The selfish first house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

I used selfish as a term to describe the first house because, together with the Ascendant, it represents the individual native. Of course, the entire natal chart represents the native and he or she can be thought of as being in the middle on the circle that represents the chart. But he first house is the one that best represents the native from a perspective of their own, personal self. 

I have also mentioned the Ascendant along with the first house because the first house is one of the four angular houses in the chart - they (usually) depend on the four principal angles: Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven, Imum Coeli. Señor Shaman majestically detailed domification in Asteria, how different house systems are calculated and how some systems generate a chart in which the angular houses do not necessarily fall on the principal angles. There is much to be discussed surrounding this topic, but it does not make the subject of the current article. I am currently working on a future masterpiece together with Señor Shaman and Mr. Superior Overthetop Lord Manticore and it will contain a chapter that tackles with the subject of the houses with respect to various house systems, at least from certain perspectives. But for the sake of simplicity I will talk about each principle angle in the article about its corresponding house, so to speak.

The four principal angles represent directions in space and in the case of the Ascendant, it is the point on the eastern horizon over (in proximity of) which the heavens "rise". By heavens I mean the planets and zodiac signs because this is yet another topic of great discussion. Anyway, this is associated with the rising Sun and consequently, the rising of life itself. As such, the Ascendant is the quintessential point that represents the life inside an individual because it also represents the moment of one's birth. According to the ancients the soul passes from the heavenly realm, located above the horizon (above the Asc-Dsc axis in the chart), into the earthly realm located below the horizon (below the Asc-Dsc axis) through the Ascendant. There is also that belief which speaks of the soul entering the body at birth, when the baby takes its first breath, and this would make sense based on the ancient views. 

I might as well talk about the Ascendant from an astrological perspective, but as I've done throughout the articles in this series on astrological houses, I will also talk about it from the conclusions I've drawn from my own experiences and my magical experiments. Not so long ago I met my "Master Yoda" again, someone who has played a great role in directing me towards my magical path, although I was not aware of it at the time. I met him for a couple of reasons, one of which was my need to seek council with respect to several things. He started to speak in riddles in his very own unique style, even more so than the "real" Master Yoda (the actual Yoda from Star Wars). 

At some point he told me that when a person becomes more harmonized with themselves their frequencies start reaching out into the world and they begin to connect with all other individuals who were born in the exact second of their birth. They connect on an energetic level, but that can play out in many ways later on because the actions of each of those people, although likely strangers and separated by various distances, create ripple effects that end up affecting the initial person in pleasant ways. Naturally, if the person were to meet at least one of those people, their interaction would be more fruitful for both parties.  

That was a message to me and I realized on the spot I have to work with my Ascendant more. By the way, you can work with both the Ascendant and the first house with the help of the angel Ayel:

Moving on, the Ascendant divides the life of the native into the microcosm (below the horizon) and the macrocosm (above the horizon). By microcosm it is to be understood one's physical body and their personal sphere of sensation (aura, in loose terms) and by macrocosm, the world around, both physical and otherwise - i.e. spirits. The microcosm is subjective and unique to each individual, while the macrocosm is objective and belongs to all individuals, but each individual has their own subjective view of it. This is because there is a constant interaction between the micro and macrocosm, each reflecting the other even if many people may not be aware of it.  

As such, the Ascendant represents the point where the micro and macrocosm meet and interact, being the energy inside the chart which allows the individual to interact with the world. As a consequence, it also allows the macrocosm to interact with the native, the world around being introduced to the person through their Ascendant first. Therefore, the Ascendant is the energy that confers the first impression people have of the native. 

I have recently been told my articles have made their way geographical zones that have become infested by all sorts of self-proclaimed spiritual gurus (third and ninth houses - lies/deceit and spirituality) that pray on people for money and that the information I am spreading freely is helping people "free" themselves from the influence of such individuals. I cannot be happier, but allow me to talk in guru-ish terms a bit: all chakras are attributed to the Ascendant (and first house), obviously, but when it comes to interacting with the world the solar plexus chakra plays a greater role. 

When it comes to the essential function of the Ascendant (and the first house) though, the first chakra plays an even greater role, since it covers one's survival instincts. It is the survival instincts that make people selfish in the first place, all other areas of life aside. They can contribute to various fears (eighth house) that are apparently related to other causes and manifest with respect to other areas of life, but upon a more thorougher inspection at least some of those causes can be rooted in the native's instincts that operate in ways suitable for sustaining the person's physical existence.

I have talked in the article on the second house about one's needs to sustain their self and how people can resort to eating food that's poor in quality simply because it allows one to exist, even at the risk of illness (sixth house). As mentioned in that article, the sixth house is adverse the Ascendant and thus it can generate hardships for it. This is also the case for the eighth house. The difference is that the sixth house is below the horizon and thus in the earthly realm, while the eighth house is above it, in the heavenly realm. It is no wonder then that one's survival needs would have them prefer the unpleasant energies of the sixth house over those of the eighth, because the former still allow the person to be alive from a physical perspective while the latter imply the person (soul) is moving (back) into the heavenly realm, thus leaving its physical existence behind. 

As an interesting curiosity worth contemplating in my opinion, the twelfth house is the fist house above the horizon in the eastern hemisphere of the chart (left of MC-IC axis) while the eighth is the first above the horizon in the western hemisphere (right of MC-IC axis). The ancients believed the soul enters the body from the twelfth house into the first through the Ascendant (rising Sun, remember?), while the seventh house was that of dying, as I've already talked in the article on the eighth house. The Descendant is thus associated with the setting Sun, an event symbolizing death, so it would seem logical for the soul to return into the heavenly realm through the eighth house.  

Anyway, the Ascendant is also the person's life force. The first house does cover one's general health, vitality and longevity, but we've seen how the Ascendant is linked to the first breath the baby takes at birth and all that. I have talked in the article on the eighth house about erectile dysfunctions in men and briefly noted how these issues apply to women. The Ascendant is also of vital importance when it comes to virility because procreation is seen as a means to perpetuate your genes throughout time, through children (fifth house). So even after you die a part of your self (Ascendant) lives on through your children, be it by the simple fact they bare some of your DNA. They also bare other energies you have passed onto them, in most cases without being aware of it, and I have talked about that in the appropriate article. 

At any rate, you get to "live" through your children and they get to "live" through theirs and so on, meaning you get to "live" for as long as your bloodline continues to procreate. We can see why many people throughout the ages were desperate to have at least one child and urged that child to have children of their own. This urge was even more powerful in royalties (tenth house). A perfect example is that of king Henry VIII who, driven by the urge his father inoculated into him upon the latter's deathbed, changed England completely. I hope I will remember to talk about this more in when I cover the tenth house and its relation to the fifth - remind me to do so!!! I also talked of how the fifth house is representative for how someone will be remembered after death, so many people want to insure their name lives on for as much as possible - i.e. Achilles in the Iliad.

The fifth house is trine the Ascendant (and the first) making it relatively simple for anyone to have children. The hard part is raising them because money (second house) and other things. Based on the universal attribution of houses to signs, the first house (Ascendant included) is a Fire house, meaning it calls for action. Being an angular house and thus very strong, along with the fact it is also the house of the self and the living body and consciousness of the individual, we can see how this association with Fire can reflect in the form of the spark of life in the native as well as their will to live. 

However, not everyone is healthy or virile and each person has their own potential lifespan. Some may be more prone to sickness (sixth house) than others and yet have a greater lifespan. Others can be very healthy, having not been sick once throughout their whole lives, yet they die relatively young although not by accident or through an act of violence, but through some form of illness that swiftly disposes of them. Naturally, people who are more healthy from birth are expected to live longer, but they could also be susceptible to being caught off guard by certain illnesses because for example, because although their immune system might be strong, it is not trained to deal with various conditions. On the other hand, someone who is sick most of the time yet still manages to live on regardless, is more adapted to various factors that can pose great threats to their health and ultimately their life. This is not a rule of thumb though, but I believe it was worth addressing. 

The reason why my "Master Yoda" hinted to me I should work with my Ascendant more is because I am still experiencing a certain degree of difficulty when it comes to expressing my personality into the world. I've had great difficulties with that respect for many years and I became aware of them from early on in life so dealing with them using magical means was mandatory in my case. Yet is seems as though I still have certain blockages that need to be dealt with or my Ascendant is not strong enough to completely channel my personality and manifest it the way it demands. And like a genuine guru (although he doesn't consider himself anything of the like) my "Master Yoda" pointed these things out for me without demanding anything in return. The reason I am mentioning him is because of the great respect I bare for him and the gratitude for having lead me down this wonderful path, and not because he demanded this of me, otherwise I am positive he would've told me to say his name.

Although one's personality (their entire being) is composed by the energies of the entire chart, some of them manifesting more powerful and thus influencing the native more, the first house is the most representative area of life for that personality. The personality is defined as being "the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character" and this definition perfectly highlights each person's uniqueness, based on their unique natal chart. Each and every other energy inside the chart are channeled in some form of another towards the first house, in both micro and macrocosmic forms, because from the perspective of an individual human being he or she is the center of the universe. 

It is true that some people experience various degrees of depersonalization, but those conditions do not deprive their physical body (earthly) from being inhabited by their consciousness (heavenly). Although they can cause all sorts of problems for the native, they are mere bugs or glitches that prevent the person's mind from operating properly and to my mind they are linked to several other houses, mainly the twelfth. I also see the twelfth house as being responsible for those cases of actual spiritual possession in cases other than those self-induced yet even so, it does not matter if one or a billion spirits possess someone, they cannot push out the person from their body. They might very well suppress (eighth house) the human's personality to such a degree it cannot manifest, but the consciousness of the human is still present inside their body - first house.   

The Ascendant does connect the earthly and the heavenly realm and (in theory) makes it possible for anyone to access the spirit world. The first house is trine the ninth and this makes it easier for someone to have at least a spiritual view of the world and to formulate personal spiritual beliefs. I could be wrong, but from what I came to understand many years ago, the initial sense of the word spiritual implies the person who has that quality is able to interact with spirits in one form of another. Again, the trine between the first and the ninth houses allows for that, but we have seen in that article how the ninth house implies one is to use their higher mental faculties and not everyone is able to do so to a greater degree. The ninth is square the twelfth and the twelfth is adverse to the Ascendant, so this represents a blockage for many who want to pursue this goal. There will be a special article on the twelfth house and much more will be said there so it suffices to say it acts by limiting the mind, something that can and will prevent people from dealing with things of a heavenly nature. 

Returning now to Ascendant and first house, each individual has their own personal looks. They are free to change some of them based on their own personal tastes and needs and we are aware of how a simple haircut can make someone appear as more attractive or otherwise, while plastic surgery can go as far as to change people's shapes. All of that has a limit yet with the scientific boom over the past century or so, people becoming able to shift their consciousness into another (better looking and healthier) body at some point in the future does not seem as fart fetched nowadays. If that were to happen, it would be interesting to see how one's natal predispositions with respect to their physicality would apply to the new body, even more so in the event that new body will be part biological and part machine and moreover, if it will be all-machine. Food for thought.

Speaking of tastes, they are a mere component of the personality. The person's traits, talents, likes and dislikes, flaws and defects are all attributed to the first house, be they physical or psychological. Of course, these are mapped out throughout the natal chart, but they manifest in the first house and through the Ascendant. They manifest in areas of life represented by the other houses. This includes the first because people have found that taking care of one's body and mind can improve or at least maintain their health and thus prolong their life or at least prevent their lifespan from reducing.    

As mentioned in the article on the second house, I also attribute personal power to the first house. By personal power I mean one's innate ability to overcome obstacles of various proportions and with various degrees of difficulty though the use of their skills and fueled by their will. And as we've seen so far, the will and the skills are attributed to the first house (and Ascendant), at least in my book. The way I see it, personal power is somewhat of an extension of one's survival instincts, but whereas the latter act on preventing the native from dying and thus keeping him or her alive, the former acts by making the native live with increased intensity. What I mean is the individual does not necessarily need to do anything in particular in order to live that way, but even because of the simple fact they feel their aliveness to great degree at any moment of their lives. One's personal power can be and is generally used in areas of life covered by other houses based on both what the native needs and on what they want. This usually generates something more than competition and a lot of times it can lead to all-out fighting (in some form or another) - will cover this in the article on the seventh house (I hope).

We have mentioned this in Asteria, but I see nothing wrong with mentioning it here as well: there are many cases when the Ascendant manifests stronger in a person than their natal Sun. This happens when the Sun, the planetary force that manifests one's personality into the world, is weaker in the chart and so the Ascendant takes over. Thus, many people are natives of a certain zodiac sign by having their natal Sun located there, but they manifest stronger traits of another sign, that of their Ascendant. You can read more about planetary strengths and weaknesses and many other astrological technicalities in Asteria.  

Hate on, dum-dums!

The Great Gazoo