The Second House

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THE SECOND HOUSE

Dane Rudhyar

Traditionally the second house is associated with possessions and, in our society, to money — symbol of the capacity to own whatever a person needs or desires. The concept of possession is, however, very complex; it has several levels of meaning and most astrologers, unfortunately, tend to interpret this concept and "second house matters" in a superficial, mainly social, way. What is really at stake in the type of individual experiences that can be related to the second house of a birth chart is the problem of ownership, what is meant whenever an individual uses the words "mine" and "my own."

After most babies have learned to use a few words, they discover the use of the word "mine." It may happen suddenly, and for a while the very young child, as he or she touches various objects, proclaims excitedly "mine!" Actually, conscious existence implies a basic kind of ownership and a rudimentary sense of possession — that is, the conception of some material substances as being "mine." The person who says I am has to have a larynx and tongue to say it with. The I is but an abstraction without the am, which implies the existence of a physical body. This body is the first and fundamental possession of the self. It provides the means for the gradual actualization of the potentialities inherent in the field of selfhood. It contains within its cells and atoms an immense reservoir of potential energy. How is this energy being used? How should it be used so that the newborn may fulfill its function in the Earth's biosphere and in mankind? These are questions to which the second house of a birth chart ought to be able to give some valid answers.

As I have already said, the second house is a "succeedent" house, and the motto of this type of house is to use. The birth process impels a new human organism into the open environment of the biosphere; whatever is back of this impulsion has to consider how to use the powers inherent in that organism. At the strictly biological level, life is the causal factor in the birth — life operating according to the particular mode of operation of the species homo sapiens and being focused through the parents. These parents act merely as carriers of the sperm and ovum. As individual persons their role is minimal, though it is traditionally believed that it is possible to affect, before and during pregnancy, the type of spiritual entity which will embody itself in the womb.

Life operates through what we call the instincts. The new organism is "programed" to meet existential needs and emergencies in definite ways. The instincts tell it how to use its many component parts. In animals the programing is effective and admits of no deviation, and the more advanced a species is along the evolutionary scale, the greater the possibility of adjusting to radical changes in the environment, provided they are not too radical or too sudden. In human beings this possibility is remarkably developed. The more advanced the process of individualization is — a process which depends on the stimulation and complexification of the mental faculties — the greater the potential to transcend instinctual reactions. As the mind begins to reflect upon itself — that is, to be conscious of being conscious — the "I am" sense begins to operate in the consciousness of the organism, polarizing or actualizing what we may think of as a transcendent factor — a monad or Soul — or as an immanent rhythm of existence — self.*

*For a more complete definition of the terms "self," "soul," etc., see my book The Planetarization of Consciousness.

The moment the child becomes consciously aware of being an entity distinct from the other entities around him, he inevitably realizes that there are some things which he can call "mine." His consciousness soon detaches itself sufficiently from the various organs and functions of the body to be able to speak of "my" hands, "my" head or tummy, etc., especially when pain is localized there. That Peter has a strong body, and Jane has a beautiful face might be stated by parents and relatives. The child has a name, a body, a particular temperament, special abilities. These characterize him; they are his possessions at the most personal and intimate level of existence.

According to some thinking, these possessions are what they are because of the genetic conditioning and ancestral past of the child. They are his first and most basic inherited possessions. If one accepts the concept of reincarnation of a transcendent entity, the soul, the body and all that is latent in it — faculties, character, tendencies, innate powers of the mind, psychological predispositions, etc. — constitute what this incarnating soul has to deal with, what it possesses and can call "its own." The problem for this soul is how to use, to manage, to actualize fully, and even to enjoy these basic possessions.

This constitutes the first level of ownership. A second level deals with objects of possession, eventually with money, with the capacity to increase one's possessions in order to satisfy wants, fancies, and moods, and later on the ability to give a positive value to one's relationship with other persons and with society as a whole. This is the social level of ownership, using the term social in its broadest sense, which includes a child's relationship to his family and his friends or associates. At this level acquisitiveness becomes a driving force, in exaggerated form becoming the billionaire's greed for the power which enormous wealth can bestow.

Everything that one comes to possess is in one way or another the result of the activity of living organisms and social groups in the past. Every person, in a very real sense, inherits the past of nature and of human society. His inheritance may be small and inadequate for true self-actualization, or it may be overwhelming in its potential scope, but it always represents the past. The belief in reincarnation adds another dimension to this past, that is, tendencies, faculties, and karma produced from past lives and carried over into the present. What to do with all this past now constitutes the basic second house question. The answer rests with the concept of management; that is, of intelligent, effective, and successful use resulting in the best possible actualization of one's birth potential, and therefore of one's individuality.

The proper use of possessions leads to the revelation, exteriorization, and fulfillment, in relation to other human beings and to one's society, of one's individuality, that is, of who one is. A person realizes what he is by using what he owns; he demonstrates what he is to himself and to all men, by the use of what he was given at birth along with what he comes to acquire later on. Ideally, he should transform these possessions in terms of his individual purpose and destiny. This, however, can hardly be achieved if a person does not advance beyond the traditional use of possessions, for then he acts merely as a servant of the past, as the agent of ghosts, of karma — whether individual or social. His life, then, is lived by his ancestors, either in terms of perpetuating the social-cultural privileges inherited from them, or of being driven by ancient social-religious hatreds and fears.

Animal instincts are conditioned by the past experiences of the species, and so are the responses of primitive human beings. Even more individualized persons are programed by traditional patterns of behavior impressed upon them by parents and state or religion. Patterns of possessiveness and demands for exclusive ownership are still basic in our society. "It is mine; no one else can have it" is the great cry of our modern individualistic and capitalist society. The great drive is the drive for profit and wealth, and for the more intangible possessions related to prestige, social influence, fame, and even "love." Nearly everyone clings to some kind of privilege — the negative aspect of ownership. It is negative because it is based on the past, and usually on insecurity, fear, and pride. The positive aspect of ownership, on the other hand, is the capacity to bring the energies of Nature and the values of the past to a new level of efficacy and fruitfulness — efficacy and fruitfulness not in terms of special privileged individuals, groups, or social classes, but in terms of the whole of mankind.

Possessions should be used. Unused capacities or wealth — for instance, land — are impediments to human growth, whether it be individual or communal growth. But the individual must not identify himself with what he owns, for then he is used by his possessions — which automatically demand expansion — instead of his using them. The individual should impress the rhythm of his individuality upon what he owns; he should give an individual and not merely a collective social meaning to his possessions. He should make his ownership significant in terms of his individual character and destiny. He should dedicate what he has to what he is, for it is being which alone gives meaning to having. Nothing is more futile and spiritually empty than having without being, and this is true of all kinds of possessing. A sound and wholesome society should establish as a basic principle: No ownership without individually significant use. What is or is not significant must remain a personal issue, yet the community can demand of the individual that he consciously and deliberately dedicate what he owns to a purpose which to him is significant. The purpose to which possessions are put alone gives them value and gives meaning to ownership.

There is nothing sacred in the mere fact of ownership. Only an essential unspiritual society, like our western society today and even more perhaps in the last centuries, can glorify the fact of ownership regardless of the way possessions are used, or of whether or not they are used. At the third level of human existence, where spiritual and all-human values are accepted as standards of living, all possessions are naturally and spontaneously consecrated to the process of human evolution — which means in a narrower sense to the welfare of the community to which these possessions are related, for wealth arises from human cooperation, implicit or explicit as the case may be.

To amass a fortune from some new invention, or from the discovery of natural resources on one's land, is actually and spiritually a crime against social harmony and communal health. A man's possessions are the direct result of centuries of human efforts and interplay; all possessions are the outcome of natural and social processes in -the past. The owner inherits all he owns from the history of the biosphere and of human society. What alone can give meaning and value to his possessions is the use he makes of them. What is demanded of him is that this use add new value and new creative meaning to the vast tide of Earth life and human society.

In the final analysis, the individual who lives according to spiritual values realizes that he himself, as a living person, is the one ultimate possession to surrender to mankind on the altar of human evolution. In this gift, he fulfills himself by freeing himself from the possessiveness of possessions. By owning nothing he may at last blend his being with the great rhythms of the universe.

He lets himself be carried on by the universe, and his consciousness can become a magic mirror on which every event acquires significance and value. He is possessed by the universe to serve the ultimate purpose of all existence — the revelation of Meaning.

God is the all-encompassing Meaning of all possibilities of existence.

The Astrological Houses