The twelve houses

A house is one of twelve divisions of the sky, set by the birth place and moment. In quadrant systems such as Placidus they do not follow the signs, and Whole Sign houses do, starting from the Ascendant's sign. Each is assigned an area of life. The 1st covers identity, the body and first impressions. The 4th covers home, family and roots. The 7th covers committed partnerships and open rivals, and the 10th covers career, reputation and public standing.

The 1st house begins at the Ascendant, and the rest follow around the wheel. Each begins at a cusp, a longitude. Which of the twelve a body is in depends on the place and the minute of birth, because the whole set turns once a day.

In the quadrant systems, houses 1 to 6 lie below the horizon and houses 7 to 12 above it. Hellenistic astrologers called the houses places, and modern psychological astrology reads them as areas of experience.

Pick a house. The wheel lights its slice, and the panel names what traditions assign to it and which of her bodies sit inside.

The houses fall into three kinds. Angular houses (1, 4, 7, 10) begin at the four angles. Succedent houses (2, 5, 8, 11) follow them, and cadent houses (3, 6, 9, 12) come directly before the next angle. Hellenistic astrologers treated angular houses as the strongest places. That is a rule of one tradition.

Astrologers also pair each house with a natural sign in zodiac order: the 1st with Aries, the 2nd with Taurus, and so on to the 12th with Pisces. That pairing is a convention, and it does not mean a body in the 1st house is Aries-like.