The twelve houses
Where the signs are the sky’s year, the houses are its day: the circle cut into twelve from the eastern horizon at the minute of a birth, each part given to a part of a life.
In your chart
- 1 The first house The self as it meets the world angular
- 2 The second house What a person has and values succedent
- 3 The third house The near world cadent
- 4 The fourth house Home and roots angular
- 5 The fifth house What a person does for the joy of it succedent
- 6 The sixth house The working day cadent
- 7 The seventh house The other person angular
- 8 The eighth house What is shared and what is lost succedent
- 9 The ninth house The far world cadent
- 10 The tenth house The public life angular
- 11 The eleventh house The company a person keeps succedent
- 12 The twelfth house What is hidden or withdrawn from cadent
Why houses need a birth time
The signs are fixed to the Sun’s year and a date is enough to place a planet in one. The houses are fixed to the horizon, and the horizon turns through the whole zodiac once a day, so a house cusp moves about a degree every four minutes and a whole house passes in roughly two hours. Without the minute of birth there is no telling where the houses fall, and the birth chart on this site leaves them out rather than guessing. The rising sign page shows how quickly each sign crossed the horizon on a given day.
Angular, succedent and cadent
Houses one to six lie below the horizon and seven to twelve above it. The four that begin at an angle — the first at the ascendant, the fourth at the IC, the seventh at the descendant and the tenth at the midheaven — are angular; Greek astrologers called the angles kentra, pivots, and read planets on them as the most prominent in a chart. The four that follow them, the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh, are succedent, read as keeping and building on what the angle began. The third, sixth, ninth and twelfth fall away before the next angle and are cadent, from the Latin for falling, read today as houses of learning and adjustment.
Six axes
Every house faces the one six places round, and the pairs are read together: the first and seventh as self and other, the second and eighth as what is owned alone and what is shared, the third and ninth as the near world and the far one, the fourth and tenth as private roots and public standing, the fifth and eleventh as personal pleasure and shared hopes, and the sixth and twelfth as daily routine and retreat. A planet at one end of an axis is read with the other end in view, much as an opposition is read between two planets.
Placidus, whole sign and empty houses
How wide each house comes out depends on the house system. The chart here uses Placidus, which divides the time each degree takes to climb from the horizon to the meridian, so houses are unequal and change with latitude. Inside the polar circles that division fails, and the chart falls back to whole sign houses, one sign to a house, the oldest method of all. The two can put the same planet in different houses, and neither is the true one.
With ten bodies and twelve houses, at least two houses are empty in every chart. The tradition reads an empty house through the sign on its cusp and the house where that sign’s ruler sits, so nothing is missing from that part of a life.
What a house is about is the tradition’s vocabulary for a part of a life. A planet in a house is not an event waiting to happen there, and nothing on these pages predicts anything.
Questions people ask
What are the twelve houses in astrology?
The houses are twelve divisions of a birth chart counted from the eastern horizon at the minute of birth. Each is given a part of life: the first the self, the second possessions, the third the near world, and so on round to the twelfth, the hidden life. Signs describe how a planet acts; the house it falls in describes where in a life the tradition reads that action.
Which house system does Solstaria use?
The chart on this site uses Placidus, the most common system in modern Western astrology, which divides the time each degree takes to cross the sky and gives houses of unequal size. Inside the polar circles Placidus cannot be calculated, so the chart falls back to whole sign houses there, one sign to each house, and says which system it used.
Why are some houses in my chart empty?
A chart has ten bodies to place and twelve houses, so at least two houses are always empty, and usually more. An empty house is not a missing part of life. The tradition reads it through the sign on its cusp and through the house where that sign’s ruling planet sits.
Can I know my houses without a birth time?
No. The houses are fixed to the horizon, which turns through the whole zodiac once a day, so a house cusp moves roughly a degree every four minutes. Without the time of birth there is no telling where they fall. The chart here leaves the houses and the ascendant out rather than showing a guess.