Read about the second house...n'that.

Like a mischievous boy releasing a mouse in a roomful of cheerleaders, try dropping the subject of money into a gathering of metaphysical people. Watch how many scramble for the tabletops. When you're discussing the 2nd house, you have to talk money. Yet in most spiritual circles, money is a dirty word. Craving dollars is an affront to spirit and decidedly uncool (except of course, for those spiritual teachers whose hands are always open for donations). Nor is astrology exempt. More than once I've heard that charging for readings is blasphemous, since astrology is a “gift” (this might explain the profession's drive to prove that it's a “science”). New Agers, on the other hand, like money. They'll recite affirmations and magic mantras to get more of it. If you don't have enough, they argue, it's a sign that your thoughts are uncool.

Whether money is dirty or evil--or spirit-inspired--or as is more likely the case, energetic but neutral, “How do I get more of it?” is one of the top three questions on most clients' minds. Frequently it's followed by the lament, “If only I didn't have to make money!” What a tragedy the world expects us to be house painters, insurance salesmen and loan officers, when our souls cry for grander personas, to be artists, philosophers, adventurers. Having to make money seems a wretched detour. I've heard it said that God needs more dishwashers than kings, but why then, wouldn't God plant in us a burning desire to wash dishes instead? This dilemma is especially acute for the Pluto in Leo generation, whose dream of creative self-expression is so keen—despite being raised by Pluto in Cancer parents, for whom money, the security of it, the status of it, was the greater prize.

Aside from love relationships, little provokes so much longing, anxiety, resentment, or confusion. Astrology locates one's financial status, along with the attitudes and conditions that help or hinder it, in the 2nd house. If you want to unravel your own money mysteries, it's through this house you must travel. What you encounter there, however, will hold the key to far more than just your bank account.

In Sacred Contracts, medical intuitive Caroline Myss identifies the energetic ground of the 2nd house. (1) Though Myss is not an astrologer, she has a keen grasp of archetypal energies. To diagnose the condition of your 2nd house, she suggests looking at an area of life where you feel continually disempowered. Though this conflict may surface in areas associated with other houses--your relationships (7th) or your career (10th)—your disempowered approach, she suggests, will likely source from the negative attitudes in your 2nd house. In other words, the key to your power in the world—or the lack of it—lies here.

The 2nd is a “succedent” house. This means it succeeds or follows an important house on the angle. The angular houses (1,4,7 and 10) are, as John Frawley writes, the “structural key to the chart, like the main beams in a roof.” (2) Planets in angular houses are stronger, have more power to act. They define the pillars of your life: your personality, your home and family, your relationships, your career. A planet transiting through an angular house will often bring more dramatic changes than the same planet transiting another house. Angular transits can initiate a theme that survives long after the transit has passed.

This doesn't mean succedent houses are less important. Rather, their significance is bound up with the house that came before. Succedent houses play a necessarily supportive role. They're meant to stabilize whatever the angular house has launched. The succedent 5th, for example, rules children, romance and creativity-—but together they have a job to do. As activities, they further encourage the self-essence nurtured by home and family in the angular 4th. Likewise, the deepening intimacies, financial and sexual, of the succedent 8th test and/or strengthen the partnerships forged in the 7th. Similarly, social networks in the 11th can affirm or undermine the professional status developed in the angular 10th.

The role of the 2nd house, therefore, is to support whatever entity was birthed in the 1st. A vigorous 2nd house not only ensures your survival, it can make you a force to contend with. If you were a nation, for example, your 2nd house would describe your national assets, your banking system, the health of your exports and crops. If you were a country declaring war, in the war chart's 2nd house you'd find your allies, your ammo and your guns. Similarly, if you were a plaintiff in a lawsuit, the lawsuit chart's 2nd house would show the people testifying on your behalf. A strong 2nd house can make the difference between winning and losing.

The 1st house shows your emergence into life and the 2nd shows what keeps you here. It holds everything you can call “mine.” Through the 2nd you extend into the world and ground your being. As a baby, this begins with acknowledging your very own fingers and toes, the food you possess with your mouth, the teddy bear that no one can sleep with but you. As you grow, you must continue the process of grounding, which keeps deepening your 1st house process of self-discovery. You keep learning about who you are through the things you want to own, the resources you have to use, the value you place on yourself.

The 2nd rules both what money can buy (possessions and material resources) and what it can't buy (talents, self-esteem, and values). If you're unhappy in your career, the work you're doing may not utilize your natural talents--described by the collection of sign and planets in and ruling your 2nd house. Moon in or ruling the 2nd, for example, suggests strong intuitive resources, emotional sensitivity, a desire to nurture. Unless this Moon is in Capricorn, Virgo, or Taurus, a career as an accountant might be torture. Maybe you like what you're doing but it doesn't pay enough. Why does your co-worker march into the boss' office and demand a raise when you couldn't do it if your life depended on it? He's got an assertive Mercury/Mars conjunction in the 2nd while you have a self-defeating Sun squared by Pluto.

Your 2nd house ground must be worked. You have to transform what you find there. As an infant, this house was a veritable Garden of Eden. Everything you needed—toes, food, and teddy bears--was magically supplied. Yet as you grew, you learned that gardens must be maintained. Vines need pruning, fruit trees must be planted, flowers have to be fertilized. Earth is a paradise, but it's also full of reality. Pests can destroy your garden, predators can steal your crops. If you don't learn how to increase your garden's yield, your needs won't be met, your desires can't be satisfied. If you wait for manna to drop from the heavens, you'll starve.

In other words, you have to get real in this house. You must learn how to use, protect, and manage its resources, or you'll suffer a fall from grace. Anyone who has a problem with money is just plain naive about that.

John is forty-nine years old. He has no savings to speak of and plenty of debt. For much of his adult life John has struggled to hold various minimum wage jobs. For the past ten years he's lived off his girlfriend's income. Benefic Jupiter in diligent Virgo rules his 2nd house cusp. John is a gifted artist and craftsman. His mosaic jewelry designs are truly inspired. “They're like paintings in stone,” a friend once enthused. Yet John produces his jewelry infrequently. Even during his prolific times, he's been unable to support himself. Talking with John, I learned that his father, a carpenter and set designer for the Hollywood studios, had repeatedly warned his son not to work with his hands. Resenting his blue collar life, his father concluded that if you work with your hands, you won't make any money. The artist in John's 2nd house lay pinned and wriggling under this heavy pronouncement.

John's 2nd house ruler Jupiter is itself ruled by the planet of hands and craftsmanship, Mercury. Both these planets are in a tight hard aspect to Pluto. One is generally powerless to use planets in difficult aspect to Pluto until something is transformed. Mostly John has felt paralyzed--unable to do his art, unable to do anything else. Given John's hands are his best resource, by devaluing them, his father had essentially told him he was worthless. And for much of his adult life, financially and otherwise, John has unconsciously been proving this was true.

Patti has a 2nd house Jupiter in Cancer, conjunct the Moon and Uranus. When she first came to see me, she had money troubles too. Patti is a talented, well-educated woman, but her recent work history included a string of relatively low paying jobs, none of which she particularly enjoyed. In fact she'd just left such a job and wanted to know where to turn next. She hated being economically dependent on her husband.

It took a few sessions to unravel the financial secrets of Patti's 2nd house, but slowly the picture came clear. As a child, Patti observed her father's relentless criticisms of her mother whenever she spent any money. Patti decided to hold onto (Cancer) whatever money she got. By saving her allowance, she could win her father's approval. Working for her own money would later become important too, because that meant independence and freedom as a woman (Moon/Jupiter/Uranus). At the least, it meant freedom from a husband's criticisms!

Patti's 2nd house conjunction is a gifted combination; she has an abundance of talents to explore. As a teenager she Patti interested in music, but her father's ringing disapproval hit hard. "You can't make any money at that," he scowled. So Patti followed her father's footsteps and got a degree in his field. But curiously, she couldn't make money at that either. Patti eventually unraveled the mystery at the bottom of her 2nd house: Her father's devaluing of her creative gifts translated to the subliminal equation "You only make money when you do things you don't love." She complied with a history of jobs that she hated. Her resentment against this bargain kept her salaries low.

One of the biggest problems with 2nd house attitudes and values is that, initially at least, they're received. I remember sitting in a therapist's office years ago, complaining I was a failure because I didn't drive a Mercedes. “But Dana,” my therapist replied, “you've never struck me as someone who cares about such empty status symbols!” It was a liberating moment. My father wanted to see me in a Mercedes; that would have signaled his daughter had finally arrived. The irony is that years later I actually did buy a luxury car (though not a Mercedes). Venus rules my 2nd house cusp; I like luxury items! By the time I bought the car, I had raised my income considerably. I had finally grown into my own money values.

Thanks Mark. I love your astro threads....keep posting please

🙂

Posted by MyStarsShine
Thanks Mark. I love your astro threads....keep posting please

🙂

Thanks ? I guess it's cause l'm really into houses and theylre so interesting...and theres a lot to be said about them.