The 12 houses, like the 12 zodiac signs, form the foundation for one’s existence in astrology. Because each house in the birth chart is divided into 12 equal pieces, they make a 360-degree angle when combined.
They are not, however, the same as the zodiac wheel. Each of these houses is connected by a distinct sign. Each one symbolizes a different aspect of your life.
In This Article...
st House-
The first house is also referred to as the ‘Lagna’ or ‘Ascendant.’ It’s known as the self-portrait house since it depicts you and your appearance. Physical personality refers to your physical appearance, temperament, nature, bodily structure, childhood, health, ego, and sense of self.
It has an impact on your life choices, as well as your perception of your own strengths and flaws. Along with your preferences, dislikes, and the image you want others to have of you based on your beliefs, attitudes, and viewpoints.
The head and face are the key features of the first dwelling. It encompasses the skin, the forehead, the hair, the brain, and so on. If your 1st house is weak, you may experience headaches, acne, scars, and other issues, according to Vedic astrology. This house is associated with the sign of Aries.
Which house system in astrology is the most accurate?
Although the houses are measured out in 30 degree increments starting from the degree of the ascendant, the ecliptic is divided into twelve divisions of 30 degrees in the equal house method. It starts with the ascendant, which works as the 1st house’s ‘cusp’ or starting point, then the second house begins 30 degrees later in zodiacal order, then the third house begins 30 degrees later in zodiacal order from the second house, and so on. Equal house proponents believe that in higher latitudes (particularly above 60 degrees), it is more accurate and less misleading than the Placidean and other quadrant house systems.
Are the houses in Vedic and Western astrology the same?
Both Western and Vedic astrology split the birth chart into houses and derive meaning from the planets that fall within them and the signs that dominate them. House systems vary widely in Western astrology, with Placidus being the most popular. Vedic astrologers, in general, adopt the whole-sign system, in which the first house belongs wholly to the ascendant’s sign. For example, if your rising/ascendant sign is Gemini, the first house encompasses the sign of Gemini from 0 to 30 degrees, followed by the second house in Cancer, the third house in Leo, and so on.
What does the Placidus housing system entail?
Placidus is a Renaissance-era way of estimating homes based on the passage of time. It works by recording the house cusps in two-hour intervals from your birth time. The cusp of the 1st house is marked by the degree of the zodiac sign rising on the Eastern Horizon at the moment of your birth.
Is Vedic astrology a lunisolar system?
Vedic astrology presupposes a baseline spirituality that is mainly lacking from mainstream Western astrology techniques, as evidenced by its roots in ancient religious writings. Vedic astrology isn’t a personality test or an in-home psychoanalysis; rather, it provides instructions for living life with spirit and intention. In Vedic Astrology, the Four Pillars or Purposes revealed by a birth chart are:
1. Dharma: The way you fulfill your spirit via your daily activities; the reason for your existence.
2. Artha: How do you make money and meet your basic needs?
3. Kama: How do you pursue your dreams?
4. Moksha: How do you get enlightenment or spiritual liberation?
The zodiac system is the other main distinction (and the one that gets the most attention) between Vedic and Western astrology. The tropical zodiac, which is based on the seasons and the Earth’s relationship to the sun, is used in Western astrology. The first day of Aries Season in the tropical zodiac is always the Spring Equinox. The sidereal zodiac, which places the planets’ positions against a backdrop of stars, is used in Vedic astrology (Sidereal means stars).
The stars and constellations do not remain in a fixed place due to the Earth’s tilt and erratic orbit. Every 72 years, each fixed star travels one zodiac degree. The sidereal zodiac accounts for this movement through a correction method known as ayanamsas, whereas the tropical system does not. As a result, your Vedic astrology sun sign may differ from the one you know from Western astrology.
Is there a distinction between Placidus and complete signs?
Robert Hand’s booklet seemed convincing to me. He discusses the history of the entire sign house system in it. Now, I openly acknowledge that I did not conduct extensive additional investigation. I was already reading Firmicus Maternus and looking into other older astrological traditions at the time. However, I did not conduct extensive research.
Hand recommends spending some time exploring the charts you’re working with in both a quadrant-based system, such as Placidus or Koch, and the entire sign system, and then comparing the findings.
Chris Brennan, who also uses whole sign houses, was introduced to me at this meeting. Even while other astrologers I respect and admire, such as Lee Lehman, John Frawley, Lynn Bell, and Deb Houlding, didn’t, I knew Demetra George did. As I write this, I realize there are other astrologers whose work I love, and I’m not sure what house system they use off the top of my head.
I didn’t immediately start messing around with entire sign houses. It took me a bit to get my head around some of the philosophical concepts of switching housing systems. In the end, I followed Hand’s advice and began running charts for clients through both Placidus and Whole Signs to see whether there were any changes.
For nearly 18 months, I did this. It was a little perplexing because I had to think twice about each chart. The house system switch didn’t make much of a difference in certain charts, but it did in others.
Over time, I discovered that employing the entire sign house system to delineate issues in the birth chart gave me consistently greater insights.
This means that when I wanted to talk about something specific to the client, like children or fertility, the 5th sign from the ascendant seemed to constantly bring clearer insights.
The 5th house cusp is in the 5th sign from the ascendant in some Placidus charts, but in other Placidus charts, it is in the 4th or 6th sign from the ascendant. Rather of counting houses, you can figure this out by counting signs from your ascendant.
The house cusps are the sign cusps themselves, as each sign becomes the house.
This means that, while the Ascendant degree is still important and has all of the meaning you might expect, it is no longer the degree that marks the first house’s cusp, but rather a floating degree that rests somewhere inside the first house.
The other angular points, such as the Asc, Dsc, Mc, and IC, are still essential, especially for calculating planetary strength, but they float around inside a house rather than marking the cusp.
The MC degree can fall in the 8th, 9th, 11th, or 12th whole sign houses because the MC can be in any sign other than the 10th sign around from the Ascendant. When viewed from the perspective of a quadrant chart, this may appear strange, but it does provide more interpretive information.
If the MC degree is in the 9th house, for example, it indicates that the MC is focused on 9th house themes or will assist in the manifestation of 9th house themes. Perhaps the individual works in education or travel, or at their company’s or business’s foreign arm. Alternatively, they could be someone whose work revolves upon the quest of wisdom.
Here’s an example of Prince William’s horoscope, in which the MC degree is in the ascendant’s 12th sign. This could indicate that one’s career is focused on 12th house themes or activities. Working in a charity, working with those who are spiritually, emotionally, or mentally suffering, or working behind the scenes to support the success of others, depending on the sign(s) and planet(s) involved, this could mean working in a charity, working with those who are spiritually, emotionally, or mentally suffering. It could entail working in an environment that requires retreat or separation from society, such as a hospital, prison, retreat center, or other facility where individuals seek health and recovery (addiction treatment centre for instance).
By 2015, I was mostly working in full-service sign shops. I loved the philosophical integrity of how the signs connected to the ascendant, and how this seemed to better mirror the manifestation of each of the houses’ associated issues.
Wade Caves and Lee Lehman co-taught a horary intensive in Toronto in 2016, which I attended.
Lee and I were having a little conversation about house systems over dinner one night, and I was describing how I believed that life topics translated through the entire sign chart seemed clearer and more relevant than a quadrant system like Placidus.
The signs are linked to houses in a regular order throughout the sign system, so if Gemini is on the first house, Cancer is on the second, Leo is on the third, and so on. Because houses in Placidus might be greater than 30 degrees, a sign may be skipped as the house ruler on occasion.
In Placidus, for example, it’s conceivable to have a Gemini Ascendant and then a Leo on the second house, resulting in the third sign ruling the second house. Interceptions are the result of this. Cancer would be stopped in this scenario.
The same informationthe constant sign/pairingwould show up in the Equal house system, as the sign/house pairings would be the same in both the Equal and Whole Sign house systems, as both create sign/house combinations from the ascendant.
The ascendant’s degree becomes the degree of all the house cusps in the Equal house system, whereas in the entire sign system, all the house cusps are 0 degrees. The MC degree, like the complete sign, floats inside whichever house it falls into in the Equal house system. The topic of conversation changed, but the memory of that brief exchange lingered in my mind.
While my purpose here is not to take sides in the discussion or even to try to shape it, Tony Howard has been asking me for months to write something about why I converted to full sign homes, to help explain it to my students and clients, many of whom have accompanied me on this trip.
Thank you so much for your patience and support, if that’s you! I haven’t been compelled to write about it until now, three years after I made the move, because I’ve been too busy investigating the ‘new to me’ method in sessions and classes.
I understand how strange it is when someone you’ve studied or consulted with makes a substantial change in their practice, which leads to a slew of new concerns and debates. I’ve had a lot of conversations with students and clients about things like “what happens if the Sun is in the 8th house instead of the 7th,” or “what happens if the Moon is in the 11th house instead of the 12th.”
The answers to these fascinating questions transcend beyond the discussion over house systems and into how you approach chart work. These discussions have allowed me to gain a better grasp of birth charts and how they function.
These days, I only work in the sign house system as a whole. However, I spent the first ten years of my career in Placidus and Regiomontanus.
I still have clients and students who are really comfortable with their Placidus charts and prefer to work with me in that manner, which I am pleased to do.
I consider my duty as someone who, to the best of my ability, delivers insight, direction, and knowledge derived from your astrology chart in the most meaningful and relevant ways for you, as my client or pupil.
While house systems are significant, astrology is even more so, regardless of the house system you choose.
My four-part ‘Introduction to Traditional Astrology’ seminar will guide you through the exploration of entire sign houses as well as other significant traditional astrology approaches.
PS Ryhan Butler recently started a discussion on Twitter on the various housing systems. This can be found here.
Is there a distinction between Placidus and Porphyry?
To begin, I’d want to point you that the home system we utilize can cause our planets to move from one house to another. This is significant because it affects how we trisect our chart’s quadrants and whether a planet on a cusp is in one house or the other.
I wrote this post eight years ago in reaction to an email informing me that an entire comment stream at a well-known astrological chat room had been blasted due to highly hostile discourse. That astounded me, because it makes no sense to argue about which housing system to employ.
This is an excerpt from my original piece, which has been rewritten for readability:
The following is what I was emailed, with the site’s name removed:
Greetings to all members Debate is an important part of intellectual discovery and learning. (This website) promotes constructive debate. When a post or thread descends into a caustic and adversarial personal squabble, all focus and value is lost, and (this site) and its members are denigrated. That was the case with the “What House system do you use?” discussion. All good stuff, as well as the counterproductive, has been removed from the discussion. According to your viewpoint, verbal abuse of life’s demigods and demons is allowed. Abuse in the __ community is not tolerated.
Wow. I’ve seen folks get worked up over a variety of topics, but never about an astrologer’s house system. I’m not sure how it happened, and I’m not sure I want to get involved over there, but it appears that this uncivil discourse reflects the current state of events in our society.
As a result, I’ve decided to try to explain what some of the different housing systems are all about. Only the horizon (ascendant-descendant) and meridian (midheaven-nadir) are determined by the time and location of birth. Whether you compute on the basis of a space-based system, a time-based system, or a space-time based system determines how you generate the boundaries (cusps) between dwellings.
Placidus’ houses are space-time, Equal’s dwellings are space-based, and Porphyry’s houses are space-based. Others include Campanus, Koch, Regiomontanus, Morinus, Alcabitian, Albategnian, and even those who divide the sphere into eight rather than twelve sectors, as well as those who delete all of the houses. We won’t go into detail about the advantages and disadvantages of any of these because most of my readers would be bored.
Though there is no consensus on which system is the finest (and it appears that some supporters of other systems are ready to fight! ), I have always utilized many systems at the same time in my work and been satisfied with the results. When I first started studying astrology, I discovered that depending on whatever system is used, several of my planets shift houses.
For example, using the Placidus system, I have Saturn in the 3rd house, whereas using the Porphyry and Equal systems, it is in the 2nd. Which is it, then? As I read the passages, I recognized that both looked to be correct. How is that possible?
Because both manifestations were true at one point or another, I came to the conclusion that, since none of these house “boundaries” are set in stone, I should think of the wheel in terms of zones of overlapping house boundaries, such as the areas where the first and second houses interact, or the second and third, or the eighth and ninth houses overlap, and so on.
This has worked really well for everyone I’ve read for over the years, and it helps to resolve some difficulties in how different aspects of our charts and lives interact. With Saturn in the overlapping zone between the second and third houses in my chart, it appears that I’ll need to use my Saturn function to figure out how it influences my values (2nd) and perception (3rd) areas, as well as where they intersect within myself.
I have to cope with a natural Saturn in the 2nd influence at times, and Saturn in the 3rd at other times. At all times, as expressed through my Saturn perspective, how these zones intersect and interact with one another.
Regardless of whatever house system is in use, I learn about Saturn from both aspects of my life and find Saturn’s impact in both. This holds true in your own charts as well. When a planet connects two houses, it is critical for your evolution to relate those aspects of your life with the planet in question.
Perhaps it would be beneficial to astrology (and bring some peace back to the realm!) if we could get past the notion that one system is correct and the others are incorrect, as I believe this is delusional thinking based on linear, restrictive rationalizations. Religious wars, whatever name you give them, are built on “winner-take-all” arguments. I don’t want any of my readers to get into a fight or disrespect one other over something as silly as whether one home system is better than the others.
Perhaps this is the most significant benefit of the quadrant system, sometimes known as the “no house” approach. To hit a note precisely, we don’t need frets on a guitar neck. They’re basically reference points that assist you get from point A to point B. The lines that divide the dwellings are the same way. Nearer to the horizontal axis, the sphere of self-not-self expands. Anything along the vertical axis is more in the domain of subjective-objective experience, or private-public experience.
It doesn’t matter whether a planet is “more really” in one house or another when it’s on the cusp; what matters is its relative position to the meridians. And attacking someone simply because they disagree with a house system is ridiculous.
What exactly is the Koch house system?
The Midheaven at the time of birth is referred to in the Koch house system. To put it simply, time is reversed until the zodiac degree that produced the Midheaven in the chart is changed to Ascendant. The cusps ofandare obtained from the respective Ascendants by trisecting this temporal distance (see figure on the left.) Using the distance to the IC, the cusps ofandare constructed in a similar manner. To put it another way: The cusp of is the ecliptic point that has been above the horizon for one-third of the time that the Midheaven degree has been above the horizon. Similarly, during two-thirds of that time, the cusp of has been above the horizon.
The name “Birth Place Method” comes from W. Koch’s belief that this system of houses was particularly related to the birth place, because the house cusps were all calculated using the polar elevation (= geographic latitude) of the birth place, whereas Placidus, Regiomontanus, and Campanus used “fictitious poles” and made the birth take place on all geographic latitudes. This theory, however, presupposes that house cusps must be on large circles that can intersect with the horizon at the birth place’s geographic latitude. Other house division systems, in reality, are similarly tied to the birthplace; they simply divide the heavens differently.
What makes Vedic astrology so unique?
Vedic astrology is based on the sidereal zodiac system, which calculates planet placements based on where they can be seen in the sky in relation to constellations. The tropical (fixed) zodiac, on the other hand, is used in Western astrology. This system is based on four seasons, which symbolize the movement of the Sun, equinoxes, solstices, and the tilt of the Earth on its axis.