Empty
Houses
May 6, 2005
http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/may6.html
Hello!
I have a question about general chart
interpretation. I was looking at my chart wheel and noticed that I have several
houses that don't have any planets in them (4,5,7,8,11,12). How does an empty
house affect a person's chart and what does it mean for those houses in
general?
Thanks
Dear
This is a really common question. Charts
come in many 'standard patterns' and I believe that Marc Edmund Jones has
written quite a bit about some of the more common ones.
Now, you're saying you have empty houses,
but really what you could say is that you have concentrations in certain
houses.
In general, in my own experience, charts
where there are concentrations of planets in specific houses make for
interesting people with strong focal points of interest and activity. The drawback
is that when a transit comes along, you can get a lot of very concentrated
action, even over a long period of time. Let's say you have five planets in
Virgo; Pluto in Sagittarius would do a lot with those planets over a period of
years and life would be pretty intense. Look for how this might work in your
chart.
Now, in terms of how to work with an
empty house. Remember that while a house may be empty, there is always a sign
on the cusp. The longer I practice astrology, the more important I see these
house cusps as being, setting the theme for the house. Someone with Aries on
the 5th house cusp is going to live quite differently than someone with
Capricorn on the 5th, they will have distinctly different experiences from
childhood, and so on. This is regardless of what planet may fall IN the house,
which will modify the story.
Let's say you're trying to interpret your
7th house, which you describe as empty. The first thing to do is to look at
what sign is on the cusp of the 7th (the descendent) and find out what the
planetary rulers are. For the sake of discussion, let's say it's Pisces. Pisces
has two planets associated with it: Jupiter and Neptune. Those planets exist
somewhere in the chart, and wherever they fall, they will tell you something about
how you process your 7th house (partnerships and relationships).
The house, sign and aspects of Jupiter
will fill in this story, as will the house, sign and aspects of
It is well worth considering the
relationship between the planet or planets that rules your rising sign, and the
planet or planets that rule your descendent. What kind of aspects are they
making? This will give you some clues about how you tend to seek and experience
relationships.
One last point. When you begin to add
planets to the chart, you will find that no house is really empty. By add
planets, I mean getting your chart cast with extra points such as asteroids,
centaur planets and what are called TNOs -- planets beyond Neptune or
transneptunian objects. Yes, these planets take some time to understand, there
are few decent books, and few astrologers who are capable of reading them
creatively. However, I feel that it is both worth the effort, as well as one of
the privileges of being a modern astrologer.
I suggest you start with the four major
asteroids, and Chiron. Adding five points to the chart, all of which are very
well developed by astrology and should be easy to suss out the basic meaning
of, will provide you with much food for thought. If those turn you on, you can
go further.
I recommend two books for exploring minor
planets, which most astrology programs will calculate, and which you can find
free at http://ephemeral.info/. The first
book is Mechanics of the Future by Martha Lang Wescott, which covers asteroids,
as well as Saturn, Chiron and the Centaurs: To the Edge and Beyond by Melanie
Reinhart. Both are fairly easy to get from any bookseller that specializes in
astrology books.
 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |