The leftmost side of the chart is the Eastern Horizon, called the Ascendant. This is where the planetary bodies appear every day and subsequently follow, loosely, the ecliptic path of the Sun, which is the top half of the circle. Of course, we know that this is not what it is actually happening in the heavens. Still, it provides a useful portrait of the astrological weather at the time one’s birth that is a celestial reflection of one’s psyche. Thus the planets rise, culminate (the top part of the chart, the Midheaven, or the highest point in the sky which faces South), and set (the right part of the chart and directionally West). The bottom most part of the chart is North and is called the Nadir, symbolically the lowest point where the planets transit when they are out of view from the vantage point of earth. The planets are signified by the little symbols just on the inside of the wheel. The planets also aspect each other, that is, create angles based on the degrees of the circle. For example, if a planet is on the leftmost side of the chart and a planet is at the topmost part of the chart, this creates a 90 degree angle, called a square. You’ll see that the wheel is divided into twelve sections, called the houses, and two of these houses are what we will be focusing on for the discussion about the depth and symbolism of money. The two houses that delineate money are the second house (look at the lower left part of the chart marked “2” and this is that section of an astrology chart) and the eighth house (look to the upper right part of the chart marked “8” in the astrology chart). Looking to these houses, which signs occupy them (the signs are the colors on the outside of the wheel and are the type of “energy” that inhabits the domain of a house) and which planets (planets are “what” is happening) rule over and/or are in that house. The focus of this essay, again, is to speak about, symbolically, what is the second house of one’s own resources, values, and what one has to work with; and, what comprises the eighth house of other people’s resources, inheritances, taxes, death, and personal psychology.
In antiquity, the second house was known as the Gate of Hades. Whatever is going on here in a chart is where I begin to interpret finances, values, and the resources with which one has been endowed. In Hindu Astrology, it also is the domain of speech and domestic happiness, in other words, “putting your money where your mouth is.” Like the fecund beauty of springtime in the month of May, so is the second house, and it is said to be fixed and immovable. Thus, so are the gifts you have been given in this life as reflected in this part of your birth chart or any chart for that matter. Astronomically it is not hard to see why the ancients felt the second house as the Gate of Hades. This is a house just beneath the earth where the planetary bodies begin their daily rise. Remember the leftmost side of the chart is the Eastern Horizon or the “Ascendant” where the planets rise along the ecliptic path of the Sun. The question is, if planets emerge out of the Gate of Hades, and give the resources of the second house, like vegetables and flowers springing up in May, from where did these resources come?
The answer is they “fell” in the 8th House of Death, just as the sun “falls” every day along the ecliptic. This is a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth that can be exemplified in the constellation we know as Orion. In Egypt, what we know as the constellation Orion represented the first king and Egyptian God of Death, Osiris. Following a Pharaoh’s death, Osiris was thought to mystically “inseminate” these set of stars so that Horus, the Sun God, could be reborn. This is exactly the type of mythical content that is the stuff of the 8th house. When one sets out or “rises” with their resources, ultimately they will have to merge with others in order to continue. These “others” include paying taxes, business transactions, marriage “dowries”, depth psychology, and in the sex act itself. There is a metaphoric death that occurs by the losing of oneself by merging with another. Jungian psychology has a great understanding of this phenomenon holding that one’s psyche penetrates, like Osiris, others towards its own ends, causing a kind of death but resulting in a material rebirth. There is something to the phrase “finding oneself”.
The never ending cycle of life (what is given) and death (what is taken away) continues endlessly. The 8thhouse can give a clue as to what one is truly seeking and what motivates an individual on an unconscious level. However, this can only be done through the aforementioned “others” even if that other is a person engaging in solitary, contemplative self-analysis. These 8th house activities can yield critical insights into one’s material resources and how one values and acts on those resources. However, with the cost levied through that process, the cycle starts anew, that action having lead to a kind of “death” after the inevitable impregnation with “another” occurs. Hopefully this process provides a fruitful and bountiful rebirth.
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