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THE HOUSES AS THE BASIC ASTROLOGICAL FRAME OF REFERENCE 

 

Dane Rudhyar

 

When a human being is born at a particular time and in a particular place on the surface of the Earth he is surrounded on all sides by celestial bodies, visible in the sky or invisible below the horizon. Astrology states that the positions of these celestial bodies, if related to the newborn and if this relationship is significantly interpreted, define the basic structural character of this child's biological - and psychic organism as well as the manner in which his potential at birth will or should be actualized through a series of personal experiences.

The word "person" can refer to collective persons, such as a business firm, a nation, or even a very definite sequence of organized social activities — the reign of a king or the taking office of a Presidential administration — but in this book I shall discuss only matters pertaining to individual persons. This is the field of "natal" astrology, and, as I see it, no system of natal astrology makes much sense today if it is not actually "person-centered."

A person-centered astrology deals with the relationship between a person and the universe which surrounds him — his cosmic environment. When we are dealing with a relationship, at least two factors must be considered: in the case of person-centered astrology, the individual human organism which at its first breath came to be independently, directly, and organically related to the universe, and the celestial bodies all of which move around him in cyclic patterns.

Nothing in the universe is "fixed"; everything moves. Such movement, however, is meaningless if it is not observed by and interpreted in relation to a conscious person. We live in a world of relativity, but this relativity can be given a consciously defined meaning only in terms of a particular frame of reference and according to an at least relatively stable focus of perception. An individual person is a relatively stable entity, for although his body is obviously in a state of constant electrical and chemical transformation, and his consciousness likewise is never quite the same, nevertheless the genetic pattern in his cells — or whatever these genes biologically represent — remains the same from birth to death. He normally retains his original name and speaks his native language whose words and syntax play a most fundamental part in forming his mentality; he is a relatively permanent social unit belonging to a culture which but rarely experiences radical change even in spite of revolutionary crises.

Modern science has its "universal constants." They probably are only relatively constant and universal, but they serve as a frame of reference, without which hardly any "law of nature" could be considered reliable. Philosophers with a religious bent — cf. Aldous Huxley — speak of a "perennial philosophy" and occultists refer to a "universal tradition" or an "original revelation," both of which represent a stable, solid, secure foundation for beliefs considered essential to the mental, spiritual, and emotional welfare of mankind. Eastern, and even some types of western, mysticism may appear to surrender all sense of security and solidity, but mystics aim at total identification with God or complete absorption into a "unitive state," and to speak of God, Brahman, Nirvana, or Tao is to refer to a changeless, absolute condition which constitutes in itself a supreme state of stability, eyen if it implies constant change insofar as partial points of view and individual existential formations are concerned.

Astrology, in its traditional western sense, likewise has its "relatively stable" frame of reference: the zodiac. This zodiac may be conceived of in terms of constellations — fixed patterns of stars which appear fixed because in relation to us they are extremely slow-moving — or in terms of twelve divisions of the Earth's orbit, an orbit whose shape changes but slightly through long periods of time — tropical zodiac. Either of these systems meets the need for a relatively stable frame of reference. What I have been suggesting in various writings is the possibility of another kind of frame of reference — a person-centered one better adapted to the needs and the character of a modem individual. I shall speak of it, at first, as the cross of horizon and meridian.

The reader familiar with astrological textbooks or even astrological magazine articles will probably think that there is nothing new in such a frame of reference. Every modern birth chart, he will say, contains a line which is called "horizon" and a vertical line, the "meridian." But names are ambiguous and can be misleading. As already stated, the astrological — and astronomical — horizon is a circle that passes through the center of the globe. It does not refer to either the "sensible" horizon — which can be very limited if one is at the bottom of a canyon — or what  I  call  the "mean" horizon — which refers to the circle of space that would be visible for an eye on the surface of a calm ocean. As to the meridian in a birth chart, it is the two-dimensional projection of a "great circle" perpendicular to the astronomical — "rational" — horizon and passing through the points North and South. At exact local noon the true Sun is found crossing the meridian, but what is called Midheaven in an astrological chart is not the point overhead — Zenith — but rather the degree of the zodiac at which the true Sun is found at noon. The meridian is a circle of longitude passing from the South point, through the Zenith, to the North point of the horizon.

Perpendicular to this circle, but still in the vertical dimension, we find what is called the "prime vertical." This too is a great circle; it passes from the East point, through the Zenith to the West point of the horizon, and of course it also passes through the Nadir.  

These three great circles — horizon, meridian, and prime vertical — are perpendicular to each other in three-dimensional space. Their intersections determine six fundamental points: at the horizontal level. East, West, North, South — and at the vertical, Zenith and Nadir. Of course we could think of any number of points on the horizon through which great circles would pass which would also cross the Zenith and Nadir, and North-East, North-West, South-East, and South-West points are often referred to. Nevertheless the concept of six directions of space — East, West, North, South, Above, and Below — is basic.

In a two-dimensional birth chart only four basic directions are shown. South and Zenith are somehow integrated, and likewise North and Nadir. The reason for this, beside the two-dimensionality of the chart, is that what the chart still considers essential is the-apparent — daily motion of the Sun. The zodiac moves daily together with the Sun because, in our classical western astrology, the zodiac is the "creation" of the Sun's motion — which means, in modern astronomical terms, the Earth's orbit. And of course the Moon and the planets go with the Sun as well.

As I said before, in archaic, locality-centered astrology, the only truly "fixed" frame of reference was the horizon of the locality where the tribe lived, or later where the city stood. When we reach the stage of development at which, in theory at least, the individual becomes the basic unit — self-reliant, free, creative — then astrology, having become person-centered, should logically use as its frame of reference the three-dimensional geometrical structure produced by the six directions of the space at the center of which the individual stands. The three great circles mentioned above-horizon, meridian, prime vertical — therefore constitute the basic structure of an individual's space. Wherever this person goes, he remains the center of this space. Everything that moves in the Sky — stars, Sun, planets, comets, etc. — has its place within this space structure. The position of any celestial body could be pinpointed and measured with references to it.

Some celestial body, like the Sun, may be far more important than another. It is certainly more important, for example, than a faint star moving in a trajectory having no geometrical relation to the zodiacal belt, that is, the plane of the ecliptic. But in a person-centered astrology there is no reason to give a quasi-absolute value to the Sun or to the zodiac. As symbol of the source of life energies, the Sun is essential in the same way that the heart of a person — linked with the solar factor — is essential to the continuance of life. If the heart ceases to beat for more than a very few minutes, the brain becomes damaged beyond repair and the organism loses its individualized consciousness as well as its biological existence

But while the Sun and all that refers to the zodiac may be very important and basic, it need not be the one essential frame of reference in a person-centered astrology. It is the three-dimensional space structure which every individual person carries around him self wherever he goes — at least where he stands on a solid surface — that should be considered his fixed frame of reference.

To put it perhaps more simply: when a person travels from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts what he sees passing at the horizon at every step he takes changes constantly. But the fact that he is the center of a horizon remains unaltered. The traveler always carries his horizon with him, and a Zenith always exists directly above his head. Stars come and go at this Zenith point; no celestial body is "fixed," but the Zenith is always in the same over-head direction. Whether this or that zodiacal sign rises at 9 P.M. and another at 2 A.M. does not alter the fact that the individual at both times fixes his gaze at the same eastern horizon — astrologically speakng, at the Ascendant.

If some people find it difficult to follow such a line of thought it is because they tend to confuse a structure with what happens at certain points within the structure. This is an almost universal tendency, because man reacts to an event rather than recognizing the place where the event occurs. By "place" I mean the role this event is meant to play in the total "structure" of the person's individual being and in the process of actualization of his birth potential, that is, his destiny.

In simple astrological terms, if a particular celestial phenomenon — say, a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn — has occurred in the tenth house of a birth chart, this indicates that the conjunction of these two planets characterizes the quality of the person's social consciousness which will animate — and indeed which should inspire — his participation in the life and work of his community. I say "should" because I think of a birth chart as a "set of instructions" for the performance of the role which the individual has to play if he is to fulfill his destiny. Call it "karma" if you wish.

To sum up: In a person-centered astrology we are dealing with two essential factors: (1) the basic geometrical structure of the space of which the individual person is the center, and (2) all celestial bodies which pass through this structure in ever-varying interrelationships, or "aspects." Each of these bodies has different characteristics because each moves in different ways and with different speeds and also because each appears to us with different characteristics of size, color, and, in terms of modem astronomy, of place in ordered series — especially the series of the planets within the solar system.

It should be clear that the second factor includes not only the two Lights and the planets, but also all the stars around us, for, I repeat, the stars do move in our human experience — only they move while keeping a, practically speaking, permanent pattern of relationship, and this is what in the past has given them the character of being "fixed." As to the first factor, it refers to the houses as divisions of person-centered space. In our traditional western astrology, however, these person-centered sections of space are not only reduced to two dimensions, they are also considered to exist in the zodiac, and this is where the ambiguity and confusion lie, for there are at least two solar zodiacs, plus lunar zodiacs, and new kinds of "zodiacs" could be invented. On the other hand there is nothing ambiguous about East, West, North, South, Zenith, Nadir. These points and the space structure they define are universal facts of human experience and provide us with a universally valid structural foundation for the interpretation of our individual relationships to the universe.

At present, of course, a three-dimensional astrology using "birth spheres" rather than birth charts is not practical, even through I believe it will be the astrology of a more or less distant future. We have to deal with what is available now, that is, with two-dimensional charts. Nevertheless we can, and we should reorient our understanding of what these charts mean, and particularly our interpretation of the houses. We should consider these houses as strictly two-dimensional projections of the three-dimensional space of which the individual is precisely the center.

 

Why Twelve Houses?

As, in two-dimensional charts, the basic six directions of three-dimensional space must be reduced to four, that is, to the cross made by horizontal and vertical, four sections of space are established; and as a person-centered astrology deals essentially with problems looted in personal experience and in changes in consciousness, each of these four sections should be subdivided into three subsections, for the reason that consciousness develops in a trinitarian dialectical mode. The concept of twelve houses should, therefore, be retained. In a broad sense, we can speak of the sequence of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, but as these terms are rather ambiguous and susceptible of various interpretations, it might be more accurate to speak of subject, object, and the relation between subject and object, or, metaphysically, of spirit, substance and form or of action, means for action, and the evaluation of the results of action.

All these trinities are experienced by the conscious individual in terms of the four basic realities of human existence which correspond to the four "angles" of the chart — Ascendant and Descendant, Zenith and Nadir. But, I must stress again that in the traditional way western astrologers interpret and define these angles, they do not correspond to the actual framework of the space of which an individual person is the center. The horizon of these modern astrological charts passes through the center of the Earth, while man lives at a point on its surface. The Mid-heaven is not the actual Zenith, but only a point in the zodiac. Thus if a star is located on the degree of the Mid-heaven it need not be the star just overhead at the true Zenith — and this applies as well, of course, to the lmum Coeli, Or cusp of the fourth house, which is not the true Nadir.

This is so, I repeat, because our astrology is Earth-centered, but not person-centered. In practically all cases it considers only the relationship of the Earth as a globe to the Sun, and secondarily to the planets which move along the apparent path of the Sun. Stars and constellations have no astrologically significant place in classical  European  astrology, except as a vague remnant of an archaic tradition. Nevertheless, relatively inadequate as our astrological charts are today in terms of a truly person-centered approach, they have to be used; they can be used effectively if we keep in mind the basic realities which they symbolize. Any consistent and significantly structured set of symbols can be used if one is aware of what it represents and the level at which it is meant to operate.

Astrology is a symbolical language — in the same way that the I Ching, when related to its deepest metaphysical concepts, and the Tarot cards, with their Kabbalistic background, constitute such a language. All these sets "work" if used properly. They work In terms of the relationship between the interpreter and the inquirer, For it is only the character of this relationship, and the levels at which the minds of both persons operate, that adequately define the manner in which the whole set of symbols is to be interpreted.

Religion and science should be understood humanistically in the same way. Does Christianity as a set of great images and potentially ego-transforming symbols "work"? Certainly, but it works destructively as well as constructively. Science has its destructive side as well — witness the pollution and destruction of natural elements, and the depersonalization and monstrous proliferation of human beings in blighted cities. Of course one can explain away the negative results, and place the blame on human nature. The value of any symbol is derived from the way it is used, which often means from the way it inevitably will be used by human beings, considering the particular stage of their present evolution. But even an obviously destructive use can eventually have constructive results. In the hands of a holy man the most specious and normally unwarranted means can produce spiritual changes, while in the hands of the criminal or the fool, they may lead to destruction or elemental bondage.

This is true of the methods used today in astrology. Nevertheless, we are at a turning point in the history of civilization. Friedrich Nietzsche, the tragic nineteenth-century poet and philosopher, proclaimed the need for a "revaluation of all values." Such a need is today far more universally imperative than it was a hundred years ago. It is imperative in all fields of human thinking, in all the codified and traditional feeling-responses which come under the name of morality — especially social morality — and in all interpersonal as well as inter-group behavior. I have spoken elsewhere of the need for a change at all levels from an "atomistic" to a "holistic" approach to reality.* The change which I am now outlining in terms of the concept of astrological houses is part of this great "revaluation of all values."

*Cf. the series of booklets on Humanistic Astrology (1969-7CY1) soon to be reprinted in book form.  

Such a change may seem relatively insignificant, as in most cases it does not change too radically the meaning attributed to each house of a birth chart. Yet it can and should be considered symbolic of what is taking place in all fields of human endeavor, because it refers to the relationship between the individual person and the universe as a whole; that is to say, it implies a fundamental revaluation of the meaning of this relationship. In this sense, it constitutes a most deeply "religious" transformation. It parallels the difference between the attitude of devotees of any organized religion — with its hierarchy of priestly intermediaries between creature and Creator — and the attitude of the practical mystic relating himself without intermediaries to the wholeness of existence.

In simpler astrological terms, the factor of "position in the zodiac" as understood today is an intermediary factor between the planet and the individual. Jupiter, as symbol of a basic function in the human personality — expansion and assimilation, social fellowship and prestige or wealth, etc. — always remains Jupiter in any zodiacal sign. What it is essential to know is the field of experience in which that function operates most significantly in terms of the fulfillment of the individuality and the destiny of a particular person. It is essential if we consider the birth chart — or any other chart at different levels — as a celestial "set of instructions." If, for instance, I have Jupiter in my natal seventh house I should seek expansion, and any other Jupiterian result, in terms of my relationship with associates and partners, at whatever level it may be. The seventh house refers to relationships and partnerships of all types, and partners include not only one's "mate" but also one's enemies, for both constitute or lead to an often necessary polarization of values.

The modern astrologer may agree with this up to a point; yet the first thing he usually seeks to know is the so-called "strength"  of the planet in terms of its zodiacal position. He still believes, consciously or semiconsciously, that a planet focuses the energies that flow from a zodiacal sign or constellation and that these "energies" are what really make astrology work. That there are solar, planetary, and cosmic energies through space and that the Earth as a whole is affected by them  is  evident.  But  this  really has  nothing  to  do with astrology as it is practiced today with reference to the life and personality of an individual. Someday, no doubt, a science will emerge based on the study of these energies — it may possibly be named "cosmecology" — but it will not deal with the individual person. It will no more be astrology than Medieval or Asiatic alchemy is modem chemistry.

I believe that Cyril Fagan did a valuable job in defining astrological concepts in terms of an archaic, locality-centered astrology. But we are living neither in archaic times, nor in the European Renaissance. We are living in a psychological century in a time of total revolution and, hopefully, at the threshold of a new age in which individuals will be able to encounter openly the universe and all experience without intermediaries forcing social, religious, or ethical categories upon them. Utopia? Perhaps, but all new steps man takes are based on a vision which seems Utopian to the old and the settled. All new ages begin in confusion and uncertainty. A few individuals may be the pure mountain source of the new stream. Their minds and feelings may shine with clear, limpid, unadulterated liquidity; but they are but the very few. The ideals they live by or only envision in great moments of illumination act upon the masses as a powerful ferment, and where they act there is chaos. Today almost everything is indeed in a chaotic state — and astrology is no exception.

 

Systems of House Division

The method used in modem astrology to determine the cusps of the twelve houses is particularly chaotic. Literally speaking, the term cusp refers to the beginning of an area of space or a period of time. Yet some contemporary astrologers think that the term should apply to the middle of a house. Cyril Fagan also came to such a conclusion, but he was clear-minded enough to suggest in the system he advocated the term should be replaced by "median." What often causes an astrologer to think of the cusp as the middle section of a house is the belief that the characteristics of a house are found most explicitly and effectively after a planet has reached the middle of this house.

Two concepts are involved here. The first, a very basic one, refers to the very nature of astrology. Marc Edmund Jones long ago defined astrology as "the science of all beginnings." In a metaphysical sense, this means that an astrological chart can be considered the archetypal or "seed" formula establishing the set of potentialities released in the first act of manifestation — in the creative Fiat, the Word-in-the-beginning — which is the origin of any existential cycle. What astrology studies is therefore the point of origin and, revealed in it, the archetypal form of a particular beginning of life or, in general, of any significant and originating event out of which flows a particular series of developments. If this is the case, then every astrological factor should likewise be related to the beginning of some series of events or of a particular phase of development. This applies to the first degree of a zodiacal sign, and of a house, as well as to the conjunction of two planets marking the beginning of their cyclic relationship. It is in the first moment of any cycle that the archetypal character of this cycle is revealed to the astrologer.

The other concept, related to the first, is that if the most characteristic moment in a house is its middle point, this implies that the house is conceived in terms of time, rather than of space. The astrologer may feel that it takes some time for someone who starts a process to fully realize and be identified with the characteristics of that process. But again this would be true only in terms of existential results and not of archetypal formative causes. As I see it, astrology deals essentially with formative  causes; or better still, with sets of potentialities being released, then only and secondarily with external occurrences. This is true at any rate of what I call person-centered and humanistic astrology. In this case the houses can be said to represent areas of person-centered space through which celestial bodies move. These celestial motions, of course, constitute a time factor; but what is archetypal and formative is the spatial field through which the motion takes place. In the same way, while the planets are in constant motion through days and years, what natal charts most importantly reveal is not the motion of each planet, but the pattern all these planets make at the beginning of an individual's life, that is, the moment of the first breath. The motions are "existential"; the overall planetary pattern is "archetypal." It establishes the structural form of individuality and destiny.

The most important cusps of the houses are the four angles — Ascendant, Descendant, Zenith, Nadir. These angles begin the four sectors of the modem two-dimensional chart. The essential formative factors operate at these four points. The horizon clearly defines the separation between above and below, the visible and the invisible; it cannot be the middle of something. It is only when the astrologer thinks of it first of all as the rising motion of the Sun, that he can broaden the concept of horizon to include the period of dawn. The spatial concept of horizon is that of a clean-cut line of demarcation; the Sun is crossing it, just as a runner in a race crosses the start and finish lines.

The ambiguity related to the mixture of concepts of time and space can be seen through the entire field of astrology. It is particularly evident when one approaches the problem of how to determine the longitude of the house cusps. Numerous systems have been devised and used, but the most frequently used systems all give the same degrees of the zodiac to the horizon and meridian. Where they differ is in their calculations of the intermediary cusps — that is, second, third, fifth, sixth house cusps and their polar opposites. The most widely used system today is the Placidus, which finds the cusps of the intermediary houses by dividing into three equal segments the semi-arcs of the Sun and all zodiacally expressed factors — that is, the time it takes for the Sun to go from the sunrise point to the noon point. The Campanus and Regiomontanus systems divide in two different ways the space between the horizon and the meridian. The Porphiry system divides the number of degrees separating the horizon from the meridian into three.

There are other systems, particularly the so-called "equal houses," which takes only the horizon into consideration and divides the two hemispheres created by this horizon into six houses, each of which contains the same number of zodiacal degrees. This system is, in my opinion, totally indefensible because it does not take into consideration the fact that both the vertical and the horizontal axes are absolutely necessary to the interpretation of human existence. Using only the horizon as a frame of reference today is the equivalent of considering lying down the only significant position for man.

The difficulty encountered by practically all these systems is that on and above the arctic — and antarctic — circles natal charts take on a very peculiar form, and in many cases cannot even be made, because for several months the Sun does not rise or set. As the zodiac in traditional western astrology is the path of the Sun, how could one place degrees of the zodiac at the cusps of the houses above the horizon when the Sun and the planets do not rise? If the houses are equal sections of space — not of the zodiac — around the individual, there are always East, West, Zenith, and Nadir, and the horizon always separates above from below; but at some times there are only stars and no planets in the hemisphere above or below the horizon.

The archaic locality-centered astrologer who lived in semitropical or even temperate regions did not have to face such problems. For him the Sun rose everyday and his astrology was based on that primordial, taken-for-granted fact of experience. Today, however, the situation is different. We have to build our astrology on a new basis, and we must take into consideration that each hemisphere of the Earth and the polar regions must have its own kind of astrology. At the very least we must reinterpret some of the basic astrological factors in relation to the astronomical situations in each of these regions.

Person-centered astrology, however, is based on primary concepts which are valid everywhere; for at any place on the globe man is conscious of the horizon and of the Zenith. Every baby is born at the center of his space structure which he will carry with him wherever he goes. The only problem, astrologically speaking, is to ascertain all that he can observe and experience, as stars and planets pass through the twelve sections of this space structure.

 

The Astrological Houses

 

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