The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 468, titled:
The Ruler of the 4th House in Astrology
With Chris Brennan and Nick Dagan Best
Episode originally released on November 26, 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 January 15th, 2025
Copyright © 2025 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey. My name is Chris Brennan, and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. Joining me today is astrologer Nick Dagan Best, and we’re gonna be looking at the ruler of the 4th house in each of the 12 houses as part two of two of our series on the 4th house in astrology. So hey Nick – thanks for joining me again today.
NICK DAGAN BEST: Hey Chris. Thanks for having me back! Can’t get enough —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — of the 4th house.
CB: Exactly. We are doing part two. We already did a legendary episode last time on the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house where we covered the lives of over 50 different chart examples showing different variations of how it works out when the ruler of the Ascendant’s in the 4th house and talking about the meaning of the 4th house. Now we’re gonna go even further into it by looking at what it means when the ruler of the 4th house is located in different houses of the chart, like the ruler of the 4th house of home and living situation in the 11th house of friends, or in the 9th house of travel, and different examples of how that works out.
So we have something in the range of certainly more than 50 example charts today that we’re gonna share of different variations of that where we’re gonna try to share at least a few, like, three to five example charts at least, of each house, each of the 12 houses. And then I’m gonna try something a little bit different today where I also sent out an open call for examples of submissions where I asked people where’s the ruler of the 4th house located in your chart, and what house is it located in, and how has that worked out in your life? And people sent in some very brief descriptions, and I took some of the best ones, and we’re gonna go through some of those during the course of this as well, which I think is really helpful and illuminating because it’ll help give us a lot of different perspectives on the placements and broaden things a bit. It’s also gonna help us balance out just people from different walks of life, it’s gonna help balance out the gender disparity that’s in the databases, and yeah, I think it’s gonna be a nice new addition to this series that I just came up with for this episode.
Why don’t we jump into it. Shall we?
NDB: Yeah, let’s do it.
CB: All right, cool. So one of the things I wanted to show off the bat just to orient ourselves – we don’t have to go through all of these, but – I did want to show just a image again to reacquaint ourselves with the significations of the houses for those watching the video version of this podcast just so you know what the basic significations of the houses are. So here’s our… From my poster that I put together a few years ago with Paula Belluomini, just the basic significations of each of the houses. And what we’re gonna see is that when the ruler of the 4th house is in one of the other 12 houses of the chart, it can show connections between 4th house topics such as home and family and living situation and private life with other parts of the chart and other parts of a person’s life.
So what this means is that even when the 4th house is empty in your chart, like if you don’t have any planets there, you still want to look at the ruler of the 4th house for information about how that part of your chart is working out. And this is a common question that I get in past episodes, which is if I don’t have any planets there, then does it mean it’s not important to me? And the answer is no, because you still have to look at what the ruler of the 4th house is doing, and that’s gonna show you some information and in some instances will make that house much more important than it may seem in the chart.
Additionally, even if you do have planets in the 4th house, then you still have to pay attention to the ruler of the 4th because that’s gonna show you how the 4th house is connected to other topics in the chart. So you can see my previous episode titled “The Rulers of the Houses in Astrology” for more information about this technique, but that’s just to give you sort of a brief overview of what we’re gonna be doing today.
NDB: Yeah. All right.
CB: All right. Cool. So let’s jump into it with our first house. So the first house we’re gonna talk about is literally the first house, which is the house of self, body, mind, character, and appearance. So we already did – you and I, Nick – did a whole episode on the first house at the very beginning of this series. And for the first example, I wanted to return to one of the examples that we used in our first house episode already, which is the birth chart of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has Cancer rising, and he has Venus… He has Libra on the 4th whole sign house, so the ruler of the 4th house is Venus, which is placed in Cancer in the first house conjunct his Ascendant. Additionally, the degree of the IC – the floating IC – is placed in Virgo in the 3rd house of communication, and it’s ruled by Mercury, which is also placed on the Ascendant. So it’s like, both of the planets sort of connected with the 4th house or the ruler of the 4th house or the IC are in his first house of self.
And one of the things we talked about in our previous episode is how one of the interesting things about Arnold is he just has this – he was born in Austria, but then he moved to the United States as a young man when he was doing bodybuilding. And then eventually after being successful as a bodybuilder, he made the transition into movies and became a famous movie star. But he always kept his really iconic Austrian voice, which he’s very famous for and is very distinctive. And that was very much wrapped up in his fame – his background of like, his accent from his country of origin. And this unique accent added to his onscreen persona and basically became part of his iconic image and his sense of self, which is the first house. And one of the things I think that’s interesting about that is at first when he was first getting into movies, he actually trained extensively to remove his accent and to try to improve his English because he recognized early on that he felt like his accent could be a barrier to achieving his acting ambitions in Hollywood. And he really trained at it just like he did with bodybuilding. However, as his career progressed, his accent became iconic. So essentially, he decided to keep it at a certain point or at least to not worry about it as much as he had earlier in his career. And I think that’s just a really fascinating thing just because we have both the ruler of the 4th house of home and origins and country and where you’re from in the first house of self and appearance and body and things like that, but also the degree of the IC itself is in the 3rd house of communication, and the ruler of that is also in the first house. So we’re seeing like, repeating indications here for similar themes.
NDB: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah. You know, the fact that it’s Venus pitching in there accounts for the fact that this seeming deficit, you know, became really an asset for him that, you know, really his accent is part of his appeal along with the way he looks and everything. So yeah, you would have thought it was a deficit, but somehow it sort of worked out in his favor.
The other thing, just very, very quickly – that Neptune in the 4th. This is a guy who became governor of California. And Neptune, of course, was discovered in 1846 just as the United States was winning a war against Mexico where they acquired all this territory, and I often associate Neptune first with the United States becoming this bicoastal and more sort of, you know, a nation that suddenly now had a huge Hispanic population and was not really this sort of little anglophone corner on one side of the ocean. And at that same time, Neptune was – as Neptune was discovered – Neptune to me also signifies the global community. In the 1840s, there were all these revolutions in 1848, and all these Europeans started moving to the continental United States, including people like Austrians. People who hadn’t been living in the United States up until that point. So there’s just something about – just a quick, you know, insight that Neptune in the 4th, the fact that this is an Austrian who someday is gonna be the governor of California. There’s something of that there in how it contributes to the 4th house and the fact that he’s got that Venus rising ruling it. It just has that extra bit of magic. That’s why he’s, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, let’s say.
CB: Yeah. I mean, it’s also with the ruler of the 4th in the first, sometimes the house becomes more important when you have like, the ruler there. And I think his living situation and his story of moving from Austria to the United States, becoming an American, and then rising up not just becoming like, a famous and iconic American/Austrian, but also becoming the governor of California and leading his home state at a certain point is another element of that just in terms of having the ruler of the 4th prominent in his chart and just 4th house matters becoming more prominent, which on its most basic level is just like, where you live.
NDB: Yeah. Exactly.
CB: All right. So let’s move onto our next example. Our next one is a different variation of something we talked about in the last episode especially where in the last episode, we talked about how when the ruler of a house – in the last instance, it was like, the ruler of the 3rd house of short-distance travel, when it’s in the first house, sometimes there’s things that are like, named after you. Like, your name or your family name can sometimes become associated with or become part of your brand or become like, an iconic brand in some sense since the first house is the house of self. And two of the examples were with the ruler of the 3rd in the first, there was Enzo Ferrari, where he was like, the founder of like, the Ferrari car company and his family name then became iconic in terms of being associated with that specific brand of cars and with just racing and fast cars in general. And he had the ruler of the 3rd in the first.
There was another example where of a ruler of the 3rd in the first, which was Maria Montessori, who Montessori schools are based on and named after and still flourish in different parts of the world today, also had the ruler of the 3rd in the first. And her name literally is like, associated with this type of schooling or type of schools that she created. So I was really interested; I found two more examples of that when it comes to the 4th house, which is more closely connected with 4th house topics, but especially the family.
So one of them is Donatella Versace, who helped to create basically the Versace fashion empire where her family name is central to the brand. And in her birth chart, she has Taurus rising, Leo is on the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is the Sun, which is at 10 degrees of Taurus conjunct the degree of the Ascendant at nine degrees of Taurus. So it’s a very prominent ruler of the 4th house. She also has Jupiter in a day chart, because I’m treating this as a day chart because she was born at Sunrise essentially —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — which yeah, for sure it’s a day chart. So she has Jupiter in a day chart at 23 degrees of Cancer in the sign of its exaltation and conjunct the degree of the IC and Uranus in the 3rd house of siblings. And of course, she famously helped to create and build the Versace fashion empire with her two brothers, especially her brother Gianni who was sort of the head of things, but also another brother that was heavily involved as well. And then after her brother Gianni was killed in 1997, she actually became a crucial figure in leading the company into the 21st century and making it what it is today essentially, which is fascinating because it ties back into some of the stuff with like, the rulers of the houses as well. Like, she has the ruler of the 3rd house of siblings in the 5th house of creativity and other things like that.
Also relevant – her mother, Francesca, was a dressmaker with her own – who was involved in that whole world as well, so that obviously like, influenced her daughter Donatella to a certain extent as well.
NDB: Yeah. No, that’s really interesting. What I remember about her chart is that the Sun was at 23 degrees Cancer on the day that her brother was murdered; that’s what I remember about that chart, which just to add to the whole, you know, story of it all. But yeah. That’s a fantastic example. You’re absolutely right. The way these names become brands and sort of, you know, bigger than the people themselves, the names take on this power.
CB: Yeah. Exactly. Like, the family name. So yeah, so that’s that example. Moving on – my next example, and I forgot to say we’re recording this on Saturday, November 9th, 2024. We started it looks like about 15 minutes ago. So we – our election today was with Pisces rising. So one of the other examples – and we’ve put together all the research for this last month, but now I’m just getting ready to finally recording it now, and we’ll probably release it in a few weeks after this.
So the next example that I found when I was doing this research that stood out to me when I searched my files for like, the ruler of the 4th house in the first house is the birth chart of Donald Trump.
So Trump of course was famously born with Leo rising, Scorpio is his 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is Mars, which is placed in the first house of self. And when I was thinking about this when it first came up in the my searches, I realized pretty much like, immediately how that made sense because, you know, his primary thing early on, he got his start as a real estate developer and a property tycoon as a result of his father and his father’s business in real estate, which he went into with his father. But what’s so funny about this example is that Trump was known – he’s known for naming buildings after himself. So he has like, the Trump Tower, he has the Trump hotels, he has Trump golf courses, Trump casinos. There’s many, many other things that he’s put his name on, but a lot of the core ones happen to be like, buildings and property things especially. There’s actually like, an entire Wikipedia page that’s titled “List of Things Named After Donald Trump.” So it’s like, this is, you know, a continuation essentially of the previous example that we found with the 3rd house stuff where people’s names become associated with that house that it’s touching in their chart when the ruler of that house is in the first. And this is just another example of that basically.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, it’s a pity it’s him and not Arnold Schwarzenegger has his name written down all these buildings. There would be, you know, more money in the sign letter business, I suppose, invested.
CB: That’s true. Somebody —
NDB: There you go.
CB: — did miss out on that in terms of the sign letter business.
NDB: Dropped the ball.
CB: Yeah. So and then like I said, it’s like, Trump got his start in real estate from his father, which is also connected with the 4th house and other things like that. So there’s family connections there as well and other stuff, but we’ll leave it at that for now.
Another example I wanted to share ties back into – originally when this was supposed to be in the same episode as the ruler of the Ascendant before we decided to just like, let the first house, the part one episode, breathe and like, go into those biographies in much more detail, this was gonna be one – Marlon Brando – to tie into the previous example that we did of Francis Ford Coppola who had the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house and he created The Godfather movie and is most known for that. I thought it was fascinating that the iconic character from that movie who played the Godfather himself, Marlon Brando the actor, he was born with Sagittarius rising, Pisces on the 4th whole sign house as well as the degree of the IC there, and the ruler Jupiter is in Sagittarius in the first house. And he just becomes known for and this becomes one of his most iconic roles, especially later in life, that he won his I think second Academy Award for was as being, of embodying, this character of the Godfather.
NDB: Yeah. Absolutely. It’s really spot on. I mean, it’s almost – yeah, he becomes a meme at that point. You know, the Godfather is just so, you know, to call him an icon is even just kind of understating it, so yeah.
CB: Right. So it’s like, arguably – we could argue about it, but – arguably, his most iconic role was The Godfather where he played the patriarch of the family, and I guess that’s all I wanted to show with that. So —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — those are our first house examples. So now I wanna shift and talk about some of the listener submissions, because it’s like, you know, I’ve been trying to pattern this series off of celebrities because then their lives are well-documented and what I say about them can be proven by just like, you know, looking up their Wikipedia page or reading biographies on them or what have you. And I like that in terms of grounding our research in something that’s provable, but it’s also good to talk to normal people about their lives as well, because sometimes that can give you a sense of the greater range of how things work out and different ways that these things can manifest.
So I put out a call on social media for submissions on like, Twitter, Facebook, as well as from patrons of The Astrology Podcast. I’m gonna read through and summarize a bunch of those real quickly that came in for this section for the ruler of the 4th in the first. I’m gonna leave out names for privacy reasons for each submission. I’m also gonna summarize, shorten, and merge some of the submissions. The point is just to get an idea of some different ways that it can manifest, and this is kind of an experimental addition to this series, but I think it was helpful. It also helps to balance out, like I said, the gender disparity because the majority of these submissions are from women. But it’ll be a mix of different people from different backgrounds, basically.
NDB: Yeah. Great idea. Let’s get to it!
CB: All right. So here we go. So first one – they said that they had, a listener who had the ruler of the 4th as Saturn in the first house. And they said, “I am the embodiment of my parents’ heritage, as my dad immigrated from Europe and my mother from Asia. The first thing people notice about me typically is my mixed appearance.” So I think that’s really striking just in terms of some of those themes we were talking about in the last episode of like, heritage, you know, your origins, sometimes your country of origin, but also your parents and sometimes their backgrounds. But having the ruler of the 4th house of parents and heritage in the first house of self but also appearance and having something distinctive about your appearance as a result of like, your family background or heritage I think is a really interesting delineation.
NDB: So you’re just, you’re reading off the messages, but we’re not looking at the charts or anything?
CB: Yeah, we’re just gonna read – I’m just gonna read them off, and you have to imagine the placement. But for this section, it’s all gonna be like, ruler of 4th in the first with some variations based on if they specified the planet or the sign or what have you. But just reading it because it’ll give us a bigger, it’ll broaden our expanding of the placement and then discussing it like, a little bit occasionally.
NDB: Okay.
CB: All right. So the next example is Mars ruling the 4th house placed in the first house by day, and also Pluto conjunct the IC in Scorpio. And they said, “My childhood was so stressful that I believe it triggered my autoimmune disease that may not have been triggered in a healthier environment. Also, I take my ancestry very seriously and have been probing it my entire life. It’s a little mysterious.” So I thought that was an interesting concept – there’s a delineation hidden there in terms of like, the 4th house and the parents, basically, and the early home life affecting the person’s health with the ruler of the 4th in the first, especially when it’s like, a challenging placement in this instance. And that makes sense.
NDB: Yeah. You can just imagine, you know, adolescence with that kind of placement. I think that bottom part of the chart and particularly the 4th house comes under a lot of its development during adolescence, you know, sort of make or break. And if the family life isn’t right, that really is, yeah. You can go in either direction at that point, I suppose.
CB: Right. But that’s a delineation like, maybe sometimes when the ruler of the 4th is connected with the first there may be a connection between parents and a person’s sense of health and either physical or like, mental health in some ways, which depending on the placements could be supportive or could be more challenging.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, I certainly think like, the 4th house is, you know, where we inherit our family’s baggage. Like, I mean, it’s the legacy as well, but yeah, in the same sense that say, you know, my grandfather’s experience in the second world war tormented him and then in turn he tormented my mother and she in turn tormented me, and it all comes, you know, it’s this sort of lineage of torment that gets passed down generation by generation. That is part of what is moved along in the 4th house is that kind of legacy along with everything else.
CB: Right. Or alternatively, sometimes people that have really strong family units that get passed down and when it’s like, really constructive and like, supportive in some way.
NDB: Exactly. Yeah, yeah – that whole spectrum, of course, yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. The next person that sent in an example, they said, “Exalted Saturn retrograde conjunct Jupiter retrograde in the first house ruling the 4th house.” They said, “I was born in Ohio, but I’m from Pittsburgh, and we’re just kind of built different when it comes to our hometown. I always say I’m a Yinzer first. The loyalty and love people from this city have for it is something special. My mom grew up here – tying in the Capricorn Moon and 4th house of mother’s home – home being a big part of my identity.” And I think that’s the core of why I thought that was a good example and why I pulled it out where they said, “Home being a core part of my identity,” and I think that’s really good for ruler of the 4th house in the first house. You know, because for some people, that’s not a thing. Like, their home or where they’re from is not like, a core part of their identity. For other people, like, it really is like, a core part of their identity or it’s like, some people have like, a favorite sports team that they’re like, super into, and that’s part of their identity. So thinking about things in terms of a placement in the first house or a ruler of a house being in the first being part of your identity I think makes a ton of sense.
NDB: Absolutely. That resonates with me; I’ve got the ruler of the 4th in the first, and yeah, that’s a statement that certainly applies to me.
CB: Nice. Okay. Yeah. So you are from – do you wanna talk about that just briefly?
NDB: Oh! Yeah, no – just you know, I’m from Montreal, and even though I don’t live there, I still think of myself as a Montrealer. Just, you know, a Montrealer at large, I suppose. But yeah, I do absolutely think of myself as being shaped by growing up in that particular place and identify with it very strongly.
CB: Nice. Okay. Here’s your chart.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Leo rising, Scorpio on the 4th whole sign house, and Mars in Leo in the first.
NDB: That’s me.
CB: Nice. All right. Next example. This listener has 4th house Taurus ruled by Venus, which is in the first house. And they said, “I moved around a lot and went to different schools up until the 3rd grade. I hated it and it was very painful to leave people I cared for behind. This is pre-social media days. As an adult, stability is important for me, and to provide stability to my kids. I lived in my first property for 10 years and only moved when we outgrew it. Have lived in the secondary property for 10 years and plan to stay. My first child only changed school when it was going to middle and then high school. My second had to change for educational reasons, but it was a very difficult choice.”
So with this example, I thought it was good because I realized one thing is that with Taurus 4th house, that means like, it’s Aquarius first house, and the ruler of the 4th is in the first in a fixed sign. So we’ve got an emphasis of like, fixed sign energy in terms of this person’s first house of identity and 4th house of home and living situation. But as a result of circumstances or whatever else was going on in the person’s chart or transits, they had to move around a lot. But as a fixed sign person, that was experienced as like, really jarring and really negative. And I think part of the core of what they’re saying here that carries over from the last one is probably that that was difficult in terms of the person’s identity as well as their like, physical or mental wellbeing moving around that much because as a person with heavy fixed sign emphasis, they feel more of like, a homeostasis or feel more grounded when they’re not moving around a lot. So I thought that was interesting for that reason.
NDB: Yeah. Yeah, that’s that again, that resonates. You know, I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone sort of knew each other, that was very sort of tight. There was a real community, and it all sort of scattered, you know, for a variety of reasons, largely political, but also just in the natural way that cities and neighboorhoods evolve. And that was deeply traumatic, you know. And again, I’m also sort of fixed in all that way, so yeah, that’s something that also really resonates. Except it wasn’t so much me moving around but the changes happening around me. But the, you know, cumulative effect is the same.
CB: Yeah. I have Aquarius rising and also like, Taurus on the 4th house, and yeah, I did move a little when I was younger, but I like staying in place. Like, my last three moves have all been triangularly into different living situations on the same cross street. So I was sort of like —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — lived in one place, and then I moved to another place literally across the street, and then I moved to another place literally across the street. But I’ve been on this block for like, I don’t know, like, 12 or 15 years now.
NDB: Yeah. I remember ages ago sleeping on a couch in a place that you lived that’s like, next door to where you currently live. So I know this well. Yeah.
CB: Right. Yeah. All right. So I think that’s good for the first house. I didn’t have as many submissions for that. But I am hoping that when people listen to this episode and hear some of these, that it’s gonna connect some things in their head and hopefully people can post especially in the YouTube comments more examples if you have like, the ruler of the 4th in the first. Let us know how that’s worked out for you, because we’d love to hear different variations of that. All right —
NDB: Yeah, it’s a really good exercise.
CB: Yeah, for sure. All right, so let’s move onto the second house. The second house is the house, of course, of like, money, finances, possessions, and other things like that as we did a whole long episode on that here a few episodes ago in this series.
The first example I wanted to share of this that I thought was an interesting one that I found in searching my database was the birth chart of Dave Grohl, who is a famous musician and the frontman of The Foo Fighters. And he has Capricorn rising, Aquarius is his 2nd whole sign house, and the ruler of the 2nd house of finances is Saturn, which is in the 4th house of home and parents. And I already used him as an example in the previous – in part one, because he has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th. And it turned out – well, we talked a little bit, but one of the things that I wanted to use this as is one, when he became… Well, yeah. Actually, which one do I do first? When he became successful, he bought his mom a house – or he bought his mom’s house, basically, is the first thing. And that’s one thing I wanted to mention is just there’s a connection there between the 2nd and the 4th. But more specifically, if you go back earlier in his biography, he tells this story where he says when he was 12 years old he saw his mother have a stroke while she was doing her taxes. And that this had a major impact on him in terms of his relationship with money, and apparently he’s still very frugal today even though he’s very wealthy as a wildly successful musician.
So I found this 2014 Guardian interview where it says,
“When I was young … I don’t know if I’ve ever told anybody this, but when I was 12 years old, my mother had a stroke, as she was doing her taxes. And, you know, we were in such a tight spot financially, because she was a public school teacher, raising two kids, and one night she was in the living room doing her taxes and the next thing I know she’s in her bedroom, and we had to call an ambulance. She had a stroke, she had to stay in hospital for a few weeks. And I remember coming back to the house that night, alone with my sister and looking at the piece of paper she was writing to the IRS as she started to have her stroke. And it left this indelible mark on me, that money will kill you, that people spend their lives dying inside because of money.”
And somehow this was just like, a critical thing for him so that money has not been his primary thing and how his frugality has continued to like, echo throughout the rest of his life for different reasons, partially going back to this experience or this event that sort of like, realigned his perceptions in some way.
NDB: Yeah, absolutely. I can also imagine in his, you know, his musical background before he played with Nirvana, he was in this band Scream, who were based in the Washington, DC area and part of the whole Discord record label, you know, community. And this was a faction of musicians who made, you know, frugal business practices, you know, a calling card. And so, you know, he was probably really well schooled by the time he arrived in Nirvana, you know, even though he was a young rock musician traveling American and living a somewhat chaotic life. Some sense of having a sort of a structured financial future of some kind, you know, and really paying attention to that in a way that a lot of young people maybe don’t.
CB: Yeah, for sure. I was watching this interview when I was researching this and trying to find more about his background where he did an interview with Conan O’Brien just like, a year or two ago. And Conan asked him something about success and if he was adverse to it, and Dave Grohl responded saying that he was living in squalor with Kurt Cobain when Nevermind came out before they became wildly successful. And Dave said he wasn’t adverse to money or success, because at that time, he said,
“I would have done anything to have my own apartment and to be able to do that with music.”
So I thought that was interesting that one of his first things that comes to mind when he’s thinking about responding to this question is just that he really wanted to have enough money to own his own home and living situation basically and live on his own basically instead of with roommates, which he’d been doing for a number of years up to that point. And I think that connects with having the ruler of the 2nd house of finances in the 4th house of home and living situation. And then of course, he becomes wildly successful, and one of the first things he did is apparently early on him and his mother had a conversation about buying her a new house, but they talked about it and instead what they did was they just bought – he paid off the mortgage for her current house, which was his childhood home. And then he would go back there, he would travel back to his home periodically to rest and recharge and stuff like that, and that was very, very important for him. So he speaks pretty often about the importance of his childhood home and how returning there helps him stay grounded despite the fame. But anyway, it was just an interesting connection. Obviously, with the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th, we have a lot more going on in the 4th house, but there’s also this interesting financial component as well with it also being the ruler of the 2nd.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, when Dave moved in with Kurt Cobain, you know, anyone who knew them said that he gave that household a sudden sort of like, order and respectability that it didn’t have until he got there. It was a home that Kurt had lived in with his girlfriend prior to that. And you know, it’s an interesting contrast when you consider that in the summer of ‘91, the same summer that Nevermind was released, Kurt was literally living out of his car when they went touring Europe. And of course, Kurt was a guy who, you know, one of his most famous songs is written about him being a teenage runaway and living under a bridge. So that, you know, the contrast to Dave being a more sort of homebound or, you know, home secured type of personality I think is interesting too.
CB: For sure. All right. Let’s see – the next example – this one is not a celebrity; this is a listener submission, but it was such a good one where I had somebody email me, and I noticed in there they were an astrology student, and I noticed in their tagline that they were a realtor, and I was like, just – I’m researching this episode, this was like, a few weeks ago we were researching, and I said, “Is there – do you have a connection between your 2nd house and your 4th house if you do real estate?” And they said, “In fact, yes, I do!” And they actually had a crazy connection between their 2nd and their 4th where this is the chart of Lara, who has Aquarius rising, Pisces on the 2nd whole sign house and Taurus on the 4th house. And there’s a mutual reception between Venus —
NDB: Oh yeah.
CB: — rules the 4th house and it’s exalted in Pisces in the 2nd house, and Jupiter rules the 2nd house and it’s in Taurus in the 4th house in a mutual reception with Venus. So it’s actually an incredibly strong mutual reception, and something I’ve talked about a lot in the previous episodes that it’s those mutual receptions where you have the rulers of two houses exchanging signs that you know that that’s gonna be very important set of topics in the person’s life, and it’s gonna tie those areas of the person’s life together very tightly for better or worse, depending on what the planets are that are involved. But you’ll always see that stand out so much that when I’m doing the rulers of the houses research at this point, I’ve been starting with looking for examples in my database that have a mutual reception between two houses as my first order of business, because many of those end up being the best examples.
NDB: I was gonna say, I think it’s even better than simply having a planet in its own rulership. You know, it stabilizes the chart even more. It’s a real preferential condition.
CB: Yeah. So this is what Lara said to me. She said,
“I have had a few careers over my lifetime, but none gave me the success that I have had in real estate. I had a spiritual awakening between 2008 and 2018. In late 2016, I began to realize I had the ability to do more with my life, prior to that I had zero self esteem or belief in myself. At the time I was in the cannabis industry as a farmer (also 4th house, and very successful at it) and I saw the potential in selling properties to growers moving to the area of” where she lives. And said, “I took the real estate class and had my license within a month after deciding to go for it. And have been very successful in that. So I have been doing it for seven to eight years now.”
And I wrote a note actually when I looked up the transits that in late 2016, the South Node was in Pisces and there was an eclipse that took place there in her 2nd house. So this must have been part of the triggering event, I would suspect. So she’s now exploring like, other things. She said that she had an experience and had a major breakthrough in terms of healing past trauma and subconscious programming, and now is looking to find a new career and is exploring different things that’s more of service, but none of them pay like real estate, “and I’m feeling somewhat lost when it comes to career and weather or not to stay in real estate is front and center in my mind right now.” And I thought that was really interesting since, of course, Venus also rules the 9th house in the chart, and there’s eclipses starting to happen in Pisces again in the 2nd house as well as in the 9th house – the other house that’s getting activated. So yeah, it was just a great example of like, real estate in connection with the 4th house and it being connected with that, but also making money in connection with 4th house topics.
NDB: Yeah. That’s a really good example.
CB: Yeah. All right. So moving on. The next example I think maybe I mentioned previously – did we do the Kylie Jenner example in the previous – in part one? I can’t remember because she has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th.
NDB: I can’t remember if we covered it on the episode if we just discussed her, you know, while we were preparing the episode. I apologize; I can’t —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: It was one or the other. We certainly talked about her at one point.
CB: Yeah. So this is similar. So Kylie Jenner has Capricorn rising, Saturn is ruling both the first house of self and the 2nd house of finances, and it’s placed in the 4th house of family. And Kylie Jenner is like a media personality, a socialite, and a businesswoman, but she rose to fame in her life on the reality television show about her family, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which follows her family’s life essentially. And Kylie Jenner leveraged her family to launch a successful business, most notably her cosmetics company, and became one of the more influential figures in pop culture with a massive social media following. But it’s really striking that essentially she was able to become successful financially in connection with her family or as a result of her family and family name at a certain point. And obviously, it’s more of the focus here, because we’re talking about the ruler of the Ascendant being in the 4th, but it’s similar to the Dave Grohl chart but even more so where there’s an extra emphasis on the financial component that comes about a result of the family because she actually, I think, became a billionaire at one point – one of the youngest billionaires, basically.
NDB: Right. Right. And I mean, yeah, but, you know, part of the reason they get a show, you know, is sort of like, it has to do with having famous fathers. I mean, her half sibling – you know, the show’s called Keeping Up with the Kardashians because her half-sister Kim Kardashian, her father was OJ Simpson’s lawyer, and then of course the mother was divorced and married the person who at the time was Bruce Jenner, and they had Kylie and I believe a sibling and so yeah. There’s, you know, a whole sort of dynasty of fathers involved in the show and sort of what made this family a family of celebrities in the first place.
CB: Right. Although I think we did discuss this in the last one, and when I pointed out that it was actually the mother, her mother, that was the driving force behind getting the reality show started and who pitched it originally and then still is kind of like, the matriarch of the family. So it’s actually really interesting.
NDB: Yeah. That’s Kris Jenner. And you’re absolutely right. But I mean, you know, part of how she’s sort of the power behind the whole thing is, you know, she was married first to Robert Kardashian and then to —
CB: Right.
NDB: — Bruce, later Caitlyn, Jenner. And there is some trading on both those names. You know, I’m not trying to take credit from obviously what is a dynasty that’s really established itself in its own right. And they’ve kind of surpassed the fame of the two fathers. But I think there was something to that. Like, I mean, what made them stand out is they did —
CB: Yeah, I’m not saying they’re not; I was just adding that the mother was also like, important, because —
NDB: Okay.
CB: — in terms of —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — being the one that pitched the show for them.
NDB: Sure. Yeah.
CB: So both parents important, tied in with finances. Very straightforward example as a contemporary example.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right, so moving onto the next one is this is one that was found by one of the people that helped me research this episode, Camille Michelle Gray, pointed out that the American novelist Harper Lee has the ruler of the 4th house of home and living situation in the 2nd house of finances. And Harper Lee is best known for writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning book To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960. And this is like, a book that like, all American schoolchildren read for the most part at this point or did at one point. But it’s basically this iconic novel that explores themes of racial injustice and loss of innocence in the AMerican South through the eyes of a young girl named Scout Finch. And in the book, Scout’s father is a respected lawyer who defends a Black man who’s wrongly accused of assaulting a white woman, and then the trial exposes deep-seated racism and prejudice in the community. So what’s interesting about the book, though, or what’s interesting about the background behind it is that To Kill A Mockingbird was based loosely off of the town that Harper Lee was from. And also it’s based loosely off of people she grew up with as well as a childhood event that actually occurred in her town and in fact, her own father was a lawyer. So basically, the synopsis of this example is that Harper Lee essentially made a living from writing a book about her town, and it was heavily influenced by where she grew up, basically. And for the most part, this was basically the only book she wrote. It wasn’t like, the only only book, but this was like, the major book that she wrote that she’s known for. So I thought that was actually a really amazing example that Camille found.
NDB: Yeah, no, it’s – we read that book in Canada as well. I remember very well the chapter that opens when she thinks the world is ending, but it’s really just that there’s been a rare snowfall in Alabama.
One of her childhood friends who I believe is characterized in the book was Truman Capote, who she maintained a friendship with through adulthood, and she accompanied him when he was doing his research for his famous book about the murders, the title of which escapes me right now. But yeah, and they both had, you know, the same Mars at 25, 26 Aquarius as well. But yeah, like, he’s part of that world that she creates in the book as well. So there’s an interesting, you know, literary association that comes up through that.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And I forgot to mention the chart placements, but Harper Lee has Libra rising, Capricorn is on the 4th house with the IC, and the ruler is Saturn, which is placed in Scorpio in the 2nd house in a day chart, and it has this very nice trine from Venus in Pisces as well as a square from Jupiter in Aquarius. So she became very financially successful based on this book based on her hometown essentially.
All right. So thanks to Camille for finding that example. All right, other examples. This is a classic one I always use for the rulers of the houses – the birth chart of Maurizio Gucci, who has a mutual reception between the 4th house of family and parents and the 2nd house of finances. He had Cancer rising with Libra on the 4th whole sign house, ruled by Venus, which is placed in Leo in the 2nd house, and the Sun is ruling the 2nd house and it’s placed in Libra, so the two are exchanging signs. And this person was like, the grandson of the Gucci fashion empire, and in the 1980s inherited his father’s essentially half of the business basically and ended up taking over the business, became wildly financially successful as a result of that, and that’s basically it. Like, having a connection between – it’s like, if you looked at this chart, you didn’t know who this was, and let’s say this is a client that comes in – you see a mutual reception between the 2nd house and the 4th house. Like, one of the most basic things you’re gonna ask them is, “Is there a connection between your parents or your family and your finances or your money and possessions for some reason?” And if you just asked that as just the most simple question, you know, they would say yes. Like, that would be a strong yes answer that they would come back and tell you, which would end up looking pretty impressive but is just based on something relatively simple in the chart.
NDB: You could also, you could even wind up asking the question, “Does your family have their name written on an item that people carry their money around in?” There is also that element to it too.
CB: That’s good.
NDB: That’s the Gucci handbag, yeah. I can’t think of anything more 2nd house than, you know, what kind of handbag you have. You know, if you have a Gucci, that’s like, you know, that’s a 2nd house with status.
CB: Totally. That’s good. Good call, good call.
NDB: Thank you.
CB: All right.
NDB: I’ve got a closet full of the things, so I should know.
CB: You got a closet full of Gucci handbags?
NDB: Handbags, oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: Can’t you tell?
CB: A Gucci guy. Yeah.
NDB: Oh, that’s me. The Gucci handbag guy.
CB: I mean, I’m waiting for them to roll out the like, Gucci like, astrolabes. If they roll out some of those, like, I’ll be on board with that.
NDB: Yeah, man. Some class in our act.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: Could always use some more, yeah.
CB: Astrologers used to have like, paraphernalia – like, actual bling paraphernalia. We gotta get back to those days, I think; that’s what I think.
NDB: Yeah. You know, when you look at astrology conferences like, from back in the ‘30s and they’re all in their tuxes and their, you know, furs and all that, it’s…
CB: That’s true.
NDB: Yeah. It was a different time.
CB: Yeah. I was thinking further back, like Nostradamus times, but —
NDB: Oh yes, okay.
CB: — that’s good as well. All right.
NDB: Maybe we should start wearing tuxes on The Astrology Podcast. There’s an argument for that.
CB: Right. Yeah. Maybe we can do one of those. I’ll think about that. We’ll workshop this. All right.
NDB: Cool.
CB: Next example. Queen Elizabeth the Second had Capricorn rising, Aries 4th whole sign house ruled by Mars, which is placed in Aquarius in the 2nd house, and obviously, you know, obscenely wealthy as a result of that family and as a result of a family inheritance. Or you could say that the wealth and money was tied in with the family lineage, since it was something that she inherited from her father and from her family and ancestry and things like that.
NDB: Yep. Absolutely.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: She was also crowned queen when she was 27 years old, which is a 4th house profection year, and so again, that idea of family lineage and, you know, things that you get from your family are found there. And there was this title that was bestowed on her.
CB: Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good counter to our previous like, 27 club examples from —
NDB: Well —
CB: — part one.
NDB: Yeah, I mean, we made it quite clear in that episode. Obviously, you know, most people do not pass away at the age of 27. But when they do pass away at the age of 27 and you’re an astrologer, then you do look to their 4th house because you know that they would have passed away during that profection year, so.
CB: Right.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. Let’s see – last celebrity example in this section. I had already used this in the 2nd house episode, but I just wanted to reiterate because I thought it was an interesting delineation that’ll actually tie in with some of our listener submissions. But I had noticed that the famous podcaster Joe Rogan has the ruler of the 2nd house of finances in the 4th house of home and living situation, and he became wildly successful financially as a result of starting a podcast which was originally hosted in his home and where he would have guests to his home to interview for hundreds of episodes. So yeah, that’s —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — basically it.
NDB: Yeah. Basically. And you know, the last time Mars went retrograde in Leo at the end of 2009 was when he recorded the very first episode of the show, what was, you know, at the time a livestream. So you can even see in the transits the way that’s triggered that 4th house. But yeah, you totally think – I mean, his show is set around the, you know, it’s supposed to be a man cave, right? You know, it’s supposed to be Joe’s your buddy and you go to see him in his man cave so you can have, you know, a drink and talk about whatever. That’s the whole sort of vibe of the program. It’s not meant to be some media studio like you’d, you know, get on television.
CB: Right. That’s actually —
NDB: It’s supposed to be homey and intimate and… Yeah.
CB: Yeah, that’s true. And then of course we have another Mars retrograde happening now, and that’s obviously very important. And I was just watching a thing where this election that just happened became the battle of – I was actually calling it in the last forecast episode “the battle of the podcasts,” because I could see both candidates were going on all these podcasts, but that really obviously didn’t become a decisive factor, but I thought it was so fascinating and something I’m gonna talk about on this next forecast episode when I do a recap. Just Jupiter in Gemini this year and the longform podcasts and the battle of the different candidates going on these long podcasts did play a very significant role, and there were different successes as well as missteps when it came to that area, but somehow in the end it came down to this guy’s podcast especially and who went on it or who didn’t go on it. And anyway, it just comes – there’s interesting things going on there. Maybe we’ll save that and talk about that in the future, but —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — he just has a signature for making money at home, and that worked out in a very literal sort of stunning way in our contemporary times.
NDB: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, the last two times Mars has been retrograde in Leo, like I said, the last time was when he started the very first episode of the show he has, and then 15 years before that was literally the broadcast episode of Newsradio, the TV show that put him on the map of entertainment, you know, at least as a first step. So it tends to be a good transit for him. This is a matter for another conversation, but Mars retrograde transits just tend to be really important in his life broadly speaking, but certainly the ones in Leo have been the most important, have been the ones when his life has gone up to some new level of success. And you can imagine because of the role that he just played, that he’s probably headed for some new level, you know, despite already having the most popular show on the internet.
CB: Yeah. Yeah, we’ll see how that goes. But obviously, yeah, it was important there at the very end of that election when he endorsed Trump and yeah, and a lot of people were trying to get Harris to go on his podcast, but she didn’t end up doing it, and there was a whole debate about that and whether that was a misstep or different things. Anyways, I’ll save that for the post-election —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — analysis. Let’s move onto listener examples, listener submissions.
So one listener said that they have the ruler of the 4th in the 2nd house, and they said, “I’ve worked from home quite a few times in my life, even before Zoom.” There was basically a bunch of submissions like that, and that’s the reason why I included and kept the Joe Rogan example here.
Another submission from Twitter said, “Both me and my partner have our rulers of the 4th house in our 2nd house and we both work from home.”
A third listener said, “Ruler of the 4th in the 2nd, and I’ve been working with my mom for half my life.” So there’s a different variation of another 4th house topic, which is parents and like, making money with your parents, which is similar then to the Kylie Jenner example.
Another listener says, “Ruler of the 4th house is the Moon in the 2nd. Me and my mom own a bed and breakfast together. She also worked for government housing. I have Saturn in Libra. We co-own a business regarding housing together. I also bought my home in my 2nd house profection year at the age of 25.” So I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on there, like working with, you know, the mother, owning a bed and breakfast, having a business regarding housing, lots of themes there that are all like, constellating. And that’s something maybe worth mentioning that it’s not always just one thing or one manifestation, but instead during the course of a person’s life, sometimes you can get two or three or more different like, variations of different manifestations depending on how the placements are getting activated – like, what transits they’re receiving, other things like that. You know, sometimes it is like a singular thing, but oftentimes there’s different ways these things can manifest and you’ll see different forms of manifestation at different times in a person’s life.
NDB: Yeah, that can be possibly one of the most daunting things about doing delineation is how many or how few variants of an interpretation are you gonna land on over the course of, you know, reading a chart? Because indeed, sometimes you just keep pulling more skin off the onion and finding more layers to how, you know, a given placement or what have you, is manifesting. Or sometimes it’s just that one thing that’s obviously so central and really important and there doesn’t seem to be anything else relative that’s signified by the chart. So it’s yeah, it’s a daunting part of the whole thing is determining how much or how little —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — you’re gonna find.
CB: For sure. Well, and that’s why this is – what we’re doing here – is so important just so people have a broad range of understanding of the different possible manifestations that sets you up in a much better position to understand how it can manifest in different ways, and then to see the ways that it actually does in your life or in the life of others.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Alright. So here’s the next example. This listener said, “The ruler of my 4th house is Jupiter in Capricorn in the 2nd house.” And they said, “I was homeless three separate times, and then my father bought me a house after my first Saturn return.” So that’s pretty striking in terms of the father helping, you know, to get the person into a living situation, especially at the Saturn return or just after it when Saturn’s being activated itself since it’s actually connected with that whole thing.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: And then the last example I got was a listener who said, “4th house Capricorn with Saturn in the 2nd house in Scorpio conjunct the South Node. I also have a Capricorn stellium and Pluto in Scorpio,” so somewhat challenging placements. They said, “I was born into poverty. My mother died when I was five, and my father was an alcoholic that wasn’t around much. I knew from a young age that I didn’t want to end up poor, so I worked very hard to get myself out of that life. Now at almost 40, I’ve been working on healing and getting back in touch with my emotional self. My discovery of paganism and shamanism and connecting to the spiritual world and ancestors has allowed me to rebuild my self worth, self love, and vulnerability. Improving my self worth has also improved the resources that I have available to me.” So I thought that was really interesting one, especially in terms of some of the deeper sort of psychological or other meanings of some of these houses and the ways in which that can sometimes work out sometimes, and especially what happens sometimes when it’s challenging placements and you have really difficult things, especially at the starting point or earlier in your life in terms of this.
NDB: Yeah. Absolutely, that’s a really good one.
CB: Yeah. All right. So let’s move onto the 3rd house and the ruler of the 4th in the 3rd. This one was a little trickier to find examples for, but I found some decent ones and then we had a lot of good submissions that actually helped to solidify things. I wasn’t gonna dwell on this because we already did a lot in the 3rd house episode that I did with Leisa previously, but here’s a few really quickly.
So one of them is that I wanted to share first was like, the birth chart of the Mercury Cafe, which is like, a local business here in Denver. And in the chart of the Mercury Cafe, it has the ruler of the 4th house in the 3rd house. And what’s notable about that is it was a really important business that had a very big community involvement element where it gave space for many groups to host events. So it was like, a building that was giving building space especially for groups and other things that wanted to organize there so that there was like, this neighborhood 3rd house involvement. And for example, we started the Denver Astrology Group there in 2008 or 2009, I think, and it’s still running to this day, meeting there once a month where astrologers can go and have a physical space to talk with each other, which is like, 3rd house communications, to present lectures and to also socialize and make friends. And that’s just one of the like, groups that was like, hosted there over the years in terms of community involvement, which is really important because the owner, Marilyn, is an astrologer as well as somebody that’s very involved in activism and community work and other things like that – the original owner. And I thought that was just such an interesting manifestation of that.
NDB: Yeah, that was a fantastic place. First time I ate there, of course, was in 2008 when we had the UAC conference there. And then of course —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — I did give a talk there in 2013 when I was on my speaking tour and you hosted me. That same time I slept in that basement apartment adjacent to the building you now live in. So yeah, a lot of fond memories going back to a few instances.
CB: Yeah. And you know what that talk was that you gave a talk on was on the Uranus return of the United States.
NDB: Right! Somewhat relevant to recent events, I suppose.
CB: Yeah. Well, events coming up next year.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So all right. Let’s move on. The next example is one that was recently in the news again, but this is the birth chart of Erik Menendez who was famously one of the Menendez brothers who famously murdered both of their parents and then was sent to jail for that for much of the past two or three decades. And in his chart, you can see a connection between those houses where the ruler of the 4th house of home and parents is Jupiter, which is placed in the 3rd house of siblings. So there’s obviously a strong connection here between the topic of like, siblings and parents. And in this instance, it worked out in that very literal and extreme way in a negative way, but also just that’s an example of those two topics being interconnected. Because there’s certain house rulers where sometimes you look at it symbolically and you’re like, well, how can that house be connected? Or sometimes it’s harder to generate meanings, I feel like, for some combinations than others until you see an example like that and you realize, okay, that’s actually a very specific way that those two topics could become much more intertwined in people’s lives.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, of course, it was a crime he committed with his brother. I mean, right off the bat, you don’t think of Erik Menendez as separate from his brother. You know, they became famous as a team, so there’s that element to it as well.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And then apparently, like, the district attorney or something was recommending their release recently because of new information that was coming out about possible like, abuse or other things suffered by the brothers or one of the brothers from the parents that may have given like, a context for the murders or something like that so that there was this surprise of the government or the prosecutors in California recently calling for their release. So I’m not following that super closely, so I don’t know all the details; I’m sure other people might who are more familiar with the case. But it’ll be interesting to see that develop and just what happens there. But even whatever the recent developments are, the fact that that’s been such a prominent thing in the life I think clearly shows that connection between the 3rd and the 4th.
NDB: Yeah, absolutely.
CB: All right. So another one that I was curious about it I was curious about like, travel and movement, and one of the charts that I found that was really cool in terms of that is Richard Branson, who has Leo rising and Scorpio on the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is Mars, which is located in Libra in the 3rd whole sign house with Neptune and the degree of the IC. And home and travel are deeply intertwined in his life as well as his business ventures, and he has homes in various locations, and he travels constantly.
So one of the interesting things in terms of his early biography that I found is that at one point, he lived on a houseboat in London during his younger years when he was first starting one of his first companies, Virgin Records. And this was more out of necessity than a lifestyle choice, because it was an affordable option in London at the time. But nonetheless, I thought it was really fascinating like, living on a boat, which is like, a form of transportation, and the 3rd house being one of the houses of travel especially and of different things that move and of movement and having your home literally being in something that moves. So —
NDB: Yeah. He’s got so many homes that in fact, true story, if I look out the door to my right and look up the mountain adjacent to our house, I can see one of the homes he owns. And I can tell you he’s got one of the largest swimming pools there I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve never seen him there. I think it’s a brother-in-law or someone who looks after the place, but yeah – he’s got a lot of them apparently.
CB: Yeah. Well, apparently, his main residence is on an island where he has a private island in the British Virgin Islands. Other notes – he previously owned a luxury boat, which he often used for cruising and exploring the Caribbean. Virgin Voyages – he launched his own cruise line called Virgin Voyages and often travels on their ships for promotional events and to enjoy the experience. Again, living on a boat and like, traveling around where you’re like, sleeping, for example. And then finally, he also started Virgin Galactic where he’s starting to focus on space tourism, which is gonna involve essentially at some point like, living on spaceships for short periods of time for the purpose of like, tourism.
So again, I thought that was so interesting because the broadest meaning of that half of this is just like, what if your home and living situation is tied in with travel by having the ruler of the 4th in the 3rd, and here’s like, a manifestation of how that can work out.
NDB: Yeah, and you’ve kind of buried the lede. You know, before a lot of his big enterprises apart from Virgin Records is the fact that he used to hot air balloon. I’m sure he probably still does, but I think he’s gone after and maybe even achieved certain records for duration or distance or what have you with hot air balloon travel, so there’s that component to it as well.
And yeah, it is sort of, you know, very – the idea of travel being sort of like, hopping around, like, treating the entire planet like it’s your local neighborhood and you’re just hopping from, you know, bar to bar. You’re going from this supermarket to that, you know, fishmonger or what have you. He’s bouncing around in that kind of way. You know, it’s not 9th house travel where there’s some deep purpose to what you’re seeking; it’s just kind of moving around as a part of life, as a way of life.
CB: Right. Yeah. That makes sense. All right. So another person I talked to where I was struggling to get good chart examples in this section at first, and one of the people I talked to is our friend Patrick Watson who —
NDB: And I’ve never heard of him.
CB: I’ve never heard of him. He’s gonna be sad to hear that. But Patrick Watson, our good friend who you host a livestream with, has Leo rising, Scorpio 4th house ruled by Mars, where Mars is placed in Libra in the 3rd house, and then the ruler of the 3rd house is Venus, where Venus is placed in Scorpio in the 4th house. So he has a mutual reception between the 4th and the 3rd, and what he wrote me – he wrote me a bunch of stuff because I asked him what his reflections were on that, and he said several different things. One of them that I thought was interesting he said – he says, “I’m either on good terms with my parents but not my brothers, or on good terms with my brothers but not parents, but never at the same time.” And I thought this was interesting because it’s kind of a subtle observation that only astrologers or people living their lives can make, and that it’s hard to make from the outside with like, celebrity charts. But there’s all sorts of like, family dynamics stuff like that that I’m sure is present in different people’s lives based on the condition of the rulers that we’ll just see glimpses of during the course of this, but especially in the listener examples.
More concretely, he said, “My mother was a ballet dancer,” which I thought was fascinating because that brings in like, the movement element of the 3rd house. And then he says, “My father is a musician,” which is also fascinating because that brings in the communication portion of the 3rd house as well. Let’s see. He says, “In childhood, my mother was often away running her local ballet school,” which is fascinating because that’s like, an education version of the 3rd house as well as movement. And then he says, “And my father was often away traveling on tour.” So ruler of the 4th in the 3rd, and the father was often away traveling.
He also says, “My brothers and I were partially raised by au pair students,” which is an interesting additional manifestation. He says, “In childhood, I was the favorite son, which caused resentment and competitiveness with my brothers.” And then he says, “I shared a bedroom with my older brother all the way through until college, which was a constant battlefield.” And I thought this was an amazing manifestation of like, ruler of the 4th and 3rd sharing a living space with her brother, but having it be Mars and there be some tension or some competition or conflict.
He said, “I went from favorite son to persona non grata, estranged from father due to circumstances surrounding parents’ divorce. But my brothers are now on much better terms with both parents.”
Then he says, “During the divorce between parents, I became closer with my brothers, and we put down our swords for a bit.” And then finally, “My mother becomes a neighbor. My loyalty to my mother led me to help her purchase a house nearby so that she could retire. And then she had to move across the country for this,” causing tensions in his family where some relatives feel like he’s stolen the mother away in some ways. But nonetheless, now his mother like, lives close by him, basically like, in his neighborhood, and they visit frequently. So I thought that was a fascinating seeing multiple different like, you know, aspects of that that manifest in the life.
NDB: Absolutely. And I’ll tell you, from day one, I always had the guy pegged as a mom thief, so there you go. That’s destiny coming alive! But yeah, in all seriousness —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: Yeah, you know, obviously I’ve known him a long time, and most of those details were privy to me. Yeah. On the point of siblings, you’re absolutely correct. When you look at certain celebrities, sometimes there really is a whole family behind them. People like NapoLeon or, you know, not long ago we were talking about Aretha Franklin – individuals who have just like, this enormous stature, but when you really look into their life story, it really is a family story. There really are the siblings involved in the story are very important, even if they’re not as celebrated as the individual. Yeah. NapoLeon and Aretha Franklin are just two names that come to mind, but I can actually when I think about it, there’s quite a few stories like that. So it is an important component; that is what you do get from these more sort of intimate stories you get from your listeners and viewers, because that’s more of a peek behind the curtain, especially when we’re doing these particular houses – these 3rd houses, 4th house stories, which won’t always have to do with whatever it is that has made a person famous, but a lot of the sort of behind the scenes details.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And that’s why I also do the live ones where I interview some patrons and talk about their placements, and I already recorded that episode which I’ll release after this one, which gives you a little bit more insight into that when you’re like, talking directly to normal, non-celebrity people. But this is another good element.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. So moving on. Another one that I was looking at for this when the ruler of the 4th house of like, home and origins is in the 3rd house of communication is Kendrick Lamar, who’s one of the most prominent rappers at this point in time and musicians in the past decade, has Libra rising, Capricorn 4th house ruled by Saturn, which is in Sagittarius in the 3rd. And this one was a listener named Angela Carvolo helped me to think about this one recently, because I thought it was good because I had already kind of talked about this in the context of Drake who has something similar in the last – in the 3rd house – episode I think I used that example. But one of the things for Kendrick is that —
NDB: Oh wow, they should be friends!
CB: Yeah. We will see. You can introduce them and let me know how that goes.
NDB: Well, I’m sure they’d get along!
CB: Right. So Kendrick – the thing about this example is like, Kendrick talks a lot about his neighborhood and where he came from in his music and his neighborhood of Compton, California. And ironically, it’s actually very similar to Drake, who has the ruler of the 3rd in the 4th and talks a lot about his neighborhoods in Toronto. And I think that’s fascinating in terms of both of them. So there’s Kendrick’s chart. Here’s Drake’s chart where he has Leo rising. Libra’s on the 3rd whole sign house, and it’s ruled by Venus, which is in the 4th. But just sometimes, people who communicate about where they’re from like, a lot, and where that’s like, a major thing for them in different ways.
NDB: Yeah, and especially when it comes down to neighborhoods. You know, that’s very sort of 3rd house specific. A neighborhood distinct within a city – Compton, not Los Angeles, you know? That’s where, you know, that kind of thing becomes really, really important. 3rd house people are absolutely the people who, you know, have been going to the same hairdresser for 30 years around the corner, or like, there’s a supermarket they’re completely devoted to. You know, that kind of thing.
CB: For sure. All right. So the next example – this is one that Camille Michelle Gray found – and this is the birth chart of Antoni Gaudi, who was a famous architect. So for the audio listeners, he has Virgo rising or had Virgo rising. The 4th house is Sagittarius, and it’s ruled by Jupiter which is placed in Scorpio in the 3rd house with the IC in the same sign, although much later, in a day chart.
And he was a famous architect, but one of the things that Camille pointed out is that his projects are all in Barcelona, Spain, which is around in the vicinity essentially of where he was born. Like, so the delineation is something like ruler of the 4th in the 3rd is the building of structures in the local area or in your neighborhood. He was born in Reus, Catalonia, Spain, and all of his works are around Barcelona, which is about 62 miles southwest of Barcelona. So I think it was fascinating because it’s like, not exactly in the hometown, but it’s like, a neighboring city basically. Let’s see, so notes of what I wrote down – his architectural masterpieces have become iconic symbols of the city and continue to inspire wonder in visitors from around the world. And what Camille pointed out about this example is that his works were influenced by his passions in life, which were architecture, nature, and religion, which is bringing in some of those 3rd and 4th house components where he apparently studied a wide array of subjects – economics, history, different Oriental arts, philosophy, geometry, all of which had a profound impact on his work and that he integrated into his architecture. He also took inspiration from a variety of different cross-cultural and diverse sources where I found one quote that said, “As a student, Gaudi studied a collection of photographs of Egyptian, Indian, Persian, Mayan, Chinese, and Japanese art owned by the School of Architecture. The collection also included Moorish monuments in Spain, which inspired many of his early works.” And actually I think Camille may have found that quote.
So being deep in study, essentially, informed a lot of his work is what Camille said. And he also has an appreciation of nature that often shows up in his work, and nature was a major component that we talked about in terms of the 4th house in this last episode. And then the last thing that Camille noted was that ironically, he died after being hit by a train on his daily walk. So 4th house being like, end of life sometimes and death, and 3rd house being travel, short distance travel but also things that travel.
NDB: I was about to bring that one up, and I was like, oh no, he’s gonna be mad I bring up another death with the 4th house. But yeah, that is kind of cosmically funny. When I say “cosmically funny,” I mean of course the kind of pranks only the cosmos can pull. Yeah. Indeed, dying because he got hit by a train and the ruler of the 4th is in the 3rd. It speaks for itself.
CB: Yeah. Sometimes literally.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: The cosmos has a weird sense of humor.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: As we’re learning right now.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. So —
NDB: Gallows humor.
CB: Okay. Let’s go to listener submissions next. So – because I think these really help to round out this section, and I was glad that we got a bunch of these for the 3rd house. We’ve got a bunch more, actually, for the 3rd house.
So one of them recently, there was a patron in a recent episode – I think it was the one where I did the live interviews that had a great version of this where he had strong connection between his 3rd and his 4th, and he lived with his siblings as an adult and lived with different siblings at different points off and on and still did to this day. So that was in the last live chart readings of the 2nd and 3rd house, so I wanted to reiterate and mention that here as a possible delineation – living with siblings.
Another listener said they have the ruler of the 4th in the 3rd, and they said, “I’ve been happiest in my living situation when I have roommates or friendly neighbors who bring over frequent visitors.”
Another person said, “My 4th house ruler is my 3rd house Virgo Venus, and my 3rd house ruler is in my 4th. It worked out very literally in that communication with family has been a constant catalyst for events good and bad in my life, along with it being how I’ve connected with so many new friends.” So communication with family as a catalyst for major events in the person’s life.
Another person says, “My 4th house is Virgo, and the ruler, Mercury, is in my 3rd house. I’ve moved around so much!! I’m 30 years old and have lived in 17 different houses or apartments.” Which does sound like a lot, and there was actually several people that said something very similar.
Another person said, “Virgo is on my 4th house with Mercury in the 3rd. Pluto’s in the 4th. We moved a lot growing up. I lived in 68 houses by the time I was 17, often just a nearby town away, so it was just short distance moves. My father loved to move.” I think that is so perfect, and that’s so – because that was literally one of the key core words that I came up with that I eventually realized by the end of researching the 3rd house is I realized that the core thing about the 3rd house was movement. And sometimes that extended to not just like, vehicles and stuff which we commonly think for the 3rd house, but sometimes even like, moving your body and stuff that the 3rd house is really just about movement. Because you know, the 4th house is the earth that’s beneath your feet. But the 3rd house is the first house that’s like, moving away from that. It’s declining away from the fixedity of like, the ground that’s under your feet, so sometimes it’s literally just about like, movement. And in this case, we’re talking about movement when it comes to one’s home and living situation, and especially the father in that instance being the one who loved to move.
NDB: Yeah. Building on that, I mean, I sometimes think of it being the 3rd-9th house axis being an axis of space as opposed to the 6th and 12th house axis being an axis of time. So yeah, you know, the 3rd and 9th have to do with the sort of the space around you, and I suppose the movement that you can or cannot execute within a given space.
CB: Right. All right. So the next example says, “Cancer 4th house and Gemini Moon in the 3rd house.” They said, “I moved to Japan on my 3rd house profection year and stayed there for 11 years. I’m in the US now; we moved back when I was 12. My mother is in the military, so I’ve moved around a whole bunch.” So I thought that was funny because the previous one was the father; this one is like, the Moon ruling and the mother being in the military and being the result of them moving around a lot as a result of being a military kid. And also moving to a foreign country at that time when that was activated in the 3rd house profection year.
So even though sometimes we like to think about the 3rd house as like, short distance travel, sometimes you can get some overlap with the 9th house and like, different countries as well even though it is typically more short distance travel.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, that whole short and long distance travel thing I think is just one way of looking at that axis. I tend to look at the travel as being more the motivation behind the travel as much if not equal to or more so than the actual distance you have to travel. I think like, the purpose behind 3rd house travel is more pragmatic. It’s more about, you know, you’re going to do shopping. You’re gonna visit your mother. Your mother might live on the other end of the planet, but you’re sort of taking care of business. 9th house travel is, you know, you’re consulting the Oracle. You’re off to sort of seek answers, you know, whether it’s – you might go to Cairo to see the pyramids. You might go to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, or you might go to Las Vegas to see the pyramids and the Eiffel Tower, but you’re going to sort of interact with some kind of natural wonder or man made wonder. The 9th house is more sort of, you know, it’s tourism in the sense that you’re off to seek something. The 3rd house is more pragmatic; you’re taking care of daily life. But I guess that’s just —
CB: Yeah, I mean —
NDB: — one distinction. So usually yeah, usually there’s a distance involved in terms of long and short. But I think the motivation behind the travel is as important as the distance traveled.
CB: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s true, and there can be additional elements like that. But I guess one of my points is that even though we try to make strong distinctions between what each house does, when it comes to especially the axis between two opposing houses, sometimes there can be more overlap in meanings than we realize or that we like to admit sometimes in modern times. And this is one of the things that was a little bit clear in some of the ancient Hellenistic texts is that there was a little bit more interchangeability sometimes between opposing houses and their significations.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, we certainly see that a lot with 4th and 10th as well, you know? So yeah. Well taken.
CB: All right. So next example – it’s a good one – they said, “Venus in the 3rd house is ruling the 4th house,” and they said, “I also grew up with a dad that loved road trips, and I also have a love for the open road. I live for it.” So I thought that was such a great delineation – so a dad who loved road trips. Like, the 4th house of parents, the ruler of the 4th house of parents in the 3rd house of travel – dad who loves road trips. And then, you know, in turn kind of like, instills that through those early childhood experiences in the child, and it’s a benefic Venus so that it’s like, a positive experience. Although I’m sure there’s other people where it’s like, a more challenging planet, and it’s like, they didn’t experience —
NDB: Are we there yet?
CB: Yeah, exactly. It’s like they have a negative experience and then develop an aversion to travel as a result of, you know, their parents or something like that. But this is an interesting, you know, positive one.
NDB: Yeah. I can attest to that. I love to eat in restaurants, and somehow I’m raising a child who cannot stand eating in restaurants and I just don’t know what to do.
CB: Okay. Yeah. All right. So next one – ruler of the 4th is Saturn in the 3rd house, and they said, “I realize I live close to where I grew up. I’ve been one of the few people among my peers to make my apartment, to make my permanent home, in the neighborhood.” So that’s a great delineation as well, like, the person who grows up and then ends up living nearby basically in the neighborhood of where they originally started in life. You know, which I think is striking because that doesn’t happen for everybody. It’s like, yeah, a lot of people do that, but then there’s a lot of people as we see – especially as we’ll see when we get to the 9th house – who don’t do that. Who like, move and live in a completely foreign country or move to a different state or something like that. But to have, to basically like, you know, grow up and then set down roots nearby where you live is kind of an interesting delineation.
NDB: Yeah. For sure.
CB: All right. Next one – they said, “Mars, the ruler of the 4th which is Scorpio, in the 3rd in Libra in detriment.” They said, “I was in seven car accidents in my home state. After moving away from home at age 30, I’ve not been in any more in 12 years now.” Not been in any more accidents. “I’ve also tended to live in places that have very distinct cultures, vibrant neighborhoods, activity, and walkability, such as New Orleans in the Garden District.” They said, “Home locations have also been near transportation routes, including a streetcar line and a railroad.” So that’s really interesting, like, living next to like, a railroad track or something like that. So that’s a good one.
Next. Okay, this one said the 4th house is ruled by Saturn in Capricorn in the 3rd. “I was raised by my grandparents – old folks across the road from a cemetery, a Saturnian neighborhood.” And then also, “my brother was given up for adoption, so I grew up as an only child.” So there was a sense of aloneness or loneliness.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So that’s another good example because it’s just showing there can be like, wide degree of variations here depending on what signs are involved and what planets are involved, both in terms of the specifics and the range of manifestations, but also in terms of the subjective experience of whether that connection between those two houses is experienced as subjectively positive or as more subjectively negative.
NDB: Yeah. Every possible combination has some other kind of twist that can be added to all the different delineations that are possible. Absolutely true.
CB: Right. And I was thinking about that the other day, because then that effectively sets up where on the one hand you have a situation where it’s like, there’s infinite possibilities. There’s infinite possible combinations of things. And yet on the other side of that – so the system is infinitely complex, but then on the other side of that, it’s also not. It’s also limited in some broad ways that is approachable. Once you get the overarching like, system down, it’s actually limited to a certain number or a certain range of broad archetypal possibilities. So it’s both on the one hand infinitely complex and like, outside of our scope of human beings to ever be able to fully comprehend the astrological system on the one hand, and then on the other hand, through this there is an approachability, and once you get down the way of how to think about it and how to work with it, you can approach dealing with it once you figure out the standard like, set of placements that do exist.
NDB: Absolutely. Yeah. There you are. The seemingly contradictory statements are equally true. And yeah, and these sort of seeming paradoxes are pretty common for astrologers to have to sort of process, you know. But that’s life for you. It is like that. So you know, since astrology reflects life, it reflects the fact that paradoxes exist everywhere in people’s personalities or in cultures or what have you.
CB: Right. And that things are, life is an infinitely complex and different for everybody, but then at the same time that it’s not. And that there’s things that repeat and have been repeating in dynamics in people’s lives that have been repeating for ages and centuries and millennia now.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right, two more examples. One, this listener said they have the ruler of the 4th house in the 3rd, and they said, “My brother followed in my father’s profession,” which is diplomacy, which is also relevant because the ruler of the 3rd house of siblings is in the 7th house. So I thought that was an interesting delineation, the “brother followed in my father’s profession” with the ruler of the 4th house of parents in the 3rd house of siblings.
Next, the last example they said, “4th house Capricorn, the ruler Saturn is in the 3rd. I was raised by my grandparents.” So this brings it back to something we talked about at the beginning of the 4th house episode as well as in the beginning of the 3rd house, which is this debate over whether grandparents is like, a 3rd house topic or a 4th house topics. We kind of came down that it could be either one, especially depending on their role in your life. But there’s good symbolic reasons for it to be either a 3rd house or a 4th house thing. And I did get different listener examples that were coming from both perspectives, which was actually very, very interesting. So still open debate, but I think things like this sometimes raise the reason why I think it’s more of an open discussion that grandparents can also be a 3rd house thing and not just like, a 4th house thing.
NDB: Yeah. And I believe we do have a subject coming up as well of someone raised by grandparents coming up, so – or at least one grandparent.
CB: Good point, yeah —
NDB: So we can come back to that subject when the time comes.
CB: If you’re really looking to deepen your studies of astrology, then check out my Hellenistic Astrology course, which is an online course in ancient astrology. It’s perfect for beginner and intermediate students because I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts. There’s over a hundred hours of video lectures, including monthly webinars and Q&A sessions, and at the end of the course, if you complete the final test, you’ll receive a certificate of completion saying that you studied with me. You can find out more information at TheAstrologySchool.com.
All right, so let’s move on and let’s talk about the ruler of the 4th house in the 4th house at this point. There’s not a ton of examples for this section, but I know people frequently ask about it when I like, skip over it. But the reason for that is that when you have the ruler of the 4th house in the 4th house, it means the planet – the ruler of the 4th house – is in its own sign or in its own domicile, which is just a generally favorable placement most of the time for that planet and for the topics and the significations surrounding that. So things tend to go a little bit better when it comes to 4th house topics, especially if it’s well situated otherwise. Whatever the manifestation is in terms of the topics will then come more from the significations of that planet and whatever the natural significations of the planets are compared to anything else because the planet is in its own element. It’s like a person who’s in their own element or a person who’s in their house, so they’re able to do more of what they want or more of what comes naturally to them. Sometimes that can give a greater sense of self autonomy as well. So there can still be challenges if there’s difficult aspects or other difficult things going on when it comes to that 4th house, so it’s not that everything’s gonna be completely, you know, positive in that area. But when a planet is in its own sign, it just tends to be more positive. And also it will tend to import in, if it rules a second house, you have to pay attention to that because it will import the significations of that house into the 4th house.
So you know, we’ve used examples before like in the last, in part one, we talked about Justin Trudeau’s chart, who is the current prime minister of Canada. Here’s that. Where he has Virgo rising and Mercury in Sagittarius in the 4th house, and then the 4th house is Sagittarius and it’s ruled by Jupiter, which is in the 4th house in Sagittarius. And you know, his father was famously long-running prime minister of Canada who was hugely successful and then Justin followed in his footsteps. But he otherwise had a relatively positive or supportive relationship from his father, who was a successful and powerful person, essentially, with having such a positively placed ruler of the 4th house.
NDB: Yeah. And – oops. You know, especially it’s interesting that it’s Mercury and Jupiter in the 4th house, because the whole sort of political magic of the Trudeau dynasty if you will is the way that they combine two sort of factional elements in the Canadian political makeup. Justin’s father, Pierre Trudeau – his name was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, which is a very symbolic name in Quebec because it’s sort of half French and half English, which is exactly what Pierre Trudeau was. His father was Francophone and his mother was Anglophone, which, you know, was – yeah. So it sort of unites these —
CB: Right.
NDB: — two divided factions. And then Justin, you know, his father is from Quebec and his mother is from British Columbia, and Canada also has this very sharp east/west divide that Justin in his own way sort of symbolizes a reconciliation of those two factions.
CB: Yeah, that’s what you talked about in the – when we, because we —
NDB: Right.
CB: — did the whole ruler of the Ascendant thing.
NDB: Right. Yeah. I know I’m basically restating it, but in both cases, you can see how that’s a merging of those two houses.
CB: Sure. Yeah. And then another one is Dua Lipa, who has Virgo – sorry, Gemini rising, and Mercury in Virgo in the 4th house where it’s exalted. And so Mercury is in its own sign; it’s in its own exaltation. And I talked about in a previous example, previous episode, how her home and ancestry and background is like, very important to her. But also her parents are very supportive, and even though they were refugees from Kosovo in the 1990s, she otherwise has a very supportive family and worked together with her father to set up an organization for like, creative arts and like, supporting people from their home country, which is kind of like, a positive thing. So in her instance, again, it’s more of a – even though there’s some challenges there, it’s like, Saturn’s opposing the Mercury, and they had to flee their country originally and move to London, where she spent a lot of time growing up. Nonetheless, there’s some positive things there in terms of how that’s worked for her in her background.
All right, so moving on. I talked about her chart more extensively, so I won’t dwell on it. Another chart is Jim Carrey, who has Saturn in Aquarius in the 4th whole sign house in a night chart along with Jupiter and Mercury. I went into his chart extensively in the 3rd house episode, so I won’t go into it too much here, but the thing with Jim Carrey was early on growing up in life, his father was a good influence, but his father lost his job at one point as like, an accountant or something in a job he had worked at forever. And then the family became homeless, and they had to live in like, a car for a period of time or in a van for a period of time in Jim’s life with the ruler of the 3rd house of travel in the 4th house of home and living situation.
So there’s challenging things there, but then his father also, he said, was very funny. Like, Jim always said like, that his father was like, the funniest person, and that his father otherwise was supportive of his career and inspired Jim to be funny and entertain guests that would come over from the neighborhood. But also like, his father and him first started taking communications classes together, and that’s eventually what led Jim eventually to get into comedy and do stand-up comedy. And there’s this really touching story about how at one point before he – what was it? It was like… Jim wrote this like, check to himself of being paid like —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — was it 10 million dollars for a movie or something like that?
NDB: It’s some, you know, big sum of money that someone who’s broke can only fantasize about. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. He kind of like, did this sort of like, tried to manifest this like, when he first was early in Hollywood. Like, writing himself a check on a piece of paper for like, 10 million dollars for a single movie. And then eventually over the next five years, he became wildly successful and around the date to which he wrote himself that check – that imaginary check – he actually got paid that. Like, 10 million dollars or something crazy for a single movie, which was record-breaking at the time. And then his father passed away not too long after that, but Jim ended up leaving the check or the symbolic check or something in his coffin or something like that just as a show of like, that he made it, and to let his dad know that he made it, and it was kind of a touching thing.
So it’s like, there’s challenges there because it’s Saturn in a night chart, so it’s his most difficult planet, but there’s also positive supporting things there with it being in its own domicile. And that was also true to a certain extent with his mother, because his mother was sick a lot growing up. And Jim said part of his original motivation for comedy as a child was that he said, “I had a sick mother and I wanted to entertain her and just distract her from it and make her feel better.” So laughter was part of doing that. So again, it’s like, it’s a tricky example because we see it’s Saturn in a night chart, which is his most difficult planet, but then it’s also in its domicile, it’s with Jupiter, and there’s some positive things going on at the same time.
NDB: And let’s not forget – Saturn is the planet of comedy. Comedy being tragedy plus timing – two very Saturnian domains, if you will. I know it seems counterintuitive on the one hand, but it’s absolutely true. The, you know, any —
CB: I mean —
NDB: — Saturn being, you know, in the chart of someone who’s very funny. You wanna get a sense of where the Saturn is and where they get that comic gift from. So yeah, I mean —
CB: I feel like there’s different forms of comedy and like, different – comedy’s motivated by different things by different people, because there’s also like, Venusian forms of comedy. There’s like, Mercurial forms. I think Saturn can play a role, but I don’t know that I would say it’s the only planet of comedy necessarily.
NDB: Okay, well, yeah. We’ll differ on this, then. I mean, yes —
CB: Okay.
NDB: — you can have Mercurial or Venusian ones, but those’ll be, you know, planets that interact with Saturn in a given horoscope. This is a matter for another debate.
CB: Yeah. I mean, comedy – I am very interested in comedy just listening to a lot of comedy podcasts, and I love listening to different comics talk about like, what they do, and like, reflect on the art and the science of it and different things, and it is really interesting to see people with different placements and how that colors their approach to comedy and different things like that.
NDB: Yeah. Very much. It’s a whole study in itself is studying the astrology of comedy, for sure.
CB: Sure. Yeah. All right. So that’s Jim Carrey. So those are the only examples I have because I didn’t wanna dwell on it. I do have some listener submissions. There’s a few interesting ones. One of them says, “The 4th house is ruled by my 4th house and my chart ruler.” So they say, “I like to stay home, and it’s very hard to get me out.” But again, that’s tricky because it’s like, the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house as well, so that makes sense.
So another one says, “Pisces 4th house ruled by Jupiter in Pisces, and my home is my favorite. I tend to get lucky with being home more than others my age. I would stay here forever with my family and with me.” So again, that’s ruler of the Ascendant – Sagittarius rising – with Jupiter in Pisces. But I think that’s an interesting delineation, and there’s something insightful there. “ I tend to get lucky with being home” and also they could stay at home forever. They experience it as more subjectively positive and as like, a place that they would like to be.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, certainly Jupiter in Pisces in the 4th – why would you wanna leave, right? I mean, it sounds like it’s about as good as it can get.
CB: Right. Another person says, “Saturn in the 4th. I found my soul home at the last part of my Saturn return.” This is one that came in a lot in some of the submissions, especially when it was activated – a person who felt like they found their perfect home or they found their ideal place to live, which in and of itself is a form of getting lucky or being fortunate in terms of that placement, that planet being in its own, and then having that activated by transit being the awakening of that, the full awakening of that, and like, finding sort of coming home in some sense for the first time.
NDB: Yeah, absolutely.
CB: Another person says, “Ruler of my 4th is Jupiter, who resides in the 4th. On my Jupiter return, I landed a quite abundant living situation for an amazing deal – three giant rooms, blue walls with extra high ceilings, tall windows, top loft that has 180 view including mountains and volcanoes. The whole house was extra big. It was like, a three-minute just to get to the kitchen.” Laughing emoji. “I had space for my art. Roommates were all musicians; one taught music lessons at the house. Two others had recording studios. The house was also next to a church, which had live music every Sunday. I hung a prism for rainbows. I also had a relationship with somebody who had their Venus on my IC during that time. However, the landlord gave a no-cause eviction after the death of his father when transiting Saturn moved into Pisces. He also turned off the water before we moved out.” So it’s like, they were having a very positive – they have a positive placement there natally, like Jupiter in its own sign in the 4th house – they have Jupiter transit through that sign, and then it awakens the natal promise of just having an amazing home and living situation and being incredibly fortunate there. But then transiting Saturn comes in and says “no” and like, you know, shuts it off, and they lose that for a period of time.
NDB: Yeah. Especially when it comes to Jupiter and Saturn – their transits to each other by conjunction really does have that experience of going through life where, you know, the switch is being turned on and off so to speak, so that’s quite something.
CB: All right. So let’s go to the next example. This listener said, “Aquarius 4th house ruler, South Node in house.” So “there was an extreme dichotomy of being treated like the odd one out while also heavily relied upon to represent the family positively through accomplishments. I was lifted up and supported, but also made to feel like I didn’t fit in.” So I don’t know if this is a day or night chart, and that would change things. But here we’ve got Saturn ruling the 4th house like with the Jim Carrey chart in Aquarius, and there’s like, positive things where they’re putting a lot of emphasis on the native to represent the family and to be accomplished and things like that. But then they’re also being treated, you know, as the odd one out or they’re being treated weirdly to some extent, which is like, an Aquarius or a Saturn thing sometimes as well.
NDB: Like they don’t fit in, which is interesting.
CB: Right.
NDB: Aquarius is famous for being, you know, very involved in the abstract, but sort of less involved in the personal interaction, right? You know, the Aquarius who really cares if the children of the world are eating, but if their own child is eating is maybe secondary. I mean, that’s an exaggeration, but that kind of thing is, yeah, how it’s often characterized, anyway.
CB: Yeah. And it’s like we talked about this in the Aquarius episode in the zodiac sign series, but how, you know, modern astrologers in the 20th century would often conceptualize Aquarius in a like, Uranian context of being weird or being different or something like that in a Uranian sense. But then from more of like, a traditional astrological sense, you could also understand it as being ruled by Saturn and sometimes having the sense of being outcast or not fitting in as a result of being different and there being a sense of social isolation or sometimes even being the one who themself actively rejects the status quo or rejects that which is seen as normal, and therefore puts themself on the periphery of let’s say social things or other things like that. That sometimes it’s done volitionally by the person and other times it’s something that just happens to them in this case where the person feels like an outcast just by default.
NDB: Yeah. It’s really something when you follow the nodes, because you know, when it comes to interactions with families, the nodes have this really profound relationship there. And so if the nodes are in the 10th and 4th, there really is so much of like, carrying a family baggage. Along with what the houses themselves already signify, having the nodes there just, you know, sort of doubles down on that kind of implication. And when I think about it, Saturn and the South Node in Aquarius in the 4th – most likely, this is someone born in 1962. I think that’s the only year I can think of when Saturn and the South Node were in Aquarius. And, you know, a lot of people born that year come from these very sort of broken or distorted family backgrounds. It’s sort of, it’s one of those first years where the, you know, broken families started to sort of become more visible in the world. You know, they’ve always existed, of course, but weren’t really sort of started to emerge as a cultural norm, I suppose, is a way of putting it. So yeah, I think it’s a year of a lot of sort of familial misfits, and I imagine especially so for those who have that placement in the 4th house, because that really sort of compounds the whole awkward dynamic that’s already there.
CB: Right. Yeah, for sure. All right, so the next example they said, “Saturn in the 4th house in Aquarius by itself in a day chart. I only have two blood family ties I speak to. I have briefly contacted a few others over the course of my life. I went no contact with my father after he refused to respect a boundary I set. These days, my home is my sacred space. I just asked a friend to move out after it became apparent that things weren’t working. Prior to my Saturn return, home was a horrible mess in every single iteration. During my return, I started the process of moving back to Michigan after traveling for three years straight. I now intend to stay in this house for a good long while. We’re coming up with house rules like ‘no drinking.’ I prefer minimalist decor.” I really like this one, because like, some of the Saturn personality traits start to come through —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — which can sometimes be like, a sort of like, stringency to a certain extent. So but it brings up a few different things. One of them – Saturn especially tends to get better as you get older.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Especially for people with day charts, but even to some extent for people with night charts that this is somebody who some of this stuff was unlocked when they hit their Saturn return and afterwards. So Saturn hits that period of like, maturity, and then all of a sudden some of the potential is unlocked, in this instance in terms of moving into a new chapter of their life where the home and living situation where things are going better.
NDB: Yeah. Saturn is about a sort of simultaneous blossoming and, you know, dying, if you will. And that’s the whole process of aging is, yeah, certain problems become more profound – like, say, you know, chronic health things that just get worse and worse – but then some things, such as your sort of emotional relationship to reality and life and what have you, you know, stabilizes. You either become more enured to, you know, what you’ve been doomed to suffer, or you’ve somehow, you know, through hard work and what have you, managed to work your way out of whatever misery you existed under prior to that. So yeah, that’s a very sort of Saturnian experience. You know, things are either sort of growing and you’re getting better at something, or something is fading away. You know, either something cherished or something that you’re just as happy to see go.
CB: Yeah. And I like this example too because, especially in this section we see when a planet’s in its own sign, its natural significations come to the forefront and they set – and the natural significations of that planet set the topics for what starts manifesting in that house even more so than other placements. And one of the things about Saturn – some of its natural things – is one, it likes to say “no” to things or to reject things. So it’s like, one of the things this person had to do was they had to go no contact. They had to take the father out of the life and say “no” to him for not respecting —
NDB: The boundaries!
CB: The boundary. Yeah. For setting boundaries with the parents. And then the other thing is even Saturn they said coming up with house rules, so setting rules. But interestingly, it’s like, setting sometimes like, “no” rules. Like, they said there will be no drinking. Or another thing is Saturn tends to be more sparse or minimalistic, and they said that “I prefer minimalist decor.” So there’s just like, so many different aspects of this where we can see Saturn in its purity. Like, it’s a pure expression of what Saturn means, because it’s in its own sign. Whereas if Saturn was in the sign of another planet, its significations would get mixed in with that planet. Like for example, Madonna has Saturn in Sagittarius in the 4th house, and she grew up in a like, religious household that was overly —
NDB: Right.
CB: — restrictive with religious rules. And then she rebelled against that when she got older. In this instance, it’s like, Saturn – the resources and the significations it has to draw on are its own. And that’s what it’s like for any planet that’s in its own house. But that’s also one of the reasons I don’t dwell on that a lot sometimes in this series up ‘til now, but through some of these examples, we’re getting a good glimpse of that.
NDB: Yeah, absolutely. You know, something’s just occurred to me when you mentioned the “no drinking” rule. In our era, people who have Saturn in Aquarius – you basically get two groups. You get the people who recently had their second Saturn return, like for instance the people born in 1962 or afterwards in ‘63. All those people have Saturn in Aquarius squaring Neptune in Scorpio. Whereas people who just had their first Saturn return who were born in the early ‘90s, all those people have Saturn square Pluto in Scorpio. And so, you know, when we’re talking about a pure Saturn, I mean, I totally get what you’re getting at there. But in some ways, there’s no living person who has a pure Saturn in Aquarius because it’s always reacting to one of those two outer planets, which really does have a – will modify something regarding that Saturn. So it’s an interesting notion in that sense. So you know —
CB: Right.
NDB: — presumably, this is someone who might have Saturn squared by Neptune, and so the whole “no alcohol” rule, yeah, is from some kind of lived experience or something of that nature.
CB: Yeah. Or Pluto, with the father stuff. I’m not sure – although Saturn —
NDB: Right.
CB: Neptune square Saturn would also be a boundary issue. Not sure. But that’s a great point, yeah. It’s like, a planet in its own sign is gonna manifest itself as purely as it can, but realistically, the other aspects to the planet are also gonna have their say as well.
NDB: Exactly, yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. Next one – this listener said, “I have Scorpio on the 4th house with Mars in the 4th as well as my Sun in the 4th. My father was in the military, and my parents divorced.” I think there was – they said other stuff, but I may have clipped it because those were the two things that really stood out. It’s like, you know, Mars in the 4th house, the father’s in the military. So very literal manifestation, where it’s like, Mars is giving one of its primary significations, which is the military. But within the context of the 4th house, which is the father. But then also Mars – its nature is to sever and separate, so with Mars in the 4th house in this instance it was like, a separation from the parents.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right.
NDB: Holds up.
CB: All right. 4th house – another one said, “4th house Saturn in Capricorn in a day chart. My biological dad hadn’t been in my life since I was a child, but I’ve overcome my issues around that largely thanks to my stepdad. My mom is Capricorn rising, and my stepdad is Pisces rising, and my Saturn is tightly opposed to an exalted Jupiter. Also my parents moved across the country for five years but moved back during my Saturn return.” So I thought this was interesting because on the one hand, you get especially early in life the Saturn signification in the 4th house which is the biological father not being there, which is kind of like, a negation or a rejection of one of the parents in a sense of not being in the life. But then with Saturn in its own sign in a day chart, there’s still on the one hand, the native is able to overcome their issues around that, but also that they have supportive stepfather as well as their mother being in their life as well. And then both of those two people come back into their life, essentially, during the Saturn return.
NDB: Yeah. And Saturn signifies stepparents, if I’m not mistaken; that’s how I’ve always read it, so.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: Holds up, yeah.
CB: Totally. All right. Yeah, Valens – all the way going back to the second century – says that Saturn signifies the fathers of other people’s children or something like that. So it’s —
NDB: Right.
CB: — like, a very ancient notion.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. The next one says, “Jupiter in Sagittarius in the 4th house. Moving out and back with my grandmother while I was young so much that my grandmother is more like my mother. I moved a total of 32 times as a child before the age of 17. All the women in my mom’s side of the family have key Sagittarius placements; my mom has a Sag stellium and my grandma has it with Sun and Mercury.” So I thought this was interesting just because I wanted to include it because it brings up the like, grandparent issue again and whether that’s a 4th house or a 3rd house thing. I’m curious like, what the aspects are. Like, I don’t know what the aspects are to this Jupiter in Sagittarius, but it’s interesting that they had a supportive grandparent but also a mutable sign there was a lot of moving around there and a lot of shifting.
NDB: Yeah. I’d love to see the chart to sort of fill out that story. There’s a lot of detail.
CB: Right. And the last one they said, “Mars, Pluto both actually placed in the 4th house. Abuse and trauma from the family. Black sheep presence, but an immense willpower to transform from that and redefine myself after breaking away from my family. Cycle-breaker type of stuff. So though it’s the most difficult part of my chart, it’s also my favorite.” They said, “I’m laughing at the way I’d always addressed our family dysfunction while everyone just wanted to sweep it under the rug.” I think that’s great because there’s two things there that are natural Mars significations. One of them is the last point that they made, which is like, Mars is direct, and Mars will say what’s on its mind even if it’s something that’s like, awkward or something that other people don’t wanna hear. And sometimes that can be good. Sometimes that can be bad, but that boldness being manifested in the family realm, basically. And then the other —
NDB: Yeah, I mean, I think it’ll – sorry, just to interject. I think it’ll always wanna break with whatever the current mood is. So if everyone’s papering everything over, they’ll wanna break from that by being very blunt and straightforward. But you can find instances where Mars is doing the reverse as well, where it’s, you know, breaking from the discordance if you will.
CB: Yeah. Well, and I guess that’s also the other part of their thing is that they broke away from their family because they found that it was dysfunctional or not supportive. And they wanted to break the cycle of that. So I think that’s interesting as well, with Mars, you know, in Scorpio in its own… Yeah, it has to be in Scorpio. In its own sign. And that there’s some power in that, even though it’s also an area of great difficulty.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. So that is that section. Here I wanna talk a little bit and do a subsection that I wanted to place in this area of the talk on the degree of the IC. Because we’ve talked about this already in the last, especially in the last episode on the 3rd house, where we’re using whole sign houses primarily for the purpose of this series and that’s my primary approach to house division. But in whole sign houses, you still have to pay attention to the degree of the IC, which can float around the bottom half of the chart, and it can fall in different whole sign houses. And what it does is that the degree of the IC acts as a sensitive point that can import 4th house significations into whatever whole sign house it falls in. And then what you see is you’ll see a doubling up or you’ll see an overlap of 4th house significations with other significations based on what house it falls in.
So we’ve already talked about this and shown some examples in the 3rd house episode. I’ll reiterate one example from earlier, but I wanted to have a little section talking about this because it’s such a core, important concept as we’re going through all of this.
So one of them is one we already did, so just to do a callback. You know, for example, Arnold Schwarzenegger has the degree of the IC in Virgo at 24 degrees of Virgo in his 3rd whole sign house of communication. And part of what we were talking about earlier was just him having this iconic voice and communication style as a result of his Austrian accent, but that’s part of where it’s coming from. It’s because he has his IC in the 3rd house, so you’re getting a doubling up of significations that relate to on the one hand, the 3rd house and communication, and on the other hand, the 4th house or the IC and the notion of your home and your origins and where you come from and your home country, your country of origin essentially.
NDB: Yeah. Absolutely. And it’s very interesting that Uranus squares the IC/MC axis, because again, this is an Austrian who went on to become governor of California. He’s an American icon despite being such a, you know, obvious foreigner. And that Uranus in Gemini just makes me think of like, yeah, you know, you’re adopted into the American family, you know? Which is, you know, arguably more true of Arnold than it is of anyone else who’s moved to the US from abroad.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So that was my first example. Another one that I wanted to show is one that – a story you had always told me about, which is a wild story, but this is the birth chart of Jack Nicholson —
NDB: Oh yeah.
CB: — who, for the audio listeners, Jack Nicholson has Leo rising and the degree of the IC is at 22 degrees of Libra in the 3rd whole sign house. And what’s crazy about him is that he was raised thinking that his birth mother was his sister, and that his birth grandmother was his mother. And he only found out later in life as an adult basically that the woman that he grew up thinking was his sister was really actually his mother. And —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — more weirdly that both women had actually died by the time he found this out, so both women basically went to their graves without telling him this.
NDB: That’s right. It was only because he had another sister alive who could confirm the story that, you know, he really found out the truth, but it all started – he was already a huge movie star, and it was actually there were researchers for Time magazine. When the movie Chinatown was gonna come out in 1974, by which point Jack is like, 37 years old, and his sister/mother – his birth mother – has been dead for over a decade, and his grandmother who he thought was his mother’s been dead for a few years already, these researchers from Time magazine who were just going into his background, they find some discrepancy, and they let him know. And then he asks his other sister, and he gets the truth, and it’s such an astonishing way to find out. I mean, this is something that’s happened before. This has happened many times. But to find out in this way, too, is just so peculiar. You know, if he had not become a famous movie star, which really only started to happen to him when he was, you know, into his 30s. Easy Rider came out when he was 32. So yeah, you know, he could have gone his whole life – you know, I’m sure many people have – not knowing the truth behind their family origin this way.
CB: Yeah. So and it’s like, there’s other things going on with it, like the fact that the ruler of the IC and the 3rd house is this retrograde Venus, which is conjunct the Midheaven in Aries in the 9th, you know, is part of that. So there’s like, other specific things going on there, and that retrograde Venus is on the one hand, it’s square Jupiter closely, which is at 26 Capricorn. But it’s also square Pluto very closely in the 12th, and it’s like, this family secret that he only finds out later on. And at first when the reporter told him this, he then, you know, immediately went to his surviving sister and asked her, “Is this true?” And she admitted it and said it was. And he was really upset with her at the time that, you know, that he hadn’t been told this. But apparently part of the reason is that he was born – his mother was only 17 years old when she had him, and so to avoid a scandal and to protect the mother’s reputation, her parents – his grandparents – decided to raise him as their own son while his mother pretended to be his older sister. But it was partially due to the like, cultural context at the time essentially, right? That it would have been —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — this is like, in the 1930s, 1940s where it was like, would have been —
NDB: It could really ruin, it could sink a family. You know, it was the kind of thing where, you know, if you lived in a town and, oh, such-and-such’s daughter had a baby out of wedlock – well, then, you know, and the father owned let’s say a supermarket, will people stop shopping at the supermarket? Or you know, like, it would really – good old-fashioned cancellation, you know? Cancel culture has always been there. And that was the way it was done in those days.
I was born out of wedlock, and you know, I’ve heard the stories that my grandparents would hide my mom from the neighbors and things like that, so – when she was pregnant with me – so yeah, it was something that was done right up until the ‘60s. I was born right at a time when it started to become normalized, I suppose.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So we have to understand it partially like, in that context. But it also brings up the thing that we talked about a lot in the last episode, where the 4th house can sometimes have to do with secrets or things that are hidden. And that’s also gonna extend not just to the 4th whole sign house but also to the degree of the IC sometimes. And one of the things that’s interesting, you know, about it being this retrograde Venus that’s conjunct the Midheaveen is just he found out because he was promoting a movie —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — and because this reporter who was writing this story about him because he was so famous at that time was looking into his background just to do a bio on him. And as a result of that, he finds out. So there’s this element there with Venus conjunct the Midheaven of why it came out as a result of that as a result of his career and his prominence or eminence.
NDB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that Venus in his chart is remarkable in a number of ways. I mean, Jack is of course like, a very iconic movie star. And I think he’s a very Venus retrograde on the Midheaven kind of movie star. People love that he is, you know, kind of a reckless rule-breaker, if you will. You know, he’s… We love to see him throw tantrums; we love to see him play, you know, terrible people or people who are having a hard time coping or what have you. So yeah, I think a lot of this, you know, it spills out of his private life, and it’s all over his work, I think.
CB: Yeah. Let’s see. Other things I noted – the ruler of the 4th whole sign house is Mars, which is also retrograde. So he has both rulers of his, you know, the 4th house —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — related things are both retrograde. It’s in the 5th house of children, and I think there might be something there with just the fact that the ruler of the 4th house of parents is a retrograde Mars in the 5th house of children, and the reason, you know, for this weird situation with his mother is because she had an early pregnancy out of wedlock and therefore that’s why. It’s like, there might be something there as well about that that’s contributing to, I guess I should say as well.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: So that’s —
NDB: I mean, his mother basically was a child herself when she had him is, you know, part of his story, I guess.
CB: Right. Yeah. So he found out in 1974, and that year the planet Uranus was closely conjoining the degree of his IC in the 3rd house. And obviously, this was like, a shocking revelation when it happened. And Uranus then, of course, would also be closely opposing his Venus at the same time.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: At the same time, Neptune was conjoining his Mars, the ruler of the 4th sign, so that’s also contributing something. And then finally, yeah, the North Node was in Sagittarius, so eclipses were happening in the same sign as Mars that year, the ruler of his 4th whole sign house.
Other things that I found that were interesting – Mars was transiting his 3rd house when his mom, his biological mother, died. It had just gone into the sign of Libra. And he experienced it as his sister dying at the time; this was July 31st, 1963. So think about how crazy that is. It’s like, Mars goes into the 3rd house; what he experiences at this time is his sister passes away relatively young, but then in reality it’s like, that was biologically his mother.
Then what I thought was interesting is I looked at both charts for his mother and his grandmother, and it said his biological mother had a stellium in Scorpio, which is his 4th whole sign house, and she had nothing in Libra. But interestingly, his grandmother had the Moon and Jupiter in Libra but no Scorpio placements. So there’s some kind of underlying takeaway here, and I’m not fully sure what it is. But I was workshopping one possibility, which was that like, the whole sign placement showed the woman that was his actual mother essentially, but the IC sort of quadrant placement showed the woman that he experienced as his mother in his life. So I don’t know if that’s a correct takeaway, but just like, trying to get a grasp on this thing of this combining of like, whole sign and sort of like, more quadrant based house systems and how to make distinctions between what each is doing. This might be an interesting chart to attempt to try to workshop that problem.
NDB: I agree; that’s a really interesting analysis. I would add that the thing about this particular chart is since we’re talking about a 3rd-4th house relationship between Venus and Mars in this case, like, you know, the 4th house being Scorpio is opposite a Venus-ruled sign and the 3rd house being Libra is opposite a Mars-ruled sign. So you will – there’s gonna be some form of blending between the 3rd and 4th, 9th and 10th axes if that’s a word altogether by virtue of these being, you know, those two Venus-Mars ruled axes.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: So yeah. But that’s an excellent point. It’s great that we have the mother and sister’s birthday, though – we can look at that. Admittedly, it’s a cursory kind of theory that you have, but I can appreciate immediately how it sort of fills out this story in that way.
CB: Yeah. So you know, I want people to research things like that in order to develop a better understanding of that, but hopefully that’ll be suggestive. All right. So my next chart example – this is the birth chart of Mary Wilson. And the main thing I wanted to point out about in this chart – she has Taurus rising and the IC is in Cancer in the 3rd whole sign house. And for a period of time, she actually came to believe that her aunt was her mother in her life at a certain point. And I think this later turned out to be not true as far as I know, but she actually really deeply believed it for a significant part of her early life so that it played a significant role in her biography. And I think there’s something there with just like, the IC in the 3rd house of extended relatives, which is usually where you see aunts and uncles in addition to the fact that the ruler of the 3rd house itself is in the 4th house, which is the Moon in Leo.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So pretty straightforward. I think we might come back to her, I think, but she was an American singer, and she was the founding member of the Supremes.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So actually, yeah, I do know we’ll come back to her, because there’s a… Yeah, it’s the ruler of the 4th in the 11th example, so we’ll come back to her later.
NDB: Yeah. Every great musical act of the 1960s had their Pisces who would go through some great transformation over the course of the decade, and Mary Wilson is the Pisces in the Supremes. And yeah, we should talk about her more some time; it’s a really great story.
CB: Okay. Yeah, let’s do that when we get to the 11th house.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. The next one I have for this section is the birth chart of Pablo Picasso, who we did an extended discussion of towards the beginning of the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house section in part one. But I wanted to circle back to him just very briefly, just because there may be something here about the fact that he has his IC in the 3rd house, which is Libra, with the planet Venus in Libra in a night chart with how his creative expression was tied in with his home and with his father to a certain extent. Because as we talked about in that last episode, it’s like, his father was also a painter and raised him and trained Picasso to be a painter early on. And his uncle actually played some role in that as well, and Venus is like, the ruler of the 10th in the 3rd. But with the IC here, it’s bringing in and importing some of those like, the father stuff, into the 3rd house here, which is his sort of communication and creative powerhouse that he has in his chart with Venus in Libra.
So I don’t know; there’s just something there. I don’t have a lot; it’s not fully worked out, but that’s what I got there.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, Picasso’s great because he lived long and he’s got a very detailed chronology, and there’s so many different sort of phases to his life. But that does make him a challenge to summarize, you know?
CB: Right.
NDB: You can mention one or two famous paintings, but that hardly scratches the surface of his real story, you know? So yeah. I think – I mean, the thing about Picasso is, you know, he’s a Spaniard who spent basically his whole adult life living in France. There is something about him that’s, you know, almost prefers to be a foreign element than to be in his own familiar element, let’s say.
CB: Right. That’s an interesting point; he basically lived his adult life in a neighboring country, essentially.
NDB: Yeah. You know? And we talked about earlier, I mean, he moved from his hometown when he was 10 to a part of Spain that was very unfamiliar and very culturally different. And that seems to set a pattern for him, even though later on he lives close to Barcelona, which is closer to his culture and he gets a sense of that kind of experience as well. Ultimately as an adult, yeah, he chooses to be where the art is happening; he chooses to be in France, and in many ways, that’s fortunate for him because that’s where he is during, for instance, the Spanish Civil War, which winds up killing a lot of his countrymen, and he’s sort of safe from that.
And interestingly enough, he paints his famous Guernica painting because… The same week that Jack Nicholson was born, that last chart we were looking at was the same week that the German bombers bombed the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, and Picasso painted that painting. So that’s just a segue between the Jack Nicholson chart and the Picasso chart that’s amusing to me.
CB: Okay.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. So moving onto my next example. You know, all of the ones I’ve shown so far have been the IC in the 3rd house examples, and it’s a little bit trickier getting IC in the 5th house examples even though I know they’re out there and there’s actually a lot of really interesting ones. But I had one really stunning one that came up in a live chart reading session with patrons earlier this year a few months ago. I think it was in the episode titled “Jupiter Transits in the Houses: Live Chart Reading Workshop.” I think it was that one, but I could be wrong; I’m actually looking through it now and I’m not seeing… Oh no, yeah, it was. It was one of the very first examples I think in that. So there was a patron and listener of the podcast who said I could use her chart again for this episode named Olabimpe who has Capricorn rising and the degree of the IC is at two degrees of Taurus in the 5th whole sign house. And I asked – we talked about this a little bit within the context of like, the Jupiter transit and the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that was happening at the time earlier this year in the sign of Taurus in her 5th house and how it was blending those 4th and 5th house topics with the IC there. And she wrote me, she said, “I’d say that the biggest impact of having my IC in the 5th house is having the majority of my creative projects focused on my ancestry.” And specifically her father in particular.
So she said, “Last time I mentioned my current writing project where I write to my father about creative projects I’ve been doing in the wake of his sudden passing in late 2019.” So she said, “One of these creative projects was producing a virtual audio play recreation of a Broadway musical about a Nigerian musical artist that my father was known for writing about. My father’s academic book on that musician’s political importance was referenced for the original Broadway show, and he was invited to see it back in the early 2000s when it premiered. I produced the audio play version in 2021 with full support and mentorship from the original producer and sound crew.”
So she says, “This was especially meaningful because my father has dramatic storytelling ancestry, and when he is hailed in what is called an “oriki” or a name (or names) of praise and acknowledgement given to Yoruba children, he is called “the child of the mask-bearers.” My father’s first degree was even in drama, and his plays were very popular and performed routinely on campus, so this is another very literal manifestation of the 5th house IC, especially if we see the 5th house as relevant to theatre specifically.” And I think that’s true, especially we’ve seen that come up a lot in terms of creativity and theatre. So —
NDB: Yeah, she – it’s also, I mean, that Venus is in a mutual reception with Jupiter, and Venus is conjunct the North Node. As I mentioned, when you get planetary contacts to the lunar nodes, these sort of family stories, family – what did I call it – sort of the legacy, the baggage, that gets passed down from generation to generation – you often find that in the nodes. So yeah. You know, the ruler of that 5th house IC is in very particular connection, first by virtue of the mutual reception, secondly by conjunction to that node. So yeah, it’s so interesting that, you know, it’s come out in her art in this way.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And so there’s a little bit left I wanted to read. So she also said, “Almost every creative project I’ve engaged in has this element of researching my ancestry and recreating their story or stories or their work as a way to honor them. In my artist statement, I talk about how this kind of reflection can help future generations to heal particularly because I’ve always felt a certain amount of grief being a first generation American and growing up far away from where my ancestry lived. For the past decade, I’ve focused on figuring out more about my family tree and conducting genealogical interviews with family members for our archive (which feels related to my 4th house/7th house mutual reception). Both in creating this archive and in doing these creative projects (importing this focus to the 5th), I’m hoping to help the next generations of my family to better manage the realities of living in the diaspora, and to help them feel more grounded regardless of where they live on the planet!”
NDB: That’s beautiful. Yeah, I’m also realizing the Moon and Mars are in a mutual reception; this is a pretty special chart.
CB: Yeah. And it’s like, the original submission earlier this year when we were talking about it for that Jupiter-Uranus episode was she said, “Jupiter in Taurus was transiting my 5th house – also where my IC is – and a colleague of my late father reached out about some work she was doing related to his academic work and ancestry. In connecting with this professor, she has ended up mentoring me on a nonfiction memoir book project that I’ve been working on related to my father as well. Venus retrograde ruling this 5th house transit and my 10th house corresponded to a tech layoff for me, which ultimately led me to have more mental space to think about and consider this project without the distraction of a career I wasn’t really into. This Venus-Jupiter conjunction last week in Taurus correspond to my dad’s colleague, this professor, sharing my project abstract along with hers at an academic conference, and my abstract being really well received. She said there was more excitement for my project than the other one she reached out to me about. Suddenly I’m making plans to present my work so far at the conference next year.”
So there’s a lot of detail there, and we actually go into it in more detail – it’s actually an even more stunning example if you listen to my interview that we did where we talked about her chart in that episode. So just check out episode 452 where I do “Jupiter Transits in the Houses: Live Chart Reading Workshop” for more about that. But that just gives you a glimpse of how the IC can still overlap with 5th house topics if it falls in that house. And that’s true for whatever house the degree of the IC falls in.
NDB: All right.
CB: Yeah. So hopefully other people can share other examples of that so we can, you know, develop more data about different manifestations of the IC in different whole sign houses.
Cool. All right. Let’s move onto the 5th house, the house of children, creativity. It can also be the house of sex and sexuality.
So first chart example is the birth chart of Walt Disney. Walt Disney had Virgo rising, and I used him as an example of the ruler of the Ascendant in the 3rd house. But for the purpose of this, I wanted to point out that he has the ruler of the 4th house in the 5th house, and what’s notable about that is he created Disney World and Disneyland, which are physical places where kids can go in order to interact with his animated creations. And that’s really the core of this example for me is it’s like, he literally created these lands, you know, that people go to and that 4th house component of creating these large spaces was actually very important to him.
NDB: Yeah. And I mean, they’re virtually like, little cities. I mean, yeah, lands. They’re, you know, full on sort of communities.
CB: Right. Yeah.
NDB: Extraordinary.
CB: Yeah. All right. The next example is Garry Kasparov, who has Sagittarius rising and Jupiter is ruling the Ascendant. It’s also ruling the 4th house, which is Pisces, and it’s placed in Aries in the 5th whole sign house, also conjunct the degree of the IC. So this is interesting because it’s also a like, degree of the IC in the 5th house example, just like Olabimpe’s chart was.
So with Garry Kasparov, what I think is really interesting about this is that he was a world chess champion who was at the top of – he was the best chess player in the world for a period of time. But when he was the world chess champion, he actually represented first the USSR and then Russia in the period between 1985 and 2000. So this is in a period where chess used to be really big in terms of international politics and in terms of, you know, different chess masters representing their countries, and their success or failure sometimes acting as like, a representation of their country and having broader political importance. So I thought that was such a fascinating example, because it’s like, the 5th house can be games, like fun and games. So in this instance, it’s chess. And we see with the ruler of the Ascendant in the 5th house that it’s like, his life is very much focused on for a large part of it dedicated to a game of chess. But also that it’s also tied in with his home and living situation and the country where he came from with this 4th house component, and that’s where we get, you know, representing his country and everything else.
NDB: Yeah. It’s quite a chart. And of course, you know, he’s moved on from chess. He’s sort of seen as a kind of alternate president of Russia, if you will, or at least spokesperson for, you know, and all that. So yeah, there’s a lot of that that sort of comes into his biography as well.
CB: Yeah. So he got into politics in the 2000s, but then he had to leave Russia in 2013 for safety reasons. And like, the ruler of the IC is that Mars that’s in the 9th house, and he lives in the US now. So yeah. All right, so that was that example.
The next example is the birth chart of Harvey Milk, and Harvey Milk has Taurus on the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is Venus, which is in Gemini in the 5th house. And we also see the degree of the IC is also in Gemini in the 5th whole sign house.
So part of the delineation here is that Harvey Milk is famous and is well known as being one of the first openly gay men elected to political office in a large, urban city in the United States. And so part of the delineation here I think between the 4th and 5th house overlap is that the home and living situation and the place where he lives is sort of like, tied up to some extent with the topics of sex and sexuality in his life, or in this instance, like, sexual orientation. And I think it’s really interesting just because his election as mayor of San Francisco brought this —
NDB: He wasn’t a mayor. He was just a councilman.
CB: Sorry, I meant to – yeah, I didn’t mean to say “mayor.” I meant to say his election in a major city like San Francisco brought unprecedented visibility for the gay rights movement. And then he became this really powerful symbol of hope and change for the LGBTQ comunity. Yeah.
NDB: Yeah. And well, you know, also part of the reason he became a politician came from his life as a businessman, because for a long time, he owned and ran a camera store, which I think of as being a very 5th house kind of operation, if you will. You know, because he was a local businessman, he wound up running for city councilor. You know, it’s a pretty ordinary state of, you know, trajectory of a political career. But yeah, that’s the background he came from was owning a camera store.
CB: Wow. Okay. Yeah, that’s good. All right. So moving on. The next example is Steven Spielberg, who has Cancer rising. The 4th house is Libra, and the ruler of the 4th whole sign house is Venus, which is in Scorpio in the 5th conjunct Jupiter. So I have two points about this, but both of them it has to do with this theme of like, his ancestry and his background and his family being tied in with his creative output with the 5th house representing one’s creativity. So one of them, the first one I came up with was him making Schindler’s List, which was that movie about the Holocaust that he felt really pushed to do and really motivated to do because of his Jewish ancestry in the 1990s. And I think this is notable because it’s not just like, another of many movies that he made, but Steven Spielberg actually achieved more Academy Awards for Schindler’s List than any of his other major movies, even his other big one, which was Saving Private Ryan. So for Schindler’s List in 1993, he won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best DIrector, whereas for Saving Private Ryan in 1998, he only won five Academy Awards, including Best Director but not Best Picture, which of course famously went to Shakespeare in Love that year, which was like, it was a weird year.
NDB: Yeah, it’s still seen as one of the big controversies.
CB: Right.
NDB: Before winning Schindler’s List, he was kind of seen as being constantly snubbed by the Oscars. That was, you know, sort of a trope before memes existed, if you will. The other thing about Schindler’s List I know that at first he was just gonna produce the movie, and he actually asked Roman Polanski to direct it because Polanski was a literal survivor of the Warsaw ghetto. Polanski had been a little boy and separated from his parents and had to survive as a kid in that environment. And Polanski just didn’t feel, you know, sort of psychologically prepared to do Schindler’s List. A few years later, about a decade later, he would do The Pianist, which I guess by that point he’d come around and he did wanna do such a movie. But yeah, for Spielberg to wind up directing Schindler’s List wasn’t the immediate goal. So it did sort of fall on him, and I think, you know, he felt sort of like, responsible. Like, okay, if Roman’s not gonna do it, then I guess I have to, because this movie has to be made. And so there’s an element of that.
And yeah, the fact that it got him so many awards – I mean, it’s not your classic Spielberg movie when we think of Steven Spielberg, right? We think of E.T. And things of that nature. So there was obviously, there was gravitas. He has all this tremendous cinematic skill, so no one should have doubted that he could make such a movie. But it wasn’t what he was, the kind of film that he was known for.
CB: Right. Yeah. It was really like, powerful film, and you know, there’s so many 4th house elements there in terms of not just his Jewish background and his family background in history, but also in terms of like, history itself. Like, documenting history we talked about a little bit in part one. I had a section talking about how sometimes the 4th house can pertain to history and can pertain to the past, and that’s part of what he was doing there in terms of trying to document some of that recent history that had taken place. And I think at the end, isn’t there – there’s like, a shot of a group of like, Holocaust survivors that are like, walking together. Maybe they’re visiting a place or something; I can’t remember. It’s been a while since I watched it. But there’s a lot of interesting things there about ancestry and how that’s tied in then with his creative output. And then that was actually gonna be my primary example, but then I realized like, two nights ago, he actually had a more recent example of this as well, which is that movie that came out in 2022 titled The Fablemans, which is a movie that was actually about his childhood and specifically about his family and his parents. And he later revealed at one point in November 2022 that his parents had been sort of like, “nagging” him to make a film about their lives prior to their deaths. And I think that that didn’t end up happening, because I think they passed away before it came out. But originally, this film was titled I’ll Be Home, and the project was originally written by his sister, Anne Spielberg. So I have this quote I found from him that’s really interesting related to this where it says,
“My life with my mom and dad taught me a lesson, which I hope this film in small way imparts… Which is, when does a young person in a family start to see his parents as human beings? In my case, because of what happened between the ages of seven and 18, I started to appreciate my mom and dad not as parents but as real people.”
And I think that’s a really interesting access point and how he explored that in this film with the ruler of the 4th house of parents in the 5th house of creativity.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: And in that, we see sort of a overlap to some extent with Olabimpe’s chart where also having the IC – having that connection between the 4th and the 5th and like, creative output related to the parents or related to the father.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Let’s go into listener submissions. The next one is it says 5th house – so the ruler of the 4th house is in the 5th house, and it’s Saturn. And they said, “One of the interesting things that was seeing a direct consequence of my enjoyment and fun being things that make me estranged from my family.” And I wasn’t sure, but I checked the person’s profile, and the first thing they said in their profile is that they were queer. So I think that means that they’re talking about in terms of their orientation, sexual orientation potentially, being something that estranged them from their family. I’m not 100 percent if that’s a correct interpretation, but I think that was what they were implying, and I thought that was an interesting and made sense as a delineation of it being Saturn ruling the 4th house of parents in the 5th house of sex and sexuality.
All right. The next one a listener said, “Saturn in Pisces in the 5th is the ruler of my 4th house.” And they said, “My parents were very strict, and I grew up in a very religious context and was not allowed to express my authentic self or interests. Missed my best friend’s sleepover in 5th grade because my mom was like no. And also dating was also forbidden.” So again, we’re seeing a similar like, echoing theme here, and it’s also – it’s Pisces again, where it’s like, the parents are very strict, and therefore the person isn’t able to express themself or have hobbies. Their hobbies, basically, which is the 5th house, are being curtailed as a result of things, and even their romantic life is being curtailed if they’re not able to date, which that’s also forbidden by the parents. So that’s again interesting overlaps between 4th and 5th house.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Another listener has something similar. They said, “I have Sun, Moon, and Venus in my 4th house of Virgo, and Mercury’s in my 5th house conjunct Saturn, which is the ruler of my 9th.” And they said, “My dad had a gambling problem growing up.” Gambling is also a 5th house thing. They said, “He was also a pastor, so I had a religious upbringing that really restricts my childhood.” They said, “No Halloween costumes. No secular TV or movies. My 9th house being Aquarius, I never drank the religious Kool-Aid so to speak. We have a pretty good relationship now, and both of my parents are quite involved in my kids’ lives.” So that’s another later delineation is like, parents involved in kids’ lives, but it’s interesting that the initial experience of that – again, especially early in life, Saturn tends to be a little bit more challenging – it was experienced as like, a restrictiveness on things that would otherwise be fun or enjoyable coming from the parents.
NDB: Right.
CB: All right, next one. Ruler of the 4th in the 5th house, and they say, “I’m very similar to my parents in how I communicate, create, and the sort of things that I find joy in.” So that’s a good one – finding enjoyment in similar things as your parents.
Gemini – another one says, “Gemini 4th house with Mercury in my 5th house. Trying to be the mother I never had, and mental health is a big theme in our house. I can’t help but look at my kids’ charts and see how I might be affecting them or if they might move away from me when they are older, lol.” So I thought that was really interesting because this actually came up in a live chart reading session I feel like earlier this year where one of the patrons or listeners had this connection between with the 5th house as well. And in this instance, it’s the ruler of the 4th in the 5th, and that one of their concerns that they expressed is like, you know, will my children live near me or will they move away and live, you know, elsewhere when they get older as being something that the person’s actually actively thinking about as a topic.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Three more examples. Next one – night chart. Ruler of the 4th house, which is Scorpio, is Mars in the 5th. And they said, “I could literally say that my kids are my soul family.” So that’s really interesting. The family unit, you know, being exclusively essentially the children, and that’s your support system, and not having other family like, outside of that.
NDB: Yeah. That’s very distinct.
CB: Yeah. The next one – ruler of the 4th in the 5th house. 4th house is Gemini with the Sun. Mercury in Cancer. They said, “My home is filled with musical instruments and art equipment for myself and my children.” I love that.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And that is —
NDB: Must be a nice home!
CB: Yeah, it sounds like a good place. I mean, that’s sometimes one of the nice things is the 5th house can sometimes just be about fun and games and creativity and enjoyment and other Venusian type things like that with Venus having its joy there. And sometimes just having the ruler of a house in one of the more positive houses can just be a generic positive delineation in and of itself unless there’s something counteracting it that’s seriously turning that around.
NDB: Yeah. Exactly. It’s the fun and games house.
CB: Exactly.
If you’d like to learn more about my approach to astrology, then you should get a copy of my book titled Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, which is available in both print and now ebook forms where I’ve started selling a PDF copy of the book through my website at HellenisticAstrology.com/Book.
All right, let’s transition to talking about the 6th house, which is the house that’s usually associated with health, illness, work, and subordinates. This is probably one of the most solid string of examples that I found in the rulers of the houses research this time. I was actually so excited that I found this string of examples that I recorded a little preview talking about it just for patrons about a month ago when I originally did this research.
So you know, I’m doing my research; I got to the 6th house at this point, and I start searching my database for who has the ruler of the 4th house of parents in the 6th house. And one of the first ones that came up as like, a contemporary example that is in the news at the time, which is the birth chart of Kamala Harris. So —
NDB: I’ve heard of her.
CB: Heard of her. So Kamala Harris has Gemini rising, and Virgo is on the 4th whole sign house. And the ruler of the 4th house of parents is Mercury, which is in the 6th house in Scorpio. And what’s interesting about this that I immediately remembered and recognized just based on recent like, biographical coverage, is that her mother was a breast cancer researcher. And she served as a peer reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, and actually made significant contributions to breast cancer research. She served on the President’s Special Commission on Breast Cancer, and her research led to advancements in the knowledge of specific hormones pertaining to breast cancer. So elsewhere, I read a thing that said that her work in the isolation and characterization of the progesterone receptor gene in mice changed research on the hormone responsiveness of breast tissue. And that ultimately towards the end of her life when she passed away, she requested that donations be made to the organization Breast Cancer Action.
So I thought that was amazing having this connection between the 4th house of parents and the 6th house of illness and your mother is literally somebody who researches and tries to combat a specific form of illness.
NDB: Yeah. And her mother did some of that research at McGill University in Montreal, which is why for a couple of years Kamala and I went to school under the same roof.
CB: Okay.
NDB: The old high school in Montreal. A school called FACE, a fine arts school.
CB: Nice. That’s cool.
NDB: Yeah. We’re about four grades apart, so I would have been 11 and she would have been 15 or whatever. But yeah. There we were.
CB: Nice. So then I started searching my files for other examples, and then an interesting name popped up, which is Barack Obama also has that placement where he was born with Aquarius rising, Taurus is the 4th whole sign house. It’s also the sign that contains the IC. And the ruler of the 4th house is Venus, which is placed in Cancer in the 6th house. And this is really interesting because for a couple of reasons. One, I immediately realized and I remembered that like, a major part of his biography is that his mother died relatively young at the age of 52 of cancer in 1995. And that, you know, ultimately part of the tragedy is that she didn’t get to see him become president, and that’s part of his like, life story.
So one of the things that’s important about that, though, is it’s not just his experience in terms of that of his mother passing away of cancer, but also his experience of seeing his mother die of cancer and worry about hospital bills, and specifically being denied coverage due to preexisting conditions is part of what motivated him to pursue healthcare reform as president. And the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare became one of his most important pieces of legislation and became sort of a signature piece of legislation that’s still affecting people today. And I found this quote from a 2007 speech when he was running for president where he said,
“I remember my mother. She was 52 years old when she died of ovarian cancer, and you know what she was thinking about in the last months of her life? She wasn’t thinking about getting well. She wasn’t thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality. She had been diagnosed just as she was transitioning between jobs. And she wasn’t sure whether health insurance was going to cover medical expenses because they might consider this a preexisting condition. I remember just being heartbroken, seeing her struggle through the paperwork and the medical bills and the insurance forms. So, I have seen what it’s like when somebody you love is suffering because of a broken health care system. And it’s wrong. It’s not who we are as a people.”
So that was in 2007. So it’s like, his experience seeing his mother deal with this became his motivation for that was really the first thing and the main thing that they did once he became president is they used this period where they had a majority in the government to pass the Affordable Care Act. And one of the primary things that it did among other things is it made it so that health insurance companies couldn’t deny people based on preexisting conditions. They couldn’t deny people health coverage. So and it was his mother – seeing his mother go through that was part of his personal motivating experience of that, so it’s interesting because on one hand, we have a personal event that he experienced in his life, but also with this signature in his chart, it takes on a broader importance because then that signature in his chart ended up being part of the like, contribution of his life in some sense and his life story that then affected millions of AMericans or people in AMerican subsequent to that once the Affordable Care Act was passed and companies could no longer deny people for preexisting conditions. So you know, that’s really important and is still a major thing today, which hopefully is not taken away. But that’s one of the scary things. So I just thought that was such a striking example for that.
NDB: Yeah. Well, two thoughts. One related directly to that is certainly the 6th house has to do with health, especially chronic health conditions. The 6th house being, you know, a house of daily routine or daily duty. You know, when you’ve got the arthritis or you’ve got something that’s sort of, you know, it’s not necessarily killing you but just sort of dogging your day, that’s a very sort of 6th house type of thing to have to cope with. But the 6th house is also administrative. It’s organized. And so just the idea of having policy. Just the idea of sort of, you know, organizing healthcare or organizing anything in such a way that it’s not framed in chaos, that it has a direction to it and an infrastructure. These are all sort of very 6th house things. So it’s striking to me. Again, this is one of these instances I think where the house has this multivalence to it where everything sort of stacks up in a very interesting neat layer.
CB: Yeah. For sure.
NDB: The other thing just sort of tangentially related to that, it’s just striking me because I mentioned that anecdote about Kamala, and then it struck me – oh yes. Barack and Kamala were both raised by single mothers whose jobs required them to live abroad for a stretch of time. And yeah, you know, it’s not a fully formed idea; it just occurred to me that in particular I guess thinking about, you know, the 6th house. Sort of, you know, the requirements sometimes that come up for a career, and…
CB: Yeah. I mean, that’s a good point. I mean, in Hellenistic astrology, in the earliest forms of astrology that used the houses, all four of the cadent houses were associated with travel essentially. Like, Valens says all four houses are associated with travel. So it’s especially the 3rd house —
NDB: Right.
CB: — and the 9th house, but it’s also the 12th and the 6th. And we’re gonna see when we get to, for example, like, the ruler of the 4th in the 12th house examples, we’re gonna see a number of people who ended up either living abroad or being exiled or different things like that.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, like I said earlier with regard to the 6th and the 12th relating to time, and I think of the 6th house being sort of very managed, regulated time, whereas 12th house is sort of existing somewhere outside of time or only in the very sort of basic night and day element of time and not sort of rigidly scheduled time.
CB: Okay.
NDB: Yeah. All right. We’ll come back to that.
CB: Yeah. All right. So that was my second example, so then I went back to the drawing board and I started searching to see if there were any other chart examples of connecting the 4th and the 6th in the databases, basically. And then I found one more amazing one that really capped it off, and it’s the birth chart of Michael Moore, who was born with Leo rising. The 4th house is Scorpio, which is ruled by Mars in the 6th house of illness, which is in Capricorn. And it’s actually in a mutual reception with Saturn, which is actually placed in Scorpio in the 4th house. So this is one of those examples like we were talking about before where sometimes when you see a mutual reception between the two houses, you know they’re gonna be closely tied together in the person’s life, and you know it’s gonna be an important set of topics in the person’s life that’s gonna be distinctive in some way. And what’s incredible about that is that in 2007, he created a political documentary that was titled Sicko that investigated healthcare in the United States. And in the film, it focused on the country’s health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry in particular. And what he did is that Michael Moore compared the for-profit, non-universal US healthcare system with the non-profit, universal healthcare systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Cuba. And really the focus of the movie was basically about showing how bad healthcare was in the United States in 2007 compared to other countries.
So here it’s interesting because the 4th house is representing more broadly where you’re from in the sense of the country that you’re from, and how it deals with healthcare and how it deals with illness and, you know, medicine and all these other 6th house things. And how especially in 2007, prior to the Affordable Care Act, how it was even worse in comparison to other countries that were doing better in a number of respects in different metrics when it came to healthcare. And you know, just even with simple things like preexisting conditions where so many millions of Americans couldn’t get healthcare at all because of preexisting conditions during that time. So this is before the Affordable Care Act. So I just thought that was an amazing third —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — example to really round out the first two.
NDB: It sure is. Could you put up his chart again, though, because there’s a whole other thing to his chart and his 6th house that I think we could point out. Back in 1989, I went to see the very first movie he made when he was a total unknown; it was a movie called Roger and Me. And it was a movie about the closing of I think the GM plant or the Ford plant or whatever plant was in Flint, Michigan. It was very specifically about his hometown and about the sort of the closing of industry in his hometown. So again, it was a very strong connection between sort of 6th house matters – you know, matters involving the unions, the workers, you know, very sort of a film full of 6th house themes that are not health related but related to again sort of the administrative and work related concerns. And also class, which is like, social class, which is another 6th house element. And when that movie came out in September of 1989, Saturn and Uranus were both going over that Mars-Moon conjunction of his in Capricorn. And that was really – like everything that followed that he did came from the fact that he was this independent filmmaker and made this really successful documentary called Roger and Me. And everything else that follows is because he got famous doing that. And it’s another very 6th house themed movie. So it’s something that you really see pop up regularly in his work right from the beginning.
CB: That’s a really great point. And also that a lot of his other – even like Bowling for Columbine, for example, has like, scenes about Flint, Michigan, and it’s like, a recurring theme in his movie about like, the decline of this town that he’s from, essentially.
NDB: Oh yeah.
CB: And the problems that it’s dealt with.
NDB: Yeah. He always relates it back to Flint, very much so. All those movies. But when if you know Roger and Me, then that’s sort of like, the whole origin story of him as a cinema phenomenon. Like, think about it – in 1989 when he comes out with Roger and Me, it’s right when independent cinema is becoming this thing. So in a way, he’s sort of like the Quentin Tarantino of independent documentary cinema, if you will, in the sense that he becomes this phenomenon right at a time when this new stream of cultural influence is coming into the world of cinema. So yeah, it was very of its time.
CB: Yeah. And even more recently, I think in one of his documentaries, he included stuff about the Flint water crisis where like, the water was —
NDB: That’s right.
CB: — poisoned like, several years ago by —
NDB: Is still poisoned!
CB: It’s still poisoned by like, lead in the pipes or something like that? Yeah. So yeah, anyway, so that just sort of like, ties together those three in a throughline in those three examples that I thought was really striking and fascinating. So those are three of my like, sort of core examples that work together here.
NDB: Right. One last point, not to beat the Michael Moore horse to death, but he’s got the Sun opposite Saturn, so you know that that Saturn’s quite strong when it’s directly opposite the Sun. And also, that Mars of his is about the station retrograde. So not only are those two planets in mutual reception, but they’re both in a strength condition as well – Saturn by virtue of how bright it would be opposite the Sun, albeit in a diurnal chart, and then Mars by virtue of moving so slowly as it’s about to station retrograde.
CB: Right. Yeah. All right. The next example to move into a completely different way that the ruler of the 4th in the 6th can manifest that I found when I did searches, people who had that is the birth chart of Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, who had Virgo rising, Sagittarius on the 4th house with the IC there, and the ruler is Jupiter, which is placed in Aquarius in the 6th house of work. And what I thought was striking about that is that he literally lived where he worked, where in 1971, he bought the Playboy Mansion, and this wasn’t just his residence, but it was also like, the headquarters for Playboy Enterprises. And he ran his business from the mansion, and then it also became sort of like, a central location for like, photoshoots and parties and other Playboy related activities so that while he had other residences, the Playboy Mansion was where he spent most of his time and also conducted a significant portion of his business, which then kind of like, blurred the lines between his work life and his personal life. And that’s actually gonna be a theme that comes up a lot in the listener submissions of a number of people talking about like, working from home or other things like that.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, it became kind of part of his iconography. I mean, the fact that he was always in his pajamas! you know? He was that committed to the, you know, not just the experience of working from home, but you know, celebrating it as a sort of status of some kind. Some kind of achievement that he could do that. And I guess when you think about it, Playboy – the nature of the magazine – has a 4th house quality to it. You know? The whole idea that it’s sort of home, intimate. It’s, you know, yeah, it’s supposed to be like, the magazine that the bachelor comes home to after a long day at work, and you know, the advertisements for the latest stereo equipment and all that stuff. Yeah.
CB: Right. I don’t know.
NDB: Yeah, there’s an element of that.
CB: Sure. Yeah. So work from home component, and then the next chart that I wanted to share is the birth chart of Frida Kahlo who also has the ruler of the 4th house of home in the 6th house of illness. But it’s much more difficultly placed where Frida Kahlo had Leo rising with Scorpio in the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is Mars in Capricorn in a day chart. So Mars is contrary to the sect, which makes it the most difficult planet. It’s conjunct Uranus, which is tricky, and then it’s opposing her Sun and Neptune in Cancer in the 12th whole sign house very closely. And the main takeaway from this is that as a result of an injury that she received earlier in her life, she was confined to her home a lot basically, and she was essentially like, stuck in bed. But then also had to do a lot of her artwork, essentially, from home. And this becomes like a recurring theme throughout her life where she also explored in her artwork themes of like, her body as a home, but also its vulnerability. Let’s see. Yeah. And there’s different themes of like, confinement and introspection. Her home also as a symbol of her Mexican identity and ancestry. And her life and her art weaving together these concepts of home, illness, and injury just being this recurring theme in her life so strikingly.
NDB: Yeah. In fact, towards the end of her life, the one time she had an actual solo art exhibition in Mexico, it’s only at the very end of her life like a year before she died. And by that point, her body was in such damaged shape that she had to be carried into the exhibition in a bed. And so, you know, her supporters, her friends and family and what have you carried her to the exhibition while she was in her bed and she was, you know, placed in the exhibition hall, whatever where the art was, and that’s where she greeted the guests, you know, the people who came to see her art was from this bed. So yeah, it’s not Hugh Hefner in his pajamas, but you can see the similar sort of… It again becomes part of her iconography – Frida being carried to her exhibition on a bed.
CB: Yeah, for sure. And just the difference between, you know, what the planet is and what the ruling planet is and how it’s situated and seeing a planet that’s in much different condition than the previous example.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: But yeah. But like you said, becomes iconic because it’s like, her home was both a physical space and a metaphorical representation of her body and identity, and that deeply was impacted by her physical limitations and her resilience in the face of them. You also kind of get some of the themes… Because there’s both good and bad themes to that as well. Like, the home being like, a sanctuary on the one hand in some instances in her life, especially like her childhood home. But then there’s also home and themes of being confined there and almost experiencing it like a prison as a result of —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — the illness and the injuries and the physical limitations. So you’re getting sort of both sides of the 4th house there.
NDB: Yeah. And also, you know, the 4th house in the sense of the patriot. You know, Frida grew up, you know, in her earliest life was in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. And you know, she and everyone she was close to were very deeply tied to that movement, which you know, after the fact, after the teens and early ‘20s, was quite disillusioning as post-revolution periods usually are. So there is this whole sort of really strong engagement in her artwork, in her politics, and what have you, closely tied to this very recent earth-shattering change that had occurred in Mexico.
CB: Yeah, that’s a great point. Especially being there in the 6th house, like, conjunct Uranus and those like, revolutionary politics especially for workers, essentially.
NDB: Yeah. Very, very strongly committed to that cause and of course, famously, you know, had a brief affair with Trotsky when he first arrived in Mexico in 1937. And you know, he was there running away from Stalin, who would eventually catch up with him there. But yeah, they interacted and had a little affair.
CB: Yeah. So yeah. I think just and then those other things that we’ll come back to later that we talked about in the previous one of sometimes those feelings of confinement but also introspection that can come up with the 4th house. And yeah, how that comes in there.
So those are the chart examples I wanted to share. Let’s go to the listener submissions. So the first one I have, they said, “The ruler of the 4th in the 6th house. One notable way is the sickness of my parents and their care has been a major part of my life since I was a teen.” So that’s a major one – taking care of sick parents. And I think I had others that were submitted like that.
Another one says, “My 4th house is Pisces, and Jupiter is in my 6th house in Taurus. And for many years now, I’ve cared for my parents, and my father is 99 and healthy, so it may be many more years that I’m taking care of him.” Yeah. So taking care of parents, taking care of their health.
Similar one – a listener says, “4th house is Virgo; Mercury is retrograde in the 6th house conjunct Mars and Pluto. My mother was chronically ill, and my bio dad was an addict and died when I was 11 years old. My parents also took in a number of disabled foster children while I was growing up, and we could also never really hang onto pets.” So that’s bringing in different elements.
Another listener says, “The ruler of my 4th is the Sun in Libra in the 6th house, and my father was skin cancer from Sun exposure, which is definitely a literal interpretation of that placement.”
Another person says, “Saturn ruling the 4th house in the 6th house. Eight out of 10 years as a working adult have been spent employed by my family members. Today is my solar return entering a 5th house profection year, and I’m in the process of leaving my job with my brother’s company to pursue creative endeavors.” So I think – so this is another side of things that you see when there’s a connection between the 4th house of parents and the 6th house of work is that there can be a connection between work and the person’s family or work and the person’s parents, and this was another major, major theme that came up in a lot of the listener submissions.
NDB: Yeah. Absolutely. It’s duty, you know? It’s tending to the garden. You know, all that stuff.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: The daily ritual of staying alive. But it’s very organized, again. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So one person said that they learned to work hard from their parents starting relatively early in life. Another person said, “My ruler of the 4th is Saturn in the 6th, and my entire childhood and adolescence was spent working for my dad’s construction business. I now can appreciate that it’s given me a very strong work ethic, but back then, I considered it almost as like slavery.” I think that’s interesting.
Aquarius – so 6th house Saturn, and they said, “My first job was working under my grandparents. I did landscaping with my mother for a few years, and now I’m working at the family print shop. So home and work life have never truly been balanced.” So I like that – working at the family print shop.
Two others to go back to the health thing. One person says, “Ruler of the 4th in the 6th – most of my health issues stem from genetics and the way I was raised.” So that’s important – genetics and ancestry can be a 4th house thing. I’ve seen that come up sometimes in those connections.
Another person says, “Ruler of the 4th is in the 6th house in Pisces – chronic illness runs in my family. I have many grandmothers who were nurses, and I also work from home.”
NDB: Yeah. Nursing. That’s a big 6th house one.
CB: Yeah, and just health in general, like —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — one of my favorite famous chart examples.
NDB: Unless they’re in surgery. Then you’ll see a lot of 8th house stuff.
CB: Okay.
NDB: If they work in the surgery theater.
CB: Yeah. I had a doctor as a client who had the ruler of the Ascendant and the 10th in the 6th. And that’s one of the things about challenging houses is sometimes it’s not always sometimes you experience as an externally negative thing that happens to you. But sometimes it’s just you working with people that are in a difficult position and trying to help people that are dealing with challenging things.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, you see that in the charts of actors, too, you know? I’ve got this really funny example of Michael Caine. It looks like he’s having terrible transits, and yeah, he was acting in the movie Dressed to Kill where he’s literally cutting people up with a razor blade, so you know, of course the transits look horrible. But I’m sure he was having a fine time making the movie.
CB: Yeah. All right. The next example. They say, “Aquarius 4th house – the ruler is Saturn in the 6th in Aries. Incorporating fitness into my daily routine by working out from home. Prioritizing my health in this way and taking my vitamins has allowed me to stay sober. I’ve overcome addiction and an eating disorder that I had first developed in childhood.” So I think that’s notable. There’s probably something there 4th house, childhood, and like, early home life and things like that.
Another person says, “In the 6th house in Scorpio – mutual receiving Virgo Mars in the 4th house through sextile.” So mutual reception between 4th and 6th. “I’m a Gemini rising, so Mercury is my chart ruler as well. All of my jobs have involved traveling to people’s homes to speak with them about health. With the recent eclipse in my 10th, now I do the same thing, but I work from my house now, from home.”
Two more. The next one says, “Ruler of the 4th in the 6th house. The first time I ever moved out from my home was to move in with two coworkers.” I love that because the 6th house can sometimes be like, people, like coworkers – people you work with.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: And then finally, the last one says, “Ruler of the 4th is Saturn in the 6th in Aries. I come from a working class family and region and grew up in the countryside. My father raised chickens and rabbits for most of my childhood, and my godfather, who I was quite close with, is a hunter of small-port animals such as hares and grouses. My grandfather had a small farm with chickens and ducks, and I usually woke up either with the neighbor’s goats in the morning because they were quite loud, or to the rooster.” I love that, because it draws out the 6th house associate with animals which you sometimes see as a very literal thing in connection —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — with the parents and the family.
NDB: It’s funny; I was thinking it would come up more, and you mentioned pets with one other example, but yeah, that’s a very frequent thing. Because again, the 6th house is about sort of the daily routine. And when you have domestic animals, you know, you can’t go on that weekend trip because they have to be fed. You know? It’s like I said – tending to the garden, making sure everything sort of stays alive, whether it’s taking care of your parents or, you know, having pets or what have you.
CB: Yeah. For sure.
NDB: I was gonna say, it occurred to me after we went off Frida Kahlo. She has that, you know, 12th house-6th house thing. And she kept monkeys as pets. You know, the Capricorn Moon in the 6th. But she kept wild animals as domestic animals, which is just so her chart. Another thing that occurred to me that you see in that chart.
CB: Nice. Yeah. Animals come up. In the 2nd house episode, I did my favorite animal example ever is like, Leona Helmsley, who had the ruler of the 6th house of pets in the 2nd house of finances, and when she died, she left her dog millions of dollars, and it became like, the richest dog in the world.
NDB: I remember that.
CB: Yeah. It’s one of my favorite gag examples, but it’s also true. I mean, sometimes —
NDB: Sure.
CB: — you know, when the 6th house is prominent, like, animals become prominent and actually we’ll have another example of that later on.
NDB: Yeah. True story – about a month or two ago, I had a client, and the client had Pluto in the 6th house. And at some point during the consultation, one of her dogs made a noise. And she said, “Oh, excuse me, I have three dogs.” And I said, “Are they all rescue dogs?” And she said yes. It was just seeing the Pluto in the 6th house that, you know, this would be someone whose pets would come out of some kind of life or death situation is, you know, what occurred to me in that moment. So yeah, you know, it can be as simple as that.
CB: Yeah. For sure. All right, let’s transition into talking about the 7th house now, and the ruler of the 4th in the 7th house of relationships, partnership, and other people.
So the first example I wanted to share – this was a more tricky one when I was researching it, but it got balanced out nicely with some of the listener submissions, which in turn helped to balance out some of the celebrity examples that I was finding.
So the first one I wanted to share – this was one Leisa worked on, and Leisa Schaim pointed out as being really good, which is the birth chart of Meghan Markle. So Meghan Markle was born with Cancer rising, and the ruler of the Ascendant itself is in the 4th house. I think we – I don’t remember if we talked about her in the part one and used her as an example of the 4th house, but Meghan Markle has Capricorn on the 7th house of relationships and the ruler of the 7th house of relationships is Saturn in the 4th house exalted, but in a night chart, so it’s actually her most difficult placement.
So Meghan Markle, of course, is noted in that she married – she was like, an actress who married into the royal family when she married Prince Harry. But then they famously over the past several years had a lot of difficulties with that family and ended up essentially like, leaving the family and rejecting their royal duties that they’d normally have as royalty. And instead sort of like, going their own way and moving to a different country in order to get away from the family due to those difficulties.
So I thought it was an interesting, you know, example for that reason without even —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — getting into all of the details or the different things that people have surrounding this. But just the notion of when there’s a connection between the 7th and the 4th, themes of family coming up as a major topic within the context of the person’s marriage.
NDB: Yeah, absolutely. It always – it’s amazing to me, she’s born five days after Charles and Diana’s wedding, so she’s tied into that same eclipse that really sort of follows the royal family around, which is another facet of her chart that I find interesting. I guess, I mean, the other thing is with that kind of IC and all those planets down there, this is someone who also sort of has, as I understand it, moved around a lot. I mean, apart from the fact that she married, you know, a foreign royal, just like life between Canada and the US and so on and so forth. Yeah. There’s a lot of movement in this person’s life.
CB: Sure. Yeah. And then one of the last things about that I just wanted to point out – it’s just such a recurring theme, but it’s like, I feel like over the past year or two, I’ve finally fully understood planets in their exaltation and what it means. It’s just like, whatever that planet means, it will do the highest or the best version of that, essentially, is what it will attempt to represent in the chart. In this instance, it’s the ruler of the 7th house of marriage is a planet in its exaltation, and she literally married royalty. She married into a royal family, and she —
NDB: A literal prince.
CB: Right. A literal prince. So it’s like, you know, imagine normal default scenario is you marry somebody, and they’re like, a normal person or they’re in the same class as you or they have the same amount of money as you, or the same job or whatever. It’s like, completely neutral. But then imagine like, what is the highest version of that if it was instead like, yeah, the highest version of that? And it’s like, literally marrying a prince, basically.
NDB: Right. But unlike any other sort of royal spouse, she came with her own clout as an existing celebrity.
CB: Sure.
NDB: I mean, Diana became this great iconic celebrity, but only because she married Prince Charles; she wasn’t sort of headed in that direction otherwise. So yeah, I think that’s another part of Meghan that’s very distinct and that you see in that.
CB: Yeah, for sure. I mean, she was a famous actress, and that played a role in everything else, but it’s still like, you know, she married a prince and married into a royal family. And we just see that over and over again of the delineation of exalted planets as just that like, whatever the highest version of that, or to have the raised up version of that somehow that’s what the exalted planet will signify. And I’m thinking about putting together like, a list of examples of that to show, because I’ve collected so many over the past year or two, just to really drive that point home. But hers is a really good one.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Moving on. The next example is the birth chart of Graham Nash, and this is one that you pointed out to me that was really funny because with this example, Graham Nash is a musician, and has Scorpio rising. Aquarius is on the 4th house, and the ruler is Saturn, which is in Taurus in the 7th house, and it’s in a mutual reception with Venus, the ruler of the 7th, which is in the 4th. And the funniest thing about this is that he wrote the song “Our House,” which is like, his most popular and iconic song, which was recorded with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and it’s like, the most 4th house song that you can imagine. And it’s said to be, “an ode to counter cultural domestic bliss.” And he wrote it about a time when he was living with Joni Mitchell, who was his girlfriend at the time. And the story was that the two that day spent a particularly like, lovely day after purchasing a vase and going back home and like, decorating their home, and then he wrote the song like, really quickly that day about this like, lovely day of domestic bliss that he had with his girlfriend and about them, you know, living together. And I thought that was really hilarious.
NDB: Yeah. And it’s especially hilarious because we know that Graham and Joni really only lived together for a year. Pretty much from the beginning of 1969 to the end of 1969, which is the year that Graham was 27. He turned 27 in February of ‘69. So he was in a 4th house profection year, and yeah, he’s got that, you know, the Venus in the 4th, mutual reception with Saturn in the 7th, and it’s just, you know, exactly like the chart sort of sings the song itself. It writes the song and sings it. And it is, by far, I think, his best known song. He was in a band before Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young called the Hollies, who were sort of, you know, B-level Beatles, but never as popular as CSNY. And that’s definitely his most popular song with them, so. Yeah. It speaks for itself or sings for itself, as it were.
CB: Yeah. And everybody should basically like, pause this – if you’re watching on YouTube, like, pause this video, search the song, play it, and either you’ll recognize it immediately and then laugh because you’ll recognize like, why it’s relevant, or you’ll hear by listening to the lyrics for the first time like, why it’s relevant. I’m gonna read some of the lyrics. It’s not gonna be as good as the song itself, but it’ll give you – convey – some things.
NDB: You’re not quite as good a singer as Graham Nash; I’ll give you that.
CB: My friend, you did not get to join me for my rendition of the Alanis Morissette “You Oughta Know” at the end of the 3rd house episode. I think you missed that, unfortunately. So —
NDB: That is unfortunate.
CB: Yeah. This performance will not add up to that, but all right. Here we are. So some of the lyrics I wrote down, it said, “I’ll light the fire. You place the flowers in the vase that you bought today. Staring at the fire for hours and hours while I listen to you play your love songs all night long for me, only for me. Come to me now and rest your head for just five minutes. Everything is done. Such a cozy room. The windows are illuminated by the evening Sunshine through them, fiery gems for you – only for you. Our house is a very, very, very fine house, with two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy, because of you.”
Yeah. So that’s the song.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: It’s funny he has a mutual reception between the ruler of the 4th and the 7th and he becomes known for that song especially.
NDB: Yeah. And he wrote and recorded it definitely at the age of 27. Because that album, Deja Vu, was recorded I think October, November of ‘69, so yeah, he was still 27.
CB: Nice. So it was a 4th house profection year.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Brilliant. All right. Let’s see – moving on. One of these is a really simple one. The next one, it just shows the privacy theme. This is the birth chart of Donald Glover, actor, musician, multi-talented artist. He has Pisces on the 7th house and the ruler of the 7th house of relationships is Jupiter in Sagittarius in the 4th house. And my main point with this one is just that he’s famously been very private about his relationships, about his dating life, and about his love life, and he’s very protective of his private life and things like that. So I wanted to use that as an example just to draw out some of the privacy themes that come with the 4th house and to show that sometimes when the ruler of another house is in the 4th house, or sometimes vice versa, that it can bring this element of privacy or even secrecy to that part of the person’s life.
NDB: Yeah, and since he’s got, what, Uranus and Neptune there along with the Jupiter, I have to imagine his house is interesting and maybe there are, you know, it’s quirky enough that those who have a peek behind the curtain have a special insight into the guy.
CB: Yeah. All right. Next example. This is one you did, so this is the birth chart of Elizabeth Taylor, who has the ruler of the 7th house in the 4th house. We actually – we’re using her for a couple also, because we also have her as a ruler of the 9th in the 4th as well.
NDB: Right.
CB: So I guess we don’t have to tell her entire story. But with the ruler of the 7th in the 4th, I just thought it was funny that her first marriage was to the heir of the Hilton hotel chain. So it’s like, ruler of the 7th house of relationships in the 4th house of like, living and staying places, and she marries the heir of a hotel person. What else is relevant about that placement?
NDB: Well, I mean, it was kind of a punchline. She’s a woman who was married, you know, seven times to six husbands, I believe. And so, that first marriage coincided with the fact that she was in a movie called Father of the Bride where, you know —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — her character gets married.
CB: That was it. I forgot. Okay. That was it. So she was 18 years old; she’s in a 7th house profection year when she first gets married. And that year, she’s also in a movie that’s titled Father of the Bride, which is the other manifestation of the ruler of the 7th in the 4th, and it’s about a man who’s trying to cope with preparations for his daughter’s wedding, and she plays the daughter. And the film actually premiered 12 days after her actual first marriage to the hotel heir. And the film was also one of the top grossing films of the year, and it had a sequel and several adaptations where even in the year 2000, the American Film Institute listed it as number 83 on its list of 100 like, comedy films.
NDB: Right. There was a remake with Steve Martin, I think, in the ‘80s or early ‘90s as well. Yeah, it was a big hit. And so her marriage to Nicky Hilton was in part a kind of Hollywood publicity thing. You know, not unlike what would happen with her friends Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, who were sort of who had a Hollywood arranged marriage and of course famously later Elizabeth would run off with Eddie and marry him and cause this big Hollywood scandal. But yeah. You know, so it’s also partly sort of a stage thing, this marriage to Nicky Hilton, and you know before long, she would divorce him and marry an older man, Michael Wilding, who she had more sort of connection with at that point in her life.
CB: Right. So and I forgot that it’s like, one thing that’s important to point out is that the ruler of the 7th is also the ruler of the 10th house of career and publicity, and it’s in the 4th house, which is normally more of a private house. But because the ruler of the 10th house is there, her relationships were often tied into her career and were very public.
NDB: Yeah. You might not – you’re too young to remember. Her last marriage was in 1991, and it was held at Michael Jackson’s Neverland. And you know, the attempts by the press to get photographs from this wedding were crazy. Like, they were hiring helicopters, all this crazy footage. It was a huge, you know, deal and the attempt to have privacy and the lengths they had to go to is pretty crazy.
The other impression I get from having studied her life so closely is there is a sense that, you know, she was a very different person apart from this glamorous – you know, she’s the embodiment of Hollywood glamour in one way. But apparently at home, she’s quite a, you know, she was just sort of quite sort of simple and homey and the facade was more so than we would have thought. She wasn’t exactly the person we saw on the screen.
CB: Okay. Yeah. A couple other notes that I wrote down for her is that at one point, the film tycoon Howard Hughes also wanted to marry her and offered to pay her parents a six-figure sum of money if she were to become his wife. So I thought that was a weird element, like, having the ruler of the 7th house of marriage in the 4th house of parents and somebody trying to like, bribe or like, pay like, a modern dowry or something. But I don’t believe that happened, and that she herself believed that she could gain independence from her parents as well as from the movie studio through getting married with like, the 4th house, the 10th house, and the 7th house all connected there in her chart.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, there was an element of that. She had almost gotten married when she was 17, actually. There’s a whole sort of story arc I can tell about her marriages. She almost got married in 1949 when there was a Sun-Mars conjunction in Pisces, and you can see she has the Sun and Mars in Pisces. And then in 1964, when she married Richard Burton for the first time, incidentally in Montreal married by the same minister who six years later would marry my parents, but when she married Richard Burton in Montreal in 1964, there was also a Sun-Mars conjunction in Pisces, or they were both copresent in Pisces, anyway. So there’s a whole, yeah, I could go further into her relationships with that. But needless to say, she – there was something about getting married even before that marriage to Nicky Hilton. She seemed to be trying to pull that sort of escape. Like a teenager who really wants to get out of the house and, you know, wants to spread her wings.
CB: Yeah. That makes sense. All right. We’ll return to her later, because there’s more interesting stuff in terms of her life.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. So the next one on my list that I researched is Dorothy Dandridge. And Dorothy Dandrige has the ruler of the 4th house – the 4th house is Scorpio, and the ruler is Mars, which is placed in Aquarius in the 7th house. And this is a more tricky one because with Dorothy, one of the things I was seeing in her chart and in her biography that was really difficult later on in life was that her second husband was part of the like, Las Vegas hospitality scene. He’s sometimes said to have been a hotel manager, although he seems to be focused more on like, restaurants and clubs in Vegas. And I thought the restaurant component was interesting because we talked about one example of a ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th who ran a lot of different restaurants in part one.
So the issue with this guy is that he squandered her money and basically left her in bankruptcy so that she could no longer support her home. She had like, a really nice home. And she could no longer support the care of her disabled daughter, so she had to put her daughter into a state mental institution; this is like, in the mid, you know, 20th century. And she had to move into a much more modest apartment and had to get rid of basically her beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills.
So there’s something here with like, the ruler of the 4th in the 7th, especially its Mars and it’s kind of more challenging placement. But in this instance, it had to do with almost like, giving over the foundation of your life to another person. And sometimes that can be really not good. In her case, she has some challenging things associated with it.
So the financial ruin caused by this forced her to cause her home and declare bankruptcy, but then even more so the stress and the emotional toll of the marriage and its aftermath likely contributed to her declining mental and physical health, and she ended up dying relatively early. Like, she wasn’t very old in 1965.
NDB: Yeah. She declared bankruptcy in April of ‘63 and died in September of ‘65. So, you know, that’s two and a half years of decline, you know, to the point where, yeah, she died very young. She married —
CB: And she was only born in ‘22, so how old was she?
NDB: That’s right. She was like, still 41 when she died. Or sorry, 42. She was 42 when she died.
CB: That’s so young. That’s like if I died in like, two years from now.
NDB: Yeah, exactly, or me 14 years ago! Yeah. She married Jack Denison in June of 1959, and Neptune had just gone into Scorpio not long before and so it was transiting over that Mercury and Jupiter of hers when she got married. And she has Neptune rising, so it’s, you know, it’s an important planet in the sense of angularity for her. And 1959 was a year where there was a Sun-Mars-Neptune triple conjunction in late October, early November of 1959 a few months after they got married. And I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be, like, if we track her transits more closely. I do have a biography, but I haven’t read it yet. But it’s a good bet that that’s a period where, you know, a lot of these really fateful decisions or choices are being made, you know, with regard to her money and the eventual jeopardy to her home.
CB: Right. Yeah. And then with the divorce, they divorced in 1962 when Saturn was transiting through her 7th house and eclipses were also taking place there. And I saw that in the divorce filing, she said that she actually suffered domestic abuse from him as well. Let’s see, what else? She has —
NDB: She was born with that Venus retrograde in Sagittarius – what I call the red two retrograde. In 1962, the year she got divorced, there was the red two Venus retrograde, but it was in Scorpio by that point. So indeed, like probably right around the time the divorce is happening, there’s a Venus retrograde in Scorpio going through her 4th as well as the Saturn in the 7th. Yeah.
CB: She has this incredible quote that I found where it said,
“I threw myself away on a few men, thinking I might as well have an orgasm as there isn’t much else. Some people kill themselves with drink, others with overdoses, some with a gun; a few hurl themselves in front of trains or autos. I hurled myself in front of another white man.”
I thought that was such a quote that goes really hard.
NDB: Wow.
CB: Yeah. But that’s a tough example, but it’s something that can sometimes come up. Sometimes with 7th house placements with the rulers of different houses is sometimes when either it’s a situation of like, giving over power to a partner or to other people in your life, and sometimes that can go well and it can be a thing where they help you out or they raise you up. But other times if there’s challenges, it can be an issue where they can drag you down.
NDB: Yeah. Indeed. And just, I’m looking at the transits here, and yeah, she married Jack Denison when Neptune was basically conjunct her Jupiter, and then by the time she went bankrupt and died, Neptune was conjunct her Sun. So in some ways, just this last chapter of her life, you can see with the Neptune rising in Leo that it’s almost like, you know, we were just waiting for that Neptune to come down to Scorpio for all this to unfold.
CB: Wow. Yeah, that’s incredible. Yeah. And she was, of course, a famous American actress and singer.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: And she was actually the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for best actress. Yeah. All right. So let’s move onto the next example.
The other one I saw was Aretha Franklin because she actually has a mutual reception between the 4th and the 7th. I was trying to get a handle on this one, and it’s a little tricky, but I think I have a little bit of a throughline, which is – and I know you and I have like, debated this one, but she has this mutual reception where she has Scorpio rising, Aquarius is the 4th house. It’s ruled by Saturn, which is in Taurus in the 7th house in a night chart. So it’s like, the most difficult planet in her chart is in the 7th house of relationships conjunct Uranus, and the ruler of the 7th house is Venus, which is in Aquarius in the 4th house conjunct the IC, and that’s the most positive planet in the chart. So you have this tricky thing where there’s this close connection between the 4th and 7th house, but it’s like, her most positive and her most challenging planet that are kind of doing battle there. And my impression of her and her biography was that she was kind of unlucky in love most of her life, but then that she finally did do all right towards the end once she met this guy named Willie Wilkerson, but that the trick was that they just never finalized it and made it official. But somehow that worked for them. And one of the things that was fascinating is that they met at a concert, but the reason that they hit it off is that they learned really quickly that they both had apartments in the same location basically in Detroit’s Riverfront Towers. So part of the connection may have been that they became, you know, lifelong connections towards the end of her life because they lived nearby initially, and that was the initial way that they hit it off.
But in terms of earlier in her life, there’s some really challenging stuff with relationships. One of them is that in her first marriage, she suffered from like, domestic abuse, which created a really unstable home environment. And there’s like, there’s different transits and profections and stuff that go along with that. Because her first husband was also like, her manager basically.
NDB: Her manager, yeah.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: And it was all sort of very, you know, public. I think we covered this. Basically, you know, when she was at the top of her fame in 1968, Time magazine did this big feature on her, but they mentioned the domestic abuse. You know, so it was like, really kind of humiliating at the same time. And this was when Saturn was in Aries transiting, you know, through the 6th house where she has the Sun. And by the time —
CB: And then it went into – yeah.
NDB: — Taurus when the marriage broke up, yeah. So yeah, you know, just there was all – 1968 was a crazy year where, you know, Martin Luther King presented her with an award on stage and then he was killed six weeks later. She sang at his funeral. And then a month after that, she’s doing a concert in Paris while the Paris riots are going on. And then in August, she’s singing at the Chicago Democratic Convention when those riots are going on. You know, no matter – she’s sort of like the Forrest Gump of 1968 in that she just turns up at all the like, you know, important places at the important moments. And on top of it all in the middle of all that, her marriage is falling apart, and this Time magazine article sort of, you know, tells the world her business if you will. And she becomes very mistrustful of the press after that – very, very. Like, talk about 4th house secrecy. You know, she sort of, she goes on to fire all kinds of press agents over the course of the year, and sometimes just takes charge of her own publicity and plants fake stories to try to manipulate the press sometimes, but is very secretive about her own life after having been exposed so publicly. I think that’s a big thing for someone when you think about all that. It’s not just that she has a husband who’s, you know, abusive, which is bad enough, and her professional career is wrapped up in his. But also just that, you know, it’s humiliating to have literally the whole world – and Time magazine is read everywhere, so for everyone to know —
CB: Right.
NDB: Yeah. Is a real slap for her.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. So Saturn ingressed into Taurus, into her 7th house, in 1969, and the divorce was finalized that year. And she’d been with this guy since she was 19 years old, and then the relationship ended when she turned 27 in 1969 – so going into that 4th house profection year with the ruler of the 7th there in the 4th. And one of the things I think abut that is that probably at least for part of that year for her then was probably learning how to live without him and finding freedom and happiness in terms of that, but then also dealing with being alone to some extent for the first time in her adult life compared to having been in a relationship for most of it up to that point.
So one thing that’s interesting here is the ruler of the 4th is Saturn in the 7th, but Saturn is also the ruler of the 3rd house of siblings. And after she broke up with that guy who was also her manager, or divorced, her brother took over as her manager after she left her first husband. So that was part of her Saturn return as well.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Which is pretty striking.
NDB: Yeah. Well, and really, like, Aretha is a great example. I sort of hinted at this earlier, like, alongside the likes of NapoLeon where Aretha’s story is really a family story. She has two sisters – indeed, her brother becomes her manager, and he does a good job right up until he dies I think in 1988. But both of her sisters are really good singers as well, and you can hear them singing backup on the song “Respect.” And it’s her sisters who come up with the whole “sock it to me, sock it to me” part of the arrangement. Like, they really made a major contribution to the song as arrangers and what have you. And there’s a very complicated relationship between Aretha and her sisters in terms of her becoming the big star and they struggling in their career. Them helping her from time to time or being hired by her from time to time, but yeah. It’s a fascinating dynamic in its own right.
And then another element of that 4th house is her father is a celebrity in his own right. Her father is a very famous minister, a close associate of Martin Luther King, amongst other things. But someone really, I mean, who had his own sort of level of celebrity apart from Dr. King, you know, just in his own right. And that’s how Aretha became such a celebrated singer was she sang, you know, in his congregation.
CB: Okay.
NDB: So there’s a whole element to that, an extraordinary family story, behind this one – you know, she’s such a towering figure of music that, you know, she’s sort of… I mean, she’s one of the, you can just use her first name and everyone knows who you’re talking about. But yeah, really there’s a whole other dynamic there, similar to what we were talking about when we were talking about ordinary everyday charts and certainly when you’re talking about 3rd and 4th house matters that you’re getting into like, what’s going on behind the curtain.
CB: Yeah, for sure. So the other part of her example that I wanted to emphasize and that I realized about her 7th house-4th house placements and the challenge there with Saturn. So her example is, it’s not just about like, her personal life and the salaciousness or whatever of some of the stuff that she dealt with, but in 1967, she released the song “Respect,” and that became her signature song. And I think that as her signature song is tied in with this mutual reception between her 7th and her 4th, because the song is essentially about asking her spouse to show her respect when he comes home, and it was released at a time that privately she was actually experiencing domestic violence, basically, in the home. And you know, there’s a bunch of different pieces and like, interpretations of the song, because it was taken in a lot of different ways and it became a broader thing where the song itself was – it was originally like, an Otis Redding song —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — wasn’t it?
NDB: Yeah, absolutely.
CB: But it’s like, his version of it was more about a man wanting respect from his woman after a hard day of work, or his partner or whatever. Aretha transformed it into this anthem for demanding respect and equality, and this shift in perspective really aligns with somebody who’s seeking to assert their own needs and break free from a controlling and abusive situation. And I just think there’s something really important and insightful about that where again, because that song became so famous and influential, there’s something about her 4th-7th house placements that’s shining through here. So listen to the lyrics, which again I’m just gonna read as if it’s like, a letter or like a poem or something, but it says,
“All I’m asking is for a little respect when you come home, just a little bit. Hey baby, when you get home mister, I’m about to give you all my money. And all I’m asking in return, honey, is to give me my propers when you get home. Start when you come home, or you might walk in and find that I’m gone. I gotta have a little respect.”
So obviously that’s not like, the entire song, but it’s like, that’s, you know, it’s coming in there through that 7th house connection of like, marriage and partnership with the 4th house and like, literally the home and the living situation and this dynamic, this tension, that she has with that Venus-Saturn square that’s occurring there and just, you know, what she was experiencing in her personal life, but then taking that pain and difficulty and turning it into something that became iconic and became a song that a lot of people, you know, saw as inspiring in terms of things.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, and it’s a song that absolutely it had these broader connotations. It could be applied to that racial struggle. It could be applied to the feminist struggle, which it certainly was. And but I mean, it’s actually it’s even broader than that, because that first album that she recorded in late January, early February of 1967 – you know, three days after she recorded “Respect,” she recorded “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman,” which is another song that, you know, you can see in that configuration in her chart, that is almost like a counterpoint to the song “Respect.” It was written by Carole King, who’s only like, a few weeks older than Aretha and has the same Venus in Aquarius, Saturn in Taurus thing, although she’s Libra rising. And even a few days before recording “Respect,” about two weeks earlier, she recorded the song “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” which is another one of like, those are – that’s probably like, her three biggest songs, and they’re all recorded like, within days of each other. And they all each in their own way, you know, lyrically and thematically, play into this thing that you’re describing.
CB: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, I don’t know. There’s mysteriousness surrounding her relationships like, later in life with that one guy, but I just, I have this sense that like, she met him, they almost got married or at least announced they were gonna get married at some point but then didn’t. And they just ended up not finalizing it, but somehow were still very close for the last like, two or three decades of her life. And that seemed to work, like, having that kind of unique situation, which is perhaps tied in with Venus also being square to Uranus. And sometimes in relationships in that instance just having to have like, a unique arrangement that wouldn’t work for everybody but sometimes that helping to make things work in some way.
NDB: Yeah. I think the dispute we had was the question of whether that marriage announcement wasn’t one of – something that she was known to do from time to time, which was to plant stories in the press because she wanted people to be talking about her at a certain time. But we don’t know; you’re absolutely right. Certainly because her siblings all predeceased her, so certainly towards the end of her life, there’s even more of sort of a shroud around her because even the other people that who, you know, spoke to her biographer and told her biographer things that we wouldn’t otherwise know about her life – for that last 20 years or so of her life, we really don’t have anyone to sort of account for it in the same way. So I really don’t know.
CB: Yeah. Well, I hope… I don’t know. Maybe I have an idealistic view, but I hope that that was it, and I hope she found like, happiness later in life —
NDB: Me too.
CB: — especially after dealing with difficulty early on.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Let’s go to some listener submissions that really especially with this house, I think, help flesh things out better. So the first listener said, the first listener was a person with the ruler of the 4th in the 7th whose partner inherited a mansion from their parents. So literally inheriting a house from the partner’s parents as a major thing.
Another person says that they moved a lot due to a partner’s job, and that was actually a recurring one that a bunch of people said. Let’s see. One of the people said, “The ruler of the 4th is in the 7th, and every relationship I shared a home with my partner. We also started living together pretty fast after meeting,” which is another that I kept hearing over and over again.
Another person says, “The ruler of my Scorpio 4th house Mars is in the natal 7th. Every significant relocation that we have made in our lives together has been due to his work opportunities.” So I’ve heard that a lot where the person like, moves as a result of their partner, which makes sense.
The next one – “Mercury in the 7th conjunct Venus in Sagittarius, and I just realized I have cohabitation with every partner. But I have a good experience with romantic relationships, and we always make a nice, eclectic home that’s fun to be in.”
Another one – “4th house ruler in the 7th, and my husband’s family has truly become my family. The husband’s 4th house ruler is in the 4th.” So he has a well-placed 4th house ruler, basically. You know, must have a decent family and then the native, having the ruler of the 4th in the 7th, gets fully integrated into in a positive way into her partner’s family. That’s interesting, because it’s like, the inversion of the Meghan Markle example where it’s like —
NDB: Right.
CB: — you get, like, ostracized, basically, or suffer difficulties within the family and therefore end up basically like, leaving it.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Another person says, “Jupiter’s the ruler of the 4th in the 7th in Gemini retrograde. When I turned 30 during my Gemini profection year, I moved in with friends.” So this keeps coming up in a few different examples.
Another person says, “4th house Sag ruled by 7th house Pisces Jupiter. I live with my friends.”
So one of the delineations is just like, ruler of the 4th in the 7th is like, living with other people, basically. Another person – “Ruler of the 4th in the 7th conjunct Venus, and I have always lived with a singular female housemate – before roommates, now my girlfriend. Bonus – I moved in with my girlfriend when the ruler of the 4th was my time lord.”
Another person says, “7th house Taurus. The ruler of the 4th is in the 7th house in Taurus. I was shown that relationships and codependence yielded stability and financial security, but not always a healthy relationship or home.” I thought that was interesting.
Another one says, “I’ve always been dependent on someone else for somewhere to live, usually somebody close. Right now it’s my mom. I’ve never had my own place.” So that’s interesting. Like, relying on the parents. Relying on other people for your living situation.
Another person says, “I always share a house with my partners or best friends. My current relationship – somehow we ended up living together after seeing each other for just half a month or so. We’re doing great, surprisingly, for five years now.” I actually found that in a few examples – people saying that they moved in quickly with their partner together.
“Mars rules my 4th and 9th. Mars is in Aquarius in the 7th.” And they said, “I live in a multigenerational household with my inlaws who are immigrants and there’s the tie-in with the 9th.” So I think that’s a really interesting and unique delineation of living with, you know, the partner’s parents, basically. So it’s like, the 4th house of parents and home, and the ruler of that being in the 7th house of relationships and like, living with your inlaws.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Next one. Venus is in the 7th as ruler of the 4th. “Despite being highly independent, I’ve never lived alone.” See, it’s like, they just kept coming in, like, over and over again, and not to be excessive here, but I thought it was fascinating.
Another person says, “Scorpio 4th house with the ruler – Mars – in Aquarius in the 7th copresent with Jupiter in a day chart. My husband and I enjoy doing home improvement projects together throughout 30 years of marriage and 22 years of home ownership. We have fixed signs.” So I think that’s a good one. Doing home improvement projects together with a partner makes a lot of sense.
And then finally the last example I had says, “Ruler of the 4th in the 7th, and in a literal sense, my partner and I have been renting a home at a deeply discounted rate from my parents for the last few years. We both also benefit a lot from my family’s connections in the area we live. In a more metaphorical sense, home to me is wherever my partner is.” So I thought that was a great one to end with, especially that first part where they said it’s like, their family and specifically their parents are connected with their home and living situation.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Anyway, so that’s all of the examples. That one was a more tricky one to work out, so I’d love to hear if anybody has examples of like, the ruler of the 4th in the 7th or vice versa, how that’s worked out for you. Because I think there’s other things there to explore that maybe we aren’t seeing that would be worth looking into.
NDB: All right.
CB: All right. Let’s move onto the 8th house. So —
NDB: Dun-dun-dun!
CB: Dun-dun-dun. I’m gonna give some positive examples first. You know, because the 8th house can be like, death, mortality, but it can also be things like inheritance, other people’s money, the partner’s finances, taxes, debt, things like that. So first example is Warren Buffet, who’s a famous, he’s one of the most famous investors in the world ever, with Sagittarius rising probably and Jupiter exalted in Cancer in the 8th house. But the ruler of his 4th house is also that Jupiter, which is exalted there in Cancer in the 8th house of other people’s money, and he famously got his start in investing due to his father. And his father’s influence and early encouragement were super critical in setting him on the right path to becoming essentially one of the greatest investors of all time, and his father was a stockbroker.
So his father encouraged his curiosity about business and investing, and he provided his son with books and resources, and even took him for a visit to the New York Stock Exchange when Warren was just 10 years old. At age 11, he bought his first stock, which was just like, three shares of a company with his father’s guidance. And his father instilled in him the importance of financial independence but also long term thinking, which are principles that would become cornerstones of his own investment philosophy, which he would then go into teach lots of other people.
NDB: It occurs to me, you know, Warren was born in August of 1930, which one presumes he was conceived in the autumn of 1929, right when the stock market crashed. So it’s kind of funny that he became who he is, you know, considering when he was born.
CB: Yeah, that’s actually really interesting.
NDB: Yeah. Since he was born in Omaha and not in New York, I’m presuming his dad wasn’t a stock broker yet? I don’t know. I don’t know the story, but…
CB: Yeah, I’m not sure. There was one other like that, so my next example is Michael Bloomberg, who was born with Cancer rising. The Moon is in Aquarius in the 8th house; he has an 8th house stellium. And the 4th house is Libra, which is ruled by Venus, which is in Aquarius in the 8th house. And what’s interesting with him is that he was somebody that got into finance and became super wealthy in the financial sector. But then he ended up using this, he leveraged his financial success to launch a successful political career, eventually becoming a three-time mayor of New York City, which is like, the city where he’s from as a result of that financial success. So there’s something there about like, the ruler of the 4th house of like, where you’re from and where you live, the city that you live, being in the 8th house of like, other people’s money and financial resources and how he was able to like, leverage that to become mayor of a city, essentially.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Moving on. The next example is to get a little bit more dark is Jim Jones, who was a cult leader. He had Capricorn rising, and Aries is the 4th whole sign house. And it’s ruled by Mars, which is placed in Leo in the 8th house. And he famously was a cult leader who’s known for leading his followers to do like, a mass murder-suicice on their commune. So he was this really like, charismatic and manipulative cult leader who at first like, attracted a diverse following of people through these messages of what at the time were like, social justice and racial equality. But over time, his teachings became increasingly bizarre and controlling. And eventually, he relocated the group from California and eventually took them all to this isolated settlement in Guyana called Jonestown in the 1970s. And there he fostered this climate of like, fear and dependency, where he claimed and convinced everyone that he was a god-like figure.
So in 1978, he was facing mounting scrutiny, and he orchestrated a mass murder-suicide where over 900 people, including more than 300 children, were killed after – or died after – ingesting cyanide-laced drink, basically. And while some of them may have participated willingly, many were coerced or forced to drink the poison.
So I’m using this as an example just because he created a commune, or like, an intentional living situation with this emphasis on the 4th house in his chart where he has the Moon and the North Node and Uranus and Venus and the IC there. But then the ruler of the 4th house of home and living situation is in the 8th house of death, and famously he ended up having all of the people living on his commune killed, basically, which is just a really like, tragic example and story.
NDB: Yeah. And of course, the other house ruled by Mars is the 11th, which you know, you think of as being like, you know, the tribal house, the congregation house. And the whole Jonestown affair happened in November of ‘78 – excuse me – when Venus was retrograde in Scorpio along with the Sun and Uranus. We were talking about Harvey Milk not earlier, not long ago, and those two stories are entirely connected because one of the reasons Milk was murdered along with Mayor Moscone is because the Jonestown – Jones had been a local San Francisco minister, after all – so the Jonestown murders were big news in San Francisco, and it was taking press attention away from this case and, you know, between this sort of city case that was going on between Harvey Milk and the man who would murder him, Dan White. And White was panicking that, you know, he wasn’t getting the same amount of attention that the press had been giving him, so he committed the murder.
So there’s that whole relationship. Obviously, that loaded 4th house for Jim Jones is really ominous looking, considering the details. Again, you know, Venus and Uranus were copresent in Scorpio when the deaths happened.
The other thing about Jones, I guess worth mentioning, is he’s born just a couple days away from Marshall Applewhite, who’s another cult leader who, you know, organized a mass self-deleting of this kind. So that’s an interesting study in and of itself.
CB: Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So that example. My next example is the birth chart of Sharon Tate, who was born with Cancer rising; Libra is the 4th whole sign house, and the degree of the IC is there conjunct Neptune. And the ruler of the 4th house of home and living situation is Venus, which is in Aquarius in the 8th house of death and mortality in this instance. And what happened is that she was basically like, murdered by random psychos because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time essentially because she was renting a house with her partner. And the Manson family – Charles Manson – sent the killers there because the house was owned by a music producer who had snubbed Charles Manson previously, so he sent people there to like, kill him. But then Sharon just happened to be there because her and her partner were renting the house. So it was this tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it specifically being tied into her living situation, the fact that they were just like, renting this house and being unfortunately there at the time.
NDB: Yeah. Totally random. Terrible story.
CB: Yeah. Let’s see; there was other ones. One I won’t get into, but there was one person – there was one example I found where somebody’s father died under mysterious circumstances that had the ruler of the 4th in the 8th, and I thought that was interesting. One that I’ve commonly used is Lisa Marie Presley because she has that connection between her 2nd house of finances and 8th house of inheritance, but also the 4th house is Scorpio, representing the father, and the ruler – Mars – is in Pisces, representing both the 8th house of death but also the 8th house of inheritance. And her father was Elvis, so she got this very large inheritance from her father, which she inherited the day that she turned 25 and moved into a 2nd house profection year. But then later, there were issues and her inheritance may have been squandered to a certain extent due to bad financial management or advice, and it’s like, Mars in a day chart in the 8th house, so it’s like, a squandering of one’s inheritance essentially.
NDB: Right. And yet at the same time, there’s the mutual reception between Mercury and Jupiter that you would, you know, that at least accounts for the size of inheritance when it did exist.
CB: Right. Yeah. It’s like, she has Jupiter in a day chart in the 2nd house of personal finances ruling the 8th house of inheritance and having that mutual reception. So again, it’s like, it’s one of those mutual reception examples where you know this is like, a huge deal in the person’s life, the 2nd house and the 8th house, and so her inheritance and inheriting this huge estate was major. And it was very beneficial for her with Jupiter in the 2nd, but it was just that it was not without issues with Mars being there as well.
All right. Other people that came up in my searches… Sometimes there are people, yeah, that like, lost a parent in some extreme instances. Hunter Biden was one that came up. He was born with Cancer rising. Libra is the 4th whole sign house with Uranus placed there, and the ruler is Venus, which is in Aquarius in the 8th whole sign house under the beams of the Sun. And famously, his mother was killed suddenly in a car accident, and he was in the car and his mother and sister were killed. Yeah, and it’s just a really difficult example. There were different transits that were going on there. Like, Uranus was transiting through his 4th house. Mars was squaring his Venus at the time, just a few degrees separating. And Pluto was getting ready to station in his 4th house not far from his Uranus in the 4th at the time. So there was a lot of stuff going on there, but sometimes in extreme cases, there’s instances of things like that.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: There was one native I’m gonna skip and not go into for time purposes, but where their parent sort of tried to kill them, essentially, in a way, and there was a theme of like, death and parents with a connection between the 4th and the 8th that was pretty tough for that reason.
And then finally, the last chart example I have for this section to present something a little bit different… Here’s the birth chart of Michael Avenatti, who was in the news —
NDB: Oh yeah.
CB: — several years ago. He’s a former attorney who’s currently incarcerated in federal prison for felony fraud and extortion, including 14 years for stealing millions of dollars from clients.
So his is interesting because he has Libra rising with Venus in Capricorn in the 4th whole sign house in a night chart, but it’s ruled by this – the 4th house is ruled by this Saturn, which is placed in Taurus in the 8th house in a night chart. So the ruler of the 4th and the ruler of the 8th are in a mutual reception, and it’s like, the most positive and negative planets in the chart that are locked in this kind of struggle. But I think this example’s important because it draws out a meaning of the 4th house that we talked about a little bit in part one that comes up more prominently in some ancient texts, but I think is still sometimes relevant, which can sometimes be constraints or prisons in some instances being associated with the 4th house. Because the delineation here is basically like, he’s in prison for like, a long time for extorting other people for money – which is the 8th house element. So it’s like, the 4th house here I think is bringing in confinement and possible prison significations, and then the 8th house is bringing in the like, other people’s money component.
And what’s interesting is that his downfall started in March of 2019, and what happened is he basically got hit by the Capricorn stellium of 2019 and 2020 that was going through his 4th house, and that’s when everything pretty much like, unraveled and fell apart. So what else… Yeah, I think that’s the main stuff. It’s just I wanted to bring that as an example just because it may be bringing in element of the 4th house that maybe we wouldn’t otherwise think of, and it’s tricky because there’s overlap there certainly with Saturn being the ruling planet —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — and other things like that. So it’s not, it can’t be taken fully conclusively, but it may point to something that’s worth investigating.
All right. So those are all the chart examples. The listener submissions… Let’s see what we got.
All right. First one. Ruler of the 4th is Saturn in the 8th, and they said, “I have received inheritances from family members after their passing because they had included me in their will. This happened when Saturn was actually transiting my 4th house. I’ve also had family members be my cosigners for school loans.” So I thought that was really good one and shows that there can be positive manifestations there, even though obviously it’s also taking place in the context of a negative one, of like, you know, the loss or the death of a family member.
Another one says, “4th house is Cancer; the ruler is Scorpio Moon in the 8th. I inherited my grandmother’s house with one of my sisters and our niece, and it was a complete shock that it was us three. I also found this information out when there was a Full Moon in my 4th house a couple of years ago.”
Another person says, “4th house Aquarius ruled by Saturn in the 8th in Gemini. My father inherited our ancestral home, which is a 200-year-old house where I was raised. My father was incarcerated after intercepting government communications for a subversive ideological organization.” So I don’t fully understand —
NDB: Oh my goodness!
CB: Yeah. Like, a little just dropping that one in there. So I don’t exactly know all the details or what that means, but I just think it’s interesting talking about the parents inheriting the ancestral home. That’s such a like, over-the-top 4th house, 8th house mixture that that’s pretty incredible. But then also again, father incarcerated – there might be some like, 4th house element there to that sometimes coming up.
NDB: Well, for an ideologically, politically – how was it phrased?
CB: “After intercepting government communications for a subversive ideological organization.” So maybe it’s just like, the 8th house sometimes it one of those houses that doesn’t see the Ascendant, and so maybe it’s that again that we alluded to a little bit at the beginning of the episode in part one of the connection between like, the 4th house and like, secrecy and the 8th house and the 12th also having that to a certain extent —
NDB: Espionage.
CB: Yeah, maybe it was like, something that wasn’t supposed to be seen or something like that.
NDB: Right. Good grief! Doesn’t anyone get arrested for unpaid parking tickets anymore?
CB: Right. Exactly.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right, so the next one – ruler of the 4th is the Moon in fall in Scorpio in the 8th. “My mother passed away when I was 19 during an 8th house profection year while Mars was retrograde. I did receive a small residual inheritance after she passed that allowed me to rent my first apartment and helped me to get on my feet. Leading up to that time, though, I definitely spent a lot of time home-hopping with no real place of my own and not really feeling like I belonged anywhere. I’ve had to part with my belongings and start from scratch quite a few times. I’m also pretty estranged from my family. I think of my 4th house ruler in fall in the 8th as my orphan signature. Some of it was by choice and some by circumstance.” So I’ve seen that before, I feel like, with clients sometimes with a crucial 8th house placement where in this instance, you know, there was a negative thing that happened – her mother passed away – but she received a small inheritance that helped her to get on her feet with a place to live as a result of that, and I feel like I’ve seen that in some examples, you know, where that can happen where it seems very relevant and is like, it’s important because it’s like, a turning point in the person’s life that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
NDB: Right.
CB: All right, the next one – 4th house is Sagittarius with Jupiter in the 8th. They said, “The death of family members has been happening since I can remember, including being the sole witness of my grandfather’s passing when I was eight years old. My mother and I moved constantly as I grew up, so my grandparents’ house where I witnessed my grandpa’s passing was effectively my childhood home.”
Another listener says, “The ruler of my Sagittarius 4th house is Jupiter in Aries in the 8th. My 4th house Sag Mars has mutual reception with Jupiter and the most successful things I wrote are fiction about that are inspired by my family, particularly untimely deaths. I also work in fundraising and have worked in many historic houses.” So that’s really interesting, especially the fundraising part and working in historic houses.
The next one – “Taurus ruled 4th house with Venus in the 8th. My father was working for the IRS when he retired, and was the CPA for various trusts and businesses in the family. I also have the Sun and Saturn in the 8th. My mother was really into all things occult, which influenced me. I’ve also received a lot of financial support from parents and grandparents with debt, tuition and medical bills.” So I think that’s incredible as one delineation that’s like, ruler of the 4th —
NDB: It’s another one of those stacked ones, yeah.
CB: Yeah. But also like, a new version of that, which is something I do see commonly. Like, ruler of the 4th in the 8th, and it’s like, the father essentially is an accountant, basically, working with other people’s money. Yeah. So that’s good.
The next one – “The ruler of the 4th is Mercury in the 8th. I do a lot of ancestral research.”
And the last one is they say, “This is a pretty mundane transit example, but the ruler of my 4th house – the Moon – is placed in the 8th, and two years ago when both the Sun and the Moon were transiting my 8th house, I closed on my first home with my husband after a long, long search. The Sun was actually in an exact conjunction to my natal Moon the day that we signed all the paperwork, received the keys, and spent our first night in our new home.” I thought that was really cool and really nice example to round things out with.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So —
NDB: After all that sex and death.
CB: Right. I don’t think there was that much sex, but there was a lot of death.
NDB: There’s never enough sex and there’s always too much death, so there you go.
CB: That’s true. People have been saying that for ages. All right. That’s the 8th house. There’s other aspects of the 8th house besides some of those topics, but that at least gives you like, some insight into some different ways it can manifest. I did wanna say that there can be much more constructive manifestations of the 8th house and we’ve seen some glimpses of that here. We’ll try to show some more once we get to the 8th house episode where we’ll explore that house further, so I don’t want people to freak out. Because there’s also lots of different mitigations that can help turn difficult house placements into more positive or constructive manifestations, so that’s always good to remember and we’ll explore that more when we get to that house.
NDB: You better believe it! Yeah, there’s a lot of very strong positive 8th house charts out there.
CB: Right. Yeah.
The astrology software that we use on The Astrology Podcast is called Solar Fire for Windows, and you can get a 15% discount on the software by using the promo code ‘AP15’ when you purchase it through Alabe.com. For Mac users, we recommend the program Astro Gold for Mac OS, and you can also get a 15% discount when you use the promo code ‘ASTROPODCAST15’ at the website AstroGold.io.
All right, we’re back. Let’s transition to talking about the 9th house now. So the first chart example I wanted to share is one that I share in my courses that I love. It’s the birth chart of the astrologer Reinhold Ebertin, who was a famous astrologer that founded the school of cosmobiology. But what’s interesting is he actually learned astrology from his mother, who was a famous astrologer years before he ever got into astrology.
So he was born with Capricorn rising, the 4th house is Aries, and the ruler of the 4th house is Mars, which is placed in the 9th house, which is the house that’s associated with astrology and divination. So his mother was actually like, a famous astrologer who predicted the rise of Hitler, basically, in Germany in the 1920s and ‘30s, and he learned astrology from her. So that’s it with that example.
The next one is one you can help me explain; it’s one of your examples, which is Elizabeth Taylor, who has the ruler of the 4th house – so Pisces on the 4th house – and the ruler of the 4th house is Jupiter in the 9th. And the ruler of the 9th is the Sun in Pisces, so she has a mutual reception between her 4th and her 9th houses, and this actually plays a super significant role in her life.
NDB: Yeah. So she’s born to American parents, but her father is an art dealer, and they’re based in London. So her early childhood is actually spent in England. And her dad had a friend, a male friend, and so people speculate as to the reality of that relationship, but this friend was a member of Parliament and fairly wealthy, and he had a house in the country that had horses. And so he would invite Elizabeth’s parents and Elizabeth herself for weekends at this house, and she would get to ride horses. And you know, she came to be really good at it and really loved it.
So then move ahead to the early 1940s. Her family moves back to America before the war because they can tell the war is coming. And they’re living in California, and Elizabeth starts auditioning for movie roles, and she gets little breaks here and there. But the real big break comes when she’s I think 12 – 11 or 12 – and there’s a movie called National Velvet that they wanna film. And they need an actress about her age who can speak in a British accent and who can ride a horse. So naturally, she’s just perfect. Her, you know, she’s lived all her life for this role. So she gets the role, and she’s really great in it, and it makes her, you know, a sort of a higher tier movie actress, and her career keeps going up from there. But it’s really, you know, she’s in Lassie, and then as she matures into a teenager and she gets more sort of romantic roles and a great film career just sort of, you know, tumbles out of that.
But yeah, this origin story of hers – the fact that she’s sort of, I mean, it’s so Elizabeth Taylor. It’s so Pisces in a way that she’s, you know, part American, part English in a sense where she can certainly move between both those worlds. I often joke because Elizabeth Taylor was born the day before Johnny Cash, and both Elizabeth Taylor and Johnny Cash were the kind of people who could just be friends with anyone. Elizabeth Taylor was friends with Ronald Reagan and Michael Jackson. Johnny Cash was friends with, you know, Billy Graham and Bob Dylan. They’re those kinds of people, and they both have that sort of mutual reception, although different rising signs. But yeah, you know, you definitely see it in her.
CB: Right. I’m glad you mentioned that, because yeah, that’s an important element that in ancient astrology that’s still really true today, which is that anytime you see mutable signs and there’s a heavy emphasis there, they always indicate two of whatever they indicate. And so for her, that’s like, the fact that she was a dual British and American citizen, basically. She had dual citizenship. And we saw something similar actually with Dua Lipa, who also had dual citizenship in her family’s native country as well as British citizenship. And you were also talking about that earlier in terms of Trudeau, I think, right?
NDB: Yeah, and also to some extent Jimi Hendrix, you know, who did – like, I’m not even sure if Elizabeth was a dual citizen, but she lived many, many years in England. I don’t know if she also had an English passport. But —
CB: I mean —
NDB: — it amounts to the same thing.
CB: I have it written down that she had dual British —
NDB: Okay, did she?
CB: — and American citizenship.
NDB: Okay, so at some point she did, I guess! But yeah, I mean, you know, even someone like Jimi Hendrix who didn’t become a British citizen but lived there for a considerable amount of time and also had his own sort of, you know, bicoastal life if you will. So in that sense, it certainly plays out.
CB: That’s really funny because, you know, we always laugh about how Joe Biden’s chart is similar because he’s born so close to Jimi Hendrix with the same rising sign, so he also had a mutable 4th house. And at first, I was like, well, that doesn’t really apply there, but then it made me remember how when Biden was a senator for all those years, he would go into DC to work, but then he would take the train home like, every weekend or every night or whatever it was in order to visit his family because like, family was really important to him and because his wife had been killed in a car accident, he wanted to be there while his kids were growing up to support them. So you kind of do get a similar thing where it’s like, he spends a lot of time in Washington, but also then commutes home constantly to Delaware.
NDB: Yeah. It’s a smaller scale thing, but it’s still, you know, really important. And I think there’s also the fact like, he’s born in Pennsylvania, but you know, so he’s like the kid from Scranton but then he lives in Delaware. Like, even the Pennsylvania/Delaware thing is kind of a, you know, well, it’s not bicoastal, but you know, another element of like, living in two different worlds.
CB: Right. Yeah. And we looked at Hendrix’s chart in the last episode because of the 27 club and him being —
NDB: Right.
CB: — in that 4th house profection year when he died, activating Pisces. So there’s Hendrix’s chart with Pisces on the 4th house and then here’s Biden’s chart which is also Sagittarius rising with Pisces on the 4th house born in the same month, basically, as Jimi Hendrix. So that’s also what’s always crazy is just like, if Jimi Hendrix was still alive, he’d be Joe Biden’s age.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. So back to Elizabeth Taylor. So the main thing about her example… Pull it back up. The main thing about her example is just that she was born in London to American parents. She had an early international relocation and this early relocation shaped her identity and worldview. She held dual British and American citizenship, and she lived in London while she was young, so she grew up in that context, but then eventually moved back to the US due to World War Two and was raised there. So there’s this dual notion of on the one hand being from America and born in a different country, having American parents and being born in a foreign country, but then being born in London and growing up there initially and then coming and living in the US. So that’s the ruler of the 4th in the 9th and mutual reception between those two. And we’ll hear a lot of that, actually; it’s actually very common when there’s 4th house-9th house connections is living abroad —
NDB: Right.
CB: — when we get to some of the other examples, especially by listeners.
So the next one is Dwayne Johnson, who is also more commonly known by his wrestler nickname, The Rock.
NDB: The Rock.
CB: The Rock. Libra rising, Capricorn 4th house, and the ruler of the … What is it? It’s the ruler of the 4th house of parents and ancestry is placed in the 9th house of foreign travel and foreign places. And he was born in the US, but he’s often noted and it plays a major part of his story, his sort of foreign ancestry where on his mother’s side his mother was Samoan, and he’s a descendant of a major renowned Samoan family that was like, a wrestling dynasty. And this connects him with a lineage of other wrestling legends on his mother’s side.
And then interestingly, on his father’s side, his father was Rocky Johnson, who was Black Nova Scotian with roots that traced back to Black Loyalists who escaped to Canada after the American Revolutionary War. So what’s interesting about Dwayne Johnson is that a large part of his story has been embracing his ancestry and often incorporating elements of his heritage into his roles and public appearances. So I thought that was really cool in just the connection there between the 4th and the 9th.
NDB: Yeah. Absolutely.
CB: All right. The next one is the birth chart of Sian Proctor, and this was found by Lindsey Turner, so this is an example Lindsey Turner found who is helping me to research and doing the write-up on this one. So the connection here is Sian had Capricorn rising, Virgo 9th house. The ruler of the 9th house is Mercury, which is placed in the 4th. And part of what I like about this is so they were relevant more recently by gaining – they gained greater recognition in 2021 when she became the first African American woman to pilot a spacecraft during an orbital mission. But what’s interesting about that is that her father actually worked for NASA during the Apollo missions with that connection between like, the 4th house of parents and the 9th house of long distance travel. That’s one of the points that Lindsey made. One of the things that I thought was really interesting is with the ruler of the 9th house of education and like, study in the 4th house, which can represent the earth, her primary background actually is that her PhD is in geology. So —
NDB: Okay.
CB: She’s a geology professor was the point of this example that I thought was really interesting and a piece of it that I wanted to pull out with the ruler of the 9th in the 4th as well as, even for that matter, the ruler of the 10th house of career in the 4th and how sometimes the 4th house can literally signify like, the earth. And I cannot think of an any more literal of example than that than having a geology professor with the ruler of the 9th and 10th in the 4th.
NDB: Yeah, I think anything that involves excavating, you know, has a 4th house quality to it, whether it’s drilling for oil or, you know, digging for minerals or any kind of geological work.
CB: Yeah, for sure. So they teach geology, sustainability, and planetary science. So there’s this element also of ecology, and their BS was in environmental science to begin with. So they’re a renowned geoscientist, explorer, and science communicator at this point, and that’s a big part of their role as well as science communicating. So I thought that was a cool example.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Shout out to Lindsey for that one. All right, next one is Billy Graham.
NDB: Hey, I just mentioned him a minute ago.
CB: Did you?
NDB: A friend of Johnny Cash.
CB: Oh right, yeah. Okay. So Billy Graham – Aries rising, and the point of this example is I was looking for like, mutual receptions between the 4th and the 9th to find ones that had a really powerful connection between those two houses. And he was one that came up because it’s like, Cancer is on the 4th house, and the ruler is the Moon, which is in Sagittarius, and the ruler of the 9th house is Jupiter, which is actually exalted in Cancer in the 4th. And there’s two things I wanted to emphasize about this example. One, so Billy Graham was like, a Christian evangelist like, pastor basically. But the first part is that he rose to prominence in the mid-20th century through his large-scale preaching events where he became known for filling these huge stadiums and other massive venues around the world for these large-scale, in-person evangelistic events that were held in like, stadiums and arenas and other public spaces. And these attracted massive crowds, sometimes numbering hundreds of thousands. And there’s something about this where it’s like, the 9th house of religion and philosophy in connection with the 4th house of like, places and locations and buildings and like, bringing people together in these large venues for a religious purpose being part of the connection there between the 9th and the 4th houses.
NDB: Yeah. And I gotta love the Mars in the 9th, too. He was real fire and brimstone, you know? Like, it was a real show. You know, bringing voice to the wrath of god, as it were.
CB: Right. He called them like, these gatherings “crusades.”
NDB: Yeah, exactly. It was very, you know, someone or something was always being denounced and made to seem extremely evil. I remember reading something about his personal house as well. I’m trying to remember what it was, but I know it was like, I think the biographer was describing just like, trying to get to the house and the amount of like, security and the distance from the road that his house was at and all this stuff. You know, another sort of 4th house element that he sort of lived very hidden away, but he was very, you know, public. He was also Mister Photo Opportunity, I would say. Minister to all the presidents and what have you. Eisenhower —
CB: Yeah. That’s gonna be my next example that I wanna go into.
NDB: Okay sure.
CB: So that’s the second part of this example is that he was known as the pastor to presidents, and that’s the element of this that I think is new and innovative that I wanted to emphasize here is that Graham had a personal audience with many sitting US presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama – 12 consecutive presidents. But especially he was said to be very close to US presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon, and that Johnson was supposedly one of his closest friends, although there’s some presidents – like Truman did not like him at all. But the fact that he had this close connection with presidents, and I think it’s important because it’s tying together two really important 4th and 9th house themes. One of them is that the 9th house is not just religion, but it’s also politics and beliefs. And then the second one is that the 4th house is not just where you live, but it’s also your home, and it’s also your country. And the president effectively is not just like, the leader of a political party, which is like, the 9th house, but the president is also the leader of the country, which is 4th house. And specific —
NDB: The head of state.
CB: Exactly. The head of state. And the fact that Jupiter, the ruler of the 9th house of religion and politics, is in Cancer exalted in the 4th house, and he’s not just talking to like, you know, people from his hometown or leaders or something like that. He’s talking to the highest possible leader of his country that he can possibly talk to, which is the president, or to the highest possible like, political person that he can talk to, which is like, the leader of their relative party or country. So there’s something there with this mutual reception and this strong tie between those two houses in terms of exploring this theme of, you know, presidents in particular – people that are very elevated or powerful.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So that’s —
NDB: I’m pretty sure he was friendly with Reagan, too, as well. You didn’t mention Reagan, but I think of Billy Graham being as much from the Reagan era as… I mean, certainly Eisenhower and Johnson and Nixon, I knew that, but yeah.
CB: Right. Yeah. All right, so that’s that example. But this notion of like, an advisory role with powerful people and especially with presidents in connection with the 9th and the 4th is something that I saw come up in other examples. One of them was a more recent one was Anthony Fauci who was born with Virgo rising and the 4th house is Sagittarius, which is ruled by Jupiter, which is in Taurus in the 9th house. And the ruler of the 9th house is Venus, which is located in Sagittarius. So what we have is a mutual reception here like the last example between the 4th and the 9th. And with his, what’s interesting is that, you know, he was a physician, scientist, and immunologist, and he became essentially the highest ranking doctor during two pandemics, basically, who would directly consult with the president and give advice and sort of lay down sort of medical advice for what to do to manage at first in the 1980s the AIDS pandemic, and then in the 2020s the covid pandemic.
So he was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, and he was the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022. One interesting stat about him that I found was that he was one of the world’s most frequently cited scientists across all scientific journals from 1983 to 2002. I’m not sure if that was meant to be 2022; it might be. I might have a typo there, but I’ll have to go back and check. And yeah, I think that’s at the core of that example is just there’s something similar to the Billy Graham one, especially in this case, because in Fauci’s case, he’s an advisor to the president, which is like, the 4th house, because he’s like, highly educated as a doctor in the specific things of infectious diseases. So he becomes like, the expert or the person that is advising the leaders of the country when these things happen and when it breaks out. So there’s different themes here having to do with the 9th house, which is the place of higher education and learning as well as the 4th house, representing like, one’s country and where you live and just the connection between those two in this instance.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. So another example – this is the birth chart of Richard Tarnas, famous astrologer. He was born to American parents, but he was born in Geneva, Switzerland. And he has a mutual reception between the ruler of the 9th and the 4th with Gemini rising, Virgo 4th house ruled by Mercury in Aquarius in the 9th, and Aquarius ruled by Saturn, which is in Virgo in the 4th. And I wanted to use him in this example for that, since it’s a weird biographical aspect of things that he was born in Geneva, Switzerland, but he actually grew up in Detroit. So there’s like, a signature of like, you know, living abroad basically in his birth chart; it’s because his parents were temporarily overseas when he was born, which is similar to like, Elizabeth Taylor, for example. But what’s also interesting —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — is I think it brings in a historical element here with his work, the connection between the 9th and the 4th, because he combines, you know, astrology and history. And he focuses especially on like, western history. Like his book The Passion of the Western Mind, which is subtitled “Understanding the Ideas that have Shaped Our Worldview: A Narrative History of Western Thought.” So we’re bringing in this 4th house thing where it’s not just 9th house like, academic work or even work with astrology, but it’s also tying in a history element as well by focusing on the 4th house, which is both the past and history but also can be like, cultural or sort of like, ancestral history as well to an extent.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right.
NDB: A must read.
CB: Well, and then lastly, that’s what’s groundbreaking about his astrological work with Cosmos and Psyche as well is it’s not just an astrology book that’s giving you delineations, but it goes back painstakingly through the history, and it goes back through previous configurations and looks at the history of what happened under those different planetary alignments in order to arrive at conclusions about, you know, what those alignments mean. And that’s what makes his book so important and unique, because it’s the most comprehensive treatment of that that’s ever been done in book form. And I think that’s really coming from having that ruler of the 9th in a mutual reception with the ruler of the 4th and that notion of the 4th house sometimes having to do with history and the past.
NDB: Yeah. Absolutely.
CB: All right. Next example is Simon Wiesenthal, and this is an —
NDB: Wiesenthal, I think.
CB: Wiesenthal, thanks. This is an example that Leisa Schaim found. So this was an Austrian Holocaust survivor, and after the war, they devoted their life – he devoted his life essentially to tracking down hidden Nazi war criminals and bringing them to trial. And the relevant placements here is the chart is Libra rising with Capricorn 4th house, and the ruler of the 9th house of like, foreign travel and foreign places is Mercury since Gemini is on the 9th house and the ruler is Mercury, which is in Capricorn in the 4th house. And what Leisa pointed out is that sometimes the people that he was tracking were actively hiding under assumed names. And other times, people just hid their past activities during the war. So it brings together these interesting elements of on the one hand, the legal system, which is the 9th house, but also uncovering hidden people or secrets, which is the 4th house. So apparently, Leisa says, that the center that he was the head of tracked down over 1,000 Nazi war criminals. And Leisa points out that the ruler of the 9th and the 12th is in the 4th is also relevant, because sometimes hiding in other countries – they were sometimes hiding in other countries, basically, or tracking —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — them internationally essentially.
NDB: Yeah. Argentina, Paraguay, et cetera.
CB: Right. So in the 1970s, they revealed through the media newly appointed Austrian cabinet members had been members of the Nazi party, which she’s also – Leisa’s also connecting with like, secrets of political parties, ruler of 9th and 4th. So yeah, I thought that was a great example, because it brings out some of those hidden elements of the 4th house as well that we explored in part one.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Next example is Otto van Habsburg.
NDB: Oh yeah.
CB: And this is Libra rising, Capricorn 4th house, and… The ruler of the 4th house is Saturn in Gemini in the 9th house. And one of the things I think’s really interesting about this one – and actually, I wanted to give a shout out to Susan in the YouTube comments who pointed out this example in one of the previous videos – but one of the reasons I thought it was cool is it would have been actually a really good 3rd house example because, but it also works for the ruler of the 4th in the 9th, because what happened is that his mother made him learn many languages because she believed that one day he might rule over many different countries, because he was essentially the last crown prince of Austria-Hungary, being the son of Emperor Charles the First and Empress Zita.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Are you familiar with his background?
NDB: Yeah. Basically, his father became – like, of course, everyone knows the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was murdered; that started the first World War. The Emperor was Franz Joseph, who would become Emperor in 1848. So he’s a really old man by this point, and he dies in 1916. And so Charles, who I believe is his nephew, ascends to the throne. It’s another case of – and this is what happened in the end with the Habsburgs is, you know, there were no direct heirs, and so they’re scrambling to find a new replacement, but the war is about to end. Charles is gonna wind up, you know, ending – abdicating and ending the Habsburg – actually, I don’t think he abdicated. I mean, I think it actually just the monarchy was shut down on him.
CB: Right, because —
NDB: So it’s not like Tsar Nicholas —
CB: — World War —
NDB: — or anything.
CB: World War One.
NDB: Yeah, because Austria, yeah, Austria lost the war, so it’s, you know, they’re forced to give up the monarchy. And so his infant son Otto is, you know, very young and would have one day become Emperor, had Austria not lost the war or had the monarchy not been ended.
CB: Right. So this is —
NDB: And Charles died quite young —
CB: — the birth chart of —
NDB: Okay, sorry. His father died, you know, I think by the time Otto was about nine years old, so there’s that as well.
CB: Right. So this is the birth chart of somebody who would have inherited like, the Austria-Hungary empire from this father, but then like, World War One happened and their entire dynasty like, came to an end and fell out of power essentially after losing World War One.
So originally, this example was sent in because in the 3rd house episode I had said that I was looking for polyglots with – people who spoke a lot of languages, like many different languages – who had interesting 3rd house placements. And a listener sent this example in, which is a really excellent example because Otto had Sagittarius on the 3rd house and a Mercury-Jupiter conjunction that like, within a degree with Mercury at 19 degrees of Sagittarius and Jupiter at 20 degrees of Sagittarius in the 3rd house. And he spoke a ton of different languages. He spoke German, Hungarian, Croatian, English, Spanish, French, and Latin fluently. And in later life —
NDB: He probably would have had to speak Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovenian – like, you know, any of those, any of the countries that were in the old Habsburg empire, which was formidable. It was common at one point for people who lived in that empire to be polyglots; this is part of what Hitler found so offensive about Austria-Hungary was that it was such a mix of cultures. So yeah, his mother was just training him for something that seemed inevitable.
CB: Yeah. And in later life, he would write something like, 40 books in German, Hungarian, French, and Spanish. But the point of this example is just that his mother made him learn a bunch of languages because she believed he was gonna rule over this huge empire that included a bunch of different European countries one day. And so that’s the signature he’s got in his chart is he has the ruler of the 4th house of parents in the 9th house of foreign countries in Gemini nonetheless – Saturn in Gemini – and his mom makes him learn like, a ton of languages.
So —
NDB: Brilliant.
CB: Yeah. There’s other stuff that goes along with this example. He was exiled in 1919 after they lost World War One, and he grew up mostly in Spain. So there’s a signature for like, ruler of the 4th in the 9th, and he basically had to spent, you know, is exiled from his country of birth at first. There’s other things about his involvement in European Parliament from like, 1979 to 1999 where he was a very strong advocate for the expansion of the European Union, and there’s some very interesting things there in terms of the connection between the 4th and the 9th. But yeah, I think that’s actually good for now and that’s the main thing I wanted to demonstrate with this example.
NDB: All right. Cool.
CB: All right, moving on. Doing all these 4th house-9th house examples made me realize that I have a connection between the ruler of the 4th and the 9th where I have Aquarius rising, I have Taurus on the 4th house, and its ruler, Venus, also rules the 9th house. And the Venus is placed in Sagittarius near the degree of the Midheaven. And so I have a connection between the 4th house of parents and the 9th house of education and astrology, and the ruler is conjunct my Midheaven, indicating career, and what’s funny about that is my mom was actually super supportive of my studies of astrology when I discovered it, even though she doesn’t have a background in astrology herself. But she helped me to find Kepler College; she was the one that found that there was like, a new college for astrology that had just opened up a few years earlier when we discovered it in like, 2002 or 2003. And then would help me to attend Kepler College, which was a major turning point in my life in terms of my studies of astrology as well as being able to pursue astrology and then make a career out of it. So I just thought it was really cool reflecting on that lately as I was looking through some of these different examples and realizing how that could have been different. Because for her, for example, she has a challenging placement in her 9th house with Saturn there. And her parents actively like, dissuaded her from going to college. So as a result of that, she didn’t. She would end up later going back many years later at her Saturn return and getting a college degree, but as a result of having that negative experience with her parents, she instead did the opposite and was very supportive of me going to college and helped me to get there. And that ended up changing my life in really positive ways, so I just wanted to give a shout out to her, to Vicky, for doing that, for being amazing, and to reflect on that example and how it comes up in my own life.
NDB: Yeah, thank you, Vicky! Couldn’t have done it without you.
CB: Yeah. All right. Let’s look at the listener submissions.
So let’s see. There was one person who had a mutual reception between the 4th and the 9th, and they always wanted to live abroad, and then they finally moved to a foreign country one day and stayed there.
Another person with the ruler of the 4th in the 9th says, “I was adopted from a foreign country to the US where I grew up and I live now.”
Another person says, “I have the ruler of the 4th in the 9th and I live abroad.”
Another person says, “Ruler of the 4th in the 9th, and I have traveled a lot my whole life, and now live abroad.”
Another person they said they have the Sun in the 9th ruling the 4th, and they’ve worked as a touring musician. “So living on the road as well as having a very politically active father.”
Another person says they’ll be getting their second citizenship soon and immigrating to another country.
Another says, “I first moved abroad for grad school. Moving abroad again was a huge goal, and I pulled it off with my husband, factoring that goal into every decision for years. I also got married abroad. Three different countries involved in these examples, too.” Okay.
Another person says, “The ruler of the 4th house, the Sun, is in my 9th. I’ve never felt quite at home in my family or in my country, but I can also understand that as partially from my Aquarius Moon. I’m most at home I’ve ever felt in my current apartment, which is next to my university. I’ve always thought about moving abroad some day. I’m currently in a long distance relationship with someone from another country; perhaps I’ll move there in the future. Even if the relationship fails, I want to move someday. I feel drawn to some other cultures and climates. I just don’t see myself living in the Netherlands forever. I would be somewhat disappointed if that would be my future.”
So it’s just a huge theme sometimes when you have connections between the 4th house of your home and living situation and the 9th house of foreign countries and foreign travels of living abroad or moving to a different country.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: One person said they had Saturn ruling the 4th house of parents placed in the 9th house of religion, and they had a very strict religious upbringing. So that makes sense, you know, parents and the 9th house and religion.
Another person says, “My father is a Protestant pastor, so I grew up in church, and at the age of 20 I moved to a different city, and in less than a year moved to a different country where I live until today.” So there you get a blend of both of those things.
Another person says, “Mercury in Sag in the 9th. My dad speaks multiple languages. My sister lives abroad. My maternal grandfather was raised in a Buddhist temple as an orphan. He has also passed —
NDB: Wow.
CB: He said, “He has also passed in a plane crash.” So the grandfather passed away while traveling. “My family heritage is Cambodian, who are known for their blunt and direct communication style. I also never really felt ‘at home’ with the culture here, and feel more ‘at home’ while I’m traveling abroad in general, being in the liminal space. I also find comfort in higher education and accumulating knowledge.” So that’s a great example.
All right. Another example – they say, “Moving from a small, segregated and close-minded town and getting a formal and liberal education elsewhere, which open the doors to me moving around and having an open mind and a desire to learn about other people, places and things. My 4th house is Gemini, which is where my Moon is placed. I also used and continue to use what I’m learning to better inform my parenting style and open up my children up to new ways of seeing the world around them. Not to mention homeschooling my children for 10 years before sending them to regular school. It’s been an incredible journey and we’re still exploring.” I thought that was interesting additional twist with, you know, the 9th house sometimes representing education and the 4th house representing, you know, the home and living situation; they homeschool their kids.
NDB: Yeah. Natural link.
CB: All right. This next person says, “I have a pretty literal one. My 4th whole sign house is Taurus, and Venus is in Libra in the 9th. Books and bookcases are very prominent in every room of my home, particularly the books that I read while getting my PhD. My framed degree is also part of the decor. The bookcases are color coordinated to match my furniture. There’s also a lot of contrasting browns, reds, blues, purples with a splash of white. I even have blank books with peaceful quotes on the spines on my bedroom dresser, and they’re color coordinated with some decorative gold balls and faux flowers. My mother is a teacher and raised me to love books. And she also had stacks of books in her bedroom when I was growing up. Actually, now that I think about it, my first venture into spiritual thinking came as a result of a book I found on the bookshelf in my mom’s bedroom. That book and the author have been essential to my personal spiritual growth.” That’s really, really good.
NDB: Very good! Yeah.
CB: All right. And the last one says, “Depending on the house system, my 4th house ruler is in the 8th house in quadrant and equal houses or in the 9th house in whole sign. In the 8th house, I’d say I’m always super attracted to occult things, crime, and mystery and detective stories. Deeply curious and fascinated about human psychology and why people do the things they do, especially criminal profiling. But what’s super interesting is using the whole sign system, my 4th house ruler and 9th house ruler are in each other’s houses, and I immigrated to Canada when I was 10, and the reason is because my parents wanted to give us a better education. And now I’m in the states, but I’d go back and visit my home country every year or every other year usually. And since I moved to Canada, I don’t get to see my dad as much because he then goes back and forth between his work and visiting us. So I’d say I see a physical manifestation with whole sign and a psychological manifestation using equal and quadrant. With that said, I guess we could say that when I moved to a different country, it was like the death and a new beginning where I have to make new friends, learn new languages. And then for whole sign, traditionally 9th house is associated with astrology and the occult stuff, not the 8th house, so both works” is how they ended it.
Yeah, so I thought that was interesting. So we see a lot of —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — repeating and echoing themes there and commonalities. But I’m sure there’s other little details we could explore, and I hope to hear from like, other examples because I know the 9th is such a broad house that can indicate so many different things. I’d love to hear other examples from people.
All right, let’s transition to talking about the 10th house of career at this point and what it looks like when the ruler of the 4th house of home and living situation and parents is in the 10th house of career or vice versa.
So the first example I wanted to use was sent into me as a suggestion which was a great one; I had forgotten about this. Shout out to Sita on Twitter for reminding me of this example from a few years ago, which is the birth chart of Jennette McCurdy, who a few years ago wrote this memoir in 2022 with this really shocking title that was titled, I’m Glad My Mom Died.
So this example is Jennette was born with Leo rising, and the 4th house is Scorpio where we find Pluto. And the ruler of the 4th whole sign house is Mars, which is placed in Taurus in the 10th house conjunct the Moon in a day chart, so it’s the most difficult planet in the chart, and it’s also square Saturn in Aquarius in the 7th house.
So I spent some time researching this, and it’s actually a really fascinating story because the story is that Jennette was a child actor, and her mom always wanted to be an actress, and her dream was to be famous. But her parents wouldn’t let her, basically, so what happened is that she basically put her daughter, Jennette, the owner of the birth chart, into acting when she was six years old and then tried to – the mother tried to live vicariously through her daughter and to achieve her dreams of like, you know, Hollywood success and stuff like that and to fulfill those dreams that the mother always wanted.
So the memoir is really interesting. It’s like, this raw and really deeply personal account of Jennette’s life as a child actor and her complex relationship with her mother. And she talks about navigating the challenging world of child acting, particularly within the Nickelodeon system, and describes a lot of the pressures and the anxieties and the emotional toll that it took on her. So she also talks about like, abuse. She talks about abuse from her mother, and her tumultuous relationship with her mother is the central theme of the book, of course, where she describes her mother as controlling and emotionally abusive, pushing her into acting to fulfill her own unfulfilled dreams.
So this included things like stage mom pressure, forcing Jennette into acting from a young age, encouraging restrictive eating and unhealthy body image, conditional love – like, making her love and approval contingent on Jennette’s success – as well as inappropriate physical and even emotional boundaries. So it’s a really intense thing, and obviously part of it here in the most broad sense is just like, with the ruler of the 4th house of parents in the 10th house of career, part of the potential can be, you know, having your parents tied in with your career to some extent or having your family tied in with your career. But obviously in this instance, we’ve got some really challenging things since it’s like, Mars in a day chart as the ruler and it’s in the 10th house of career. And then Mars and the Moon are opposite to Pluto, which is there in the 4th house which is where we’re getting some of the controlling and sort of like, manipulative aspects of things, I think, that are coming through.
NDB: Yeah. What a fascinating story. I was only sort of tangentially aware of her, but I’m glad to know we have her birth time —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — look into her astrology more.
CB: Yeah. So the memoir explores her journey of grief and healing after her mom died of cancer in 2013 and delves into her struggles. And she said it was basically like a cathartic experience to write the book, and it was supposed to represent her reclaiming her narrative and finding her voice after years of feeling silenced and controlled.
So the book was really successful; it resonated with many readers, particularly those who have experienced similar family dynamics or challenges within the entertainment industry. And it sparked a lot of conversations about like, parental pressure, emotional abuse, and the long term effects of child stardom.
So there was actually a lot of interesting transits. Her mother passed away in September 2013, and Saturn was actually transiting her 4th house at the time because it was going through Scorpio, of course. And Pluto was exactly stationing direct opposite to her Venus in the 12th house, with Venus of course being the ruler of the 10th. She was also 21 at the time, so she was in a 10th house profection year that was activating her natal Moon-Mars conjunction in the 10th. And let’s see, the other thing that was interesting is the book was published August 9th, 2022, and of course Jennette was having eclipses in her 4th and 10th house the year that the book came out, which is great because it’s another one of those examples I talked about a lot in the last episode in part one about how when eclipses start happening in certain houses in one area of the chart, it’s gonna have eclipses in the opposite house at the same time. Sometimes what’ll happen is it’ll tie together two seemingly normally unconnected or disconnected areas of the person’s life – in this instance, like, parents and career – but in her instance because she had a natal connection between those two areas, it tied them together for a very specific reason.
NDB: Can I mention something else?
CB: Sure.
NDB: Since she’s 30 years old, of course she’s in a 7th house profection year, and she has Saturn in the 7th, and that’s part of, you know, the heavy duty-ness of the title and what have you. But with a chart like hers with the Saturn configuration to Mars, while the age of 30 is technically not a Saturn-Mars joined synodic return, it’s about as close as you’re gonna get. And I bet you her solar return for 2022, which of course is only about six weeks before the book came out – five weeks, even – is gonna have some element of that Saturn-Mars square from the 7th to the 10th replicated in the solar return, compounding the whole story. So at the age of 30, you know, if there is some like, really strong Saturn-Mars aspect in the chart, the age of 30 is cyclically speaking the age where you expect it to really show itself. And certainly if one of those planets happens to be in the 7th house so that it’s in the profected sign, all the more so. And of course if that planet happens to be the ruler of that sign, then, you know, you’re just – you’ve got a full house.
CB: Yeah. That makes sense.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Her chart really reminds me of Kylie Jenner’s chart, who we talked about earlier. Not as negatively, but just in the sense that Kylie Jenner also had the ruler of the 4th in the 10th. Here’s the chart; let me share it really quickly. Ruler of the 4th house – it’s like, Aries in on the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is Mars in the 10th, and just again she grew up doing reality television from the age of like, nine or something like that with the family being in the show Keeping Up With The Kardashians that’s like, all about the family, and just the mother being closely tied in with one’s career.
NDB: Right.
CB: I also —
NDB: And you know – oh, I was gonna say Elizabeth Taylor also has the ruler of the 10th in the 4th, and she was also someone whose mother had been an actress and pushed the daughter into it because, you know, to live through it vicariously. I know it’s a common story. I’m sorry I interrupted you, but since we also discussed her recently, I thought I’d throw that in.
CB: Yeah, no, I think that’s great. Let’s see – the last thing is just, it also kind of reminded me a little bit of the more recent story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who also had like, I think Leo rising with like, the Sun in Cancer in the 12th with Venus or something like that, and some of those 12th house placements. I don’t know; maybe that’s going a little far afield here, but —
NDB: She’s a whole year earlier. She was born just before that Venus retrograde in Leo in ‘91, so —
CB: Right.
NDB: — Jennette McCurdy is a blue three like me.
CB: Got it.
NDB: Born not long before my 24th birthday. Yeah.
CB: Nice. Yeah. So that’s a tricky example, but just initial access point is connection between your parents and your career, and sometimes that’s gonna be a good thing. Other times, that can be an extremely negative thing in terms of your subjective experience, and it really depends on how it’s situated.
NDB: Yeah, and if there’s any way to turn this to be normal in any way, most of us have relationships with our families that, you know, span a dynamic.
CB: Sure.
NDB: You know, that have a strong sort of – so in terms of trying to gauge things as being positive or not, when it comes to family it can get very convoluted and complicated, because most of the times, it is, you know? For a lot of people.
CB: Yeah. That’s a great point. All right. Next example is the writer Jane Austen, who actually has a mutual reception between the ruler of the 10th, which is Mercury which is in the 4th in Sagittarius, and the ruler of the 4th, which is in the 10th, which is Jupiter, and of course those are also – Mercury is also the ruler of the Ascendant, which is in the 4th, and Jupiter is the ruler of the 7th house of relationships, which is in the 10th house of career.
So hers is really complicated, but my main thing that I wanted to demonstrate with this example is that what’s interesting about her – she was a writer in the 1800s, and like many women writers at the time, Jane Austen published her books anonymously. So she has the ruler of the 10th house of career, but it’s in the 4th house of like, privacy and secrecy and that which is hidden. And her books literally were not published under her name in her lifetime. So it’s tricky because it was due to like, social stuff where at the time, the ideal roles for women were supposed to be like, as wife and a mother, and that writing as a profession for women was regarded at best as some sort of secondary form of activity. So there was just a lot of complications with that, but when she published her book Sense and Sensibility in 1811, she was described – it was described simply as being written “by a lady.” So her books never appeared under her name during her lifetime.
There’s all sorts of interesting things, though, about the themes and the plots in all of her books that actually come up with a lot of 4th and 7th house topics. Like, most of her novels, her six novels that she’s known for implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. So there’s this theme of landed gentry, which is very 4th house, is like, a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income or at least had a country estate. So there’s some 4th house topics there. But then there’s also some 7th house topics where her plots often explored the dependency of women on marriage for the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security.
NDB: I was gonna say I had a quaint little phrase to summarize her. Her books are about like, you know, how we feel on the inside and what we do on the outside. You know, like, sort of – yeah, what’s the public life, what’s the private life? And you know, where’s the struggle between the two? Which yeah, involves all these things like the, you know, the landed gentry – how do they behave in public, and then what are they doing in the boudoir or whatever?
CB: Right. That’s good. So her novels – I think this is also a 4th house component – her novels became popular a decade or two after she died. So there we get some of those themes with the 4th house having to do with like, the end of life, but also what happens after death as well as our legacy. There’s very little biographical information about her, and it comes from her few surviving letters and sketches that her family members wrote about her. And what’s interesting is that 52 years after she died, her nephew’s publication of a book called A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced a compelling version of her writing career and her supposedly uneventful life to an eager audience. But her family and relatives built this legend of “a good, quiet Jane Austen” and portrayed her as a woman in a happy domestic situation whose family was the mainstay of her life. But interestingly, modern biographers often include details that were removed from the letters by family biographies. So their challenge is like, to – of modern biographers – is to like, try to keep things balanced by “not presenting her languishing in periods of deep unhappiness as an embittered, disappointed woman trapped in a thoroughly unpleasant family” and some sort of tension there in terms of describing it as her family tried to describe her life versus trying to infer certain things based on her letters.
NDB: Right.
CB: Anyway. I think – yeah, I think that’s it for hers, but that element of privacy or secrecy or that which is hidden as well as things that come about after a person passes away as a 4th house component.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. I think we did the cook Jamie Oliver in part one, didn’t we?
NDB: I think so.
CB: Okay. I will skip that. I’ll just say Jamie Oliver’s a celebrity chef whose parents ran a pub or a restaurant where he practiced cooking in the kitchen with his parents, immersing himself in the world of food. And he has a mutual reception between the 4th and the 10th houses. So again, it’s just showing how your parents sometimes can influence your later career that you get into and the direction that you go.
All right, here’s that chart – Libra rising. Capricorn 4th house ruled by Saturn in Cancer in the 10th in a day chart conjunct Venus. Ruler of the 10th house, which is Cancer, is the Moon in Capricorn in the 4th house, so strong mutual reception between the 4th and the 10th.
The next example is John F. Kennedy, who was president of the United States in the 1960s and was assassinated in 1963. He has the ruler of the 4th whole sign house as Saturn, which is placed in Cancer in the 10th house of career. And part of the story behind that is that he came from a really powerful family with a very powerful father who had a major influence on John’s career and on him getting involved in politics and reaching the success that he did I think is one way to put it, right?
NDB: Yeah, absolutely. Sorry, go ahead.
CB: So his father actually played a significant role in his rise to the presidency, right?
NDB: Oh yeah, huge. I mean, he would not have – the only reason that he ran for president is because his father wanted him to ultimately. But it’s also, the thing is, he had an older brother – Joe Junior – you know, a Leo who was everything that John wasn’t. Was like, athletic and more outgoing. You know, John was the second oldest and skinny, sickly, you know, bookworm kind of kid. And Joe Jr., his older brother, was the one who was supposed to run for president. And there’s a whole sort of poetic thing to it in a way, because Joe Kennedy Senior, their dad, had been Roosevelt’s American ambassador to Great Britain, but he was withdrawn from that position when he became a little too, like, pro-isolationist. Because Joe Kennedy, Sr., realized he had sons who could wind up dying in the war, and that’s in fact what happened. Joe volunteered for a mission where he was a pilot and he was flying a plane load of explosives over the Channel for delivery, not to – I believe – or maybe he was supposed to bomb them. But one thing went wrong or another, and the plane blew up and he was killed. And it’s compounded by the fact that the previous year, John had become a decorated war hero when his boat was rammed by a Japanese boat and he wound up saving the lives of at least one of his crewmen – I believe several of them – got them to safety and got them rescued. And so he was a decorated war hero. And because he was, the older brother was like, well, I can’t, you know, have my little brother have a decoration, so I’ve gotta go, I’ve gotta volunteer for this very dangerous secret mission, which is what got him killed. So there’s that whole thing to it as well – the fact that, you know, Joe had tried to stop – the father tried to stop American involvement in the war for fear of losing his son, the fact that he wound up doing so, the fact that now John is the next in line to run for president, has to sort of step in his big brother’s shoes and fulfil the destiny that was, you know, supposed to be carried out by the older brother. So there’s that whole thing to it.
CB: The ruler of the 3rd house is Jupiter, which is placed in the 8th house.
NDB: Right, exactly. That 8th house of Kennedy’s is pretty wild, because when he was killed, he was 46 years old. And what you get at the age of 46 is really the closest near perfect Mercury synodic return that you get in a human lifetime. You get close-ish ones at 13 and 33, but at 46, it’s bang-on. In other words, on his last birthday in 1963, Mercury was in fact stationing direct in Taurus very, very close to where it is in his own natal chart, and he was born on the day it was stationing direct. And the fact that it’s in between that Mars and Jupiter in the 8th – yeah, you know, it really sort of points in some way to the way —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — that all happened.
CB: Right. So anyway, to bring this example to a close, while JFK undoubtedly possessed his own talents and charisma, his father’s ambition, resources, and political savvy were instrumental in propelling him to the highest office in the land. And you know, their relationship was complex with both admiration as well as tension between them, but nonetheless, it’s a very striking example of the father being very much important in terms of the person’s career with the ruler of the 4th in the 10th.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Let’s see. Next ones to go through some really quickly, which are all basically – because as I was going through my files pulling up ruler of the 4th in the 10th, it was all echoing very similar things, but just in different fields. Like for example, this is the birth chart of Megan Thee Stallion, who is a rapper, and the story with her is that her mother was a rapper and then Megan later became a rapper as well. And her mother, when Megan was really young, her mother brought her to her recording sessions. So it really like, impacted and influenced her in a significant way. And Megan has Taurus rising, Leo on the 4th house, and the Sun is in Aquarius in the 10th house. So pretty straightforward.
Similar case with Fiona Apple, who’s one of my favorite artists. So Fiona Apple has Aquarius on the 4th whole sign house, Saturn in Leo in the 10th house, and her mother was a singer and then of course Fiona became a famous singer as well. Interestingly, Fiona’s sister also became a singer, and Saturn is also the ruler of the 3rd house there in the 10th.
NDB: Pretty cool.
CB: Pretty cool.
NDB: Really great writer.
CB: Yeah. For sure. Dwayne Johnson – similar thing that we already talked about earlier where it’s like, his father was a wrestler and then Dwayne himself became a famous wrestler later on with the ruler of the 10th in the 4th.
And then finally, Kim Kardashian is the last celebrity example in this section where she has Sagittarius rising. The 4th house is Pisces, and the ruler is Jupiter, which is in Virgo in the 10th house conjunct the degree of the Midheaven. And you know, her entire career, or large parts of it, have revolved around the famous family that she was born into and her mother has been really instrumental in guiding her career as well as the career of other family members in terms of being the one who proposed their reality television show and everything else.
NDB: Right.
CB: All right, so those are all the celebrity examples. In terms of ones that were sent in by listeners, one person says they have the ruler of the 4th in the 10th house, and they said that they moved to many different countries and cities due to their work. So their work being tied in with their home and living situation.
There’s another listener that works at home on an ashram with the ruler of the 10th in the 4th.
Another listener says, “Pisces 4th house, Jupiter in the 10th house. Before I retired, I ran three businesses from my house. My career has always been what defined me as a person.”
Next one says, “Saturn in the 10th house conjunct the Moon in Cancer opposite Chiron in the 4th. I’m doing my degree in psychology. It explains pretty much how this placement showed up ‘til now.” So I think we’re getting some of the more internal or introspective aspects of the 4th house there, which Leisa really emphasized in part one.
NDB: Right.
CB: One person says, “Ruler of my 4th is Mars in my 10th house in Libra with the Sun, Jupiter, and Mercury.” And they say, “I have an art studio at home and another public one where I can show my work.” So bringing your work home with you.
Another person says, “Leo rising: Mars ruling the 4th house in the 10th and opposing Saturn in the 4th.” They said, “My work life is so often compromised by family drama, responsibility, and even tragedy. I’m regularly pulled away from work duty and any worldly ambition by putting out family fires.” So in this instance, it’s like, the family challenging placements connected the 4th and the 10th house that are sort of distracting the person or holding them back from certain career ambitions that they would do otherwise.
NDB: Right. Sort of the converse to the parents helping the career is the family getting in the way of the career.
CB: Exactly. And that happens sometimes. It’s like, sometimes people can be held back by their parents or by circumstances or things like that. And that’s one of the interesting and tricky things in astrology is like, you have to know that that’s a possible scenario, and you have to know what that looks like. So yeah.
All right, the next one – “Ruler of the 4th in the 10th. I was heavily encouraged by my father to follow his professional footsteps in science/engineering.” So that’s a really common one that we’ve seen a bunch of.
The next one says, “My husband has a good one. Ruler of the 4th in the 10th. He is the third generation in his family to work the same specialized niche industry. And we currently live where we do because of his job.” So that’s good.
You know, we talked about that – you know, what’s really funny, we talked about that in the last in part one, because I was really into like, Sofia Coppola’s chart. And I did this whole thing about like, nepotism and when something’s nepotism versus when it’s just like, following in the family lineage and like, footsteps. I hadn’t watched The Godfather Three yet, and I just like, watched The Godfather Three the other night —
NDB: Oh!
CB: — and realized —
NDB: Interesting!
CB: — realized some of the issues surrounding that. And that —
NDB: I have a very different take on that —
CB: Okay.
NDB: I like her in that precisely because she’s sort of believable in the vulnerability.
CB: Sure, yeah.
NDB: I was like, no, I’m buying this. And much as I’m a huge Winona Ryder fan and of course she was supposed to be the one in the role, I think it would be very different. Winona Ryder is too sort of like, yeah, you can’t imagine her being that girl anyway – you know, the girl that Sofia ultimately winds up playing. I even think she kind of carries the movie. It’s true it’s not – I mean, how was it gonna measure up to those first two? But —
CB: Sure.
NDB: — nonetheless, it’s not terrible. It’s —
CB: No.
NDB: — very watchable. It’s not terrible.
CB: The movie is better than I was led to believe.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: She does bring a good element into it, and there’s certainly a naturalism to her performance. But that being said, like, she was not the best actor in that movie, I think, to put it lightly. And I think the contrast with other professional actors – and I read, I was watching like, a video essay on this from another YouTube channel that was really good, and they just pointed out it was like, Winona Ryder was supposed to be in the role. She got sick and dropped out at the very last minute. Sofia got pulled into it. Lots of people like, didn’t think she was ready —
NDB: That’s right.
CB: — and kept begging her father not to push her into this. And even Sofia herself realized and was really scared and wasn’t ready for it. And then the movie came out – I think Saturn was like, transiting through her Ascendant not long after that, her first house – and she just gets ripped apart by —
NDB: Oh yeah. It was terrible. It was —
CB: — the press.
NDB: — terrible.
CB: Okay.
NDB: We didn’t have memes in those days, but no, it was like, all the talk shows, all the cartoons in the morning paper. And it just became a punchline for a good while, like, until the movie faded from memory, you know? Yeah, no, it was harsh. It was —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — harsh.
CB: And it’s like, she wasn’t, I didn’t think she was amazing in it, but it also went too far at times, and there was certainly like, an element of excessiveness in a lot of the criticisms and critiques of it. But it’s interesting though, because afterwards – on my birthday, actually – I watched. I had never watched her movie that she directed Marie Antoinette from 2006, and I absolutely loved it. And I didn’t realize that Marie Antoinette has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house —
NDB: Right.
CB: — and like, the entire movie was just about —
NDB: Talk about the family business! You know?
CB: Well, and also it’s ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house with Jupiter in Libra, and the entire movie is about Marie Antoinette living in opulence in the Palace of Versailles, and I think it’s fascinating that it’s like, Sofia has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house, and then she directed a movie about somebody that has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th house. Anyways, I loved that movie, and I think Sofia’s like, an amazing director.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: And I think it’s been really interesting how she’s followed in her father’s footsteps in that career but also forged her own path and her own unique voice and style and everything else. But yeah, I just thought it was interesting because I didn’t fully understand some of the context of what had happened before she became a successful movie director and had —
NDB: Right.
CB: — you know, and not an actor.
NDB: Well, there’s two things to point out. There’s another movie called New York Stories that was made before The Godfather Three. But it was made after, you know, Francis’s son, Sofia’s older brother, was killed in 1986. It’s a movie called New York Stories, and it’s a movie that’s got three segments – one directed by Martin Scorsese, one directed by Woody Allen, and one directed by Francis Ford Coppola. And it’s not great. The Woody Allen part is kind of the funniest. It’s a funny bit. It’s not any of their best work. But Francis’s segment is written by Sofia, who was still a kid at the time. And you know, most sort of Francis fans acknowledge like – excuse me – you know, forget nepotism. Francis literally wanted his daughter like, if she wrote a story, he wanted to make it into a movie. And he used the New York Stories opportunity to do that. So you know, he’s first and foremost a family man as you know. Like, we, you know, going through his chart, like, that’s just fundamental to him.
CB: Right.
NDB: The other thing is, yeah, I don’t know – have you seen The Virgin Suicides, her very first film?
CB: No. I’ve got a lot of like, her catalogue to like, work through that I’ll be working through. Like, I had seen like, Lost in Translation, which is like, the other one that everyone’s seen —
NDB: Sure.
CB: — such an iconic one from that time period of like, the early 2000s. But I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
NDB: Okay.
CB: But anyway, like, I know we could do a whole digression here —
NDB: Right. Yeah. Sorry. I was just gonna say for Virgin Suicides, you know, Kirsten Dunst is in both movies, and they both have this theme of sort of like, yeah, young girls facing sort of the perils of adulthood and losing their innocence and so on and so forth.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: Very good. Really good.
CB: So really quickly here’s – since I didn’t show it in the last one and it would have been an amazing example, here’s Marie Antoinette’s chart that has Cancer rising and the Moon in Libra in the 4th house with Jupiter. And yeah.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Back to submissions. The next one says, “4th house is Taurus but the IC is in Gemini in the 5th whole sign house. Venus is in my 10th house in Scorpio. I’m a registered psychologist, specializing on work with children, family and perinatal clients. I have a stellium in the 10th house sextile Mercury-Sun conjunction in the 12th house. Most of my clients see me to help with early childhood and family trauma, depression, grief and loss.” So that ties together a few different houses and things, but I think it’s really interesting and good in bringing some of those elements in.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: The next one says, “Ruler of the 4th in the 10th. I work from home. The ruler is in detriment, Mars in Taurus in a day chart, and I also struggle with finding where to live, and I move a lot.”
The last one I have that I wrote was just, it says, “My 4th house is Aries with Mars in the 10th. The ruler of my 4th is in the 10th house. I worked most of my career in local government, school districts, military, and post office. When my kids were young, I volunteered in their activities, such as scorekeeper in games, Club Scouts, and Brownie leader. Very community focused. Growing up, my home life was somewhat challenging; we moved many times, and I guess one could say that I had a reputation of being my mom’s daughter.” So I thought that phrase at the end was interesting because that’s like, a phrase, right? Do you know what that means or how people —
NDB: Well, like a chip off the old block kind of thing. You know —
CB: Right.
NDB: — like his father’s son. I mean, it’s just the variation of that, following in the footsteps.
CB: Yeah. That makes sense. All right. Well that, I believe, is the 10th house. I’m sure there’s many other different variations, but that at least gives people an idea of how that goes.
NDB: Yeah. On to 11.
CB: All right, let’s move onto the 11th house. The ruler of the 4th house in the 11th house, the 11th house being the place of friends and groups. So my first example of this is the birth chart of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer, who has Sagittarius on the 4th house with the IC there, and the ruler is Jupiter, which is exalted in Cancer in the 11th house. And what I love about this chart is Steve Jobs famously got together with his friend, Steve Wozniak, and they built the first Apple computers in his parents’ garage. So yeah, that’s the delineation. He got together in his parents’ garage with his friend and created a computer company, and what’s funny about this is they also used the garage to store computer components and as a base of operations for their fledgling business. And what’s funny is that the house is now protected as a historical site as a result of the like, mythos and legend surrounding them starting, you know, one of the biggest companies in the world in that garage.
NDB: Right.
CB: So the last thing is that some of the initial design and engineering of the Apple One also happened at his friend Steve Wozniak’s apartment. So yeah, just lots of interesting things there in terms of connections between friends, home, and parents, and different topics like that.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. We have a similar case with Kurt Cobain who also had Virgo rising, Sagittarius 4th house ruled by Jupiter in Cancer in the 11th house. Camille Michelle Gray was the one that initially pointed this one out to me, but it’s really interesting because on the one hand, part of it is that part of the entire mythology of Kurt Cobain is now Nirvana emerged from the underground scene in Seattle, and then in doing so, elevated basically a bunch of his contemporaries as part of the Seattle underground music scene or Seattle underground grunge scene. And this is funny because the 4th house is literally called “the underground place” —
NDB: Right.
CB: — the place under the earth in Greek. And they played in small clubs and built a following through word of mouth before eventually breaking into the mainstream. But then as a result of that, when they had breakthrough success in 1991 with the album Nevermind and especially the single “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” it brought this like, massive wave of attention to the Seattle scene and to the grunge sound so that bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains and others who’d been toiling in relative obscurity were suddenly thrust into the spotlight. And there’s something about that just because it’s like, the 4th house being the local scene of where you’re from and the 11th house being your friends or contemporaries and in this instance like, elevating them.
NDB: Yeah. I would say the 11th house is a tribal place. And the sort of the tribal aspect to Nirvana’s, you know, existence and rise to fame, it sort of happens a little before that. I mean, first of all, he’s very close friends with the Melvins, who are like, you know, one of the first of that sort of wave of bands. But secondly, part of the reason Nirvana got the record contract that they did with Geffen was on the recommendation of Sonic Youth, a band that would had been an underground band that had just signed a major label contract themselves, and then they were sort of also hired as agents as it were, like, to recommend good bands for this label to sign. And they recommended Nirvana. So there was even a sort of Jupiter in the 11th house element to how Nirvana themselves, you know, got the spotlight, if you will.
CB: Right. Yeah.
NDB: You know, along – and a lot of, you know, I mean, at the same time that Nevermind was released, Pearl Jam was releasing Ten and Soundgarden were releasing Badmotorfinger. Pearl Jam was a brand new band; Soundgarden on the other hand had been sort of established on the Seattle scene at a certain level. And certainly Nevermind’s success, you know, elevated those records. But it was at the same time, like, it was all happening at once. You know, those bands had been developing something on the scene in this local scene, this underground scene that you’re talking about. But yeah, it all blew up.
CB: Yeah. So other aspects of this – there’s other some minor things, but Kurt, his mom kicked him out of the house at 17 when he dropped out of school. And as a result of that, he couchsurfed and lived with different friends for a period of time, especially while Uranus was going through his 4th house for most of the 1980s. One of his friends that he lived with was Krist Novoselic during the formative years of Nirvana. And it’s interesting because we actually found this tape, you and I did, this video of Kurt and Krist practicing Nirvana like, at his mom’s house or something like that or at his mom’s business or something at one point from like, the 1980s or early 1990s, right?
NDB: Yeah, I think it was 1988. So they were already working on that first record, I think.
CB: It was really —
NDB: As I recall. Yeah. You know, Chad Channing was there, and he joined in ‘88. They had already recorded a few songs with Dale Crover from the Melvins at the beginning of 1988, and then Chad joined, so it looks like, yeah, they’re rehearsing to record that first album Bleach for Sub Pop. And they’re rehearsing indeed in Krist’s mom’s garage or living room or something.
CB: Yeah. So it’s like, a parallel with like, the Steve Jobs thing of like, you know, building a business in your parents’ garage or something like that with a friend. Interestingly, two other little minor things that I noticed were that some of the songs – one of his most famous songs, “Lithium,” was supposedly inspired by this period when he was living with a friend of his who had a very like, devout Christian family. And Kurt basically later claimed that part of what inspired that song was his experience living with that family for a period of time, which means that one of his most successful singles was inspired by essentially this time he was living with a friend.
NDB: Right. I suddenly remember the line from the song – “in a daze because I found god” – isn’t it?
CB: Right.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: So —
NDB: Makes sense.
CB: — some of his other songs were also about his time living with friends. Like “Serve the Servants” and then also “Something in the Way.” And then even I think the most striking example that I found even though it’s a little is the name for his most popular song, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” was developed after like, he came up with the name after an incident that happened with his friends in his house one day, where it’s like, one of his friends spray-painted this phrase “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on his wall at his apartment. And Kurt didn’t know that that was the name of like, a deodorant band, and he thought it was like, some kind of like, revolutionary idea or notion or something like that. And he initially like,named the song after that. But there’s this whole like, complicated story behind it, but I think it’s just really fascinating that his most popular song was partially like, named after this like, incident that happened one day in his home with a group of friends.
NDB: Yeah. Real quick, the joke was that it was spray painted by the best friend of his girlfriend at the time, and the girlfriend wore Teen Spirit as a deodorant. So for the friend to write it on the wall was to say that, you know, Kurt and her friend were sleeping together. That was the undercurrent of the joke, but Kurt didn’t get it because he didn’t know about the deodorant.
CB: Right. So this kind of just highlights the unexpected way in which everyday experiences and sometimes even like, trivial moments can sometimes become really significant in shaping creative works. In this instance, it just being like, a drunken night at his apartment with friends leading to the creation or at least the name of one of the most iconic songs in rock history.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. Speaking of that, yeah. So Dave Grohl’s chart, we talked about him earlier, and he has the ruler of the 4th house in the 11th house as well. And we talked about his example earlier of like, he was living with Kurt at one point, and they were living in squalor. And Dave toured and throughout the course of his life, like, it was like, living on the road with different friends for long spans of time. But what I wanted to emphasize about this is his 4th house, there’s also a challenging element to it that we’ve talked about having to do sometimes with topics of death. And I think that may be relevant here in his chart as well because he’s had a couple of major instances of that where there’s a connection between the 4th house, which can sometimes represent death, and the 11th house of friends where Mars is placed there in a day chart. And one of them was, of course, famously when his friend Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994. But then later, a couple of years ago, his friend Taylor Hawkins, who was the drummer in his band the Foo Fighters ever since the 1990s, he was the longest running other band member with Dave, suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in 2022. And what was weird about that is that was in March of 2022, and then just a few months later in August of 2022, Dave’s mother passed away in the same year. So he was actually having eclipses take place in his 11th house in that year. And since his IC is in the 5th house, that means that the eclipses were also happening in his IC sign at the same time. And Uranus was also in his IC at the same time. So I thought that was fascinating. And then also I went back and checked in 1994 what was happening, and it turns out that eclipses were happening in his 11th house then when Kurt died as well. So —
NDB: Right.
CB: — just activating some of these placements.
NDB: And Taylor must have died pretty close to the Saturn return of Kurt’s death, which itself was Saturn conjunct Dave’s Venus. The other thing about all that is, of course, Dave and Kurt both had Mars in that first decan of Scorpio. Mars, of course, has it at the very beginning of Scorpio, getting ready to station retrograde. And Taylor Hawkins had Mars at four degrees Taurus. So there’s some kind of element, you know, the Mars that’s involved in all these, in the three charts – Dave and you know, the two friends – all straddle this axis that we’re talking about as well. All straddle the ruler of the 4th.
CB: Right. Yeah. That makes sense. Two other random Dave Grohl facts. One of them that’s funny – a few years ago before Taylor passed away, the Foo Fighters were putting out an album, and they were recording it in this house, and they decided to shoot a movie. He decided to shoot a movie, basically, with his friends about a haunted house where Dave himself becomes possessed and then kills everybody. And they called it Studio 666, and the quote says,
“Members of the rock band Foo Fighters move into an Encino mansion steeped in grisly rock’n’roll history to record their much anticipated 10th album. Once in the house, Dave finds himself grappling with supernatural forces that threaten both the completion of the album and the lives of the band members.”
And I thought that was a pretty funny like, more manifestation of the ruler of the 4th house in the 11th and like, putting together a horror movie about a haunted house with your friends.
NDB: Yeah. Hilarious.
CB: All right. I think that’s good. All right. Another – this is an example of somebody I know whose name is Lama Tsering Everest, and she’s the head lama of a large residential spiritual community called a sangha near Sao Paulo, Brazil. And she has Virgo rising and Sagittarius on the 4th whole sign house. And the ruler of the 4th house is Jupiter, which is exalted in Cancer in the 11th house in a day chart. So it’s like, a really well placed Jupiter, and she’s basically the head of a monastic community which has a shared Buddhist practice where members engage in Buddhist practices and spiritual practices and meditation together, including like, meditation and chanting and study, and it creates a supportive environment for individual growth and mutual support and ethical living within the context of this spiritual living situation. And I thought that was such a brilliant manifestation of this because this sangha essentially acts as a spiritual family that supports individuals on a journey towards greater wisdom, compassion, and liberation. And yeah, it was just a brilliant example of that. They built a temple that’s connected with this community of people living there to support this work, and I thought it was a really brilliant manifestation of that ruler of the 4th in the 11th.
NDB: Yeah. Fascinating. What a chart.
CB: All right. Moving on. The next example I have is Jane Goodall, who has Pisces on the 4th house, and the ruler is Jupiter in the 11th. And what I realized about this is her Wikipedia bio opens with saying that,
“She is considered the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees after 60 years of studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.”
So it’s like, social, you’re getting social from the 11th house, but also family from the 4th house. And her chart essentially shows that she studies these archetypes in other species, and that’s why the 11th house and 4th house shows up strongly.
NDB: Yeah. I’ve studied her life and chart to some considerable degree. I’ve become really fascinated with it. And studying her life and work introduces an unexpected side component astrologically speaking in that she studied this groups of chimps for years and years, the same group, and she witnessed births and basically the full lives of a number of chimps. And she knows when what days those chimps were born, and the chimps have personalities. There’s the aggressive ones, there’s, you know, there’s a whole sort of story to all that. And I never thought I would, you know, be that astrologer who starts casting charts for animals, but if you wanna study Jane Goodall’s life the way I do astrology where I look at all the people around the individual, well, then, you know, studying these chimps and the birthdays of these chimps is part of it. So it’s a really, really interesting study. Fascinating chart and the whole story behind it. It’s not unlike in some ways Margaret Mead, whose chart is also really interesting to study in the sense that they’re young women who moved into sort of an unexplored and pioneering role in science that, you know, virtually hadn’t existed until they came in and sort of invented it. Because that’s what Jane Goodall did in some ways is sort of, you know, invented the modern way of doing these sort of animal studies. She didn’t have a degree, you know, when she got started. She simply had her passion for chimps and I won’t go into the whole long story of how she, you know, got the position, but it’s a really —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — unique thing. And the way she did —
CB: Well, that’s what I’d like to introduce is how she got there.
NDB: Oh, okay.
CB: Because that’s what ties it into the topic of the 4th house, which is —
NDB: Okay.
CB: — she grew up very interested in animals and with nature. And at age 12, she founded a nature club called The Alligator Societies. But then she grew up and then in May of 1956, she had a friend who invited her to visit their family farm in Kenya, and this was it. This was the crucial turning point in her life, because she had an opportunity finally to go where she always wanted to go in order to study animals in Africa.
So she goes to this family farm of her friend in Kenya, and then it was her friend who introduced her and suggested that she talk to the famed anthropologist Dr. Lewis Leakey, and he ended up hiring Jane as his secretary and set her up to study chimpanzees in Tanzania. And then that’s the genesis of her entire story, but it entirely hinges on this one event of a friend of hers that invites her out to live for a period of time in Africa, and that’s her ruler of the 4th house in the 11th house of friends copresent with the degree of the MC in the 11th house.
NDB: Right. And just to add to that, I have the chart for the day that she arrived in Nairobi, and it happened to be her 23rd birthday. You know, the day that she first stepped foot – she’d first sort of sailed to Cape Town and then I think caught a train all the way up to Nairobi. But long story short, most of this journey and the invitation to take the journey happened when she was in an 11th house profection year, because you’re in an 11th house profection year at the age of 22. And then right when she arrived there, she entered the 23rd.
CB: Nice.
NDB: The house of wild animals, yeah.
CB: Perfect. So other things she’s done where it’s relevant is she’s done work setting up environmental organizations, and I think that’s important as well, because we talked in part one about the 4th house sometimes being the environment, the earth, environmentalism, and the 11th house is organizations. So that’s how that’s coming through. It’s also interesting, her mom traveled with her to Africa for that first trip, which is crucial. So there’s another 4th house component that came through there as well.
NDB: Yeah. She first visited Jane on the first trip before she was even doing the observation of the chimps, but then when she was given the chance to observe the chimps, the people handing out the grant were at first reluctant to have a single young woman, you know, go into the jungles of Africa alone, and so her mother volunteered to be her, you know, “chaperone” or whatever you would call it. You know, her guide or supervisor or whatever. And she stayed for the first few months of this study. But you know, very, very soon, Jane wound up making really important discoveries. I was gonna say, there’s another element in terms of how she sort of invented this work, if you will, because chimps are quite territorial, and at first they were kind of suspicious of her. But she just sort of sat down and let them get used to her. And eventually, that’s what she did; she just sort of sat and watched them. So it’s a very sort of like, 4th house way of examining an 11th house, if you will. She’s sitting, you know, there on the ground in the jungle just observing. Just watching this community of chimpanzees. You know, watching and observing and being as unobtrusive as possible, you know? Just letting them get used to her.
So that whole combination when you think of it of 4th and 11th house is fascinating, because you’re right – it really sort of summarizes everything, the way that she did this work. The other thing she did that was sort of unscholarly or considered to be unscholarly was she gave the chimps names rather than numbers, because she hadn’t been, you know, to university yet to study. She would be sent later, but because she really was just coming into this raw, she did things that would have been considered faux pas by the “serious scholars” at the time. So —
CB: Right.
NDB: — yeah.
CB: Yeah, and I think that’s crucial because ultimately what I came up with is that she essentially went and lived at a national park and became friends with the chimpanzees. So that’s the tie together also with the 4th and 11th house component where she shared space with the chimpanzees, she climbed trees, she mimicked their behaviors. But most importantly, this helped her to build trust and gain acceptance within their social groups, and then understanding the chimpanzees’ complex social interactions was actually a core component of her overall research goals. So I think that’s the other part of this as well. And part of that involved things like observing family structures where she observed the intricate family relationships within chimpanzee communities, but also looked at other things like warfare and violence and like, aggression between different chimpanzee groups and different things like that.
NDB: Yeah. And again, in a lot of cases, you know, these studies – I mean, not the initial chimps that she meant in 1960, but once you get into her work in the ‘70s and ‘80s, you’re examining the entire lives of these chimps and getting to know like, you know, you know they’re born at such and such day and that, you know, the alpha male was challenged on this day, and a war ensued. So it’s a really well documented history of this community, you know, which is what makes it so interesting to me as an astrologer. Like I said, I didn’t think I would wanna study animals astrologically; it didn’t seem feasible. But now suddenly there’s this opportunity – yeah, I could take Jane Goodall’s work and actually do that, so you know, and so I am.
CB: Yeah. So —
NDB: Oh, I did have another thing to say, but go ahead.
CB: I was gonna wrap it up and just say, you know, her research on chimpanzees’ social networks revolutionized our understanding of them, but it also gave us insight into our own history and into the history of humanity and how some of our own societies formed, essentially, basically by studying theirs. And by focusing especially on the complexities of chimpanzees’ social interactions, it didn’t just expand our understanding of them in nature, but it also deepened our understanding of ourselves and our sort of place in the natural world, which then ties more into the 4th house as well.
NDB: Yeah, brilliant. I only wanted to add that like Elizabeth Taylor and Jimi Hendrix, we have a Pisces 4th house here, and we have someone who really again sort of divided her life between two worlds, if you will. You know, England and the jungle of Tanzania. And in fact, I think she spends most of her life traveling and giving talks and stuff like that.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So all right. So let’s see, let’s move on. The next one with the ruler of the – a mutual reception, actually, between the 4th and the 11th is Mary Wilson from the Supremes who we talked about earlier who’s a singer. And she formed a group with Florence Ballard because they first met when they were living in the same housing project in Detroit. And they met as teenagers and then later essentially became two thirds of the legendary Motown group The Supremes along with Diana Ross, and then they ended up living together a lot while they were touring. But I thought it was fascinating that the entire genesis of this incredibly famous singing group was just that she met this friend because they lived in the same area, basically, or in the same housing project.
NDB: Yeah. And for that matter, you know, a lot of Motown acts were from very close by neighborhoods to each other in Detroit. So that whole talent pool is really just covers a few square miles. But certainly, yeah, the Supremes are totally like, three high school friends and neighbors who rose to fame together.
CB: Yeah. So she has Taurus rising, Leo 4th house ruled by the Sun, which is placed in Pisces in the 11th, and Jupiter is ruling the 11th house and it’s placed in Leo in the 4th.
All right. Final celebrity example is actually I have the ruler of the 4th in the 11th conjunct the Midheaven like I was talking about earlier, and I was reflecting on this as I was preparing this episode, and I remembered that the day I turned 18 years old, I moved out of my mom’s house, and I signed a lease and moved in with a friend like, literally the day that I turned old enough to. And then later on in that year, other friends moved in with us and like, crashed with us during the course of that year. Then later in life, I moved out and lived at a translation project for two years where I also lived with friends, and that was when you and I lived basically like next to each other for a couple of years.
NDB: Yeah. Those were 11th house times, for sure. Yeah. That life we had together was very 11th house.
CB: Right. Oh yeah, because friends of ours would like, fly out periodically for like, conferences and for workshops and then we’d see everybody and host everybody for a period of time before they would leave. So that was very, you know, 4th and 11th housey. And then finally, my current living situation, the only reason I live on this block that I currently do is because of my friend Sean where I moved over here and I crashed on his couch, and now I’ve been here for like, 15 years living in the same area. But my alternative is like, I had to move, and I was about to have to move like, across the country to live – I almost moved and lived with our mutual friend Alan White. But then I was literally like, trying to ship my books out to Alan’s house, and then something kept stopping me from like, shipping the books out there. One day I tried to ship them like, three or four times, and I kept running into issues where the post office kept saying, “No, you can’t ship this” for like, minor, bizarre issues like that I had a sock that I had put in the box. And they said, “You can’t ship media mail if there’s anything else in the box,” and they like, turned me away. And then because of that delay, I was mysteriously called by a friend and he told me he had like, a couch I could crash on, so I went and like, stayed with him, and then stayed in Denver as a result of that. So it was like, a really important turning point that had to do with staying with a friend for a year —
NDB: Right.
CB: — where my life and where I’m at now just hinged on such a small thing of living with a friend and moving out to live where I did near you for two years was very similar to that as well in terms of how that happened and how we met on MySpace and everything else.
NDB: Yeah. Totally.
CB: Yeah.
NDB: And I remember when we first met in Seattle; I even, I crashed on your couch in Seattle, as I recall, didn’t I?
CB: Maybe, yeah. Which was funny because I had a house in like, the college area, and there was other like, college people living there —
NDB: Right.
CB: Even today, like, part of the continuing manifestation of that is, you know, I lived into my current place, and I have people out from time to time and host them so that we can record podcasts together, and I basically have friends out to Denver to record interviews together at my house essentially. So I continue to have that connection of that theme between the ruler of the 4th house being Venus in the 11th whole sign house but also copresent with the MC so that it’s also kind of tied in with career matters as well.
NDB: Yeah. The astrological flop house – chez Chris.
CB: Exactly. All right. So let’s talk about some listener examples. These are pretty straightforward, so the first one – they said, “I have the ruler of the 4th house in the 11th house, and I love hosting and feeding friends at home. Friends are my family.” So that’s pretty literal.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Let’s see. The next one says, “Ruler of the 4th house is Mercury in my 11th house in Capricorn. I feel like my friends are my family more than I feel like my family is my family. I just went through Hurricane Helene in Asheville and especially the first week, the only thing that made me feel grounded and safe at all was my friends and community, otherwise it felt like the ground was dropped out from beneath me. Also, my dad tends to have big community and is very well liked by large groups of people, who by proxy are supportive of me to an extent. Saturn and the Sun are also in the 11th house, so everything that could possibly represent dad is in that house. I now live in a house that I really enjoy for the first time and I really love having friends over and gathering in my home. Also I just remembered I wrote a poetry book in 2016 and it had a section called ‘places I never lived’ which were all about my friends’ homes and the way that they sort of became my home or places of safety for me. As a kid I spent a lot of time at friends’ houses too.” So I thought that was amazing and insightful.
The next one, it says, “My 4th house ruler, Saturn, is in my 11th house, and my friends and community have always been my family. I’m very distant from my actual family, which is very small.” So a recurring theme.
Another person – 4th house Taurus, Venus in Sagittarius in the 11th, so that’s like my chart. And they say, “I would say a big part of my sense of home was constructing webs of friends in my head which would make me feel safe. I also have a home online for the most part. One more thing – I decided where to live and where to go, even abroad, based on where my friends or romantic relationships are, not based on my family.”
The next one says, “Mars is the ruler of my 4th house in the 11th; it also rules my 9th. The 4th is the house of my father. My father is a Gemini with Aries rising. My mother is a Scorpio rising like my 4th house.” Et cetera, and it says, “Another funny thing is that I recently noticed that I tend to be quite tough and unforgiving on friends, and as I discussed this with my parents and they felt sorry for me. They think I inherited their bad habit of being quite tough, especially verbally – Mars in Gemini – with people and losing friends or damaging relationships because of the heat of the moment.” So I think they’re talking about like, Mars in the 11th house in a day chart it sounds like.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: So that would be interesting in terms of inheriting things from your parents or way of dealing with people that then negatively impacts specific relationships in your life like with friends.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: The next one – ruler of the 4th house Saturn in the 11th house Leo combust the Sun. “My parents were very strict when I was growing up, and I couldn’t have friends over and couldn’t stay with friends until I was 16.” Makes sense.
One more. This person says, “I have Libra 4th house with Venus in the 11th, and the relationship I have with both parents resembles much more of a friendship. In the best cases, I consider them my closest friends and we have a lot of light-hearted, unconventional moments together. In the worst cases, they have absolutely no boundaries with me and have always overshared. Venus is also in Taurus, and their children’s appearances have always been incredibly important to both of my parents. They are both somewhat superficial and very much interested in outward presentation. My mother is also a cosmetologist with two personal planets in Libra and very much embodies that archetype.” So I thought that was interesting of a delineation of ruler of the 4th house of parents in the 11th house of friends and you treat your parents or your parents treat you more like friends rather than children.
NDB: Right. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. And that is the last example of the 11th house.
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All right, so now we’re gonna transition into talking about the final house, which is the 12th house, and what it looks like when the ruler of the 4th is located in the 12th house or vice versa.
So my first chart example is one I actually originally discovered in the 2nd house episode, and this is the birth chart of King Farouk, who was functionally essentially like, the last king of Egypt. But he was, he inherited the kingship from his father, but then he was ousted in a military coup and forced into exile. So I think this is fascinating because on the one hand, he has Libra rising and the ruler of the Ascendant is Venus in the 4th house of the home, the family, and the living situation, and he of course inherits the kingship from his father. But then with the ruler of the 4th house being Saturn in the 12th house, he gets overthrown in a military coup and literally has to spend the rest of his life in exile outside of his country as a result of essentially enemies who were against him, which is an ancient 12th house topic which sometimes in modern times we don’t think about that as being relevant, so those ancient delineations of enemies, but sometimes they can really come up in very literal ways when it comes to the 12th house.
NDB: Yeah. And I believe he was 32 when he was ousted from office, bringing in that – oh yeah, because his Mars – he was born 32 days before Mars went retrograde, and so that Mars was stationing retrograde when he was ousted out of office. That’s the thing. And then the synodic return at the same time.
CB: How is that relevant, or what are you connecting that with?
NDB: Yeah, no, I’m sorry – I thought I was connecting something that I wasn’t. I should have just stopped.
CB: Okay, no problem. I mean, I do know – I did talk about in the 2nd house episode how like, Mars was going through his 2nd at the time when he lost like, all of his possessions. He famously was like, a hoarder of lots of different things.
NDB: Yeah. It’s a very powerful Mars because the transiting Mars would be going retrograde in Scorpio when his progressed Mars is stationing retrograde, and yeah, he was thrown out of office. Or —
CB: Yeah.
NDB: — dethroned.
CB: All right. So the next – when I was researching this, the next example that I found I came across is the birth chart of Wendy Yoshimiro, who has the ruler of the 12th house in the 4th. So Scorpio rising, Libra 12th house ruled by Venus, which is located in Aquarius in the 4th house. And Wendy was Japanese American who was born in a Japanese internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War Two where her parents were incarcerated there despite being American born. And all of their family were American citizens by birth.
So you know, essentially the delineation, the 12th house can sometimes have to do with like, prison or jail or constraints, and the 4th house can represent the parents but also the home and living situation, and essentially being born at that time with her parents living in what was functionally like, a jail. This had a profound and lasting impact on her, and it shaped her worldview. It fueled her later activism, and also influenced her art later on – where she’s an artist now.
NDB: Yeah. Well, I recognized her name because I recognized her as being the woman who was arrested alongside Patty Hearst in 1975 where of course they were living in hiding. Patty Hearst was an heiress who was kidnapped by political radicals in Berkeley, and she wound up sort of joining them basically. She was caught on security cameras being part of a bank robbery. And so she went from being wanted as a kidnap victim to being, you know, a wanted fugitive of the law, and yeah, over a year later she and Wendy Yoshimiro were arrested I think in Pennsylvania – the other end of the country – after being on the lam for a long time. So even in that instance, Wendy Yoshimiro was really living out that ruler of the 12th in the 4th thing.
CB: Yeah, for sure. I saw something that said that her role with this group was primarily involved providing safe houses and logistical support, which I thought was an interesting manifestation of the 4th house placements. And then —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — interestingly, during her trial, there were Japanese Americans who sympathized with her family’s experience and how that had influenced her, their experience during World War Two, who actually gave 150,000 dollars in legal aid to help with her legal defense. So after her release from jail, she’s focused on her art career and she’s actually a successful watercolor painter that’s known for her still life works. And I looked at some of her work, and it’s actually really brilliant.
Yeah. So that is that example. Moving on. One that I know is somebody I knew – the astrologer Robert Zoller. And Zoller had the 4th house is Gemini, and it’s ruled by Mercury, which is in Aquarius in the 12th house. And one of the things I remember is I did this interview with him before he passed away, and this is a quote that I have. It says,
“I was pretty sick as a kid. I had asthma, and I couldn’t participate in sports as much as I would have liked. So I ended up staying at home and reading just about everything I could get my hands on. So by the time I finished with sixth grade, I’d read all of the Celtic myths, all of the Germanic myths, all the Greek myths and legends. And in the course of doing that, I came across something called folklore. And folklore was primarily the Grimm brothers or one of the Grimms brothers, I forget which one now. But anyway, I read all of that stuff. And in there, I learned about magicians and unicorns and things of the sort. But the magicians and the astrologers and the alchemists really intrigued me. So it wasn’t until I was in the 10th grade, about 16 years of age, that I was able to get my first book on astrology, and that was Edward Lyndoe’s book, Astrology for Everyone, I think that was the title of it.”
He also has the ruler of the 9th house of astrology in the 12th house. So one I wanted to highlight this as a story because basically his struggles with health and illness left him having to stay home for much of his childhood, which made him very widely read, but also led to him discovering astrology and starting to study that. And then later in life, he developed Parkinson’s disease, which also largely left him homebound later for the last like, two decades of his life essentially basically where he could only stay at home and study and things like that. So that was a major element of his life, and you can listen to this – this is like, an excerpt from an interview that I did with him on The Astrology Podcast.
NDB: Yeah. He was quite a guy. I mean, brilliant mind, wonderfully prickly personality. But yeah, just full of information. And we were lucky to get to spend the amount of time with him that we did when he lived alongside us in Cumberland.
CB: Right.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: For like a year.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, that was another sort of 12th-4th thing for him was, you know, because of his health condition, he kind of, you know, bounced around from home to home in the last years of his life. Right? He went from like, Vancouver to Cumberland and then he wound up here in South Africa, I think, in Johannesburg as well.
CB: Right. Yeah. That was the first day that I met him, I took – he asked me to take him out to get food, and I remember like, helping him to eat pancakes, and I realized that it was like, one of the most surreal days of my life was like, I was feeding Robert Zoller pancakes – one of the most famous astrologers in the world – and yeah, that year of living with him and like, learning some things and having those interactions was really striking. But yeah, it was definitely something similar to as we were talking about with Frida Kahlo with the 6th house example, ruler of the 4th in the 6th, a similar sort of manifestation like that.
NDB: Yeah. My favorite last time, just before I left, I took Robert for a drive through West Virginia, you know, where we lived in Cumberland was just across the river. So yeah, I’m just thinking about that wonderful day driving with him around West Virginia.
CB: Nice.
NDB: Good times. Yeah.
CB: All right. Moving on. Next example. This is the birth chart of John Ramsey. I know I talked about he’s the father of JonBenet Ramsey, and I know we talked about her in the last in part one. I just wanted to talk about his chart; I don’t think I did in the last one. But what’s striking about his chart is that so he has Virgo rising. Mercury is the ruler of the Ascendant, and it’s placed in the 4th, and the ruler of the 4th house of the home and living situation is placed in the 12th – it’s Jupiter in the 12th house where we also find Pluto and the North Node. And what happened is probably the worst event of his life is that his daughter was murdered at his home on Christmas at the age of six. And he was the one that actually found her in the basement after reporting her missing to the police. His daughter also had the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th as I talked about in part one. So initially, the family was considered to be suspects, but then later was exonerated through DNA. So —
NDB: Much later, though. Much later.
CB: Much later. Yeah. Like, he went through a long period of being, you know, evidently falsely accused of having murdered his daughter or having been connected or involved in some ways. And there’s still a mystery surrounding her death because her killer has never been found, and he was recently in the news earlier this year for saying that some of the evidence was never actually DNA tested, and he was trying to advocate for it to be tested. But I wanted to mention this example because, you know, although it’s an extreme example, it’s just a scenario of what if one of like, the worst things that ever happened in your life happened in your home? Of like, finding a child —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — who had passed away, who had been murdered by presumably like, an intruder of some sort?
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. All right. So that’s that example. The next one is Leisa Schaim pointed out that both Prince Harry and Prince William both have – even though they have different rising signs, they both have the ruler of the 4th house, they both have the 4th house ruler in the 12th house. So this is Prince William’s chart; it’s Sagittarius rising. Pisces is the 4th whole sign house, and it’s ruled by Jupiter, which is in Scorpio in the 12th house conjunct the degree of the Midheaven because London is so far north that you can actually get the Midheaven over into the 12th.
NDB: Yeah. He’s born on the solstice, so it really has to be that close to the solstice to have a 12th house Midheaven in England, but it can happen.
CB: Right. So that’s his chart ruler of the 4th in the 12th, and then his brother, Prince Harry, has Capricorn rising, Mars or Aries is the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler is Mars, which is in Sagittarius in the 12th conjunct Uranus and copresent with Neptune. So on the one hand, this has manifested where they both, of course, famously lost their mother tragically – Princess Diana in a car crash in the 1990s- and that sense of like, loss that occurred for both of them when it comes to the parents. But then also, you know, it’s striking – the contrasts with respect to their then subsequent experience of family and of, you know, the father and of parents and things like that in terms of on the one hand, William being sort of like, groomed to take over from Charles and become King someday having the ruler of the 4th house conjunct the Midheaven in Scorpio there right on the Midheaven, versus Harry’s experience and this sense of essentially like, exile where Harry’s now like, left the family and even left the country for the most part, is living abroad, with Mars ruling the 4th house and being placed in the 12th not on the Midheaven and not really mitigated very much. There’s like, a lot there that’s very interesting, but it’s interesting both the commonalities of both brothers having the ruler of the 4th in the 12th, but also some of the differences.
NDB: Indeed. It’s pretty wild.
CB: Yeah. All right. Two more examples. First one – Pablo Picasso. We talked about him extensively in part one, but I wanted to return to him here because we talked about how he has Leo rising and the Sun in Scorpio in the 4th whole sign house, so he has the ruler of the Ascendant in the 4th. But interestingly, his 4th house is Scorpio, so it’s ruled by Mars, which is actually in Cancer in the 12th house. And there’s a few really interesting ways that that manifested that I think help to expand our understanding of both houses in interesting ways.
So one of them is remember, one of the things that comes up with the 4th house is things that happen – is death, but also things that happen after you die. And what’s interesting is there was a lot of tragedy and conflict subsequent to his death. So one thing that happened is that his grandson ended up committing suidice in 1973 shortly after Picasso’s death because he was turned away from attending Picasso’s funeral by Picasso’s second wife. His wife at the time turned the grandson away from the funeral, and the grandson was so distraught that he ended up drinking a bunch of bleach and then basically like, committing suicide as a result of not being able to attend his grandfather’s funeral. So that’s a really crazy and extreme scenario there, but yeah – difficulty with things literally surrounding the person’s funeral.
Then in addition to that, one of his like, one of the women that he had an affair with basically for many years – and he also had a child with her – lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her. And then when he died, she was so distraught that she ended up hanging herself like, a few years after his death. And she was one of his most famous supposedly like, muses or she’s called one of his muses as well as the mother of his daughter Maya, and she just had this hope that he would eventually marry her. But despite their passionate love affair and the birth of their child, Picasso never left his wife for her, and this unfulfilled hope… Hold on a second. There we go. This unfulfilled hope that was coupled with the pain of Picasso’s death deeply affected her so that she tragically ended up taking her own life a few years later.
And then finally —
NDB: Right. And she – oh I was just gonna say, like, Picasso’s Mars is 22 days from going retrograde. So he’s got a very slow Mars about to go retrograde. And the woman you’re talking about, Marie-Therese Walter, was also born just before a Mars retrograde in Pisces; she was born in 1909. So there’s a whole sort of like, even the person you’re talking about in question had a natal aspect that really mirrors the same one that Picasso has between the 4th and the 12th.
CB: Okay.
NDB: This dynamic of Sun in a water sign and Mars about to go retrograde in another water sign.
CB: Got it. And then the last thing is that Picasso died without leaving a will, which left behind this – even though he left behind this vast fortune in art and property and assets, this led to a lengthy and bitter legal battle amongst his heirs, including his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. And the legal battles and the family disputes surrounding Picasso’s estate continued for years after his death and cast a shadow over his legacy and impacted the lives of his descendants. So I thought that was really interesting in terms of like, ruler of the 4th house and the end of life and what happens after the life in a conflict surrounding one’s will and one’s legacy.
NDB: Yeah. And he was just, he was, you know, this destructive thing that happened after his death. I mean, it was kind of like that when he was alive, too, you know? He was a great artist, but it was – he was kind of like Trump. Anyone who got to him wound up just getting burned or, you know, getting thrown under the bus somehow.
CB: Okay. Yeah. So the last thing I thought was interesting is that it might be connected with this ruler of the 4th in the 12th is that his most famous painting is about, is Guernica, which is about the bombing of a town in Spain by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy during the Spanish Civil War. And it basically depicts a war crime and the death of civilians, mainly women and children, and he painted it at home, and it helped to bring attention to the Spanish Civil War. But it was also depicting something that was essentially like, a tragedy or a war crime, and there’s like, something about that here since he was from Spain, and it’s depicting —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — something that happened in his homeland, but it was something that happened that was like, a tragedy or that was done by enemies or represented a great sense of like, loss and something dark with Mars in the 12th house.
NDB: Yeah. The great story is that, you know, during the second world war, the Nazis came into Picasso’s studio and they looked at Guernica and they said, “Did you do this?” And he said, “No. You did this!” Or yeah, something to that effect. Yeah, Guernica’s really intense. Again, that Mars – when the bombing happened, it was four days after Jack Nicholson was born; we were talking about his chart, so you had Mars retrograde in Sagittarius conjunct Nicholson’s Moon. Or sorry, Picasso’s Moon, rather, when the bombing happened. So you know, it’s yeah, like an assault on the homeland, and it inspires that painting, which is one of his most famous.
CB: All right. And the last celebrity chart example that I wanted to share for this section on the 12th house is the birth chart of Julian Lennon, who was the son of John Lennon who was the famous singer and musician and songwriter in the Beatles.
So Julian Lennon was born with Taurus rising. Leo is the 4th whole sign house, and the ruler of the 4th house is the Sun, which is placed in Aries in the 12th house, and the ruler of the 12th house is Mars, which is placed in the 4th house itself. So there’s a mutual reception between the Sun and Mars between the 4th and 12th house, and this is a day chart, so Mars is actually the most difficult planet in the chart there in the 4th. So the story with this is that when Julian was pretty young, his parents divorced when he was five years old because his father ran off with another woman. And after that point, his father wasn’t in his life much. And the loss of his father was a sore spot for him throughout his life.
Then when he was 17 years old, his father was murdered in December of 1980. The North Node was actually in Leo in the 4th house that year, so eclipses were actually taking place in his 4th house the year that his father was murdered.
So early on, he had a lot of anger and resentment towards his dad. I have one quote that says where he said, “I’ve never really wanted to know the truth about how dad was with me. There was some very negative stuff talked about me, like when he said I’d come out of a whiskey bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that.”
One of the things with this placement is that he was even excluded from his father’s will, and he ended up having to sue his father’s wife, Yoko Ono, and the estate, and this turned into a protracted legal battle that lasted for years where he ended up having to fight for what he felt like he deserved. So they eventually settled in 1966, and the South Node was in —
NDB: Wait, 1966? That —
CB: Sorry. 1996.
NDB: Okay.
CB: They settled in 1996, and the South Node was in Aries that year, putting eclipses in his 12th house, so on the ruler that’s there.
So one of the things that happened around that time also that’s connected with that is adding to the tension, Yoko Ono auctioned off some of John Lennon’s personal items, including letters that Julian had written to his father. And Julian actually ended up – he had to use some of his settlement money in order to buy these letters back from Yoko Ono because she refused to give them to him.
So by 2009, he seems to have come to a better place with things, though, and I found this quote where he says,
“I realized if I continued to feel that anger and bitterness towards my dad, I would have a constant cloud hanging over my head for my whole life. After recording the song ‘Lucy,’ almost by nature, it felt right to fulfill the cycle, forgive Dad, put the pain, anger and bitterness in the past, and to focus and appreciate the good things. Writing is therapy for me and, for the first time in my life, I’m actually feeling it and believing it. It has also allowed me to actually embrace Dad and the Beatles.”
So I thought that was just an amazing way —
NDB: Yeah.
CB: — to end it and sort of come full circle where it’s like, he went through and had a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty, a lot of trauma and other things, but also you know I’m sure he’s gone through different phases and different periods since that quote’s from 2009, but coming to periods of like, acceptance and okay-ness with things and sort of like, releasing the past at a certain point as well.
NDB: Yeah. You know, what a crazy sort of way to come into the world. You know, on the tail of the whole Beatles phenomenon and everything associated with it. And all the money involved and not being included – it’s, yeah, it’s just bizarre.
CB: Right. And the thing about – because I think you were the one originally that told me about the thing about him having to buy back the letters, and that’s like, a thing that happened.
NDB: Yeah. I don’t think I was the one who told you, but that did happen.
CB: Okay, yeah. Maybe not. All right. So yeah, that’s the last example in terms of the celebrity charts. Now just a few some listener submissions, and I was actually surprised at the number of 12th house listener submissions, but there are a lot of good ones, so I’ll go through them real quick.
NDB: Good.
CB: Alright. The first one said the ruler of the 4th in the 12th – she listed several points and said, “First, father – number one, was a KGB officer, which for confidentiality reasons I was made known about when I was 12 when he switched to teaching in the academy and it was okay to tell. Two, he was often away, either away or he was sleeping. Three, he had a drinking problem, and four, he went to jail for drunken driving later in life when he retired.” So a lot of different versions of like, challenging things with the ruler of the 4th in the 12th there, as well as like, a secrecy element, which are both 4th and 12th house things.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Next one – 4th house Capricorn and Saturn in the 12th. “My father was handicapped in the late stage of his life, and my family and I had to spend nearly 15 years taking care of him. This involved multiple visits to hospitals, which completely removed my fear of medicine and hospitals.” So yeah. Sickness or long term care and especially hospitals can come up in the 12th house.
“The Sun in the 12th. Aries rules my 4th. My father died of an overdose. Mars and the Sun have mutual reception.” Okay, so there’s a mutual reception between the 4th and the 12th, and the father died of an overdose.
Next one. “Ruler of the 4th – Venus – in the 12th. Having roommates never appealed to me. Even when I was living with my mom, I’d always want to be alone in my room. I only have roommates now because of an incident that coincided with the Mars-Uranus conjunction on my IC.” So I think that’s a really important element, because sometimes isolation and solitude can come up as major themes with the 12th house, and we’ll see that as like, a recurring theme.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. The next one – “Sagittarius 4th house, Jupiter in Leo in the 12th. I traveled with my parents abroad all the time, but it was unbearable because they fought all the time yet wanted me around all the time. I felt imprisoned at home and whenever we went out, now I can only feel at home in solitude.” So I thought that was really interesting – so those different feelings of like, imprisonment at home, traveling but not having a good time, and then also feeling at home when you’re alone.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Next one – Taurus 4th house, ruler in the 12th opposed by Saturn. “I exiled myself from an abusive family. It’s conjunct Mercury. I enjoy the quiet solitude to write and do artwork at home.”
Next. “I have Sagittarius on the 4th, and the ruler is Jupiter at zero degrees of Leo in the 12th. My Moon is in the 4th. I had a lot of personal freedom growing up and spent a lot of time reading. I enjoy solitude in my home. My father was an alcoholic, and my mother raised me and my sister on her own.”
Next. “Ruler of the 4th is in the 12th. I’ve moved around a lot. Never been able to buy a house. Wherever I live, I end up feeling isolated and somehow separate from everyone else. People seem reluctant to visit me. I always have to visit them. Mostly I’ve lived alone or with a partner, but felt irritated because my sanctuary was invaded.”
Next. “Capricorn on the 4th with Saturn in the 12th and Jupiter in the 4th in Capricorn. When I was 14, I stayed with a friend for a couple of months in the summer so that I could go to summer school, and then my mom didn’t let me come back home. I lived with a friend and later my grandmother until I was 16 and left town for good after graduating high school early. My dad died a couple of days before my 17th birthday. I would and still do visit family, but remain an outsider. I spend a lot of time alone at home.”
Next. “Mars in Cancer in the 12th, ruling the 4th. Pluto’s also in my 4th. My deepest wounds came from emotional trauma and parentification inflicted on me by my father.”
Next. “Leo is on my 4th, and the Sun is in my 12th. I grew up with father unknown, and no chance I can see of ever finding out who my father is. I’m 54 now, so that cake is baked.”
Next. “Mars in the 12th in Cancer. I can get defensive and passive aggressive with my mom. I moved to a different continent after college but still keep a close relationship from distance. My Uranus there trining my Mars so that it’s a helpful aspect maybe to keep the relationship going, but I still get easily triggered by her.”
Next one. “Venus in the 12th ruling the 4th. Due to my mother’s spiritual proclivities, I basically grew up on a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in New York. Even moved abroad for a few years to follow her guru. Every year, she would leave for three months to do solitary retreats.” So that’s a major aspect, and that’ll be the next last two examples, basically, are similar that you get sometimes those like, spiritual or monastic or other types of things in the 12th house as well.
NDB: Yeah, monastic. And also nature is one. I’m surprised we haven’t gotten as much – I find 12th house people are your real, you know, nature people. Tree people. Forest people. Jungle people. Beach people. You know?
CB: I mean, I’m seeing that with the 4th house people, but I could see that coming up with 12th house people to the extent that if they go out in nature like, alone and have that sense of isolation or aloneness in nature being part of it.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: All right. So the next one – “4th house lord is the Sun, which is exalted in Aries in the 12th. I have lived abroad several times in Spain, Germany, China, Argentina, and Puerto Rico, often in ashrams and conscious communities. My home is also a spiritual refuge and a living work of art crafted with love and devotion to maintaining alignment with the ancient principles of Vastu Shastra, which is like Vedic Feng Shui.
NDB: Right.
CB: And then finally the last one – “My 4th house ruler is Saturn in Libra in the 12th, and my parents met when my mom was my dad’s transcendental meditation student. They both had a regular meditation practice throughout my childhood.” And I thought that was amazing, because it’s like, an exalted Saturn in the 12th, and the one —
NDB: Right!
CB: — before this was an exalted Sun in the 12th. So it’s like, the difference sometimes when you have a planet that’s in a more challenging house like the 12th or the 8th or the 6th, and it’s like, really well placed versus when it’s really poorly placed you get different – and sometimes much more constructive – manifestations of that.
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And that —
NDB: The 12th house pulls you away from the Ascendant, so you know, sometimes that means like, you’ve made some choices that have taken off your otherwise, you know, healthy course of life and you’ve gone and ruined something. But sometimes it just means you, yeah, you’ve gone off on a meditation retreat and you’ve disconnected from, you’ve gone onto the shoulder of the road of life. You’re not engaged in the traffic; you’re sort of moved yourself into again a timeless space. I always say the 6th and 12th house have to do with time, and the 12th house is sort of like, removing yourself from time in some way. Sort of like —
CB: Yeah, I think of —
NDB: — yeah, creative people do, you know, often have strong 12th house placements, because that’s, you know, creative people… All the other kids are out in the park playing baseball, and you’re inside practicing cello, you know? That’s a 12th house kind of person. Disengaging from everything that’s around you and focusing on your own thing in a sort of more timeless schedule that’s to your liking, and it’s outside of the rigid scheduling of the 6th house, which is more like military time type of a lifestyle. So yeah, there’s something feral about the 12th house in that way.
CB: Yeah. I think about, you know, Rhetorius talks about how the 12th house is the sign of the zodiac that was rising before you were born, like, an hour or two before birth. And he calls it one of the places that’s between worlds, because you’re in between life and death, but I think about it to the extent that it’s that sign from before you were born that sometimes it’s like, harkening back to the pre-birth state where you’re just sitting there sort of like, in isolation basically, prior to birth and prior to your life beginning. And so sometimes it can harken back to that sense of isolation, which in a negative way sometimes can be isolation in terms of, you know, prisons or hospitals or things like that. But other times, that sense of isolation and solitude can be something that’s like, restorative or helpful or healing in some way when it’s more positive.
NDB: Yeah. You could use the operative phrase like, not wanting to deal with life right now. And there are healthy and unhealthy ways to not wanna deal with life right now. You know, one way or the other. But yeah, there’s a lot of healthy space in the 12th house. It’s just, it’s a dangerous space, you know? Whereas the 6th house is again very contained and organized and sort of safe in a domestic way. The 12th house being feral and wild and just potentially dangerous – lions and tigers and bears – you just, you’re in the vulnerable space where, you know, something bad could happen, or you could, you know, cause something bad to happen to yourself simply because you’re so free. But yeah —
CB: Right. Well —
NDB: — I think that element of being, you know, in the womb in that kind of timeless space is really apropos.
CB: Yeah. And also it’s like, the 12th house is part of that angular triad that has to do with the first house and the sense of self, but it’s declining away from that while not aspecting the Ascendant. So it’s like, if the first house represents your body and physical vitality, the 12th house is declining and it’s detracting away from it. It’s things that detract away from your body and your physical as well as mental vitality in some ways, and that’s why the 12th can have some negative connotations that we’ve talked about and clearly demonstrated to a certain extent here, come from that – that sense of it detracting from the first house. But when there’s mitigating factors present, when there’s good things placed there, there can be plenty of good manifestations as well as we’ll see when we get to the episode on the 12th house at the end of this series.
NDB: Yeah. Which should be a few hundred hours of talking between now and then.
CB: Yeah. About that! So all right, we’ve reached the end of this episode, so it’s time for concluding remarks. Yes, I have, you know, we together have topped ourselves, but I have certainly topped myself with this episode and gone as far as we can go with the 4th house. You know, ironically, I cut the planets section; I didn’t do planets this time. I just did the ruler of the Ascendant and the rulers of the houses, but it still ended up becoming the longest one in the series. I’m probably gonna pull it back a little bit, I think, for the 5th house and make it a little bit more manageable. Let’s see if I can fit it into one episode potentially and not do as comprehensive of a treatment, because I kind of like, pushed myself too far and kind of killed myself doing this 4th house episode over the past month or two, even though it was incredibly rewarding and I’m sure now we’ve all learned a lot. I learned a lot, and that’s why I pushed myself as far and did as many examples as I did, because I was having such a good time. You know, I already knew a lot about it; it was confirming a lot of things I already knew, but it was interesting to develop new examples and see different manifestations of it and to further develop certain ideas even better than I had previously, and that was really enjoyable, and yeah. But you know, we’ll see how things go for the next one. It was nice integrating the listener submissions, and I think that’s a major new element of this that added a helpful dimension, I think, listening to other people’s examples.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, it’s just constantly striking how you get this laundry list of all these examples that are very, very similar to each other. I mean, of course, I already have my convictions about astrology, but it’s still, you know, it’s the kind of thing that just reinforces them constantly.
CB: Yeah. And so it’s nice because it does help to confirm some things we already know, things we already think or things that we’ve seen from the chart examples. We do have to be a little careful sometimes, because sometimes people are obviously picking up on things based on what they know about astrology or what they think the placement might mean and then connecting it with things in their life, which is sometimes good confirmation, but on the other hand, it might just confirm commonly held beliefs about certain placements rather than like, you know, pushing into new territory that’s maybe —
NDB: Right.
CB: — not explored. It could be the downside of that, so that’s something we have to be careful about a little bit in terms of all of the research we just presented with some of those listener examples. But nonetheless, it’s still helpful confirmation and exploration of more subtler points when it comes to the placements.
NDB: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s worth saying on your show, because you are speaking to this large audience of people who are, you know, basically teaching themselves astrology in part by watching the podcast or listening to it. If you’re studying astrology, it’s just it’s par for the course at some point you will freak yourself out. Like, it’s part of the growth of learning astrology that at some point, you’ll, you know, read some transit or some element of your chart that sounds really bad, and you know, you’ll probably freak yourself out over it a bit until you sort of have the time to put everything in perspective. It’s kind of like, I don’t think you can become a beekeeper without getting stung by bees; like, it’s just, it’s part of how you get there. You can’t become a standup comic without having been booed off stage by a really hostile audience; like, there’s just some kind of rite of passage that is part of the journey. So yeah, you know, we always wanna sort of qualify the, you know, what we’re teaching here when it sounds kind of dark in one way or another that these things play out in many different ways. And also just know that like, you know, if you do happen to be freaked out at this moment or that moment, that while it may or may not be helpful to you, it is part of what is involved in learning astrology. I think it’s just, you know, it has to be acknowledged. Someone’s gotta say it. And I just —
CB: Sure. Yeah. I think that’s a good point and is good – I’m glad you made that. Yeah. Astrology as we’ve said to the extent that astrology, if it’s gonna be a successful system that successfully describes the complexities of life, then it’s gotta describe every aspect of life, not just the good things but also some of the challenging or the bad things as well. And as astrologers, the more familiar we are with the different possible manifestations in the extremes, that can also help us to establish some of the different shades of grey in between. And I think we’ve been able to do that with this episode and the entire purpose of doing such a comprehensive treatment of the 4th house with well over a hundred chart examples between parts one and two was to give you so many different perspectives on the 4th house and the archetypes surrounding it that you now should have a better idea of what the overarching archetype means and some different ways to approach it and to see it in the lives of real people. And now you’re gonna find your own unique chart examples and different manifestations of it as during the course of your career and your studies of your chart. But hopefully we’ve set a new – I hope that we’ve raised the bar in terms of understanding the 4th house, and we’ve also set a new foundation that people then can build on from there and grow and expand our understanding.
NDB: Yeah, exactly. Well put.
CB: Yeah. All right. So 4th house – basic topics, obviously – home, parents, family, private life, secrets, inner world, nature, country, past, history, death, matters after death. Those are, I think, our core significations. You can go back to the first house to see the most detailed breakdown, but I think we’ve pretty well established that those are a lot of the primary significations of the 4th house and the different ways that those core significations can manifest, I think, yeah?
NDB: Yeah.
CB: Cool. All right, my friend. Thank you so much for doing the 4th house with me. Thanks for doing parts one and two. I know you are coming out of – you’re still dealing with a cold, so you weren’t feeling great today, so thanks for powering through and doing this episode with me. Yeah, I appreciate it, and it’s been really, really, you know, fruitful like, doing this with you.
NDB: Yeah. I really love this series and working on it and yeah, it just keeps getting better.
CB: For sure.
NDB: So thank you!
CB: All right. Where can people find out more information for you? You do consultations, right?
NDB: I do consultations. I can be reached at NickDaganBestAstrologer.com, and it’s very easy to book appointments with me on my website, so please do if you’re looking for someone to speak to.
CB: Excellent. I’ll put a link to that in the description below this video or on the podcast website entry for this episode. Shout out to all the patrons that supported this work, and one of the things is I have a very long document of written notes for this episode as well as part one, and I’m gonna release those to patrons even at the lowest tier where the people that are paying four dollars a month can get access to our written notes that contains a detailed write-up of all of our research for this episode, including some stuff that we didn’t even include or some chart examples we didn’t go into or further details even on chart examples that we did share. So you can get more access to that by going to my page at Patreon.com/AstrologyPodcast and signing up. And in turn, if you enjoyed this episode or enjoy this series and you wanna support my work in it, you can also pledge your support there to help us out and buy coffee because I have a lot of episodes to go, and I’m gonna need a lot of coffee to get through the rest of this series.
NDB: Holy moly. All the beans in Ethiopia for me, thank you.
CB: Yeah, exactly. And Columbia and everywhere else – I need all of the coffee beans.
NDB: Yeah. You take the beans from your continent; I’ll take the beans from this continent, and that’s all the coffee in the world, I guess. Apart from Java! So someone can have Java.
CB: That’s true.
NDB: All right.
CB: All right, cool. Well, thanks for joining me. Thanks everyone for watching or listening to this episode. Drop us a like or a comment on YouTube. It’ll help us out. And otherwise, we’ll see you again in the next episode on the 5th house. So have a good time, and see you again soon!
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