Eps 57: Introduction to the astrological houses

[Music] Hello and welcome to the Design Life Podcast. I'm your host, HollisMM. [Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to another installment of the Design Life Podcast. Today we're doing another astrology 101 kind of episode where I break down something that is talked about a lot in astrology and I break it down into really simple rudimentary terms. And this is a very key aspect of astrology but I have found that a lot of my clients, a lot of folks especially if they're interested in astrology but still are kind of on the periphery of the astrological dialect I should say, like the language of astrology, they don't necessarily have a full grasp of. You know, when we first learn about astrology a lot of times we enter into it via the signs because we enter it into, we enter into it via the archetypes, the signs. And we learn about the qualities of the archetypes and which qualities we have based off of our planetary placements. But then we get a little bit deeper into astrology and we learn that there is something called houses and aspects and many other different things to the whole world and language of astrology. But houses in particular are where people usually get kind of stumped. And so I wanted to give a very basic breakdown of the houses and this discussion is going to be, again, very surface level. It's not going to go into a lot of the major, well, I should say it will just be kind of the major information. It won't be kind of the minutia of the houses. We're not going to get into very specific details. This is really for you to be able to get a better sense of what you're looking at when you're looking at your chart and get a better sense of what the planets are up to in which areas in your chart. And well, just to also give you a little more language around how to understand and make sense of what you're looking at when you're looking at your chart. So I'm very excited about this episode. Everything that I discussed here, I'll also go into even further detail in my upcoming workshop called Spacious. It will launch on May 20th. So if you're at all interested in learning more about the empty houses in particular in your chart and how to work with them, all of that is going to be in the workshop and I'll also get into a little more specificity about the houses and how to work with them generally and how to observe them with everyday transits and also make sense of them in your own life and how they're already operating in your own life. So with that said, let's get into this introduction to the houses episode. So first we have to define what is a house. And if you're using the Tropical Zodiac, the Zodiac using the 12 signs that most people use in the Western Hemisphere, and you're looking at your natal chart as a wheel, not as a list or graph, but as a wheel, you'll see that the whole 360 degrees has been divided into 12 pie slices. And depending on which house system you're using, those pie slices could be either equal, meaning that they're each exactly 30 degrees of the 360 degree circle, or they could be varying widths. And I want to take a moment to just briefly touch on house systems because there are different lineages of astrology that divide the chart, that divide the whole circle into different degrees, depending on the lineage that you come from, you might be looking at one version of your chart versus another. And my good friend, Justin, I are going to go into a bigger discussion of this specifically for whole sign versus Placidus, which are kind of, I'd say like the two main house systems that we use for the Tropical Zodiac. We're going to go into that in a secondary episode. So this is what I'm going to be talking about today is specific to the whole sign house system. And if you're already lost, let me just say that the whole sign house system looks at the chart in exact 30 degree segments all the way around the circle. So I find that it's a little bit easier to understand from the jump just because you get equal widths of every single house and every 12 sign or every sign of the 12 signs is applied to each one of the houses. So there's 12 houses, 12 signs, all of them are equal. There is no changing of that information. Whereas Placidus, it can shift a little bit. Some houses might be 20 degrees where other houses might be 10 degrees where other houses might be 35 degrees. And so Justin, I are going to get into that more in our secondary episode to this or the complimentary episode to this. So for now, if you're just following me and you're following my description of the house is I'm going to tell you when you look at your chart and you're looking at it from a whole sign house perspective, there's exactly 12 pie slices of the same exact width, they're each 30 degrees. And starting with your rising sign, that will be the first house on your chart. So for example, if you're a Libra rising, Libra will be on the first house. If you are a Gemini rising, Gemini will be on the first house. And then from there, the zodiac continues in its natural order all the way around the pie slice or the circle from pie slice to pie slice. So the first house, if you're a Libra rising is Libra, the second house would be Scorpio, the third house would be Sagittarius, the fourth house would be Capricorn, on and on and on all the way around until you get to the very end, which would be Virgo. And to think about that for a second, Virgo on your 12th house. Same thing if you're a Gemini rising Gemini would be on the first house, the second house would be Cancer, the third house would be Leo, the fourth house would be Virgo. All the way around the circle until you get to Taurus on the 12th house. And so what I love about the whole sign house system, especially if you're first learning about the houses is that you see 30 degrees of the 360 degrees and you're like, okay, that is one house. And I have this sign on that house, whereas other house systems are might be two signs in a house. And that's where it can kind of get a little bit confusing. So again, we're starting with kind of like the rudimentary level. So take a moment just to think about your chart, think about your rising sign, whatever it happens to be. And if you're looking at it, it's probably even better so that you have a visual. But let's say you're a cancer rising and cancer is on your first house, then you know automatically you can kind of go in order all the way around from counter clockwise that your first house is cancer, your second house is Leo, your third house is Virgo, your fourth house is Libra, etc, etc. So just take a moment to orient what is your order specifically for your houses. And then the second answer to the question, what is a house is what they represent what does a house actually represent what does it do in the chart, what does it explain what is it described. And when we're looking at the chart, we're seeing the planets, we're seeing the signs, we're seeing these pie slices, the planets are the who, this is kind of like a basic overview, the planets are the who, so they're like the people or the relationships that are work in your in your chart. I also like to think of them as different expressions of yourself like the different parts of you that are a little more active or alive. And the signs are the how they describe the style in which these different parts of you are expressed. And the signs also describe the how of the areas of life, the houses, the houses are the where the areas of life, where things actually get enacted. And every house describes a variety, a collection of areas of life. And I'll get into what the basic delineations of each house actually is what they are in just a moment. But for now, I just want you to to make sure that you understand that when you're looking at your chart and you're looking at these 12 different pie slices, every pie slice represents an area of life. So how you have your work life, your home life, your relationship life, your friendship life, your, your money life, your like you have all these different aspects to your life. You have all these different areas that that make up the whole of your lived existence. That is what is described in the house systems. And I can get into the whole history of how house systems were delineated. But I'm just going to instead refer you to a few different resources in the show notes. If you want to learn more about the house systems and how the ancient astrologers determined which house belongs to which I don't want to get into that in this episode because I feel like it can do real us. But just know that all of this information comes from a very, a very long history of study. And this wasn't just arbitrarily chosen information. It really comes from a lot of different research and acknowledgement from astrologers thousands of years ago all the way up until now. So again, when you're looking at your chart, look at each pie slice and understand that each pie slice represents an area of life and we'll get into what those areas are now. So the very brief overview is now. So when again, when you're looking at your chart, let's start with the first house where your rising sign is and we're moving in a counterclockwise direction. The first house represents the body, the self. This is you in the chart. This is your appearance. This is your general attitude. This is your life approach. I like to describe this house not just as you know you and your body, but also the energy that fuels you into existence. I have a whole substack about your big three and I describe it as kind of the the breath that fuels you moment by moment. It's the motivating energy or in yoga we call it the prana. It's the life force energy that brings you into existence that allows you to move from you know this moment to the next to the next to the next. And so of course it is absolutely your appearance. If you look at if you look at a variety of Sagittarius rising, there's a lot of similarity to how they look. Obviously there's other appearance. Other things that describe your appearance like your Venus and your Moon sign, but absolutely you know the first house will describe your physical capabilities because it's your body. It's you. This is the moment that you took your first breath in this lifetime and it describes your essence in many many ways. So not necessarily an area of life, but in a way it is right because your body is your vessel. We have a relationship to this vessel and how you embody this vessel in this lifetime is described via this first house. The second house, so moving again counterclockwise, the second house is resources and money. And I like to also describe this part of the chart as your vitality and the things that allow it's everything that holds up your first house. It's just underneath your first house. It holds up your body. So it's everything that you need to support your life, your livelihood, all the resources that you need to sustain your body. I know in medical astrology, this house is often looked at for your relationship to food and actual like your relationship to like how you nourish your body in many ways, which can be a little bit confusing because once we get to the sixth house, there's some crossover here, but it's your income. It's your material possessions. It's your assets. It's your internal resources as well. It's your talents and your skills. And it's also your sense of self worth. If it's worth in many, many ways, it's the actual value, like the valuable things that you own, but it's also the value that you carry within yourself. And so your relationship to these things is going to look different depending on what's in this house and what sign is on this house and all the aspects. But this is the area of life that is represented in this house. And again, I'll get into more specifics about the signs and planets in just a moment. The third house is mental activity and locale. That's usually what I like to describe it as. Historically, it's considered the house of the goddess. It represents our daily rituals in a modern day since it could be considered your schedule, your daily schedules. But it's also short trips. It's social interests. It's communication and writing projects. It's your general thinking and how you kind of like mentally approach the world in many ways. But it's also your siblings and it's your neighborhood and your neighbors. So you see how like a lot of things can start to fit into these different houses. And what I'm giving you is really just like the surface level overview of what these houses each represent. But this is what they're often referred to as. And so I want to give you kind of the basic information so you can start to relate to them in different ways. Your fourth house is your home and foundation. It's your family and your ancestry, your past, your home and your housing, your sense of home and security, your sense of groundedness. It can be real estate. It can be support systems. And when I say family, that's not necessarily your bloodline. It can also be the people that feel like family in many ways. And because when we're looking at the chart, this is the very bottom of the chart. It's also very much considered connected to the subconscious in a lot of ways. And there's a few different parts of the chart that are related to the subconscious. But this is definitely one. It's one that if you think about it, it's like the I think of it as like the grounding core that anchors us all the way into the depths of the earth and connects us to energies that came well before us and people that came well before us in our lineage. And it's this thread of connection all the way behind us and below us that's allowing us to move forward. So the fourth house, the basic overview is family home foundation. It can very much relate to real estate, your apartment life, your home life, relationship to housing, etc. All of that lives in this part of your chart. The fifth house I like to describe as self-expression and pleasure. This is considered to often be or historically considered the house of children. But what I like to think of and I think a lot of people in a modern sense like to think of with the fifth house or with children is generally is that it's a it's an extension of you. It's something that you bore, that you bring to life in this world. And that can be so many different things. But it's it's essentially your creative energy that's expressed outwards. So I put creativity in this house for sure. Fertility, anything related to like fertility efforts or anything related to sexuality and sexual pleasure lives in this house romance, sensuality, definitely your kids or other kids in your life children in your life. But definitely also fun and pleasure. And there's hobbies and games and good times that all live in this house. This house is considered to be the house of good fortune. And so it's everything that comes with the joys of life. And you know, historically, you know, you can say that children were the joys of life. Obviously, different people have different preferences or different opinions about that. But it is absolutely your creative progeny. What it is you want to bring into existence in this world. And sometimes I'll also put entrepreneurship here because there is a very clear creative act that comes with being an entrepreneur. And what you what you create and what you offer is an extension of yourself. So sometimes I also put that in this house. The sixth house is service and health. It's your daily work and health habits. I like to think of this as Kira Sutherland, this really great medical astrologer describes health as something that is just a series of mundane choices, like very little choices that we have to make over the course of our days, over the course of our lives that contribute to the strength of the weakness of our health. And all of that lives in the sixth house. All of these little choices that we have to make on a day-to-day basis to support our bodies, to support our lives, whether that's, you know, the choices that you make with regards to your exercise routines or your, you know, the chores that you have to do around your house. All of that lives here. But it's also your, it's become the house of your work. It's not necessarily the work that you want to be known for, but it's the work that you kind of feel obligated to do in some sense. There, this house definitely holds an energy of, again, that service. It's not necessarily in support of a greater outcome for you individually, but there is a greater outcome that is perhaps for a larger purpose. And whether that be by choice or not by choice, also house dependent, or chart dependent. But it's your, it's the daily work that you have to do, that you have to show up and do. The daily chores, it's your work peers and the work systems, and kind of like all of the minutia that goes into everything that you do for work and work can be, again, attached to an actual income, or it can look like you being a parent and having to do all of the things to make sure your kids get into the right schools. And, you know, they're doing their homework, or you're tending to the house, or, you know, you're supporting an organization, like whatever that work is, it's not necessarily related to a career. It's just like the daily stuff. When I think about my six-house, I think about how, after moving into my house, I suddenly had so much more cleaning to do, thanks to your inness moving through my six-house. There was so much just like stuff that I had to do around the house, mopping and vacuuming and surfaces to wipe down, and that was very much my six-house work on top of, you know, tending to my body. So all of that lives here, and your relationship to this area of life will be delineated by the sign and any planets that might exist in this house. And other things that we're going to get into in a minute. But let's keep going. We're halfway through. So now we're on the seventh house, partnerships and collaborations. This is business partnerships, romantic partnerships, one-to-one clients, contract, It's definitely considered to be the house of marriage in many ways, but it's also your contracts with yourself. Now, if you're looking at your chart, your first house can see directly straight ahead to the seventh house. So the seventh house acts as a mirror. And what I love about this house is that, you know, when you're in a relationship with somebody, whether it's friendship or romantic or a business partnership, there's a lot of things that you end up discovering about yourself based off of the dynamics of that relationship. The other person really acts as a mirror. And so that's what I think of when I think of this house in particular. And what's interesting about that is that when we see ourselves reflected back to us, sometimes we see things that we don't want to see. Right? There are parts of us that either we're hiding or we're not expressing or we are expressing, but we're kind of unconscious too, that get reflected back to us. And this is talked about a lot in psychology as the shadow, right? So this is also where open enemies live. And I find the term open enemy is really interesting because so much of the time, if we have an open enemy, there is something in that person that rubbed us a certain way. And most of the time, you know, we have, we have everything in the universe contained within us. Most of the time, if there is somebody that we are having an aversion to, there is something about them that we are also averse to ourselves. So there's this really interesting mirror kind of dynamic happening in the seventh house. But the major overview is that it's your one-to-one partnerships, your clients, your romantic partner, your business partner, and again, your contracts with yourself. And then we get to the eighth house, which is one of my favorites because I live here, but it's often referred to as the death and taxes house, but I like to also describe it as death and other people's resources. So the overview is that it is, it is taxes. Absolutely. It's joint finances. It's the actual literal assets and resources that intermingle are between you and another person. And that can be physical, and then that can also be psychological. So when I think of, you know, inheritances lives in this house. So when I think of inheritances, we're talking about actual physical stuff that gets handed down to you from other people that have usually passed on. But it can also be things that you psychologically inherit from other people. And so this can look, again, there's, I like to think of every house as an outward expression and an inward expression. When you're looking at your chart and you're looking at the eighth house and its place, it's directly across from the second house. And the second house describes your talents, your material resources, your income, your possessions, your self worth. And the eighth house describes all of those things but co-mingled with other people. And so there's a lot of stuff that comes up when we're working with other stuff and when we're dealing with other people's stuff. So I see a lot of people who are in service provider positions, who have careers as service providers with placements in this house. And it's because people come to them with their stuff, whether it's a project or a problem or something that needs to be organized or solved or created. And they take it and they transform it and they give it back to them and they offer a service. That is totally an expression of this house, but it can also actually look like the things that you've carried from your maternal lineage that go way, way back that is now kind of like embedded into your psyche and that you have to work through and parse through. And because this house is also very much related to death, the experience of grief lives here, the experience of anxiety, you know, fear of death or fear of loss also lives here. This is kind of one of those houses that can sometimes feel intangible because it's the parts of life that are a little bit more difficult for us to see or make sense of or to directly point to a name. But they exist as these kind of challenging gray areas. And I want to go into this a little bit more because I love this house. Historically, this house was called the idle place. It's the time of day when the sun is at like, you know, between three and five in the afternoon where you get a little sleepy sleepy, you want to take a siesta. There's like, there's just this kind of like low in the energy and in your day. And that's the energy of this house because it actually represents that time of day. And when you're looking at your chart again and you're looking at the first house based off of aspects, which I'm not going to get into this in this episode, you can't actually look at the eighth house. It's kind of in your like weird peripheral vision. So there's an energy to this house that makes it difficult for you to clearly sense what's going on here. And so I like to call it the gray area in a lot of ways. And we all know to some extent what a gray area means and what it looks like and what it feels like. And that can be a small gray area where we don't necessarily have an answer to something or it can be a gray area in the sense that, you know, you have something that's working behind the scenes that's kind of like telling you how to operate that you don't realize is actually happening because it's it's like out of your out of your vision out of your line of sight. And it can also be a big gray area where let's say you actually lose something or you are stepping into, you know, a marriage and you're you're mixing your resources with with another person. And there's like how there's all these questions of how does this fit together? How do we make this happen? How does you know, how do I how do I organize my stuff with your stuff? It can be it can be a little bit of that kind of confusion. And so the other thing that lives in this house is also often considered to be re re birth or regeneration because after you get through a gray area that might feel kind of tricky or sticky or confusing. There's often some kind of reclamation of, you know, a part of yourself and a part of your life. So it's a little bit of a tricky house, but I find that it endlessly endlessly fascinating and it's worth spending time trying to get to understand this part of your chart, whether you have planets here or not and I'll get into how to do that in a minute. Just because it's like there's so much here that provides a lot of richness and to understanding parts of life that we don't always talk about. Okay, then we get into the ninth house and the ninth house is travel and expansion. That's what I usually delineated as traditionally it's considered the house of God. But this is long distance travel. It's faith, it's philosophy, it's divinity. If you look at it in the chart, it's directly across from the third house and the third house is the house of the goddess as we described. And it's kind of like your close, the third house being your close neighborhood or your close community. And so your ninth house is your distant community, the people and places that are much farther away and farther to get to. It's, I like to think of it as like when you have a transit through the ninth house, you're likely going on some kind of either physical long journey to somewhere on the other side of the world or you're going on some sort of some sort of metaphorical or philosophical journey where you're discovering, you know, a new wisdom tradition or a new part of yourself that you didn't know existed. And there what I love about this chart and Kira, I work talks about this a lot, but she talks about how this is this is a part of your chart where you actually discover yourself by going out into the world. She doesn't say it exactly like that, but it's that's why I interpret it. You know, when you go out and you travel, you end up refining who you actually are because you take yourself out of your day to day context. And you learn what skills you have and you learn what talents you have and you learn what you're interested in and you meet new people and you describe yourself to them and you're like, oh yeah, that's that's meet like there's a lot of self discovery here. And, and so, and I think anyone who's traveled to, you know, different parts of the world can absolutely say they find a part of themselves in in while they're in an entirely different culture. And it's so for that reason, it, you know, it includes travel and long distance travel, but it's also faith and I describe that as religion, but also inner faith. Ninth house transits can also if they're difficult transits can also compromise the faith that you have within yourself, the trust that you have within yourself. But then there's also things like legal systems and in laws and publishing and education and teaching higher education specifically and astrology lives here, divination systems live here, religious institutions live here. And so again, there's a lot of different things, but they're all kind of within the same realm of, you know, what am I in existence in coexistence with the rest of the world or with the rest of this, you know, this life that lives all around me. It's a, it's a beautiful house. And then your 10th house, I describe as your career and reputation and the reason why I say career and reputation is because they don't always go hand in hand, right, you don't necessarily have to have a career to have a reputation, you don't necessarily have to have a reputation if you have a career, but they're both here. And this is the house of your profession, but it's also your ambition, what you're striving towards, what you're seeking, this kind of like higher, kind of higher self pursuit in some ways, you're higher calling, but it's also your public roles, it's what you're known for, it's your societal and public responsibility. It can also be your material goals, it can also if you're looking at somebody who's passed, you know, this is their legacy, this is what they have left. in as you know their mark on the world. And it's their vocation and your vocation could be attached to your career or it might not be. You know, not everyone's work life actually connects to what it is that they want to, the mark that they want to leave on the world. Sometimes they can be different things. And so that's described in this house. It's the highest part of your chart. So it's what we're, what we're reaching for, what we're striving for. And sometimes it can feel like it's out of reach, right? It can sometimes feel like it's really far away from us. But ultimately it's what we're kind of pulled towards as, again, what it is that we want to leave as our legacy. And what we want to be known for. And then we get to the 11th house. And this is the house of community and friends. This is the house of traditionally called the house of good wishes or hopes and dreams. And yeah, wishes, hopes and dreams. So, but this is community, this is friends, this is networks. This is absolutely hopes and wishes and luck in many ways. But it's also group organizations and group engagements. So funny being in coming from the yoga world. Virtually everyone I know who is a yoga instructor or is in the yoga world has some sort of major placement in the 11th house because it's community. Like yoga and a yoga studio is a song guide. It's where you come to be in community. And so there's a very clear connection between people who have placements here or who have strong 11th houses in different ways. And spaces like yoga studios or different clubs or organizations, it's very clear, but not to say that only yoga studios exist in the 11th house organizations, group engagements. They all live in the 11th house. Any sort of networking or group activity all lives here. And your friendships in many, many ways. If you have a tricky 11th house transit, you might actually lose friends depending on what the transit is. If you have a really positive 11th house transit, you could find yourself in a lot of group activities or meeting new people or being out in the world and discovering yourself through friends and through new acquaintances. It's also audiences and kind of like your supporters or like the people who are drawn to you that want to cheer you on and want to support you. People who are kind of like-minded. And or not necessarily like-minded, but share similar values, share similar hopes and dreams. And again, all of that is chart dependent, but that's generally the this place. And again, if you're looking at the chart and you're seeing what's directly across from the 11th house, it's the fifth house, which is children and creative expression and creative progeny. And if you think about it, anything that you create as an extension of you, it exists just for you when you create it. And then inevitably you wanna share it with other people. Like if you have children, they inevitably go out into the world and you meet lots of people via your kids. You meet other parents, you meet other teachers, you meet other children. But also if you have a creative expression, most people don't create just an isolation. I mean, I guess there are a lot of people that do, but usually there is some sort of desire to share it with other people. And that's what's expressed in the 11th house. You create something and then you end up wanting to meet other people that have the same creative interests or you want to share the creative expression with, et cetera, et cetera. And then we get to the 12th house, the final house. And this is the subconscious and your head in life. And again, when we're looking at the chart, this is right next to the first house, right? So I always like to think of the 12th house as what's in your peripheral vision that you can't really see. It exists, but it's either really, really blurry because it's right next to you and you can't make it out clearly or you just can't see it at all because it's just like slightly behind you and you don't even know it's there, but it's there. It exists. And the external expression of this is places of retreat. It's absolutely if you go on a retreat, that's an expression of the 12th house, meditation centers, spaces where you're actually physically alone. And places where you actually get to kind of shut out the world. A lot of people I know that have 12th house placements need a lot of a long time to just kind of come back to themselves in some capacity. And, but then the internal expression of, well, and I should say the external expression is also institutions, which can look like everything from libraries to actual prisons, to again retreat centers, some sort of institutional structural institution. It is surprising. I have done readings for several librarians who have very strong placements here. Like Gemini and the 12th house, over here on the 12th house, which is very interesting. Libraries definitely belong in here. But then the internal expression is your hidden life, the things that you keep private into yourself and you're subconscious, everything that's running under the surface that maybe you aren't completely aware of. This is your hidden mental life in many ways. If you have difficult transits through the 12th house, sometimes that can look like anxiety or depression or some sort of mental instability temporarily, or becoming some sort of chronic issue. If you have positive 12th house transits, it can look like discovering parts of yourself or internal belief systems or narratives that you've been carrying with you that you want to name and point out and clarify and rework for yourself. It's internal emotional blocks. And again, your relationship to those things is going to be very dependent on your chart and who you are. But it's also the house of hidden enemies in many ways too. And when I think of hidden enemies, I think of the parts, like the actual people in our life that could be enemies that we just don't know about, right? That's the enemies is the traditional word for it. So that's what I'm using. But it can also be the inner parts of ourselves that like to beat ourselves up, like the parts of our brain and the parts of our psyche that tell us that we're not good enough or that we can't do this thing or that we should be doing this better or whatever internal bully you have, that you don't necessarily realize is there, right? So the 12th house is actually, I love it as a house, I think that it's such a fascinating place very similar to the 8th house and that it's one of those places where kind of like the hidden aspects of life live. And if we spend time there, we can get a sense, we can get a stronger sense of who we are as a whole. And when we do work with the things that live in these houses, we get to understand so much more about ourselves and how we work and we can develop a lot of grit and resilience from these bases. But that said, every house again, is going to look different, feel different, based off of every person and your relationship to these things is going to be different and trans, they're going to spark different things depending on who you are. So let's get into your relationship to these houses. So now that I've described what all these houses just generally represent, kind of like an overview. And I'll link a link to a photo or a design that I created that shows the house's chart. So you have like an easy reference for this. I don't expect you to just remember all this information. But now that we've gotten into what each of the house represents, each of the houses represent, how you relate to them is going to be different than the next person. And we're going to start with the basic overview. So as I said at the beginning of the episode, every house using the whole sign house system, every house is connected to a zodiac sign, starting with your rising sign on the first house and then going counterclockwise in order of the zodiac all the way around the circle. So again, if you are a tourist rising, tourist is on your first house, Gemini is on your second house, cancer is on your third, all the way around. And so I'd like for you to take a moment and orient yourself to that information. So it doesn't matter if you have planets in these houses or not, we're not dealing with the planets yet. We're simply focusing on your specific chart wheel. So even though the astrological, the tropical system says that the zodiac starts with aries, your chart is specific to you. So I'm a sad rising. You might be a Leo rising. My first house is going to be Sagittarius, your first house is going to be Leo, and then the zodiac sign is going to, signs from that are going to follow from that sign onwards. So again, what is your first house? And then from there, you can look at the energy of that zodiac sign on every house and recognize that the style of that zodiac sign is going to be the style in which you approach that area of life. So again, I'm a Sagittarius rising. So my body, my energy, my life approach is in the style of Sagittarius. My second house is Capricorn. It's ruled by Capricorn. Capricorn is on that house, right? So the way that I approach my resources and my money and my assets and my self worth, all of those things is going to be in the style of Capricorn. My third house is Aquarius. how I'm going to approach my neighborhood and my short trips. So my daily schedules is going to be in the style of Aquarius. And then again, all the way around the zodiac, all the way around the wheel. So again, it doesn't matter if you have planets here or not. We each have all 12 houses in our chart. We all have all of these areas of life accessible to us, right? Just because you don't have a planet in like the ninth house doesn't mean you don't travel long distances. And there's lots of reasons that will delineate your relationship to long distance travel. But we all have these areas of life. We all have all 12 signs at work in these different areas of life. So again, just take a moment, orient, and apologies if this is very, very basic. For some of you out there, I know it probably is. But I want you to think about your chart, maybe look at your chart and look at a house that maybe you're not super familiar with or you don't really understand. Look at what that house is. Pick like if it's the 7,000, 8,000, 12,000, whatever. And look at the sign that is on that house. The way that you approach that area of life is going to be in the style of that sign. So again, if you are a, let's use Virgo Rising, that means your 7th house is going to be ruled by Pisces. Your partnerships and collaborations are going to be experienced in the style of Pisces energy. That's how you are just naturally going to approach that area of life and those relationships. And this is where the chart starts to get really specific because you can look at any area of your life. And you can say, oh, I approach my money and my resources from this perspective. I'm very regimented about them. I have so many spreadsheets because I have Capricorn on my second house versus somebody who maybe has Pisces on their second house. If they're a Aquarius Rising, the way that they approach their money might be more intuitive. It might be more of a felt experience. Maybe they don't love spreadsheets. Maybe they're like, oh my god, spreadsheets would make me crazy. And this is where what I love about astrology is that you can start to understand why people approach certain areas of life differently and who give you so much more understanding of how people function. And we haven't even gotten into the planets. This is fantastic because the planets are really, really hyped. But I feel like the houses are where the magic lives. Because again, you could say, let's say you are going on a long trip and you're going with a friend. And you can pull up your charts and you could look at your ninth house and what sign is on your ninth house and their ninth house and what sign is on their ninth house. And you can observe how you approach that trip based off of the sign that's on your ninth house versus how they approach that trip based off of the sign that's on their ninth house. There's a lot of information that you can learn simply by looking at the signs that are on your houses and how you navigate all these different areas of life. So you see how rich this is. This is basic, basic level information. And I would invite you, if this is exciting to you, to start just getting familiar with the different energies of the different houses for you. You can look at your 10th house and see what sign is on your 10th house and consider how does this energy show up in my life? How do I relate to my career and my public roles and my societal responsibility and my vocation? And is it in the style of the sign that's on this house for me? And again, it starts to feel like parts work because we're different people in different parts of our lives or different parts of our lives pull out different expressions of us. And oftentimes, the expressions of us that are pulled out are in the style of one of these archetypes, the archetype that is on the house that represents that area of life for you. So that is the basic connection of the signs on the houses. But it gets better because all the houses relate to each other in different ways. And I want you to think about how-- again, not using planets, but I want you to think about how there are certain signs that are connected to one another because they have the same ruling planet. So if you are a tourist, sun, or moon, or something, you're ruled by Venus. Venus is your planetary ruler with the tourist sign. And Venus also rules Libra. So tourists and Libra are connected. If you are a Virgo rising or sun or moon, there's a part of you that's ruled by Mercury. And Mercury doesn't just rule Virgo. It also rules Gemini. If you're a Sagittarius rising, like me, you're ruled by Jupiter. But Jupiter also rules Pisces. And so there's these different parts of our chart that connect to one another simply by the sign. And when you're looking at the houses, you can start to see how the Pisces part of your chart is connected to the Sagittarius part of your chart because they're both ruled by Jupiter. You can see that the Gemini part of your chart is connected to the Virgo part of your chart because they're both ruled by Mercury. So just a quick delineation of all the planets. So obviously, the Leo is ruled by the sun. Cancer is ruled by the moon. I should go in order so I don't confuse myself. So Aries is ruled by Mars, but Scorpio is ruled by Mars. Tourist is ruled by Venus, but Libra is also ruled by Venus. Gemini is ruled by Mercury, but Virgo is also ruled by Mercury. Cancer is ruled only by the moon. Leo is only ruled by the sun. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, but Gemini is also ruled by Mercury. Libra is ruled by Venus, but Tourist is also ruled by Venus. Scorpio is ruled by Mars. Aries is also ruled by Mars. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter. Pisces is also ruled by Jupiter. Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, and Aquarius is also ruled by Saturn. So Aquarius and Capricorn go together. And then finally, Pisces is ruled by Jupiter, and Sagittarius is also ruled by Jupiter. So all of the signs, except for Leo and Cancer, are ruled by a planet that also rules another sign. So when you're looking at your chart, you can start to see that two areas of life, two houses, are already going to be connected. Again, whether there's planets there or not, simply because they have the same planetary ruler. Every sign has a planetary ruler, and that planetary ruler, unless it's the Sun or the Moon, unless it's one of the two luminaries, rules, two houses. So the next thing that you can think about is, you can start looking at how these different parts of your chart, again, whether there's planets there or not, actually interact together. If you're a Gemini rising, you can look at your rising sign, and then you can look at the Virgo part of your chart and say, how are these two things connected? How do I relate to these two things? How are these two things naturally intertwined? Again, if your a Pisces rising, you can look at your Pisces part of your chart and your Sagittarius part of your chart and say, how are these two things connected? Naturally, organically, without even really me thinking about it. You can do that even if you're not even with your rising sign. I say rising sign because it's the first place to reference. But if you're a Cancer rising and Gemini is on your 12th house, you can also look at the Virgo part of your chart, which would be your third house, and you could say, okay, how are my 12th house and my third house related to one another? And how are these two areas of life somehow connected? And that's a natural expression of your chart, again, whether there's planets there or not. So it becomes really interesting because you can then also start to see how, for you, these certain areas of life naturally are connected to one another, whether you realize it or whether or not, and it might be connected for you, but it might not be connected for another person, simply because of the organization of your chart based on your rising sign. Now, the next layer of how houses can be connected is by element or by modality. So you may have heard about fire signs, water signs, earth signs, air signs. You may have heard of cardinal signs, you may have heard of mutable signs, you may have heard of fixed signs. And those signs that are in those categories connect to one another. So all of the fire signs in your chart are going to work in some sort of symbiotic relationship to one another because they're in a trying aspect, which I'm not gonna get into the aspect, but just know that there's like a relationship between all of the fire houses, or the fire, yeah, the houses that are ruled by fire signs, and the same thing with the houses that are ruled by water signs and the houses that are ruled by air signs and the houses that are ruled by earth signs. All of those have a relationship to one another and there's just kind of like a natural flow. So again, if you're looking at your chart, the most, the one that's often referenced, especially in like entrepreneurial spaces is the second house, the sixth house, and the tenth house because those are considered to be like the work or career based houses, your second house, is your money and resources and talents, your sixth house is your daily work and routines and rituals and your tenth house is your career and your reputation and your book. in your legacy. So all of those houses are going to have the same elemental quality on them. You know, if you are a Gemini rising and your second house is Cancer, that's a water sign. That means there's going to be a water sign on your sixth house. So it'll be Scorpio. And that means there's going to be a water sign on your 10th house, which is going to be Pisces. If you are a Leo rising, that means you have Virgo on your second house, which means your second house, sixth house, tenth house are all going to be Earth signs. And they go in order, right? And so this is where you can again start to recognize how the houses are connected to one another, simply by again, the energetic style that relates to, you know, the other element, other elements that are in that group for you. And you approach these areas of life kind of in a similar energetic way, because fire signs all express themselves in a similar energetic way, water signs all express themselves in a similar energetic way, etc. etc. So you can again start to see how there is this kind of like symbiotic relationship between houses that have the same elemental style, similar to your modalities as well. So all of your cardinal signs, that's Aries Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, they're all going to relate to each other in a similar kind of way. All of your fixed signs are going to relate to each other in a certain kind of way. That's Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. There's going to be a relationship between those houses and they're all going to operate in kind of a similar energetic expression. Same with your mutable signs, that's Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pacis. Those are all going to be those areas of life are all going to be expressed in a similar kind of energetic style. And so you can, if this is starting to sound too complicated, you can skip this part and just focus on the planetary rulers and how those houses are connected to one another. But you can also start to see how there's other ways that you will approach this area, these areas of life based off of the specificity of the sign that's on each house. And again, we'll go into this in more detail in my spacious workshop. So if you're getting a little bit confused, sign up for the workshop. We'll go into it specifically for for you. You'll get a sense of how to actually grasp this in more detail. So as you can see, there's so much that can be described based off of simply what the signs are on your houses based off of your rising sign and then the whole rest of the setup around your chart. So if this is already a lot of information for you, I definitely recommend sitting with this and just getting more of a, like developing more of a connection to just one or two houses, you know, maybe it's two houses that have the same planetary ruler in your chart. So you can get more of a sense of how you relate to those areas of life and how those areas of life are expressed energetically through you and for you, you know, the energy that you naturally gravitate towards in those spaces. Because that right there offers such a wealth of insight and it can be really helpful to when you're starting to get a, develop a relationship to all of the houses in your chart, just starting with one or two, etc, etc. Not looking at planets or not even the thinking about planets here. But now I will say the last part of this that I do want to talk about is your empty houses and the houses that don't have planets in them. So as I said earlier in this episode, you know, the planets operate as the who and they can be either actual people in your life, they can represent actual people in your life, but they can also represent, you know, parts of you in some ways. I like to think of them as parts of you that are a little bit louder, whether you realize that or not because they attract certain people into your life, right? And that's not to say that every planet in your chart or every person that comes into your life is an exact expression of you. I mean, I do think that we contain everything that exists in the world within us to varying degrees, but I'm not about to say, you know, somebody who is very hurtful in your life is necessarily an expression of you. That's that's a debatable conversation. That is something that I do not want to get into in this episode. But I will say that in many ways, just kind of like the day-to-day people in your life, I find can be expressed by the planets and then also can be understood as a part of you that's being expressed out into the world that draws these people and these opportunities and these experiences in. Now that said, when you have a house that doesn't have a planet in it, that does not mean that that area of life doesn't exist for you. As we've already determined, that area of life exists and it exists in the style of the sign that is on that house, right? But it just might not be quite as louder obvious for you. And what I mean by that is that it might be already operating in the background and it might be operating in a way that you're not fully paying attention to. It might kind of kind of come a little bit more organically to you. And it will operate based off of the planet that rules that house and where that planet is located. That will inform a lot of what's going on in your empty house. But it will also operate just in the style of the sign that that rules the house. So let me give you an example. I have an empty fifth house. My fifth house is ruled by Aries. That is the house of creative self-expression, creative progeny, children, etc. Pleasure. I'm a very creative person. I would like to say that I am a creative as part of my identity. I don't have any planets in this house. However, Aries rules this house for me. And Aries is ruled by Mars and Mars is in my ninth house. My ninth house has to do with, or ninth house has to do with astrology, right? And so a lot of my creative self-expression is expressed on the subject of astrology because Mars, the planet that rules my empty fifth house, is in the ninth house of astrology. There's a lot of other interpretations of like Mars being in my ninth house and Mars marooing my empty fifth house. But that in itself is enough information right there, right? That expresses so much of who I am. But also, you know, long distance travel, all this stuff. So what I would love for you to do is I would love for you to pick one empty house in your chart. And look at it and say, okay, I have this empty house here. What does this house represent? What is this area of life? What is the sign that's on this empty house? Do I approach that area of life in the style of that sign? Okay, that's the first question. Second question, what is the planet that rules this sign? And then look to where that planet is in your chart. And then notice if there is some correlation between where the the ruling planet is in your chart and the empty house. And this is an example of how it's already working in your life. And you might not even realize that you might not even realize that this part of your life is actually so active. You just have a night, you haven't maybe perhaps identified it this way. But once you start connecting the dots, it can be really, really satisfying. And the way that the house is operate with the planetary rulers is that say, you know, Venus rules tourists and Libra, the tourist and Libra houses in your chart. And Venus is over in Leo. Venus is the owner of those houses. She's just off on a vacation on a trip in Leo right now. So everything that she's doing while she's in the Leo part of your chart, she's importing back into the houses that she rules. Style, information, education, all the things she's exploring, she's she's bringing back in and telephoning the other houses and saying, this is this is what's going on here. So you can think of it like that. You can think of every planet as owning these certain houses. And whether they're in one of the houses that they own or not, they're distributing information back to that house. And they're telling that house how to operate and how you as a person should approach that area of life. See, so there's so, so, so much here, right? So that's another way that you can experience your empty houses. But then the very, very last layer, which I'm not going to get into a ton, but that's your empty houses. Another way you can experience your empty houses is by transits. So again, my fifth house ruled by Areas has no planets in it. It has asteroids, which is a whole other story, but but it has no planets in it. And that does not mean, again, one that that area of life is not active for me. As we've just determined, it's very active for me. But also during Areas season or when a planet moves through Areas, it doesn't mean I don't feel it. It means I feel that transit and I feel it specifically in that part of my life. So for example, right now Mercury is in Areas. I'm recording like a ton of astrology podcasts, while mercury is in areas specifically so that I can utilize this energy right now. But also, I'm just feeling the urge to consume a lot of astrology information and also express a lot of astrology information. And that's an expression of this transit. So it doesn't matter if you don't have any planets in a part of your chart, you have a relationship to that area of life. And that's expressed via the sign that is on that house, the planetary ruler that rules that house and then also transit that move through that house. So that is it friends. I'm not. I feel like I gave you a lot of information for how to explore your houses and how to develop a relationship to them. And that's what I really recommend that you do. I really recommend that you, again, pick a house in your chart that you're not super familiar with and start to develop a relationship to it. Simply by understanding, you know, first and foremost, the sign that is on that house, but also, you know, you can get into it by the planetary ruler, the planet that rules that house and the transit that are going through that house. A really great example is if you have no planets in Gemini, Uranus just moved into Gemini. This is a great time to get comfortable with or get familiar with this part of your chart and get a sense of, you know, how is this area of life now changing and how am I relating to this part of my chart differently because of Uranus's transit through this house. So there's so much information here, right? There's such a wealth of information just with the houses. And so I really hope that you get start to get more and more familiar with the houses in your chart specifically so that you can understand how you show up to your different areas of life. And if any, if you take away anything, I just, I recommend that you take away that the houses are areas of life. They are the scene, they are the stage in which things happen. And so you have all these different stages where you show up and you operate and you perform and you experience things and all of those spaces are delineated by the houses. All of those different experiences are delineated by the houses. That is the most basic information. Again, if this was interesting to you, I really recommend that you sign up for my spacious workshop. I'm going to have work sheets also in there so that you can really get a hands-on experience of, again, your empty houses and how to work with them. And it's about empty houses, but also there's so much that you're going to learn about houses just generally and how to work with your houses generally. So I really recommend that you sign up if this was at all interesting to you. And lastly, I'll just say, you know, watch out for that conversation that I have with my friend Jess coming out. It'll either be out in June or July. We're just working on some scheduling things, but it'll be about the difference between certain house systems and she uses plastic as I use whole sign, but we're going to be talking about just, you know, how we approach these different house systems generally and the differences between them, etc, etc. And so it's going to be a really fun conversation. We've been wanting to have this conversation for a while, so I'm really excited about it, definitely watch for that. And that's it. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you have any questions, definitely reach out to me. I'd love to hear from you. And otherwise I will catch you in the next one. Take care. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you would have to review or send it to a friend or left a comment or just even liked the podcast. I would really appreciate it. And it would help me to be able to continue to create this kind of free content for you and this entire community. I also love hearing from all of you guys. So if you want to reach out for anything, if you have any questions, if you have any subjects you'd like me to talk about, if you'd just like to connect, feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected] or connect with me on substack at the designed life or on Pinterest at haulusmm or [email protected]. I can't tell you how much I love this community that I've been able to build over the last few years and I would love if you're not part of it already for you to join and you can do that simply by reaching out to me again, doing all the things that I've already suggested here or also checking out my website and my variety of offerings. I offer life coaching sessions, graphic design services, astrology readings and so much more. Feel free to check that out, that's haulusmm.com. And thank you again so much for listening. I hope you have a beautiful day and I will catch you in the next one.