The real house rulers (surprise!)
June 15, 2008
A recent comment from astrologer Jeffrey Kishner reminded me of one of the odder notions I had to wrap my head around when I first started studying old-school astrology. It’s this: the planet/house associations you’re used to making – Mars for the first house, Venus for the second house, and so on – are all wrong. Ha ha!
The ancients used only seven heavenly bodies, as you probably know. These were ordered according to their planetary spheres, based on each planet’s relative speed. The list goes from slowest to speediest:
1. Saturn
2. Jupiter
3. Mars
4. Sun
5. Venus
6. Mercury
7. Moon
Thus, the first seven houses of the chart are naturally ruled by those planets in order. Saturn, ruler of boundaries, governs our physical bodies and our entrance into life. Jupiter is all about wealth and plenty, and so is connected with the second house. Mars, natural ruler of siblings and action, is associated with the third house of brothers, sisters, and short journeys. As John Frawley explains, Mars also shows the impulse to speak, the motive behind the expression, thus the third house connection.
Sun, natural ruler of fatherhood, gets the fourth house, which in the tradition is always the house of the father. (Yep, always.) Venus finds pleasure in the fifth house, naturally associated with fun and games and entertainment and pastimes. Mercury, the servant and attendant to the Sun, is associated with the house of servants, the sixth. And the Moon, a constant reflection of the Sun’s light, connects to the reflection of the partner that is the seventh house.
What do we do with the eighth through twelfth houses? Start all over again with Saturn.
8. Saturn
9. Jupiter
10. Mars
11. Sun
12. Venus
Now Saturn who showed us into life at the first house shows us the way out through the eighth, house of death. Jupiter’s expansion takes us on the journey to the divine in the ninth house. Mars describes our action, honor, and reputation in the world through the tenth house. Sun is associated with the eleventh, house of good fortune and our greatest hopes. And Venus’s penchant for pleasure at any price leads to the dumb things we do to imprison ourselves in the twelfth.
This post borrows heavily from The Real Astrology by John Frawley. See pages 101-103 in his chapter on the houses. Then read the entire book. Highly recommended.
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June 26, 2008 at 9:54 am
[...] Horary astrologers use only the seven traditional planets and follow a very different system of house rulerships than modern astrology. In March and McEvers’ horary techniques, modern house rulership rules [...]
February 25, 2009 at 3:27 pm
hmm… so now the question remains, how to go about reading it all?
ex. Saturn, is in my natal 8th house conjunct uranus. (virgo. taurus asc)
Since Saturn is the basic ruler of the chart, do you still take it into account with the rulers of the houses? ie that aquarius mc? (and perhaps, in my case, capricorn’s 9th? saturn i think is aquarius original ruler and now ruled by uranus correct?)
and does your natal saturn placement and its relationship to other planets have a bigger role to play with the whole chart and house descriptions themselves?