Let’s talk about the houses in astrology in your birth chart.
In astrology, we have something called a birth chart, also called a nativity. It is a snapshot of the sky taken the moment you were born. This snapshot contains houses, planets, and zodiac signs. The planets explain what is happening, the houses tell us the area of life this is taking place (the where), and the zodiac signs tell us how this is taking place. Today, we will mainly be focusing on the houses in a birth chart, or the “where”.
We find this snapshot using your birthday, birth time, and your birth place. This gives us a wheel with twelve houses and twelve zodiac signs. There are many different house systems, but we can talk about those later. With Whole Sign Houses, a common house system used in Traditional Astrology, each house or section of the chart is associated with one zodiac sign.
Find out more about why I use Whole Sign Houses
The most important aspect of a birth chart is the rising sign, also known as the Ascendant. Your ascendant is the sign that was rising on the eastern horizon when you were born. It is said to be the “you” of the birth chart. This influences how others perceive you and your approach to life, your body and your appearance. It also determines the signs of all of the houses that follow it. So, your first house will contain the degree of your ascendant, and is the reason why having your birth time is so important when calculating the nativity.
Let’s look at the birth chart of Miley Cyrus, for example. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee on November 23, 1992 at 4:19 PM. This makes her a Taurus Ascendant at 28°, so the sign of Taurus takes up her entire first house. All of the houses after this go in zodiacal order, so the second house is in Gemini, the third in Cancer, then Leo, then Virgo, so on, and so forth.
As I said earlier, each house has a specific area or topic of life connected to it, which is the same for every chart. What changes, however, is the sign that is located within each house and the planets (if any) located there. What I mean by this is everyone’s first house is associated with self, but not everyone will have Taurus in their first house. Some may have Leo, Sagittarius, Capricorn, etc.
The planets are the “what”, the houses are the “where”, and the signs are the “how”
There are 7 planets that we use in traditional astrology and 10 planets used in modern astrology. For now, we will focus on the traditional planets: the Sun (a luminary), the Moon (a luminary), Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Everyone has these planets in their birth chart, however the house and signs they are located in will differ. For now, just remember that each planet is associated with a specific energy that is crucial to who you are and your environment.
What is a luminary?
The word luminary means “source of light” and refers to the two brightest and most important celestial objects in the sky, the Sun and Moon. They often get grouped into the planets and the terms are used interchangeably.
(Modern astrologers also look at Neptune, Uranus, Pluto and sometimes asteroids in the birth chart, but for now we will focus on the traditional planets.)
Let’s talk about the Sun for a second. The Sun is associated with the ego, one’s core identity, vitality, and confidence. So if you have your Sun in the eleventh house (friendships, community, allies), friendships and community may be very important to you, or you may be one of those people who somehow “knows everybody” and is very well connected.
Not every house will have a planet, but this doesn’t mean that an empty house is unimportant. For empty houses, we look at the zodiac sign located within that house and where the ruling planet of that sign is placed. Having a planet within a house just gives that house more emphasis and it will have more prominence in your life.
Below is a list of the houses and what topic or area of life each is associated with: (keep in mind that these are just a few examples for each house)
First House: self, the body, identity, appearance
Second House: self worth, material possessions, personal assets, your money
Third House: neighbors, siblings, short-distance travel, communication, elementary/grade school
Fourth House: the home, roots, upbringing, parents, family
Fifth House: pleasure, hobbies, things that bring you joy, creativity, children
Sixth House: day to day activities, daily tasks, work, chores, pets, employees
Seventh House: relationships, partnerships, enemies/opposition
Eighth House: debts, taxes, other people’s money, death
Ninth House: travel, religion, spirituality, higher education
Tenth House: public image, visibility, reputation
Eleventh House: friendships, community, allies, audience
Twelfth House: subconscious mind, hidden enemies, secrets, confinement
Sources
Miley Cyrus Birth Chart generated on Astro-Seek
The Houses diagram from @thestrology on Instagram
Hopefully, you found this article helpful! If you have more questions on the houses be sure to write me here – Dear Liza – Ask Me Anything. I will answer your questions in my next blog post.
Bye for now!
-Liza
Liza's Astrology Blog 
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