninth House represents the higher mind. It is associated with foreign travel, religion, higher education, certain areas of the legal system, and the social mores of society. More than anything, the ninth house calls you to open your mind to your highest spiritual truth and to know who you are beyond the labels of society. Because this house is naturally ruled by Sagittarius, here you are called to express the utmost integrity and honesty. In general, the ninth house represents your in-laws and is one of the places to look for grandchildren. A person with Pisces on the ninth house cusp may get involved in compassionate and humanitarian activities. Gemini on the ninth house cusp may indicate someone who is constantly going back to college to get another degree. Natal planets in the ninth house add flavor to the philosophical nature. Saturn in the ninth may indicate a conservative approach to religion and philosophy. Uranus in the ninth may indicate a person who leaves the family religion or works for philanthropic causes.
Tenth House
The Tenth House represents your public image and career. You will find big business, government, and other administratively heavy organizations in this area of the chart. Politicians and Chief Executive Officers are associated with the tenth house. The world sees you according to the sign on the tenth house cusp (also called the MidHeaven). In esoteric, or spiritually focused astrology, it is believed that the tenth house cusp indicates aspects that your soul incarnated to accomplish in this life. Whereas the sixth house represents your day-to-day work, the tenth house indicates career. In the sixth house, you work away like a busy little bee. In the tenth house, you are seen for your accomplishments and/or failures. Natal Mars in the tenth house may indicate strong ambition. Jupiter in the tenth house may indicate a person who appears larger than life, or one who is known for coaching and encouraging others. Aquarius in the tenth house may be a person who prefers to work alone, or own their own business. Leo in the tenth house may be a person who prefers supervisory positions.
Eleventh House
The Eleventh House encompasses friends, intellectual pleasures, socializing, and your attitude towards society. It shows your goals and ambitions. The eleventh house represents group consciousness. This can include community service, humanitarian aid, business-support groups, or community living lifestyles. It is those parties and events you go to, shaking a lot of hands, but not really getting to know anyone well. The sign on the eleventh house cusp tells how you approach social situations. Virgo on the cusp may indicate shyness in opening to groups, or they end up in the kitchen cleaning up after the party. Aries may know everyone’s first name at an event, but never stick around to know their last name. Having your Sun in the eleventh house may make you magnetically attractive to everyone. The moon in the eleventh may indicate the person who listens to everyone’s problems and nurtures them like a mother.
Twelfth House
The Twelfth House relates to that which is hidden from view. It rules prisons, hospitals, and psychiatric facilities. Spiritual practices like meditation, shamanic vision quests, past life regression, dream therapy, psychic development, and hypnotherapy fit into the twelfth house. This is the place you go for your privacy. It also shows what you would like to hide from the world, but will need to deal with at some time in your life. Mercury in the twelfth house is often the child who is told that they talk too much, so learns to be seen and not heard. However, as the child gets older, they must learn to communicate. The twelfth house is where we want to escape from the world. This can include alcoholism, drug addiction, or living excessively in a fantasy world. This energy can be used positively through contemplative spiritual practice or other forms of self-analysis. Photography, the ocean, and secret societies are associated with the twelfth house. In the twelfth house, you need to look at the shadows of your inner being in order to bring forth your connection to the One Source of All That Is.