The cosy fourth house

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The fourth house is the last of the angular houses in the order of strength assigned to them when calculating planetary dignities. You can look up Asteria for more detailed information on that. Señor Shaman and I speak of both essential and accidental planetary dignities there, alongside many other topics of great relevance in astrology with respect to its use occult applications. Like all angular houses, its energies are strong and so they have a great impact over the native. 

If we are to look at a natal chart, the four angular houses form a cross that represents the four major areas in the life of the person: self, relationships, career, family. Life usually pulls a person into many directions, but these four houses have the strongest pull because, aside from being the strongest, they form squares and oppositions between them that have the potential of generating great tensions in the life of any individual and they do so in many cases. The first and seventh houses are in opposition meaning the native needs to balance their life with respect to their self and their partner, but the squares between these two houses with the tenth and fourth can produce many problems for them when it comes to finding that balance.

The commanding tenth house

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I think this title is very fitting with respect to this particular house. The tenth house is (usually) "at the top" of the chart because it (usually) depends on the Midheaven, the highest point the planets will reach in the sky from an earthbound perspective during their "travel" from the Ascendant towards the Descendant. Since height is usually considered a position of status, those who hold the high ground usually having an advantage over others, the areas of life covered by the tenth house usually govern all other areas covered by the rest of the houses. This house is angular so its strong energies enforce that.

And since I began so abruptly, I might as well follow my own lead and say governments fall in the tenth house. The tenth house is opposite the fourth and the latter does represent countries, so it is fitting that the government is "above" the country in a sense they rule it. Back in the day this was the house of the king and for hundreds and even thousands of years kings had absolute power over their kingdoms, so this symbolism of the tenth house being above all others makes more sense from this perspective than the one on governments. During modern times and coming into the current ones, dictators would best fit this symbolism.

Governments are usually made of people who are part of one or several parties that get to form a majority in parliament, that majority allowing them to form a government. There are quite a few differences between countries when it comes to forms of government and how each government comes to power, but I chose a simpler and more general depiction of the process to make it easier for anyone to understand. So it is in fact the majority in parliament that has the power to rule, governments being merely the extension of that majority, that actually performs the process of ruling.

The mirroring seventh house

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I chose the term mirroring because selfless would've been cheesy, with respect to the title I gave to the article on the first house. There are several reasons why I chose this term and I hope they will transpire from the rest of the article.

One of these reasons bares a more pronounced psychological (microcosmic) component for the sole reason the seventh house is the area of life in which the self (first house) is reflected back onto itself through its interactions with the world. From a seventh house perspective, the first is a microcosm while the seventh is a macrocosm from the perspective of the first. However, the seventh house is also part of one's microcosm because when a person interacts with the other his or her macrocosmic interaction generates reactions inside their microcosm. The same applies for the other person. Those reactions represent various states of consciousness and in most cases they reflect back into the macrocosm, but they do so based on each person's unique microcosmic particularities.

The selfish first house

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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 diverse third house

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The third astrological house covers many areas of life that span across diverse fields. It has Giel as its angel and you can work with him with respect to activities related to the third house and you can use Asteria as a guide for that with respect to finding auspicious astrological times for that work. You can also ask him to help you uncover more particularities about this house:

The voracious second house

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I was initially going to say precious instead of voracious in the title and I hope the article will show why I chose the latter. 

The second house is usually known as the house of money. More specifically, this house covers the native's personal money, money he or she has made by themselves or money which come into their possession without any further obligations. I am saying this because loans fall in the eighth house and although the money received from loans is (in many cases) at the individual's disposal, he or she will have to pay it back under certain conditions. 

These conditions include specific time frames and certain added interest in many cases, along with others that depend on the initial deal (seventh house) that was struck between the native and the creditor. The creditor can be a family member (fourth and third houses, depending on the kind of relative), a friend (eleventh house), a bank (tenth house), a co-worker (sixth house), a loanshark (I would place that in the eighth house) and various other people, including your significant other or a stranger (seventh house).

The demanding sixth house

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I hope this article will reflect the reasons I am calling this house in such way. In general, the sixth house can be seen as a house of servitude. It was very much so in ancient times as it was regarded as being the house of slaves and servants. 

While slavery mostly ceased to exist over time, it is still practiced even in the 21th century although a lot of times in different forms than the stereotypical understanding of the word. A simple example is people who are forced into working in the sex business and who are, objectively, slaves to their masters. I am of course referring to prostitutes and even some people who appear in adult movies, although not all those people do those things out of necessity or because life has placed them in a position of weakness which made it possible for them to be forced and compelled into doing that stuff. I am also referring to those who are outright sex slaves to people who, generally speaking, have the wealth (second house), authority (tenth house) and influence (I would say influence is a combination of several houses - feel free to write to me which one you think fits best) to use people like that constantly.

There are indeed some, both female and male, who perform those things because they enjoy themselves doing it and this represents a neat crossover from the fifth house. This also applies to those athletes I've mentioned in the previous article and many other people out there in various other fields like artists and so on. But the harsh reality is many people are indeed forced to sell their bodies and are treated as slaves, something which represents a not so neat crossover with the fifth house. Child slave labor also falls into this category and there have been many reports, news and documentaries of poor children who perform assiduous work for long hours and who are being paid next to nothing. If you think about it, one of the reasons people in the past had children was to have more hands for working the land and doing all sorts of chores around the home. This is something that still takes place in our time in many rural communities.