Ep. 455 Transcript: 1st House Birth Chart Readings Livestream

The Astrology Podcast

Transcript of Episode 455, titled:

1st House Birth Chart Readings Livestream

With Chris Brennan

Episode originally released on July 17, 2024

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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com

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Transcribed by Teresa “Peri” Lardo

Transcription released August 2nd, 2024

Copyright © 2024 TheAstrologyPodcast.com

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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey, my name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, I’m gonna be talking about the first house in astrology and what it means and looking at some example charts of first house placements involving planets in the first house, the ruler of the first house, or even transits through the first house in order to get a sense for what the first house actually means and what it’s all about. And I’m recording it today with a live audience of patrons of The Astrology Podcast who signed up to support me through my work through my page on Patreon. And we’re gonna do a mixture of I put out a call for examples of first house placements, both publicly in terms of like, Twitter and Facebook, and also privately in terms of different patrons. And today since I have a live audience of patrons, I’m gonna be hopefully bringing a few of them on to talk about their first house placements if they have a striking example, and then I’m also gonna be reading and sharing some different examples that were sent in by people online.

All right. So first things first. Let’s start with some preliminary stuff about the first house and what it means. So here is a diagram which shows the significations of each of the 12 houses. So there’s only so many significations I can really fit on here because I can only fit like, three or four core significations. So the four core significations for the first house that I have is that it represents the self, the body, the character, and the person’s appearance. So the first house is in whole sign houses, it’s the rising sign. So it’s the sign that was rising up over the eastern horizon at the moment that you were born. So this is the sign that’s the most personally relevant to you as the individual who was born at that moment. And there’s different houses in the chart that represent different people in our life or different areas of our life, but the first house is really the primary house that relates to you, because the rising sign and the degree of the Ascendant, which is where the Sun rises up over the eastern horizon each morning but especially the morning that you were born, and just in the same way that the same and the other planets and stars rise up over the eastern horizon each day and are born as they emerge from under the earth and move up into the sky and become visible – in the same way, each of us was born at a specific moment in time and at that time we sort of like, emerged into the world, and our body emerged into the physical world as separate from the body of our mother. So that’s part of the symbolism with the first house and that’s part of the reason why it’s so intimately connected to you as the person who was born at that moment, because of that same symbolism of the planets emerging over the eastern horizon at the rising sign at the same moment as you were born.

So the first house, as a result of that, is the primary house in the chart that represents you and your sense of self and who you are. And sometimes that’s kind of an abstract signification that doesn’t make a lot of sense until you have like, a first house transit or you have eclipses going through your first house or something like that. And then all of a sudden, your sense of self and your sense of who you are becomes much more distinct as like, a factor in your life that you’re focused on and that you’re reflecting on when you’re thinking about “Who am I?” Like, “What am I doing here in the world?” And “How am I showing up in the world to other people?” Because the first house is also the house that represents the body and the physical incarnation of the native in addition to their character or in ancient astrology the spirit of the native. So it has – because in whole sign houses, part of the first house is below the horizon under the earth, which represents the physical body, and the other part of the house is above the horizon in the sky, which represents the spirit or the psyche or the character of the individual. And of course, in the first house, those two realms are coming together so that you get this blending of both the spirit as well as the body of the individual.

So some of the things that come up when it comes to the first house is your body, your health, but also your physical vitality. So sometimes there can be natal placements in the first house, and sometimes there can be certain people that just have good health naturally or who have a strong physical constitution or who don’t get sick regularly or in some instances who, where there’s something particularly striking about their body and their physical incarnation that’s beneficial or that’s helpful to them that arises somehow naturally. So sometimes you’ll see this, for example, if somebody has positive first house placements and if they’re particularly like, physically attractive for some reason, or if there’s something distinctive about their appearance, and in some instances they’re able to leverage that in order to bring about good things in their life. Like, for example, let’s say somebody who was a model or somebody who’s able to use their physical appearance to their advantage in some way. So that’s one scenario. Other scenarios in terms of the first house and the physical body is that sometimes because it represents our physical health and constitution, if there’s challenging placements with the first house, sometimes there can be health issues. So this can be the scenario where sometimes with these difficult placements, a person can have let’s say either accidents or injuries that cause physical harm to the body, or in some instances it can be issues with illness or issues with sickness or something like that that are hard to deal with when it comes to the body so that the person is having to focus on their health and having to focus on taking care of themself or on counteracting the negative impacts of some health issue more regularly.

So that’s something that we’ll see and that will come up in some of our chart examples as we start going through and talking about things. If anybody has any specific examples of either of those two scenarios, please let me know in the comments or in the Q&A section and maybe I can share that as an example.

All right. So sometimes those can be natal placements, but other times we can be talking about transits, which can indicate like, the onset of something, either a good health period or a period where you’re focused on your body and your physical health more, or another instances a difficult period where something negative or challenging comes up that you’re forced to deal with or forced to wrestle with. So that’s definitely a scenario that comes up that we all experience at some point in our life. Whether we have a natural predisposition to having positive health placements or challenging health placements, all of us will eventually have some positive health transits go through the first house and all of us will have some challenging health placements go through the first house and will experience the other side of that, even if we don’t have a natural predisposition for it, because everybody eventually gets sick. Everyone eventually, you know, gets health issues or injuries at some point in their life when a difficult transit happens. And on the flip side of that, everybody also eventually goes through some period where they’re feeling better vitality, where they’re feeling good about living in their body for a period of time or in which case sometimes when a person is dealing with health issues, sometimes they’ll meet a doctor or they’ll find a new way to fix that issue or to offset it. And sometimes that can be represented by positive transits going through the first house when something difficult is being mitigated or is being addressed in some way. So that can be also important to pay attention to.

So in the live chat, Dawn says, “I had a first house profection year involving a first house Mars and transiting Mars, and I had surgery for a malignant tumor.” So that’s a really good example, both because there’s both a natal placement there as well as a transiting placement, and having both of those get activated in some way and then having a health issue arise. So there was another person I think on Twitter who said that they had had like, six or seven surgeries or something like that, and they had Mars in the first house in a day chart.

So sometimes surgeries can definitely be a Mars-related thing, just because Mars involves cutting or severing. And sometimes, though, that cutting or severing can be necessary if it’s a surgery in order to fix something that’s gone wrong. But nonetheless, it’s still getting represented by Mars in some way, because it represents literally a sort of cutting into the body in order to attempt to fix something.

So I might come back around to that example. Let me actually check those examples and see if I can find that one. So this one came in from Twitter where I put out a call for examples, and this is a person named Snare on Twitter. They said,

“I have a Libra Mars in the first house. I’ve had four major surgeries and at least three minor ones. I had my first two major surgeries when I was 19 – that was a Venus-ruled year that activated my Mars.”

So and in the chart itself, we can see that they have Libra rising and Mars in Libra in the first house in a day chart. So in that instance, it’s manifested literally in having to have a bunch of different surgeries as something that’s kind of distinctive about the life. And I asked what the surgeries were for, and they said they were for a C-section, several cystectomies, laparoscopies, oophorectomy, lumpectomy, and a coronectomy. So that’s a really good example just because, you know, there’s some people that never have, like, a single surgery in their life, let’s say, in one extreme scenario, versus there might be somebody else who has comparatively a lot of surgeries where there have been a lot of instances where their body needs to be, like, cut into for some reason. And this would be one of those instances where Mars, the planet of severing and separation, is in the first house, which is the house that has to do with the physical body. And sometimes it can be as literal as that, but that also opens it up because then we can take from that a broader point about Mars indicating severing and separation and how that might manifest in literal ways if you put it in other houses in the chart. Like, in the second house, it could be a severing or separation that has to do with the person’s money or finances. In the 4th house, it might have to do with the person’s parents or living situation. In the 7th house, it might have to do with relationships, or in the 10th house, it might have to do with their career.

So it’s one of the things we’re gonna be doing in this series and that I try to do for the most part in my approach to astrology is sometimes look at things very simply and very literally in order to understand what the symbolism is. So that doesn’t mean that the placements can’t also relate more broadly to things relating to a person’s, like, character or psyche or how they go about acting in the world or other things like that. But it means that we have to be open to and we have to try to identify on the most core, fundamental level what is the most literal way that this symbolism can manifest in a person’s life as well at the same time.

So Arin in the live chat says, “That chart looks similar to mine in many ways. I’ve had a few surgeries myself. Also kind of hilarious to track Mars transits to my Ascendant degree. The last time I started a new series of allergy shots, the last time I cut my hand pretty severely chopping veggies, and the time before I caught an electric shock while replacing the smoke detectors in my home. It almost knocked me off the ladder.”

That’s a really good example. So let’s do that one; that might be a good example if you feel like sharing it, Arin. Do you wanna join me just to share your chart for a moment?

Hey, thanks for joining me.

ARIN: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

CB: All right. So here’s your chart, and for those listening to the audio version, so we have a chart with two degrees of Libra rising. Mars is at 25 degrees of Libra in the first house. It’s conjunct Pluto at 19 degrees of Libra. And this is a day chart with the Sun in Leo in the 11th whole sign house. And the ruler of the Ascendant is Venus, which is at 13 degrees of Cancer in the 10th house.

So you said – how has that Mars placement manifested for you in literal ways? You said you’ve had some like, accidents and injuries over the past several years when that becomes activated.

A: Yeah. Yeah, there’s lots of ways, but that’s one thing that I found, yeah, pretty funny to track is Mars going over my Ascendant degree. I noticed pretty early on in my astrology studies – I think it was the time that I basically electrocuted myself on the ladder – I was like, “Oh my gosh!” That’s not good when Mars goes over my Ascendant for me.

CB: So Mars conjoined your Ascendant, and then you like, seriously electrocuted yourself?

A: Yeah. I mean, non-fatal obviously because I’m still here, but yeah, I caught a good shock. I thought I had turned it off. I thought I had flipped the breaker, flipped the breaker for the room that I was working in, but apparently all the smoke detectors are on their own separate breaker, which I didn’t realize until I… So that’s how I learned that! Yeah.

And then the next time, I cut my hand pretty badly chopping vegetables, and I think it was like, the day after Mars had like, conjoined my Ascendant exactly. So it was like, moving away – I don’t know, I guess I thought I was okay with a knife. I wasn’t! And then this last time, really the most constructive.

CB: How badly did you cut yourself? Were you like, bleeding?

A: Oh yeah. I should have probably gone and got stitches or glue; I didn’t because it was like, a Sunday and I didn’t wanna go to the ER. I didn’t wanna pay for that. So I mean, I get that’s probably part of being a Mars-Pluto person too; I’m a survivor. I’m just like, bandaged up.

CB: Right.

A: Chopping my veg, yeah.

CB: And just power through.

A: Power through it.

CB: Nice.

A: That’s exactly right. And then yeah, I’ve had allergies my entire life, and I was just thinking about the first time I did allergy shots, I was like, I started at 11 and I’m sure it went, you know, we did it for like, a couple of years, so it definitely went through a first house profection for me. And more recently, I realized like, where I’m living is probably just not the best choice for me, but I also don’t have an option to move right now. So I’m just really allergic to where I’m living, so I’m doing more allergy shots, and that was the last time that Mars went over my Ascendant, like, to the day just happened to be – I didn’t plan it that way. But that happened to be the date for my first shot in this series of allergy shots that I’m doing now.

CB: So then you said you first developed those allergies or realized you had them when you were 11?

A: Well, I think I knew, or my parents knew to some extent, basically my whole life that I had quite a few allergies, food and environmental, but yeah, I had a bout when I was 11 where I like, broke out in full body hives. Couldn’t keep anything in my stomach. And that’s, like, when I ended up actually at allergists.

CB: Got it. So it was like, a physical reaction all over your skin of like, irritation?

A: Yeah. It was a really severe reaction. Like, I was bright red everywhere basically. Everywhere was inflamed, itching, yeah, and inside my stomach too, apparently. I just couldn’t, like, keep any foods down.

CB: Yeah, redness and inflammation are two really core Mars terms that we’ll see come up a lot like, over and over again for different people when it comes to its placement like, anywhere in the chart. Just importing those qualities.

So you started having to get shots, and what is involved in that? Or why is it a shot? Because I know, like, some people for allergies, it’s like, they take some Benadryl and that’s it. But what’s the shot? What’s with that?

A: Yeah, I take Benadryl every day.

CB: Okay.

A: Like, basically, the shots are supposed to get your – because allergies, basically, what it is is your immune system freaking out at dust, pollen, being like, oh my gosh, we’re being invaded, when actually it’s fine. So it’s like you’re reacting to yourself, which I think is a very Mars in detriment in the first. And the shots are supposed to basically desensitize you to the allergen. So like, the more you’re exposed to it, hopefully the less you’ll react to it in the wild, is the idea. But yeah, injections and needles and puncturing, of course, is how you go about it. And like, right now, I’m getting four shots a week, so I go in and I get two in one arm and two in another, and like, yeah, I just have bruises most of the time on my arms. And this is just my life now, and I’m like, wow, that’s really appropriate for Mars in Libra in the first, I think.

CB: Yeah, just getting shots and having like, a piercing of the body is also just very fitting in terms of the symbolism as well.

A: Yeah. And I mean, and that’s funny that you say that, because like, I’ve had a lot of piercings in my life. That’s just something that I enjoyed doing in my younger years. And I also danced for a really long time, from the ages of three to 18, and really kind of messed up my ankles through doing that. So that’s pretty appropriate for Mars in Libra in the first, too.

And then more recently, I sustained a pretty serious head injury, and I was thinking about that and I was like, “Mars in the first stuff, too, isn’t it?” So yeah, I have to be careful with my health, because I feel like I am sort of prone to that sort of thing. And then there’s, yeah, there’s a lot of other expressions of what it, you know, how it’s expressed itself in my life and my relationships being the ruler of the 7th as well.

CB: Yeah, I was actually gonna ask that. I mean, it might be – if that is like, a good example, I was just curious because since Mars is ruling the 7th house of relationships and it’s also ruling the second house of finances and it’s in your first house of self, I was curious how that manifested and if that manifested in some literal way.

A: It totally has. And I’m fine with talking about it. I feel like my life is a bit of a trigger warning, so maybe I should put that out there. But yeah, I grew up in a household where my parents had a dysfunctional relationship dynamic themselves. It was pretty codependent and there was some abuse going on, and so basically, I learned that same relationship dynamic. I think you see this maybe some too with Mars overcoming the Moon in the 4th house, which is also in detriment there. And I experienced my father especially as very controlling, which you can see that with that Pluto. And as I grew older, I found myself falling into the same relationship dynamics with men and, you know, there was domestic violence, which thankfully I got out of. And it’s like, it’s funny because I like, get in these situations, but I always survive them. And I guess I credit that to my strong Venus in the 10th, maybe that Mars is conjunct Spica also is helpful – I’m not sure – but I always like, seem to survive them and get out of them somehow. But Pluto actually squaring my Mars like, brought a lot of change and healing, I would say, to my relationship dynamics. So I feel to some extent at least on the other side of that, but it’s definitely played out, you know, in every way that you would probably guess by looking at that.

CB: Got it. Yeah.

A: It’s complicated. And my relationship, I think, with the masculine in general has been complicated throughout my life because of my relationship with my dad. And you know, it’s funny because like, I look the most like my dad of my two parents, and so then there’s like, the whole self and other thing. It’s like, I look like him but I don’t wanna be like him. And just, you know, the complicated nature of a planet in detriment especially the out of sect malefic in the first.

CB: That’s brilliant. Yeah, like how do you deal with looking like the person that you don’t necessarily want to look like, and how you reflect on that in terms of your sense of self and like, who you are.

A: Right. Yeah.

CB: That’s really interesting. What are some of the – to balance things out, like, what are some of the positive things from your Mars placement? It sounds like when you were younger, that you were very like, physically active, and I know Mars in the first house can be sometimes people that are very physically have a lot of vitality or energy in some instances. I also notice that that Mars is like, very closely sextile your Mercury, so you probably have a more like, direct manner of communication which is also something that sometimes people with Mars in the first house have in general. I’m not sure how Libra’s offsetting it, but.

A: Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m like, sort of a ballsy Venusian, I guess, in a way. And yeah, that really tight Mercury-Mars sextile – I’m very difficult to win an argument against. You know, growing up, my dad was always like, “You need to be a lawyer, because you’re impossible to argue with.” And so there’s that. And yeah, I do have a lot of energy. I find I have a tremendous amount of energy. I did actually basically go too hard and burn myself out in like, 2017. Basically suffered from adrenal fatigue and had to recover from that. So that was a lesson learned for me. But, that said, like, I do have a lot of energy and I find I have a lot of willpower when I really put my mind to something, like, it’s gonna happen. It’s going to happen. Like, that’s just sort of the way I am, and I think I’ve taken that for granted a lot in my life and less so now. I now recognize how unique that is. And you know, I don’t – I guess I dance some for fun, but I’ve recently taken up like, more sporty things like kickboxing and weight lifting, which I didn’t really think that I would like before but found that I really love and makes me feel amazing afterwards, and I think it’s an incredible outlet for Mars. So I think that it burned me a lot more before I really realized or learned – I’m in my 40s, so I mean, I’ve had a lot of time to build experience and how to, you know, make it work through me, I guess, as best as… It’s interesting; I haven’t had near like, the problems with money that I have with relationships. That seems to go better in my life, but I’m very independent about my finances. Like, I’ve never had a joint bank account with any, even when I was married. I’m just like, no. My money’s mine and yours is yours. So that’s probably helped me, I would guess, like, not get in situations where money becomes a real problem, but.

CB: Yeah. That’s kind of interesting with Uranus there at the same time, and there’s like, this independent streak to how you deal with finances, which is something that Mars and Uranus can share to some extent.

A: Yeah. I guess.

CB: Nice. Well, that’s a great example, and I really like your point about like, channeling it into those sporty or athletic type things especially recently. And that seems like good advice for everybody, like, whatever their placement is to find ways that are symbolically similar to that placement that are like, constructive manifestations of it. And I think when a person does that, it can be really useful for like, letting off steam sort of in an area of the chart where otherwise you might have a lot of energy building up and it could be like, having too much steam or too much energy, but sometimes when you give it an outlet, that can like, creatively express something that could otherwise be a little bit more difficult.

A: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s right. I think Mars-Pluto especially can be – you know, there are good things about it. I think we’re kind of hard to kill. And like, we, you know, have a lot of energy and have a lot of stores of energy, but it can be explosive. So yeah, I think having like, a pressure release valve is sort of the key.

CB: Totally. All right. Awesome. This was a great example. Thank you so much for sharing this; I appreciate it.

A: Yeah. Thanks.

CB: Awesome. That was a great example. Does anybody have an example like that with, let’s say, a benefic placement or other first house placements that might be relevant? Let me know in the comments because I’m following the live chat right now.

So this was sent in by Janay Anthony on Twitter, who said,

“I have Mars in Leo conjunct the Ascendant. At about age 11 was the onset of my chronic uveitis – inflammation of the eyes. Over the years, the inflammation led to scar tissue developing, and it’s this scarring that let to my loss of vision. Very diurnal Mars conjunct the Ascendant. Also when I was in my first house year, I had a very stressful last minute move at the same time that I was starting grad schools (Mars as the ruler of the 4th house and the 9th house in the first).”

So and here’s the chart. So Janay has 14 Leo rising and Mars is at 20 degrees of Leo in the first house in a day chart. So this is a good example. And I believe Janay’s actually the current – recently became the new president of the Association for Young Astrologers, which is actually really awesome, or the new chair of the Association for Young Astrologers. And I think Janay’s legally blind, so this was a good example, again, of like, a first house inflammation-type scenario that’s connected to the body. And there may be like, different ways that you can narrow down the area or the body parts or different things like that, but just generally speaking, it’s a good example because again it shows different ways that Mars and that tendency to symbolically bring like, heat or inflammation or other things like that can manifest sometimes in very literal ways.

So there are other things that are like, relevant about that that maybe I can talk to Janay about later at some point. But so that’s like, one aspect of things that we have to pay attention to with the first house is just the physicality of the body and that sometimes challenging placements or transits can indicate that a person struggles with or that there are things that a person has to deal with that relate to the physical body that are maybe like, not preferable or not things that they would like to deal with, but nonetheless that’s the area of life where they have some challenges or some struggles. And it’s good to be aware of the full range of possible manifestations and the full spectrum when it comes to that, both in terms of positive things as well as challenging things.

So in terms of positive placements, in my – some of this is reminding me that I had two friends. I had two friends when I was younger when I first started studying astrology, and they both had – they were born relatively close apart, and both of them had Scorpio rising and both of them had Mars and Saturn in Scorpio in the first whole sign house. But one of them had a day chart, and one of them had a night chart. And the one with the day chart was constantly like, bumping into things and getting small injuries or small cuts and like, getting little accidents and Mars-related things like that. Whereas the other one with the night chart, so that Saturn was more difficult, they were anemic, they struggled with like, Saturn-related ailments of like, being too cold or like, slowing down, and eventually dealt with cancer, which is more of a Saturn-type sort of ailment as well at the same time. So sometimes first house planets and other things can relate to the physical types of challenges that can arise in a person’s life in a very literal way.

All right. Let me see some of the other comments that have come in. So Maggie said they had an example that involved hives; okay, that’s good. Alyssa said, “Gave birth to my son in a first house year and a Jupiter return.” That can definitely be like, a big, like, body-related change, so that would make sense when it comes to the first house. Carly says, “Wow, at age 11 – 12th house profection year – an eye inflammation. The unseen, very literal.” Okay. Samantha says, “Can Mars represent movement? I have Mars in the first, and my parents divorced when I was young so I was back and forth a lot, studied abroad and toured country for five summers.” Yeah, potentially. I mean, especially the separation of the parents sometimes when you have planets in the first or the 7th. Especially because one of the things that happens is that planets in the first, especially if they’re closely conjunct the Ascendant, that automatically means that they’re opposing the degree of the Descendant, which can sometimes bring in 7th house things at the same time. That’s also true of the 4th house and the 10th house, that sometimes planets in the first house, if there’s planets in the 4th or the 10th, they can be closely aspected by the first house planet, so sometimes it can be indicating issues that are arising in connection with those houses.

So Genie says, “I have a condition of the skin that’s completely in my first house in my chart. I have Saturn and Uranus in the first house in Sagittarius. The condition is so weird the doctors can’t even pronounce it. Very Uranian in nature, and Saturn ruling the skin and a boundary between our insides and outside worlds. It’s called hidradenitis suppurativa,” is the closest I can get to pronouncing that. That’s really interesting. Yeah, that brings up a good point about Uranus that sometimes when Uranus is in the first house, there’s something unique or something weird or something out of the ordinary about either our body and physical constitution or sometimes it’s something about our character. Because that’s the other thing we have to remember is even though we’re talking about physical first house placements and like, ailments to the body with the first house, the first house is also the primary house that relates to a person’s character and psyche. And sometimes placements in the first house can manifest through the psychology of the native and the way that they approach the world and the way that they approach other people in the world. So sometimes like, Uranus in the first house, it can be something about the way the person acts. Although in this instance, this is like, a literal manifestation again.

So Megan says, “Jupiter just passed over my Ascendant-Sun conjunction. I gained weight like, almost overnight.” Yeah. There was a few people that mentioned that. There was another person that mentioned Jupiter going through their first house and they said that they… Well, there were some that said they gained a lot of weight, and then there was other people that had Saturn go through their first house and one of them said that they lost 30 pounds. So the body and like, especially weight and things related to weight – either like, gaining weight or losing weight – can be represented by either placements in the first house or first house transits especially. Especially since all of us go through like, different weight fluctuations at different points in our life, although there can be different reasons that we have like, wild weight fluctuations. Especially, for example, sometimes Saturn going through the first can be like, getting sick or something and losing weight as a result of that. So that’s a very common manifestation of first house transits that are commonly mentioned, and sometimes you can use that for rectification purposes if you’re trying to narrow down a person’s rising sign is look at a period recently if Saturn went through the first house and ask not just about potential like, health issues during that time, but also about like, did you lose weight for some reason during that time, during that two-to-three year period? And sometimes if the answer is yes, it means that Saturn was transiting through their first house at that time.

Okay. I mean, that’s a pretty good positive one. Brenda says, “Jupiter on Regulus about five degrees from my Ascendant degree. Am an optimistic, hopeful, and helpful person. Have been told that I’ve inspirational. I also like food and have to be careful not to overeat.” Do you feel like sharing that example and just talking for maybe a few minutes, Brenda?

Hey.

BRENDA: Hi.

CB: Thanks for joining me.

B: Thank you.

CB: What’s your birth data.

B: Six 13 ‘68.

CB: All right. Is your Ascendant 24 Leo?

B: It is.

CB: Cool. All right. Here is your chart. So you have 24 Leo rising. You have Jupiter at 29 degrees of Leo, and you have the Sun in Gemini in the 11th whole sign house conjunct Mars. I mean, your chart’s actually funny because it reminds me of like, another one that has similar but like, kind of inverted placements, which is… Yeah, which is Trump’s chart, basically, is like, late Leo rising with like, Mars conjunct the Ascendant, which characterizes, you know, his personality. But you have a very different manifestation of that. You have Leo rising with Jupiter conjunct the Ascendant. So you said that people described you in what way again?

B: Inspirational. I’m a physical therapist, so I’m always helping people with their physical ailments and also just with my life experiences just kind of coming from a challenging situation and always kind of finding the light to follow and the path out of some negative situation, whether it’s my own or someone else’s. Just always looking for the hope.

CB: So that notion of like, hope or optimism is just like, a core part of your personality and it’s something that you kind of like, radiate outward onto others?

B: Yeah. Before I knew anything about astrology, I was known for saying, “If you have hope, you have everything.” And so just kind of feeling like that’s the answer to almost anything situation is just feeling like you can change it. And tomorrow’s another day, and it’ll get better, and yeah.

CB: I love that. Where does that come from, or at what point did that start in terms of your early life?

B: I think I’ve just always had that feeling about life in general. But I did have a challenging childhood, and I think on paper or from an external sort of viewpoint, people might have thought that I might not succeed, and in fact I have a doctoral degree, I have my own business, I’m doing quite well. But you know, there were times in my life where it didn’t look so positive. But I just always knew that it would be okay, and yeah, I just kept moving forward.

CB: How did you get into physical therapy and like, helping people in terms of that?

B: Yeah, I knew I always wanted to be helpful, just innately wanted to do that, and I knew medicine was a good way to do it. But I really like helping people to help themselves, and so instead of being kind of a passive medical practitioner, I wanted to do something where I was actively engaging in helping people to learn how to help themselves. And so physical therapy is perfect for that. I’m also a pretty physical person, and so I like activity. And so I just liked taking knowledge, applying it to the body, and doing it in non-invasive sort of way with an empowering sort of mindset behind it all.

CB: That makes sense. And that’s actually your optimism or instilling hope – that’s actually necessary in physical therapy because you have to do a lot of like, encouraging and trying to give people the internal like, motivation to do something that’s hard physically.

B: Absolutely. Absolutely. You’re taking someone that’s painful and scared and you’re showing them, you know, how to change that and how to move away from that situation into, you know, fully functional, happy sort of physically active lifestyle again. Reclaiming function. So yeah. Just – it fits perfectly. It’s like, hand in glove. It’s the perfect profession for me. And I get to do it daily. You know, I just get to have that same moment over and over and over again where I reach out and I take someone that’s in a challenging situation and I help them. So it’s a beautiful expression of I guess my soul’s purpose, I don’t know. But yeah, I love it.

CB: Yeah. That’s brilliant. How has your physical health been?

B: I’m good. Yeah, I mean, I do think this ties in – so you see that Jupiter rules my 8th house, and I was diagnosed with melanoma several years ago during 8th house profection year. So you know, Jupiter with that growth. I think that might have been a reflection. And then it rules my 5th house, and I am very fertile; I can have lots of children. So yeah. And then I do have good luck with partner’s money, so it shows up in other places too in my chart where Jupiter is.

CB: Right. With the melanoma, you caught it early, though, so that it didn’t develop?

B: Exactly. It was actually my husband that caught it, and yeah, it was quick and it’s a thing of the past. You know, it’s been several years; I think it was 2013 or ‘14 or something like that that I caught it and it was still stage one, so yeah.

CB: Okay.

B: But yeah, that sort of unchecked growth that maybe Jupiter could be known for, and Jupiter ruling that 8th house of death.

CB: Yeah. Well, that was something that came up also in the Jupiter in Taurus episode when there were some people that were having like, first house transits where sometimes something bad was coming up healthwise, but then they were able to catch it early enough or they were able to get medical treatment for it so that it became something that they were able to survive and like, heal from, as opposed to let’s say like, the worst case scenarios. Like, imagine that you don’t catch something until it’s too late or you’re not able to get help with it for some reason, whereas this is like, the opposite scenario. Like, imagining in your case a scenario where somebody is actually kind of fortunate that when something potentially life threatening did come up with it being the ruler of the 8th house that you were actually able to catch it early enough that it wasn’t able to grow and turn into something that actually like, shortened your life.

B: Absolutely. And my husband also has Jupiter in his first house, and he’s the one that found it for me. So I don’t know if there’s some synastry sort of Jupiter help, but definitely I’m all good.

CB: What’s his rising sign?

B: He’s a Libra rising.

CB: Okay. I was just curious. Does he share the same like, sense of optimism that you have?

B: Yeah. He totally does. In fact, I think he might even be more optimistic. Our children always laugh about both of our optimism. One example is he just always completely underestimates how long it’ll take to get somewhere in the car, so he’ll say, “We’ll be in the car for a few hours,” it’ll be something more like, five. So the kids just know to, you know, take it with a grain of salt because Dad’s always gonna be overly optimistic about that.

CB: Right. That’s really funny. That’s brilliant. I’m trying to think of any other questions, but that’s a great example, because it’s describing like, physical things. It’s also describing like, what you ended up doing for work to some extent, but then also describing your demeanor and like, your character to some extent as well is very much encapsulated by that placement. So you really get all the different layers of the first house.

B: Yeah. I feel really lucky and grateful that I got that. I mean, there’s lots of other things in my chart that aren’t so great, but thank god I have Jupiter there.

CB: Sure. Yeah. Like, everybody has some area where they have challenges and some area where they’re just kind of lucky, and I’m glad you used that term “lucky,” because I think that’s a good way sometimes to frame it in terms of fortune and like, chance. And sometimes there’s things that are outside of our control that we – it can go either way. But sometimes being able to like, see and acknowledge those areas can be really important. And sometimes with the first house, though, it’s also nice that you have awareness of that, because it’s like, sometimes people tend to take for granted the things that are good in their life, or sometimes when the good thing is something that’s arising from within you that you’re actually doing or putting out there into the world, you don’t always necessarily recognize that as a positive thing. But in your instance, it’s like, really clear that you do and really clear that that is like, a beneficial thing.

B: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s important to acknowledge the beautiful things in life as well as the challenging things in life, and you know, really hold onto those things. You know, everything changes, and sometimes we have those wonderful moments and embrace them and cherish them, but recognize that, you know, there’ll be negative moments too, but that too will pass. So yeah. Embrace it all.

CB: Yeah. So last two questions – how many children do you have with that ruling your 5th house?

B: I have three. And they actually – I started really early. So basically from my adult life from 19 on, I’ve had children in my house. So they’re absolutely a huge part of my daily existence. So you know, I have a 36-year-old and I have a 16-year-old, so children – lots of children, lots of impact in my life.

CB: Would you say that that’s also been a fortune area of your life?

B: Absolutely. Absolutely.

CB: Okay. That’s really important as well. So the ruler of the 5th is the most positive planet in the chart, and it’s in the first. And then because it’s in the first, that’s probably also – and because you’ve had children for the entirety of your adult life, that’s probably also informed some ways that you are in terms of your own personality and things like that I would assume, right?

B: Absolutely. It’s an intrinsic part of who I am and my reality is my children.

CB: Got it. Okay. So all of that seems good, and those are good like, little teaching tools that it’s reminding me of here just having a planet in the first house, whatever houses it rules will tend to become more prominent in the person’s life for better or worse – in your case, for the better. And then the last one is, because it’s also ruling the 8th house, you mentioned in passing that you’ve had positive things as a result of the partner’s finances. Could you explain what you meant by that?

B: I’m very lucky. My husband’s a physician, and so just monetarily, I’m lucky. Not only for my own work, my own business, but he has his own business, and so there’s a lot of financial support from my husband. And then I did go to school taking out a bunch of student loans that – I’ve had a lot of access to other people’s money in the form of loans, so yeah. I just thought that house was pretty easy for me as well. I’m hoping for an easy death.

CB: Nice. And then have you ever had any like, inheritances or anything like that?

B: I have not had that so far. It’s been more from my partner. Yeah.

CB: Cool. All right. Just wanted to go through the list of like, different checkboxes. Awesome. Well, this was really cool. Thank you so much for sharing that example; I appreciate it.

B: Thank you.

CB: All right. Take care.

B: You too.

CB: All right. That was great. Cool. So yeah, it’s good to alternate and look at different examples and different manifestations and you know, that’s the whole point of all of this is as astrologers, we have to explore the entire spectrum of like, different human experiences and especially sometimes try to establish the extremes and then move inwards from there and figure out what the different shades of grey are in between. But it’s cool sometimes when you can establish that and then really start to articulate some very fundamental things just based on very basic building blocks, and then from there you can make things a little bit more complicated. But it’s important to start with the very basics.

All right. So I’m back from break. I would like to talk a little bit about Saturn examples. So we’ve done like, Mars. We’ve done Jupiter. I’d like to do a Saturn example, and I think Aren, you had one involving braces. Would you be up for joining me on camera right now?

So this is a transiting example instead of a natal example. But I think it still could be a good one. There we go.

AREN: Hi Chris.

CB: Hey, thanks for joining me.

A: Hi. Thanks for having me.

CB: Yeah. What’s your birth data?

A: It’s 9th of May, 2002.

CB: And your Ascendant is one degree of Pisces?

A: Yeah.

CB: Cool. All right. So let me show the chart. There we go. So one degree of Pisces, and you said that when Saturn moved into your first house last year, when it moved into Pisces, that you got braces?

A: Yeah. I think it was around like, late August that I got my braces. And I think it’s like, very Saturnian because from what I know it kind of like, rules the teeth and the bones. And I’m having it for like, another year, and now it’s like, mid-Pisces, so I’ll have it for like, throughout the whole Pisces transit. So I think that’s like, a very good Saturn example in my opinion.

CB: Yeah, that’s perfect. So what led to that or what caused that? What did the doctors – like, how did the situation arise?

A: Honestly, it’s just been one of my own goals to like, improve my appearance. And I guess I just thought of another example. The same week that I got my braces, I also got a perm for my hair, which made it curly. So I was like, on a journey to improve my appearance and my health. And I guess the braces is more the health part, but yeah.

CB: Nice. So yeah. So just sort of like, transformations when it comes to body and health and appearance, and the braces thing, though, is perfect in terms of the timing since, like you said, you’ll have that from the start of that transit to essentially the end of that transit since Saturn is gonna go into Aries next year.

A: Yeah.

CB: So in that —

A: And it’s actually the same – sorry, yeah.

CB: Go ahead.

A: The same week that I got my perm and my braces, I also got a job. So like, maybe the 10th house kind of is like activated in that way.

CB: Sure. Yeah. I mean, you have so many Gemini placements as well and so many 4th and 10th house placements at the same time that some of that would have been activated as well. And then with the braces, that’s something that has like, a routine as well in terms of like, things you need to do to like, maintain it, right?

A: Every like, three to four weeks, I have to go to an appointment. I have to take extra care of my teeth at home. And it’s funny that you mention the 4th house, because I got the job because of my sister, because she was a manager there and I got it because of her. And now at my job, it’s like, a pilates studio, so I just recently like, also started in pilates to improve my spine and my posture, which is both for like, aesthetics but also for my health. Which is like, related to my job as well, and it’s like, appearance, job, and family in a way.

CB: Right.

A: But also the benefit of like, the Jupiter ruling, the benefit of like, getting this opportunity from my workplace that is like, health-related and like, Saturnian with the spine and the teeth and everything.

CB: Yeah. That’s a really good point, because both bones are associated with Saturn, but also the teeth. And that’s a really common thing that comes up with Saturn transits is things involving either of those, as well as things where you’re like, correcting something but it takes a long, extended period of time to correct it rather than something that’s just done once and quickly.

A: Yes. That’s very true.

CB: Nice. Okay. Well, that’s a good and pretty straightforward example. So it’ll be interesting to see, you know, when Saturn goes into Aries and departs from Pisces, as you emerge from this period and have been sort of like, transformed by that physically in different ways as well as to another extent sort of mentally, because there’s also can be a period of, you know, having to change the way that you’re approaching things mentally and needing to develop better habits can be like, a common first house Saturn transit experience.

A: Definitely, because I feel like the Saturn transiting my first house has helped me in a lot of ways to be more consistent. And I think the braces was just like, the first step, because like, now I can actually maintain proper dental hygiene and working out a couple times a week and being organized in other ways and like, more dedicated and determined and all of that.

CB: Yeah. Well, one of the things that happens is it’s like, when we have those Saturn transits, especially through the angular houses, and especially if a person already has Saturn angular, it’s like, you go through those periods of focusing on those things and that being heightened. And then you’ll go through a several year period of Saturn going through other houses in which you’ll have to really test and see if you can keep up the regularity and the focus and like, determination you had when the Saturn transit was at its most intense. And then eventually like, seven years later when it gets to the next mutable sign for you, which will be your Saturn return, that’ll be the check-in period where you sort of see if you’ve been able to keep up that momentum and that progress. And if you did, then you graduate and move onto the next level, versus if you don’t, then sometimes you have to go back and do things over again. So yeah, that’s a really good example. Thanks a lot for sharing that.

A: Yeah. No worries. But I just remembered my thought. The Saturn squaring my like, 4th house stuff, and that was like, when I got my braces, like August last year. And I could not speak for like, two weeks straight. I don’t know if that’s like, related to transits or not.

CB: Yeah. Totally. I mean, Saturn – not being able to speak and being physically withheld from doing something is a very Saturn – because Saturn’s primary meaning and signification oftentimes is it negates things and it says “no” or “stop” to something. So having it say “no” or “stop” to speech or communication is pretty perfect, especially since you have like, a Mercury-Saturn conjunction natally, and so that’s part of what would have been getting activated by Saturn squaring that.

A: Yeah. And I still have that, because there’s like, an arch like, going across my palate, so I can’t touch my tongue, like, on the roof. So it still affects my speech, but I’ve gone through a lot of like, speech therapy this year to help with that, because I used to speak like, properly and faster but now I have to slow down so I can enunciate my words. But until I get that off, and then my braces off, I cannot speak. So maybe for the next year my speech is like, affected. But yeah, I just wanted to share that.

CB: That’s perfect. I love that. That’s such a great manifestation of that and just the activation of those placements, but then, you know, also with Venus there, you know, offsetting things, you have a lot of good, offsetting things at the same time. So there’s like, a temporary, surmountable difficulty that’s come up that’s stopped you from speaking, but it’s something where through great effort and striving and determination you’re able to overcome it, which is a common like, Saturn transit experience.

A: Yeah, definitely. And I would love to share my 4th house stories with you one day, because there’s a lot of them.

CB: Yeah. Well, I definitely maybe when we get to the 4th house, yours would be a good example because I’m hoping to do a series where we go through each of the houses, and I’ll definitely remember your Gemini stellium.

A: Yeah, definitely.

CB: Cool. All right. Well, thanks for joining me.

A: Thanks for having me.

CB: All right. That was great. So now we’ve done some Saturn, and I think that was really good as a contrast, because we’ve already seen now the different types of things that come up with Saturn in terms of like, slowing down things, in terms of stopping things, in terms of needing to like, exercise or build something up slowly are great Saturn themes that can manifest in terms of a natal placement with Saturn there or in terms of a Saturn transit.

So there were some other examples now that I think about it that came in through Twitter. So this was a response when I put out a call for questions, and the astrologer Ray Merriman, who’s a financial astrologer, on Twitter said,

“When Uranus crossed my Ascendant, I discovered astrology. When Pluto crossed my Ascendant two years later, I got drafted and disrupted my life for two years, but it made me a better trained counselor for my astrology career, which also grew during that time.”

So I thought that was really brilliant example of sometimes what happens when planets are crossing the degree of the Ascendant. Especially if it’s a slow-moving outer planet, it can be kind of a life-changing – sometimes if it’s a really slow-moving planet, like, a once-in-a-lifetime changing event that occurs at that time. And Ray’s chart’s actually on astro.com; it’s public, so I think I can show it. So here’s his chart with late Virgo rising – 27 degrees of Virgo rising. And so of course, he was talking about the Pluto-Uranus conjunction in like, the late 1960s that was happening in late Virgo was going over his Ascendant. So first starting with Uranus and then with Pluto. So and with Uranus, I think I actually had the same thing. I had Uranus hit my Ascendant when I discovered astrology as well, and I think part of the reason that that happens for some astrologers is it can be kind of like a disruptive and unexpected thing to discover that all of this works. But it can also be kind of like, a revolutionary and like, life-changing and really exciting thing to suddenly be thrust into like, the middle of this world of astrology and everything that it can do and to be kind of swept up in that.

By contrast, having Pluto transit over his Ascendant must have been, I assume, really scary to get drafted just because then there’s the potential to, you know, get sent off to a war – in his instance, it was the war in Vietnam – and have the potential to literally like, die in a war that you don’t wanna be fighting and may or may not agree with at the time. That can be really, really scary. So having Pluto transiting over your Ascendant sometimes and having the fear of, you know, death or something like that come to the forefront in one’s life, but also the transformative aspect of going through that over that few year period. So that’s a really good example.

In the live chat, Ebru Alton says, “That’s so true. Uranus transiting opposite my Ascendant I started studying astrology.” That’s really cool. Does anybody else have any – in the live chat – have any examples of that, of a outer planet transit going over the degree of your Ascendant and having some major life-changing event?

Yael says, “Uranus conjunct my Ascendant – I dyed my hair blue.” That’s a great example. Having a Uranus transit over the Ascendant and having a radical change of one’s appearance is a pretty common one. And that actually brought up one other I was gonna share that was a good one that somebody submitted where they saw certain aspects of their chart and what was indicating it, but I actually noticed a transit for them that they hadn’t noticed. So this one came in through Twitter; the username is Conrad Klaus at phosphaeros. So they said,

“During my 3rd house year ruled by the Moon, there was a lunar eclipse in my 7th house, and I was deep in a gender muddle. Two weeks later when the Moon transited my first house and my Ascendant ruler also got there, I realized and accepted that I’m trans, which I didn’t plan for – I didn’t plan this, obviously.”

So this was a really good example, because there were like, a few different things that were relevant there. I’m gonna pull up the chart here on Twitter.

So here’s the chart that Conrad sent in, and it has the Ascendant at 15 degrees of Taurus. And the thing that I noticed immediately from the transits is you can see the transits in green in the outer wheel, and Uranus was right there at like, 15, 16 degrees of Taurus. So transiting Uranus was actually transiting over the degree of their Ascendant right at the time that they had this realization that they were trans. So they said that the second chart is the day that they realized that they were trans when Venus actually entered Taurus that day, so it entered into the rising sign. And they’re pointing out the lunar eclipse in Scorpio was two weeks earlier. But one of the things that’s interesting about that and the fact that the nodes were transiting through Taurus and Scorpio is that means that for like, a year and a half or pretty much two-year period, eclipses would have been bouncing back and forth between not just the 7th house but also the first house.

So that can be a very common thing that happens is that a person can experience major transformations in terms of their sense of self, their sense of body, and even sometimes like, their physical appearance when you’re having major transits going on through your first house/7th house axis. So it wasn’t just that Uranus was conjoining the Ascendant, but also that eclipses were taking place in the first house and the 7th house throughout that period. So there was a bunch of different things going on that’s very relevant, and I just thought that was such a great example that they shared. And it’s also a good example that sometimes, you know, as astrologers, we can see certain things in our charts but then sometimes it’s helpful to talk about our chart or share it with other astrologers, because sometimes other astrologers can see things that maybe we missed or maybe we didn’t see when we were looking at it or when we were experiencing the transits ourselves. But I thought that was such a great example of just the types of transformative experiences that can sometimes happen.

And sometimes you don’t have a good sense of, like I said earlier, what the first house means when we say that it signifies self or that it signifies you in the chart. That sounds like such an abstract concept that we don’t usually have a real conceptualization of what that means until we go through a really intense either outer planet transit or a set of eclipses through the first house, and then all of a sudden, we’re thinking about that topic in terms of who we are, how we’re showing up in the world, and different things like that in a very intimate way. And then all of a sudden, you really understand what the first house is all about. But sometimes it takes that experience of having like, a real visceral transit through the first house to open your eyes to what that’s like.

In the live comments, Angela says, “Eclipses in my first/7th was when my best friend died of covid, and it was a big identity shift of who I was without a best friend. I was also known as part of a best friend pair.”

Yeah. That’s really can be a major thing, because usually when eclipses are happening in our first house, it means they’re also happening in our 7th house, and sometimes it’s redefining our sense of self and who we are, but sometimes it’s through contrasting that or defining it relative to other people that we have really close, intimate relationships with in our life.

I did a whole episode – I’ve done a few episodes on eclipses before, and eclipses can be really good ones that can show activations of the self and different things like that, especially in contrast with the other. Is there anybody else that has a good example like that?

One – so Olivia says, “I think I got my ears pierced when Mars was transiting over my Ascendant and Venus was transiting my first.” That’s a pretty good one.

Joe says, “North Node is going through the first. Kids are all grown up, and now I’m trying to figure out what to do next that I’d find fulfilling.” That’s definitely a good one in terms of redefining one’s sense of self at the end of something, especially because eclipses represent major endings but also major beginnings. So sometimes there’s the end of one chapter in our life and the beginning of a new chapter. And sometimes in the first house, that new chapter relates to our sense of self but also who we are in relation to others with the 7th.

Cheri in the chat says, “I was taking a yoga class when I was 25, and the instructor gave anyone an astrological chart she had prepared. That was 1971 when transiting Uranus was conjoining my Ascendant; that was when I first got hooked on learning astrology.” That’s really cool. So yeah, there’s lots of, a lot of astrologers that have had that Uranus transit to the Ascendant or to the first house.

Ebru Alton says, “I got married in a first house eclipse in 1997.” That’s really good, because that’s a real renewal in terms of identifying yourself in relation to others.

Lisa also says, “I got married while the North Node was transiting my first.” And any time the North Node or the South Node is transiting a house, that also means eclipses are taking place in those houses at that time.

Lindsey says, “Uranus was opposite my Ascendant and Mars, the ruler of the 4th, when my house burned down. I lost my childhood photos and home videos which later inspired me to do photography as a career.” That’s a really striking one.

All right. Let me look at my other examples that I wrote down that came in. So I put a bunch of these in a document, so I’ll just share some of those now. So Yanna on Twitter says,

“I left for college while Jupiter was transiting my first house, but I didn’t gain the freshman 15. I gained the freshman 30.”

So that’s a really good one because that’s a common sort of thing that astrologers say can happen in terms of a Jupiter transit through the first house is Jupiter’s about growth and expansion, so sometimes a Jupiter transit through the first house can be about like, gaining weight, whereas a Saturn transit sometimes can be about losing weight. Although that’s sometimes tricky because sometimes Saturn transits can also be periods of low health and vitality where you’re moving more slowly and having more difficulty, which itself can sometimes lead to weight gain.

Yanna also said,

“My mom has Jupiter in her first, and although she’s been in some seriously life-threatening situations, she comes out unscathed every time. She’s had three cars have engine problems. The first car she sued and won a brand new car that got paid off. The other two, a man found a loophole free rental and repair. Let me also add that Jupiter is also the ruler of her 3rd house of short distance travel and it falls in her first.”

So that’s pretty interesting.

Mandy says in the live chat, “I started mental health meds when the eclipses were on my first house/7th house axis. I wanted to be better for… Be a better me and for the people most important to me.” Yeah, that’s a really good one. That makes a lot of sense and to do something partially not just for yourself but also for other people that are close to you in your life. That could be a good one if you feel like talking about it if it’s not too sensitive if you feel like joining me.

Hey.

MANDY: Hi!

CB: Hey. So what’s your birth data?

M: November 12th, 1985.

CB: All right. And is your Ascendant 26 Cancer?

M: It is.

CB: All right. So 26 Cancer, and for those listening to the audio version, so you have 26 Cancer rising and Capricorn’s your 7th house. And then the ruler of the Ascendant is the Moon, and it’s at 28 Scorpio and it’s applying to a conjunction with Saturn at 29 Scorpio. So you said that when eclipses started happening in your first and 7th houses that you decided to start working on mental health just in order to take better care of yourself as well as other people that are close to you?

M: Yes. This is funny because this is like, the second time I’ve gotten to talk to you in this way on one of these live things, and the last time you mentioned that because I was born during a solar eclipse that the eclipses might be more significant as far as events in my life go. So I started kind of researching what was going on in my life during the time of different eclipses, and it was in the summer of 2018, my son was almost a year old and my anxiety had gotten to the point where I just couldn’t manage it anymore. So I sought medical help for that, and —

CB: And the anxiety arose – was it like, postpartum depression thing, or what did the anxiety arise from?

M: A lot of childhood trauma, but I think was really, like, the stressor that really exacerbated it was my living situation had completely changed. We’d moved into a new house; there were elderly members of our family that we had to take care of and move to assisted living. And my own personal health like, I was no longer able to work outside the home kind of thing. So a lot of physical restrictions. And then my son being born – like, everything just kind of happened all at once, and yeah. I was like, something’s gotta be done about this, because I’m Cancer rising, and what I told the psychiatrist was, “I just want to be able to go to the grocery store,” because the way the anxiety affected me, I just wanted to like, crawl in a hole. Like, I remember sometimes just when I was trying to get dressed just sitting in the closet and like, hiding from the whole world. So I was like, in my little crabshell just to get away from everything.

CB: Yeah. So it’s a whole like, process over a few year period – that’s a really common experience also with eclipses just because the nodes take like, a year and a half or so to move through each of those signs. And every six months during that period for at least a year and a half or two years, you just have the eclipses bouncing back and forth between those signs and —

M: Right.

CB: — activating some of that stuff. So Saturn also would have been going through your 7th house of relationships, and that’s also where eclipses would have been happening if we’re talking about – what was the time frame you said again?

M: It was summer of 2018. My son was born in 2017, so he was almost a year old when I got to the point where I just couldn’t, I got tired of living like that I guess you could say.

CB: Right. Yeah.

M: At first, my reason for doing it was my family deserves better than this, but as I’ve gone through the process, I’ve discovered that I deserve better than this. So I thought like, the whole first/7th house thing was hitting pretty hard on that one.

CB: Right. And so – I mean, that’s a common experience as well in terms of sometimes this feeling of like, teeter-tottering back and forth between sometimes like, emphasizing other people more or feeling like you need to versus emphasizing yourself more and putting yourself and your own needs forward more. So it sounds like you were experiencing some of that as well.

M: Yeah, definitely. It’s crazy, because that was pretty much the whole like, the root of the anxiety, like the childhood trauma, really had to do with my mother and feeling like I didn’t deserve to exist and take up space in the world. And then like, the ruler of my first house is in the 5th house in Scorpio, so there was a lot of mom issues going on that I had to heal. And it was, yeah. But that eclipse is I think kind of what triggered it maybe, astrologically speaking.

CB: Yeah. Do you feel like you emerged from that set of eclipses in Cancer and Capricorn with a greater sense of yourself and like, who you are and what you need in life?

M: Oh, absolutely. And now everything – my Chiron is in Gemini, so now like, everything is going over my Chiron in my 12th house, and it’s kind of coming back into Cancer now, all the outer planets and stuff. And about a month or so ago is when I was able to stop taking my anxiety medicine, which was like, a huge deal for me. My shrink said that she thought in like, her professional opinion, you know, that I had worked through things that I needed to work through and she thought I would be okay without it. And it’s just weird when you look at like, your own transits and how the planets are moving, and you can kind of see the cycles of everything, and it’s just so fascinating.

CB: Yeah, for sure. And just seeing sometimes good transits and being able to sometimes measure one’s progress that you’ve made over the years. I feel like that can be really helpful having that perspective.

M: Yeah. When you see it in retrospect, it’s like, wow!

CB: Right. Totally. All right. Well, that’s a really good example. Thanks for sharing that; I think that helped us like, clarify what that can be like in terms of eclipses and just sometimes gaining a better sense of yourself and who you are. But it being part of a process sometimes of revisiting that over and over again rather than it just being like, a one-time event.

M: Definitely.

CB: Cool. All right. Thank you!

M: Yeah, thank you!

CB: Okay. So Lindsey has one with Leo rising. That could be a good one. Are you still here, Lindsey R, with Leo rising with the Sun, Mercury, and Venus?

All right. Hey.

LINDSEY R: Hi.

CB: All right. What’s your birth data?

LR: August 10th, 1987.

CB: And your Ascendant is 23 Leo?

LR: Yes.

CB: All right. So for those listening to the audio version, we have a chart with 23 Leo rising, Mars is conjunct the Ascendant at 22 Leo, the Sun is in Leo at 17, and Venus at 13 and Mercury at seven degrees of Leo. What else? Okay. And then yeah – so what did you say happened again?

LR: When I was in high school, my house burned down when Uranus was close to my Descendant and opposite my Mars. And then around that same time like, a few months later, I met my partner who I’m still together with today, and it’s been like, 20 years. So it was like, a good and a bad thing that happened.

CB: And you were also in a first house profection year?

LR: No, not at that time. I am in one right now.

CB: Okay. Got it. That’s a really good example, because this is like, a interesting combination that comes up where Mars is the ruler of your 4th house of your home and living situation, and it’s in the first house. And then it was like, the activation of that partially which where you had this negative experience of having your house burn down. What caused the fire?

LR: It was – I think a lot of houses burned. It was called the Cedar Fire. It was just like, a mass, like, a wildfire.

CB: How did it impact you? Oh wait – really quickly. So it was a wildfire, so that was the other thing is it just happened like, suddenly —

LR: Yeah.

CB: — and sort of quickly that your house and I’m guessing most of your possessions like, burned down?

LR: Yeah, we didn’t take anything with us because the area that I lived, like, there would be fires every year around October. So my mom was used to that warning, so she was like, “We’re not taking anything – let’s just go.” So we evacuated, but we didn’t take anything with us. So we lost like, everything, and —

CB: Did that cause any tensions with your mom because she was the one that said you shouldn’t take anything?

LR: Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I was in high school, so I was always mad at her, but it was annoying.

CB: Sure. Yeah. Right. And then so you left, and then everything burned down. And then did that affect – how did that affect you?

LR: It taught me… Like, I don’t care about material possessions at all anymore, but I lost – like, I wrote in the chat, I lost all of my photos and my home videos, and I think about that all the time. And so I started just taking pictures myself and like, really caring a lot about photography and memories, and I now have just started getting into photography as a career.

CB: Oh, that’s amazing. Okay.

LR: Yeah.

CB: Nice. That’s really interesting. I mean, I’m looking at like, the Mercury square Pluto at the same time and wondering if that’s relevant just that you had that experience of having… Because I’ve been reflecting recently on the 4th house as having to do with the past, which isn’t talked about a lot in traditional significations, but it’s a pretty common modern signification. And just sometimes when 4th house transits happen that there’s something about the past that becomes the greater focus. But in your instance, it’s like, you in that case – you literally in one swoop sort of had your past annihilated in some sense by having your photos and videos wiped out. But then that’s caused you to think about that direction more and to like, actually start working on that as a potential career.

LR: And I think the south node was in Scorpio at the time, too, so the eclipses were happening there.

CB: Oh wow. Yeah, so eclipses were happening in your 4th house, but then that means eclipses also would have been happening in your 10th house at the same time. So it may have laid the seeds for like, a future career and been both an ending but also a potential beginning.

LR: Yeah.

CB: That’s super cool. And then so how long after that did you say you met your partner?

LR: A few months after. Well, I knew him, but we didn’t get together until – that was October, and then we got together in December, so it was like, three months later.

CB: Yeah, that’s really close. So and that was kind of like, unexpected, because were you like, anticipating like, getting in a relationship after that like —

LR: No, not really.

CB: — traumatic experience?

LR: We were kind of talking; like, we were friends for a while. And so I think that was kind of happening at the same time. But I wasn’t really expecting like, to enter a really long relationship. That was not on my mind at all.

CB: Right. And then so it ended up being, much to your surprise, because you probably also didn’t think it would last for very long —

LR: No.

CB: So there was something surprising about just the fact that it turned into this enduring thing in the first place?

LR: Yeah, I’m still surprised.

CB: That’s funny. Well, it’s interesting also because you kind of have a Uranus signature in your chart with Saturn – Aquarius on the 7th house and Saturn is ruling the 7th house of relationships, and it’s in Sagittarius in the 5th house conjunct Uranus. So it’s like, both of those themes of both like, Saturn and things that are enduring, but also Uranus and things that are unexpected or sort of come out of nowhere as like, part of the signature for you of relationships.

LR: Yeah.

CB: Nice. That’s a great example. One last thing – it’s like, Mars is also ruling your 9th house, and so in other examples where I’ve had like, I’ve had a few examples of like, one was like, a client where they had Mars in the first house in a day chart, and ruling the 4th house and the 9th house. And it was like, they grew up in a religious household where their father was really religious and it connected those themes of 4th and 9th house, but then it was experienced as being very negative for the native with Mars in the first. But for you, because you have Jupiter there in the 9th, that’s like, offsetting, I would think, some of the negativeness of Mars or potential downsides of Mars ruling the 9th house. How has that worked out for you, or has the 9th house component come into play at all?

LR: Yeah. It’s been good and bad, but it’s definitely much better than my 4th house. My 9th house – so I grew up in Utah, which is heavily Mormon, and we were not Mormon, so I didn’t get invited to a lot of the stuff that, you know, people would do because of my religion. And then I went to a private Christian school, but I wasn’t Christian either, so I didn’t fit in there. And then my mom, she would go to like, an ashram in India, so I spent a lot of time there, which was positive. And then I just, I travel a lot, and I had a travel blog for a while. I like the 9th house.

CB: That’s incredible.

LR: Yeah.

CB: So that’s interesting though that it’s like, on the one hand, you experienced negative things because of where you lived in a highly religious area, but you weren’t off that religion. But you were sort of like, ostracized in a way or, you know, and more of an outsider than you would have been otherwise. But then your mom went to an ashram, but they had you go to a Christian school?

LR: Yeah. And I just went there because my friend was going there and I didn’t wanna be separated from her, so she let me.

CB: Okay. That’s funny. And then your mom going to an ashram in India – does that mean she had more like, alternative spirituality?

LR: Like, more eastern beliefs. And we went to like, it was kind of like Sunday school, but every week they taught us about a different religion, so we just learned about all of them. She was just really like, open-minded and wanted us to learn everything.

CB: Wow. That’s wild. That’s really cool, because in this instance, it’s like, it’s not the parents necessarily that are causing problems, and it’s interesting that with Jupiter at 29 degrees of Aries in the 9th house that it’s trining that Mars and that Ascendant, which is interesting because it’s both mitigating but it’s also protecting them and offsetting like, some of the things that could be negative. So maybe that’s partially interesting just in terms of for example that, you know, you did escape from the fire and it didn’t turn into like, a life-threatening event or something like that, or you have had some of those experiences of challenging things involving either where you lived or religion, but that that’s also been a great area of positive things for you at the same time.

LR: Definitely. Yeah. A lot of growth and just experiences and stuff.

CB: Yeah. That’s amazing. Are there any other ways that your like, first house or first house stellium or like, transits through your first house have manifested in your life that are worth mentioning?

LR: I mean, it’s kind of like, my appearance has been like, the bane of my existence. So I feel like that’s, you know, related. I just have like, major body image issues, major like, self-esteem issues to the point where I think I might need therapy.

CB: So is that something you’ve always struggled with or is it something —

LR: Yeah, always.

CB: Okay. So like, struggling with body image issues and just – is it something that you’ve gotten help for in the past, or is it something you just think you might need to?

LR: I have gotten like, a little bit of help for it, but yeah. It just feels like, really overwhelming a lot of the time.

CB: Okay. Yeah. I mean, that can definitely be a thing with some of the first house placements is just struggling with that a little bit or yeah. But it’s nice that you have, offsetting positive placements there at the same time, so —

LR: Yeah.

CB: — even if you have that challenging placement there with Mars that having Venus there and having Jupiter overcoming that and potentially having a way to deal with that and like, make it not as bad or not seem as bad as you might feel like it is at different points in time.

LR: Yeah, I think so.

CB: Yeah. Cool. All right. That was a really actually amazing example. Thank you for sharing that.

LR: Yeah. Thank you.

CB: All right. That was great.

All right let me check the comments. Everyone’s pointing out that Lindsey’s gorgeous, so that’s, you know, good to hear sometimes and sometimes I think that’s something that people sometimes with, when you have challenging things related to the first house can struggle with is sometimes like, what if everyone else thinks that you’re great, but what if you struggle with feeling like you’re not or something like that and how to rectify that, and sometimes that our… I think it brings up a point – actually, that brings up a great point with the first house that sometimes our perceptions of things can be skewed and can be off, and that’s actually one of the challenging things when you are working on the first house especially is sometimes our own perceptions of our life are always informed by our own subjective experience. So sometimes if there’s somebody that’s standing outside of our life looking in, they may have a much different perception of our life from an objective standpoint than we do in terms of our subjective experience. And sometimes that’s really important to take into account, and that’s something actually that’s really helpful with astrology is that it does give you a way of like, standing outside of things and looking at our lives objectively, but sometimes what we see is so different than how we’re used to conceptualizing our lives that sometimes we can struggle to like, reconcile those two things. But I think it can be really actually helpful for that reason.

Okay. I’m just trying to look and see if there’s ones that might present a different aspect of the first house that we haven’t covered so far or ones that jog my memory of things that I meant to cover. Yeah, that’s a good one. So Genie says, “I have Saturn conjunct the Ascendant in the first house in Sagittarius. As soon as Saturn went retrograde last year, I broke two teeth, and I was in a 2nd house Saturn-ruled year. Planets at the Ascendant can show up in the physical body when something is happening to the houses ruled by the planet in the first.” Yeah, that’s a really great point. And yeah, things related to the bones or to teeth are really common Saturn things when they’re connected to the first house.

I don’t know if Kristen is still here with Aquarius rising, first house profection year was 2020, health issues. I’m not sure if that was the one – there was one where somebody submitted that they got covid, and they got like, long covid in that year with early Aquarius rising, but I don’t know if you’re the same person. It is? Okay. I think that would be interesting to go through just as another type of Saturn one, if you wanna join me on camera.

Hey.

KRISTEN: Hi.

CB: Thanks for joining me.

K: Thank you for having me.

CB: All right. What’s your birth data?

K: It is January 12th, 1984.

CB: All right. Two Aquarius rising?

K: Yep.

CB: All right. So for those listening to the audio version, you have two Aquarius rising, and the ruler of the Ascendant is Saturn, which is at 14 degrees of Scorpio in the 10th whole sign house, and it’s conjunct Pluto at one Scorpio and Mars at zero Scorpio. So what was your example again?

K: Yeah. So well, there are a lot of things that happened. Basically during that whole year really – and it was a first house profection year, basically, through the whole of 2020, and I mean, I had a number of health issues. The beginning of the year, it started with my stomach just kind of shutting down completely. I ended up with gastroparesis and ended up losing 30 pounds because I couldn’t eat anything. I had to go to the emergency room because I couldn’t drink anything either for days.

CB: Wow.

K: It was like, months of that. And then I – yeah, March, I had got covid, and then that turned into long covid. And it ended up, it like, wasn’t super bad, and then it started to get better, and then all of a sudden, it got way worse to the point where I like, literally thought that I was gonna die a few times because I had collapsed multiple times like, gasping for air and I couldn’t breathe, and there was a point I was gonna call 911, and then I passed out so. I didn’t have insurance at the time, so I just kept putting it off and putting it off like, “I don’t want that bill.” And then yeah, it turned into long covid, and then I’ve just kept having multiple issues. It took a good year before I started to kind of get back to normal, and there were just loads of issues. And then, like I —

CB: So what were your symptoms for long covid for those that aren’t familiar with that?

K: A lot of fatigue. I mean, part of it was fatigue, like extreme fatigue. Like, I just couldn’t get up; I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t do anything. I had no energy. Like, I would try to take my trash can out to the street, and then it would take me like, days or weeks to get it back in, you know, because I just, I couldn’t. Like, I couldn’t get up out of bed. I spent two months just pretty much in the bed. I was thankfully working from home, but it’s just, you know, I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t get out of bed; I couldn’t do anything. And then —

CB: Yeah.

K: — I couldn’t breathe. Sorry, my dog is in the trash. And I couldn’t breathe at all. I was just kind of like, constantly still for like, months gasping for air. Trying to remember – I had a lot of nosebleeds; I had a lot of issues with my heart. I had – trying to even remember – and I’m distracted by my dogs, I’m sorry.

CB: Yeah, so it turned into like, a long chronic issue with Saturn like, going through your first house and you know, I have Aquarius rising and I also got sick in March of 2020, so I had a lot of really similar things with long covid. But one of the things you’re describing I think that’s hard to convey to people that was so interesting symbolically just to stand outside of it as an astrologer is how the feelings of like, slowness and tiredness and like, not having the physical energy to do anything and being almost immobilized as a result of that is very evocative of Saturn going through the first house of body. And then all of a sudden being restricted in what you’re able to do for extended, for very long periods of time and having to readjust your sense of self and who you are and what you can accomplish based on these new sets of limitations.

K: Yeah, and it was a big difference from – because I had like, just regained – because I have a ton of health issues in general. And I had kind of gotten myself to a place where I was doing so much better, and then covid kind of knocked me down and took all that away, and I was like, “No!” So it was, you know, that was definitely a thing, and there were so many issues with that and just, you know, it just lasted and lasted, and it was ever-evolving. You know, and then kind of also another thing that had happened during that year is my husband and I had separated right at the beginning of that year, and I was living by myself for like, the first time ever. I’ve always lived with somebody, and so it was weird. It was, you know, it was just me. And there was this kind of chance of figuring out like, who am I, and what do I like, and what do I wanna do? And just, you know, a lot of self-discovery, and that was something that I never really truly got to do before because there has always been everybody else around me and focusing on everybody else and doing for others, and so it was like, first time of being able to just kind of focus on myself.

CB: It’s amazing. So there’s a real sense of on the one hand, like, being on your own for the first time, so a sense probably on some days of like, loneliness or isolation compared to what came before. But then also through that loneliness and isolation, also a period of like, finding yourself at the same time.

K: Yeah. And definitely a lot of periods of ups and downs, and you know, I know there was… And my Sun is a 21 Capricorn, so like, there was that whole mess of like, Jupiter and Pluto were pretty much exact, really close to my Sun. Saturn had just entered Aquarius really close to my Ascendant, and then Mars was kind of like, right between my Sun and Ascendant and just going through that whole area, and then that was squaring like, Mars-Pluto, my Moon, all that. Fun times.

CB: Yeah. So you really got hit by especially the early part of Saturn in Aquarius when it was right on your Ascendant, because then it was like, it immediately squared your Mars-Pluto conjunction, and it immediately squared your Moon at the beginning of Taurus at five Taurus. And then even once you got past that, then, you went into your Saturn square where it was squaring —

K: Yeah.

CB: — Saturn, the ruler of the Ascendant, at 14 Scorpio. And that’s a good example also that sometimes if people have like, the degree of the Ascendant early in the sign, sometimes the most intense part comes like, right at the beginning of the transit of a planet through the first house, whereas there’s other examples where if the Ascendant was at the very end of the sign, sometimes even though the events and circumstances surrounding the first house transit begin as soon as the ingress into the rising sign takes place, that the most intense part for those people doesn’t come until like, later. Like, the end. But it’s interesting for you that it was just right at the beginning.

K: Yeah. It hit really hard, and it kind of, you know, it stayed, but I mean, eventually it got better, so.

CB: Do you feel like after Saturn departed from Aquarius like, it’s been going through Pisces over the past year – was there, even though it’s still ongoing, was there a lessening or an ability to manage some of the chronic health issues more, or where are you at with all that?

K: Yeah. I mean, they’ve improved. They’ve definitely improved. Like, a lot of the covid stuff is – I mean, there’s still some things like, have never really fully gotten better, but it is better than it was. Some of the health stuff is better, my issues with my stomach are still there but way better managed. And then I also have POTS, which covid has worsened, and that got to be – like, my heart was just, you know, every time I try to get up, I would pretty much almost pass out. That’s better controlled now. You know, a lot of that stuff is much better managed. It’s still kind of there, but like, better managed. And then, you know, as far as the relationship stuff, that had also kind of followed that same sort of seeing it evolving throughout that, and then it went into my 2nd house, and that’s been a whole thing, so. Yeah.

CB: Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, I appreciate seeing your chart because you’re born like, a year before me, but you have such a similar chart and it’s interesting to have two people with similar charts have very similar experiences during that period. So even though it’s not positive in terms of examples, obviously, for either of us, it’s at least nice to see. It’s good to see other people who had similar experiences with similar transits so that you can kind of like, resonate with that.

K: Yeah, it definitely is. There’s something nice about that.

CB: Yeah.

K: For sure. Like Arin, I was mentioning the Mars-Pluto; I was like, I can appreciate this.

CB: Yeah. And I think that’s really important and that’s one of the reasons I like doing this series is just so different people can see people with similar placements as them and how sometimes you have that resonance of experiencing similar things and sometimes that just being almost like, therapeutic in a way to some extent.

K: Yes, therapeutic. That is the perfect word. Yeah, there’s something nice about that, about being able to kind of share that. Knowing that you’re not alone, right? And it’s like, somebody gets you. Somebody can kind of resonate with what you’re going through, and nobody’s really ever alone even though sometimes it feels like that. We’ve all got somebody. We all have people.

CB: Yeah. So the last thing is just as Saturn went through your first house, one of the things I experienced and I don’t know maybe you had this experience, but having to focus on your health so much and to try to make improvements any way you could. And also learning different things about your body and learning about how to react to different things maybe more than you had up to that point so that it’s not, you’re not loving that you’re having to do that, but that there is like, this process of at least learning different things to try to manage or make things better. Do you feel like you went through that over that like, three-year period of Saturn through your first house?

K: Yes, definitely. You know, and partly with, you know, my heart and my lungs not doing as well and trying to figure out like, what are my limits? And how can I take better care of myself? And you know, what do I need? And same with my stomach and what foods are safe and what’s not? And a lot of experimenting and testing things out and trying to learn about, you know, what’s good or not, or what works or doesn’t, and a lot of just, like I said, testing everything and seeing how does my body feel? How do I feel? How do I react to that? Oh, and yeah, you know, another thing I just thought about is during that period too was really also another thing as far as self and appearance goes, because I think that was the first time that I’ve noticed that like, I really was starting to show my age, which was not fun. You know, because everybody’s always been like, “Oh, you look like you’re 20!” And they’re surprised that I have kids and especially kids that are as old as they are, and so I think it was during that period where like – and I think it was because my stomach issues and like, I was not getting anything that I needed, and I think all the stress of everything kind of aged me a little bit, and you know, malnutrition and whatnot. So that was a little bit of, you know, not a fun kind of moment. And I had —

CB: Yeah.

K: — during covid, like, I lost – my hair thinned out a lot from that, and that was really hard too, since those were two other things related to the self. But yeah, there was a lot of just kind of testing things and figuring out, you know, my body and what worked or what didn’t and how to live with the new me.

CB: Yeah.

K: So yeah.

CB: Age is definitely a big one; I’m glad you mentioned that, because during Saturn transits, the concept of our age can like, come up and the concept of time and getting older or hitting certain landmarks, and especially when it’s going through your first house sometimes it can be experiences where it feels like it’s aged you many years, like, very rapidly during the course of that transit —

K: Yeah.

CB: — or other times sometimes beginning to show the effects of age or other things like that. I always mention on like, the podcast as one of my like, funny Saturn return transits with Saturn ruling my Ascendant that when Saturn conjoined itself that I lost my hair, and that was part of my like, first house transformation was going from a period in my life where I had hair to going from a period where I didn’t, and that being a real change for me in terms of my appearance and other things. But also, it was part of like, age as well and like, hitting different ages when you’re body’s like, doing different things. So that’s a great one; I’m glad you mentioned that.

K: Yeah. Definitely. It’s definitely a big one, so.

CB: Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, thank you so much for sharing that, and thanks – I hope you are able to, I hope for, you know, all of our sakes, that it is something that gets better or they’re able to find some way to like, fix in the long term or at least improve in some ways, but I guess we’ll see what happens.

K: Thank you. You too. Appreciate you.

CB: Yeah. All right.

Alright, so I’m back from break. So we’ve covered so far mostly planets in the first house, we’ve covered transits through the first house. The last section that we haven’t covered much at all yet is the ruler of the Ascendant being placed in different houses of the chart. And this is actually really crucial, because the ruler of the Ascendant – the first house in ancient astrology was referred to as “the helm,” like the steering wheel of a ship, and the ruler of the Ascendant then was sometimes said to be the steersman of the ship and would direct the life towards a certain direction or towards certain topics. So one of the things that you wanna do when you’re looking at the first house is you also wanna look and see what planet is the planet that rules the sign of the Ascendant and then what house it’s placed in in the chart. And the ruler of Ascendant, whatever house that is that the ruler of the Ascendant is placed in, usually the topic associated with that house or some of the topics associated with it will become particularly important or prominent in the life of the native in some way. And sometimes the native’s life is actually steered towards those topics in some very striking or distinctive way.

So one of the people, one person actually submitted an example of this – an astrologer named Margaret Cahill. So Margaret has Libra rising and the ruler of the Ascendant is Venus, which is placed in Gemini in the 9th whole sign house. And Margaret actually became a publisher of astrology books; she’s actually the founder of Wessex Publishing or Wessex Books, which is basically one of the main publishing houses for astrology books today that’s published a lot of really important and prominent astrological titles. Just last month, the book on Morinus or on Morin de Villefranche that I did an interview on was published by Wessex. So this is a great example of somebody whose career and life direction has been very much focused on 9th house topics, since the 9th house is the primary house that has to do with publishing and astrology. And if you ever publish a book or if you ever write a book or do anything related to that, you’ll often see the 9th house get activated when you publish a book or something related to it or write a book. So I thought this was a great example because it’s one of the just examples of what happens when the ruler of the Ascendant is in a specific house in the chart that you really have to pay extra attention to that placement because it will dictate some major themes or major topics that the life will be directed towards in some significant way.

So the ruler of the Ascendant’s also important because sometimes the ruler of the Ascendant represents you in the chart, and it represents what you’re doing in your life and how you’re showing up in your life. And sometimes that can be positive, and other times that can be more challenging. So in some of the recent webinars like this that we’ve done, we’ve seen some different placements of the ruler of the Ascendant, and I did a whole webinar on it for students of my Hellenistic astrology course last month where we went through each of the houses and different people shared their story of the ruler of the Ascendant in a certain house. And in some instances, we could see how the ruler of the Ascendant in one house was, when well-placed or when it was benefics, that the native was doing good things in that area or they were somehow good things were happening, were arising in that area of the life as a result of the native, sometimes naturally or indirectly, but other times directly as a result of something the native was actually bringing about. That can also happen, though, sometimes with challenging things. Like, sometimes if the ruler of the Ascendant is placed in a challenging way in the chart, it means that there can be challenges that arise as a result of actions that we take that bring about issues in our life, or where there can just be difficulties that arise sometimes that come from within us in the life. And sometimes that’s really described by the ruler of the Ascendant and its placement.

So given that example, does anybody have a good ruler – like, this is a topic that really requires a whole episode on its own. But maybe we can run through in the last little bit of this if anybody has a good example that just matches very quickly and very obviously the house topic. Let me just read through some of these right now.

So Ebru says, “Ruler of the Ascendant in the 7th – my life story is relationships.” That’s really good.

Jennifer says, “Aquarius rising, ruler in the 5th. Life revolves around finding my true purpose and joy and being a good mother.” So yeah, having raising your children as a major focus and topic of the life if the ruler of the Ascendant’s in the 5th can definitely be one. There’s a famous – I always use the example in my Hellenistic course, I think I used it in my book as well, of a famous children’s book author, Judy Blume, who has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 5th house. And she started writing books for her children but then eventually ended up like, writing children’s books and becoming an award-winning author of children’s books became part of her destiny.

Elizabeth says, “The Mercury, the ruler of the Ascendant, in the whole sign 11th and the importance of groups in my life.” Yeah. Groups, alliances, friends can be a major topics with the ruler of the Ascendant in the 11th.

Haley says, “Pisces rising, artist, and ruler of the 6th house in Virgo and perfectionism with craftsmanship as a good and bad for me.” That’s a pretty good one.

Joe says, “I didn’t really relate to being an Aries rising, I think due to my Mars being in the 7th.” That’s actually a common thing that sometimes when the ruler of the Ascendant is in the 7th house, because then it’ll take on the qualities of the sign that’s opposite to the rising sign and is antithetical to it. Sometimes they won’t relate to the rising sign significations as much, I’ve noticed. There can be different ways that that can manifest in the chart. But that’s definitely a possibility.

Donata says, “Virgo rising. Ruler in the 8th. Venus in the 8th. Have been swindled out of a few inheritances, but still okay money-wise.” That would be kind of an interesting one. Do you feel like sharing that on video?

DONATA: Okay.

CB: Hey, thanks for joining me.

D: Nice to meet you, Chris. Followed you for a long time – love ya!

CB: Thank you. What’s your birth data?

D: March 21, 1956.

CB: Is your Ascendant 28 Virgo?

D: Yes.

CB: Yes, okay.

D: 28 and change, yes.

CB: Got it. All right. Wait, but hold on a second. I thought…

D: So isn’t my… Ruler of my – did I get that wrong?

CB: Yeah, we’re looking for the ruler of the Ascendant in a specific house, but it looks like the ruler of your Ascendant would be in the 7th house.

D: What’s the ruler of my Ascendant?

CB: Mercury. Mercury in Pisces, right?

D: Oh! Yes. Sorry.

CB: That’s okay.

D: Yes, yes. I’m sorry; I messed that up.

CB: That’s okay. Well, I guess, quick question then is just with the ruler of the Ascendant in the 7th house, we would think that your life would have been directed towards relationships in some way or that relationships would have been more important in your life for some specific reason. Is that true? And if so, in what way?

D: Yes. I actually had entered in the chat that I am currently finally legally ending a 52-year relationship with my spouse that started in high school at 16. And it only happened after my dear beloved in-laws passed away in 2022 and then 2023, and then in 2024, there was just an inner shift. So we’ve been separated, haven’t done anything about it, and you know, and I haven’t wanted to, but I was just feeling like I was moving toward it but I wasn’t quite ready. I haven’t been ready for like, 12 years, so it was a long time. And then something shifted this year where I think it had to do with my relationships with my in-laws, you know, their not being here. And something shifted, and I’m not ready to like, assume – I think I said that going from servant and power behind the throne kind of deal and now I’m shifting into Aries and being seen. Because look at me – I’ve never been on – when you said “video,” my first thing is like, “Oh crap.” And then, you know, then I was like, “No, no, no – I wanna be seen!” So this is like, a perfect example of this shift; it’s crazy.

CB: Yeah, this is actually really striking because, you know, of course Saturn entered Pisces a year ago in early 2023, so Saturn would have gone into your 7th house of relationships and then started conjoining the ruler of your Ascendant, which is Mercury, there. And so all of a sudden, yeah, you’ve started moving towards that and feeling like you’re ready to do that and to end that relationship. And you said it had been for 56 years up to that point?

D: Yeah, we’re in our 56th year, yeah, of partnership. You know, boyfriend-girlfriend, and then live-in whatevers, and then I didn’t marry until I became pregnant in ‘92. So being married, it’s been what? I mean, legally married. It’s been, you know, 30 some years, 32 years. So it’s been a very – it’s been a long thing. But since I would say 2009, 2010 is when it was like, “Okay, this is not okay anymore. It’s not nurturing me. I’m giving 120 million percent, and I’m not getting enough back.” Finally. I’m a long-suffering good Virgo in that way. So and what do you call it? Hiding my light? You know, I have the Leo and the Aries hiding that and just working behind the scenes and shining the light on everyone else, and so about 2008, 2009, 2010, I was like, kind of feeling the handwriting that was on the wall, but I’m just not a, you know, I’m not a quick “See you later” kind of person. I had my daughter. So you know, but then once she went off to college in 2010, I was like, “Okay, this is new.” But again, what is it? That’s 14 years later.

CB: Yeah, well, 2009 would have been Saturn going through Virgo. So it’s like, some of that stuff was coming up when Saturn was going through your first house. But then yeah, it’s really – and even like, the first few years of your marriage would have been in the mid-90s would have been Saturn going through Pisces the first time, and now you’ve gone through a full Saturn cycle and it’s come back. It seems like it’s tied in with that, just because you have Saturn in Sagittarius in the 4th house. So it’s like, every time Saturn goes through one of the mutable signs, it’s also your Saturn square or Saturn opposition or conjunction, so it’s like these cycles of relationships are very much tied in with your Saturn transits at the same time.

D: Oh, I can see that for sure. And it’s also interesting possibly being one of the older people that you actually, you know, when you mention long cycles, you know, I say, “Oh, I’ve actually experienced that.” Because I think the Aries part of me forgets my chronological age a lot.

CB: Right. Yeah. Aries I think – Rick Levine said that Aries are like, the forever young sign in some ways.

D: Yeah. And also the health thing – I’ve always been very healthy, which works out because I’m usually nursing and bringing back people from near death, you know, with my strengths, so it kind of has worked out. Or sharing my energy, you know, to help people heal. I just did that naturally, and then finally, you know, getting feedback from people and animals, too. I’m really good at that. I never recognized that, because I never paid attention until you finally start listening to feedback from people as you get older and you’re like, “oh, I think like, 50,000 people have told me that. Maybe I need to listen to it!”

CB: Do you work in nursing?

D: No, I don’t. I’ve done teaching, and I work with teenagers and children. I think I’m good at teaching; I’m good at nurturing. You know, I’m good at teaching people to fish, you know. I’ll give them a fish, but just sort of giving them the tools, young people, because I just I think my Mercury in Pisces, it gives me a lot of intuitive insight into people pretty quickly so I can figure them out and be really very helpful. So I’ve made sure I’ve had real impact on, again, the feedback on the various young people later in life. And I love that, and I’m actually getting back into that. You know, went into making a living, and now that I have more time, I’m actually getting back into making books a birthright – a project where, you know, it’s babies and books. I love books. And I love little kids. So you know, it’s like, it’s the thing that naturally energizes me. So I’ve been away from young people – well, I work at a university, so I’m around a lot of young people. But I’m now actually in my own time also gonna get back to just helping guide, you know, young people in their lives and just, you know, plant a little seed and off they go.

CB: Nice. So the last thing with the ruler of the Ascendant is just I’ve noticed that sometimes people with the ruler of the Ascendant in the 7th, they tend to find themselves and find their own identity during one period of their life through relationships, but sometimes they have a tendency to go too far so that their own identity becomes submerged within the relationship or submerged under the needs of like, the other. Subsumed under the needs of the other. But then it sounds like part of what you’re having to do is redefine that now, especially outside of the relationship, and find out sort of who you are and what you want.

D: Exactly. As I said, it’s like I said to myself, “Well, I must have come into this life with two fire signs because I must have needed the fire power.” Now I understand what that is. You know, my natural Virgo thing of I’ve definitely subsumed, and it was actually a survival strategy from childhood. You know, it worked for me. And I’ve just continued that. As I said, it’s like a power behind the throne thing. So in partnership, I helped them succeed in ways they probably couldn’t on their own, but I’m not in the spotlight, you know. So that’s definitely – and you know, when you meet somebody at 16 and you’re not legally, you know, divorcing them until 68 – yeah, I would say I was definitely subsumed. But as I said, I think my fire signs in this situation have saved me, you know. Maybe I’m just one of those seeds that’s, you know, germinating for whatever, 56 years, and now I’m gonna bud and bloom. And that’s why I don’t like chronological time, because it makes – you know, it’s like, well, that’s a heck of a long time compared to other people! But you know, I’m just going with it, because it feels better. I was out of balance, and now I’m trying to get to use all of my astrological benefits and recognize all of my astrological possibly imbalances. You know, it’s like, working with this is very empowering.

CB: Yeah. That’s incredible. I mean, it’s incredible to have that breakthrough and yeah, to enter into that new era of your life. That seems like a gift and like a really great moment of progress and like, stepping into and finding yourself.

D: Yes. And I definitely could have been a nurse, because I always had this feeling I would be one of the surgical nurses that would anticipate handing the doctor the instrument, you know, like, before they even knew they needed it. I always had that weird thing, you know, it’s like, I would hand the scalpel even before they needed it because I – again, this intuition. I can recognize patterns. It’s just a thing. So I could have gone into nursing, but I kind of did have that feeling. I didn’t go into special ed teaching; I realized I didn’t have the necessarily boundaries. I would have gotten burnout. You know, I would have taken my health, I think, to the edge. Intuitively, I said, “No, that’s way too much. I’ll just over-give to my family.” Then spreading that out could have been, you know, the death of me, really. So I thought about going that way, but something said no, that’s, you know, like, danger danger. And I think now I can look back and say, “Yeah, I would have burnt out. I didn’t have the boundaries.” You know, because the Virgo – I mean, I’ll help anybody. I still will. But now it’s just much more balanced. I mean, part of not getting legally divorced is letting my husband stay on my health plan. I mean, I think everybody should have a health plan. But you know, that’s just kind of a charitable thing you do for people that you had a long relationship with. It doesn’t fit into conventional a lot, but I think a lot of the unconventional is gonna become conventional because it’s just more charitable and kind.

CB: Yeah, that’s a really good – I think those are really good keywords for your chart especially with that Mercury in Pisces sextile Venus is just like, charitable and kind. Thanks for sharing this example; this was actually a surprisingly great example, so I’m glad you shared it.

D: Okay. I’m a little weirded out, but I’m very proud of myself. And I’m really happy to meet you in semi-person!

CB: Yeah! It’s nice to meet you as well. It’s nice to connect, you know, with somebody that’s listening to the podcast and to hear their story and to get a snapshot of their life like this, so thanks for sharing it with me.

D: You’re welcome. And I just wanna say, all the best to everyone listening.

CB: All right. Thank you.

D: Thanks.

CB: That was awesome. All right. So does anybody else have a good example like that, because that was a stunning example of just like, the ruler of the Ascendant in a specific house and how that topic has come up and been so important in the life, but also how sometimes depending on different transits at different points in the life, the focus can shift in different ways and sometimes move towards a specific topic or sometimes move away from it, but still having it sort of be dictated by the chart placements and the transits.

Let me glance and see if there’s any more ruler of the Ascendant in the houses placements that I missed. I’m not seeing any, and I know we’re getting to the end of this, so it might be sort of final thoughts and wrap-up time here.

All right. So that might require a whole other episode, and like I said, I have a module on this in my Hellenistic astrology course on the ruler of the Ascendant where I go into this in much more detail. So if people wanna learn more about the ruler of the Ascendant, they can go there, but generally speaking, just when the ruler of the Ascendant is in a specific house in the chart, there’s something distinctive and important about that house that’s gonna define something about the native’s overall life direction, but also sometimes it’s gonna define things about their identity, who they are, how they see themself, sometimes things about their physicality and their physical body, because basically all of the first house significations get wrapped up in the ruler of the Ascendant as well. And sometimes they get directed towards or focused on the specific area, including the sign placement, the house placement, and the aspects to the ruler of the Ascendant, which are all very important.

Alright. So I think that’s it. So this was great. Thank you everybody for sharing your examples and for joining me for this. This was a bit of an experiment, but I’ve been meaning to start this series on the houses for quite a while now. But I was having trouble figuring out how to start it with the first house, because the first house can sometimes be such an abstract house in terms of what it actually means in practice when you’re talking about significations like self or you or other things like that. But I think we were able to get to some very core things here by going through these different examples and hearing different people share their stories. So thanks to everybody who submitted a story, both online and especially thanks to everybody that joined me on video here to share their life story and talk about their charts in person; I really appreciate it.

So this is gonna be the beginning of a series, and I’m hoping in the long term to eventually have coverage of all 12 houses. So hopefully in the long term, we’ll do a whole series talking about each house and continuing to develop this kind of investigative model that we’re doing here by learning what the placements and what the houses mean by talking to people who have that house prominent in their chart in some way and hearing their real life stories of what that actually means and how that works out in practice. So that’s gonna be a long term series that we’re gonna be doing for quite a while now, and it’s gonna set up something that’ll probably take me months if not a year, but I think it’ll be worth it if the rest of the episodes are anything like this one in terms of the types of discussions and the quality of the discussions we can have by talking to people directly in person. And I think we’re all gonna learn a lot and get a lot out of it by approaching it in this sort of format and in this manner.

So yeah, so thanks everyone for watching. Thanks to all the patrons that joined me today; thanks for your support and helping me to do this work, because I think this is really valuable and really important. And I’m glad to be able to do it together with a group of people so that it’s like, a community project that we’re doing here like a research project together, and we’re sort of like, finding things and learning things as we go. So for those watching the public version of this in the future once I release it, if you’d like to join us for one of these livestreams, you just have to become a patron of The Astrology Podcast through my page on Patreon. And if you join the livestream tier, then you’ll get a notification the next time that I schedule one of these webinars, and you’ll have the ability to share your chart if you have a good example and join us through this livestream format or through this webinar format.

Other than that, if you wanna learn more about astrology and my approach to reading birth charts, then check out my Hellenistic astrology course, where I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts and where I have extensive lectures going through each of the houses, going through the concepts like the ruler of the Ascendant or the rulers of the houses as well as different lectures on assessing planetary condition so that you understand what a planet means in a chart and how it’s functioning.

So as we go through this series, we’ll see all of that in much more detail as we go through each example and we sort of apply these principles in practice. But if you’re just looking for a more worked out and sort of systemized sort of set of lessons to learn how I’m interpreting these birth charts when I do this on the fly, definitely check out that Hellenistic course at TheAstrologySchool.com.

All right. I think that’s it for this episode, so thanks everyone for watching or listening, and I’ll see you again next time.

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