The Astrological Houses in a Natal Chart: An Overview

In your natal chart, you will come across a design that may appear intimidating and confusing at first. From the many different planetary placements to the aspect lines, it is a lot to take in at first glance, but each symbol and feature are crucial and telling of your personality and yourself as a whole. An important part of your natal chart are your houses.

A natal chart looks like a pizza, cut into twelve slices. These "twelve slices" are your twelve houses. Each of these houses. Each of these houses reveal their own respect aspect of your life and are ruled by different signs. The houses are dependent on your time of birth, so unfortunately if you don't know it, you cannot determine your natal houses.

There are many different links and websites you can use to create your personal birth chart. Once you have your chart with your birth time, you have your natal houses.

Now what do these houses each represent? Each individual house has their own meaning behind them, so let's briefly overview each house.

First House—The House of Self, Ruled by Aries and Mars

Have you ever had anybody tell you that you are completely different from how they thought you were going to be when they first met you? That first image they had of you was your first house. The first house is the house of self. It controls your physical appearance So, Physical being, your aura, and the way you come across to somebody in first time interactions.

When looking at a chart, the beginning of the first house, aka the sign that rules the cusp of the first house, is known as your Ascendant or Rising Sign (the the two terms are interchangeable). Knowing this, you can tell a lot about how you act, appear, and look like to others. If you have planets in side this house, those also can affect the things listed above, no matter what your rising sign is. It also tells you what your chart ruler is, as your chart ruler is the ruling planet of your ascendant. Having planets that aspect/interact with your ascendant can also affect the manner in which you go about in the world.

A lot of times when people think about astrology for the first time, they think about their zodiac sign (which would be their sun sign for the more knowledgeable folk) and what it means. If you ask, a lot of people knock off astrology as a whole because they are not like the typical Virgo or Aries. However, one of the reasons why you aren't exactly like the typical Pisces or the ideal Libra is because a big portion of one's identity is a mixture between their sun sign and their rising sign/ascendant.

Second House—The House of Security/Value/Posessions, Ruled by Taurus and Venus

This house is associated with value, which refers to what you find security in, what materials are important to you, and how you go about achieving that which bring you that sense of security. A lot of this relates to the way you take care of yourself and how you build a foundation for yourself based on your values. This house may have a bit of a bad impression at first because many of this security can come from materialistic things like money, cars, houses etc. But feeling secure with these kinds of items are only natural and should not be looked at in a negative way. You could be the most frugal person in the world who does not care about brand name items, wouldn't having a bank account with a decent amount of money make you feel somewhat secure? Or a clean home with enough space? Gas in your car? These are specific examples of what may bring us security, but the sign on the second house cusp along with any planets placed in there factor in what exactly brings us that sense of security. What we find worth in, what we do to possess these valuable items, and how we use that to take care of ourselves or in a way of resource for our lives are all information given through the second house. We also can find what are skills and talents are towards achieving what we find valuable.

Third House—The House of Communication, Ruled by Gemini and Mercury

When I think of the third house, lyrics from the song All the Small Things by Blink-182 come to mind.The third house is commonly perceived to be the most boring house of all of the twelve houses on a chart. Why? It is the house of all the small things in life we don’t think about everyday. It is our word choice and what comes out of our mouth, our school experience K-12 (the school we as adolescents did not have a choice of going to), our relationships with our siblings, short trips like going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from school, and our relationships with our neighbors both literally and figuratively. These are all parts of our daily routine. The “boring” aspects of life, the repetitive factors we face day to day that become invisible to us after a while. Despite its reputation of being an uninteresting and dull house, it actually tells us a lot about us and the parts of our personality we do not necessarily think about often. The sign ruling this house, as well as any planets inside of it gives us insight on how we communicate with others. All things communication-wise relates to this house. Our word choice and diction can be discussed in this placement. Along with this information, we can also learn a lot about how we are/were as a student in primary school. Were we an attentive student, a slacker, the class clown, etc? As this house deals with short trips, it also explains why we make small daily decisions like driving down a certain street to take a shortcut or why we chose to buy the giant container of chocolate milk mix instead of the two-pack of the smaller ones. In life, we often don’t have the time to dwell on all the small things, but the third house certainly does.

Fourth House—The House of Home, Ruled by Cancer and the Moon

Recall your home and where you come from. Where do you roots sprout from? When you look back on what the answer is, features of the fourth house come to mind. The fourth house encompass all things that has to do with your upbringing and what you call your home. As you may imagine, these include your parents, your family environment, and what you emotionally feel grounded. Once again, this does not necessarily mean a physical, four-walled, however many stories house. What is your history? Where do you feel your foundation has come from? No matter where we are in the world, we can look back on a place where we emotionally connect to. The fourth house is associated with whatever brings an emotional basis and sense of nourishment. On another note, some astrologers even associate this house with the native's mother, or even going further, the more nurturing parent or whichever took on the role most people commonly expect the mother figure to fulfill. For example, my 4th house is in Gemini. My mother is a Gemini Sun. However, she has been out of the picture and I have not been in contact with her since I was very young, so I grew up with my dad playing both roles in a sense. Oddly enough, he is a Gemini moon. Motherly connections aren't always this explicit and blatant, but some argue that there is a connection to this role. The 4th house cusp is also known as your Immum Coeli [IC], which in Latin is "bottom of the sky". The IC represents your inner self. Not many people get to see the part of you that is your IC, only your parents, family, and people who you live with or have known you for a big portion of your life. We can find what we privately see to be our core foundation. The fourth house cusp is literally at the bottom of a birth chart. So this house's content is what is found when you get to the bottom of who you really are.

Fifth House—The House of Pleasure & Creativity, Ruled by Leo and the Sun

I previously mentioned that the third house is often seen as a boring house as it incorporates all of the little things in life that skim over. The fifth house, however, is all about basically the opposite mood. The fifth house is all about your creativity, your pleasures, and what you find fun. The feeling you get as a kid when you run to the living room on Christmas Day to find presents, watching a comedy movie when a certain joke makes you laugh until the point of tears, whatever it is that makes you smile, laugh, or feel joyous can all be found in this house. Happiness enjoy can come from a various amount of things, so there are a wide variety of aspects of this house. Leisure activities and how you spend your free time including arts and crafts are focused in this house, and as it it is a house of pleasure, romance is also found.

The fifth house deals with much of the beginning stages of a romantic relationship, like flirting, casual sex, going out on fun dates; everything that occurs before the relationship becomes a serious and committed companionship.The sign on the cusp as well as aspects to this house can tell you about how you flirting, how you act in the "honeymoon stage" of a relationship, your dating and sex life, and what you are attracted to on a romantic level. Most romcoms incorporate 5th house things before the big conflict happens that causes the relationship to become more serious.

Creativity is another feature of the fifth house. Ruled by Leo, it naturally associates with how we expand our image and create something to express ourselves. Art, both visual and performance, games, and play are all found in the fifth house. By looking at this house, we can see what activities and hobbies we have that bring us a childlike wonder and what creative outlets we find the most fulfilling. Another mode of creation shown is procreation. Going back on childlike feelings, fifth house planets and its sign can indicate fertility, children, your relationship with your children and how we interact with children in general, both ours and someone else's. Some believe that, in a woman's chart, the fifth house can relate to her first born. For example, the sign on my mother's fifth house cusp is pisces, and I am a Pisces ascendant. Other parts of this house in relation to children include how you play with them and relate with them in a less authoritative plane, as well as what you emotionally gain from taking care of a child.

Sixth House—The House of Service & Health, Ruled by Virgo and Mercury

Let's think about all those fun adventures and activities from the fifth house. Going to the movie theatre, making pottery, trips to the bar. However, those don't just happen so easily. We need money to pay for the supplies we use to create art. After a night of a few drinks at the bar, we don't just wake up the next morning feeling completely. There's a before and after to the fun our fifth house features, and that's where reality and the sixth house come in.

The sixth house oversees two main parts of our lives: our health and work/service. Self-care is extremely important. And I'm not talking about putting on face masks, lighting a few candles, and taking a bubble bath while listening to your favorite podcast (although that does sound lovely). I mean REALLY taking care of yourself, getting physicals, taking vitamins, keeping clean and hygienic, eating healthy and exercising. Our 6th house can indicate the status of our health and how we view it, as well as what diseases and illness were are more prone to.

When we feel our best, we are able to be our best, and in turn this is beneficial to serving others. In terms of work and service, the 6th house incorporates how we are as a worker, our coworkers and the relationships we have with them, what jobs we aim for and are best at, as well as employees and our relationships with them. What do we do to make our money, how do we make our money, and where do we make money are all questions that can be answered by what sign on the cusp of this house as well as any planets inside of it. Pets are also included in this house, as they are a part of our everyday lives, and they contribute to helping our health, both mental (as emotional support) and physical (as some can become service animals).

Seventh House—the House of Partnerships & Relationships, Ruled by Libra and Venus

If you take a moment to evaluate all these houses so far, they all have something to do with establishing who you are. First house is the house of self, and afterwards we get into our values, our sense of home, our passions, even our health, while the 6th house subtly incorporates others. After this first half of the houses, we have now approached the second half, which are external from our own being. We are focused on the things greater than ourselves, as the seventh house represents our opposite. Energies represented by the sign on the seventh house cusp as well as any natal planets within the house are those that we usually do not associate with ourselves. It is an aspect of our being that we are not consciously aware of. For example, having Mars in the seventh house would come about in such a way that one doesn't see themself as very aggressive or energetic. However, because this is considered the opposite of ourselves, it usually takes a partner to show us that very hidden aspect of our personality.

Let's recall all those cheesy romcoms we've seen while exploring Netflix or on a movie date with our significant others. One common theme or saying you'll come across is the whole "You complete me" vibe. A couple feels they'd be nowhere without the other. We also often hear the saying "opposites attract." Fitting with this house, "The House of the Other," the seventh house is associated with marriages, long-term and serious relationships, or significant partnerships. Important bindings between you and another are symbolized in this particular house. Often these bindings are made through the use of legal affairs, ergo marrying someone and changing a last name. In these cases, you learn how to take yourself, as well as all of the aspects of the first through sixth house, and blend them with your partner or significant other to better yourselves. You learn how to come together with your opposite to achieve greater success.

As we come to terms with what the opposite of ourselves actually is, we come to find that it does not always feel like a part of the puzzle is complete when meeting a representation of our opposite. Opposites can attract, but sometimes it's just that:opposites with no similarities to relate to. These situations can easily result in miscommunication, disharmonious relations, and disagreements. Therefore, open enemies are also revealed within this house.

Eighth House—The House of Death & Transformation, Ruled by Scorpio and Pluto

Here we get to the real nitty gritty. If the seventh house is the things we do not identify ourselves with and oppose, the eighth house goes even further and represents the things about ourselves that we ARE aware of and hide. The darker sides of ourselves and our relationships with others. We are aware with our own darkest secrets, tendencies, and thoughts, and it is because of that awareness that we consciously hide them from reaching above the surface. The 8th house is where those very aspects can roam free. When we become affiliated with someone who is a representative of our 7th house, the relationship gets deeper and more intimate as we move on to this next house. Secrets are revealed and you learn the most personal truths about someone. Shields and guards are let down, and all that's left is vulnerability. Therefore, a big component of this house is one's sexuality. This does not mean casual sex, or even romantic puppy love sex. This refers to a much more passionate and intimate interaction, where you're not just physically naked, but emotionally, spiritually and mentally as well.

As if that wasn't intense enough, the 8th house is commonly associated with death, rebirth, transformation and regeneration. With such words, this house can appear as creepy or intimidating, and with reason. Death in the case of the 8th house does not necessarily mean physical death. When combined with the words listed after, there's a theme of becoming something after an event. Right away, I think of Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do." In it, she says, "The old Taylor can't come to the phone. Why? She's dead." Of course she is not literally dead, T-Swift is singing it up on her tour as I type this. But she's referring to the death of her OLD self, as she's changed her personality, learned a lesson and grew, etc. She's transformed her image and who she is. Such "deaths" are expressed in this house. Most of the time, the rebirth that occurs in these situations are from experiences having to do with these darker sides of life and ourselves. We do not necessarily want to go through these scenarios, but the changes that result are necessary. As much as this house is overlooked as just scary, it is also a very important house.

Ninth House—The House of Beliefs & Higher Thinking, Ruled by Sagittarius and Jupiter

Reflecting on the transformations that result from our eighth house, we now get into what we do with that change. This is a very philosophical house. We think about all of the life-changing situations that caused our changes and ask ourselves, "WHY did that happen? What's the purpose of it and how can I use it?" In the ninth house, our minds become much more open, as we become more curious. We have a want to learn more, ask more questions, and teach ourselves a little bit about everything. Belief systems, philosophy, religion, foreign lands and travel, and higher education are all aspects of this Jupitarian house.

When in a state of wanting to learn more, what do we do? Depending on what we are aiming on venturing into, we enroll in higher education. We read books about our proposed subject. We communicate with spiritual teachers and those more knowledgeable. Ninth house energy is affiliated with pursuing knowledge that is greater than what you already know, and then fully emmerse yourself into it. And what better way to teach yourself about foreign education than to travel and be physically there at the forefront of what you are trying to learn? Looking at the sign on the 9th house cusp as well as any planets in the house itself can reveal the native's attitude toward higher education, higher learning, and foreign cultures. It also can be significant in telling what philosophies and learning experiences you would most be interested in. While the eighth house is what changes you dramatically, the ninth house is what you do with the transformation and how you embrace that change. Choices made in the progress of ninth house education are used in the coming of the very next house.

10th House—The House of Social Status, Ruled by Capricorn and Saturn

When looking at the spherical-shaped birth chart, our 10th house is directly across the fourth house, standing at the very top of everything. The very highest point is considered our Midheaven (aka MC), which is opposite of our Immum Coeli (IC). When we recall the meaning of our IC, the point at which our roots are based as well as the foundation that we grew up in, we can easily consider the meaning of the MC as the symbolic opposite. Instead of our innermost qualities and those we consider only expressed when home, this represents our outermost qualities. 10th house and midheaven is what we are seen as in the public eye. It is similar to our ascendant, but with this, the perception of us is much more long-lasting and meaningful. Instead of being what we look like to others, this is how we're remembered by others. They are the qualities that we are looked up to and admired for. Our 10th house is indicative of the statement and mark we as an individual make in society and in our world.

Many people will say associate this house with our career, which is actually not far off. It is very common to be remembered because of success and achievements of ours in our careers. However, if you want a house that really hones in on jobs and one's work ethic, you might want to look at the 6th house instead. One can be revered for qualities and actions that are not necessarily associated with their career. Take for a example someone who manages a retail store in their city, who also does a lot of humanitarian work on the side. Say they may work in finding homes for homeless children. After much of this work, they get awarded by the city council for all they've done towards the cause. The community is recognize to see him as a social hero who cares about the wellbeing of underprivileged children, not for being a store manager. His volunteer work wasn't his job or his career path, but it was one that brought him fame and recognition. However, when we also recall someone like Michael Jackson, we automatically think about his iconic music and vocal talents, as well as the enigmatic dance moves he performed onstage. Both scenarios resulted in some sort of fame, but only one of them had it brought on by their career. So overall, the Midheaven and the 10th house is not about one's career. It is about the qualities and energies we put out to the world that lead us into that recognition and allow us to make that mark on the world, meanwhile any planets in that house add to that which we put out.

11th House—The House of Associates and Friendships, Ruled by Aquarius and Uranus

The 11th house is a very social and communicative house. Bouncing off the 10th and our midheaven, this house describes how we use what we're known and revered for in good use amongst something bigger than ourselves. It is how we act and work with those around is. Groups, cliques, clubs, social circles, and memberships all are associated with the 11th house. As we utilize out notable traits, we begin to discover what kinds of people we work best with. We start to see what groups and circles we naturally coincide with, therefore, joining a collective. Here find an identity within a number of people and consider ourselves, to some degree, to be one and the same with others. We claim labels that others do as well, like "Feminist" or "Belieber," "Team McDreamy" or "Conservative," etc. As well as labels, we also turn this merging into building friendships. This house is most commonly known for this meaning. The sign on the 11th house cusp as well as any planets found in your 11th house can provide insight into what kinds of people you gravitate towards in building friendships. You can also see how you act as a friend yourself, whether your "the mom friend" or a friend who can go months without taking when their group and have everything be the same, and so much more.

As an air house, it deals with communication towards others. Our first air house, the third house, dealt with communicating towards those in your familiar community and that which you called a basis. Then next air house, the seventh, dealt with communicating with someone on a one-to-one level. And now we are at our third and final air house. In the 11th house, we take in all of our experiences with communicating with others as well as coming to terms with how we communicate and interact with everyone as a whole and a group collective. This expansive house encompasses all you do as someone being part of a gathering of numerous other people. As a whole, how we as an individual become one with others is identified within the realms of our 11th house.

12th House—The House of Secrets and the Unknown, Ruled by Pisces and Neptune

So now we are at the end of journey. We've gone through all of the houses (and through that mode, the signs as well) and we are now at this Piscean 12th house. The best way I can put to words about what impression the 12th house gives off is this simple four-worded sentence:this house is WEIRD. If you look at different resources and descriptions of this house, you'll see that many of them differ from each other. Most may share similar and overlapping points and important features, but many will steer into different directions, and they are all invalid. The truth is that this is a house that I hard to pin down, and that is because this house is ruled by the mystical energy that is Pisces. Pisces is a sign that is associated with disillusionment, cloudiness, not being able to see clearly. Therefore, the same foggy theme is placed upon this house. When you have a planet in the 12h, Pisces energy puts its fog over them, meaning that as the chart holder, it may be harder for you to understand or tap into those very placements. As the house of subconsciousness, it can represent energy we are not conscious, resulting in the inaccessibility we of the natural energies. This seemingly constant battle to understand the energies we have in our 12th house can lead us to a tiresome state, most often resulting in solitude. As someone with four of my planets in my 12th house, this is an effect I know too well about. We get overwhelmed about the unknown within ourselves, so we isolate ourselves. We don't understand ourselves, others can't figure us out, and it all can be so frustrating. Confined places like jail or hospitals, areas where we have to take time to stay still and fixate on us as an individual for a particular reason or another are concrete examples that tie into this isolated state post-subconscious searching. However, there is a reason why 12th house placement holders must deal with this, and to understand that reasoning, we must dive into other meanings of this house.

The 12th house is a VERY spiritual house; dare I say the most spiritual out of all of the houses. Recalling Pisces, we understand that this sign has already been through the journey of all of the past 11 signs, from Aries to Aquarius, and know taking in all its gone through, it has reached its final position. This sign understands everything, because it's been through everything. Therefore, it's a very empathetic and spiritually in tune energy, and this description does not fall short when discussing its relative house. Depending on what you believe in, this house can give information about past lives and the karma your soul is currently given because of your past life situations. Regardless if you choose to go by the idea of past lives, this house encompasses the understanding that there is an overall bigger picture to life, something that is larger than ourselves. Leading us to a legacy that is similar to our midheaven, we leave with us the energies that are within our own 12th house. Thought it can be a challenging hassle to understand the components within our natal 12th house, once we do, we gain unconditional benefits not only to ourselves, but to the collective outerworld.