The Houses and Signs

Each person is a product of the universe at the time of their birth. There are two dials and nine hands on the universal clock. The two dials each have twelve compartments. One dial is the 12 houses, the other dial is the 12 signs. The 9 hands on this clock are the 9 planets. The houses rule actual things in our life.

In the classic scriptures, the houses have single word names, for example, the first house is Thanu Bhava which means the house of the body. The 2nd is Dhana Bhava, the house of wealth. In this way every house has its single word name that describes the main thing that it rules over. An astrologer gradually gains realization into what the houses govern, and as this realization becomes deeper and deeper through actual practice in real life, one's perception and appreciation of an individual house becomes very broad and, therefore, based on the planets effecting that house, one can render many detailed and accurate predictions and revelations.

The houses are always situated in space in relationship to the earth in the same way. The first house is always on the eastern horizon and the 7th house is always in the western horizon and so on. So the dial of the houses is fixed in space. The houses are sections of space surrounding us at all times and they are always the same.

The dial of signs of the zodiac however, appears to be moving in relation to us, but this is because our planet is spinning. The zodiac is stationery and the earth is spinning. So the zodiac signs appear to move- one sign every two hours across the eastern horizon up into the sky. The sign that is crossing the eastern horizon is known as the ascending sign, the ascendent, the lugna, or the rising sign.

The signs of the zodiac are always in the same order because they represent sections of the stars of space that never change. At any given time of the day, one of the twelve signs will be on the eastern horizon and since they are in the same order, then we can easily recite their names in order and know which sign is filling which house.
For example, when Aries is rising, since Taurus is always the next sign, we know that Taurus is in the second house when ever Aries is rising or in other words, when Aries is in the first house. Similarly, since Sagittarius is always 9 signs from Aries, we know that Sagittarius is in the 9th house whenever Aries is in the 1st house. If Capricorn is rising, or in other words, tenanting the 1st house, then we know that Taurus will be in the 5th house since Taurus is always five signs from Capricorn, always and forever.

So there are two dials in space, the houses and the signs. The houses rule actual things in the life like the body, the wealth and the religion, the mother, the career, etc. of the person. The signs are like "colored glasses". If you are wearing the red colored signs in your 9th house of religion, then when it comes to religion, you are red colored, or in other words, rather passionate and fiery.

If you are wearing a rainbow colored sign in the house of the spouse or the 7th house, then you will have a natural tendency to seek spouses or partners who are beautiful or who move in beautiful ways.

In this way, the signs represents natures or modes of existence, or flavors, and depending on the houses they are in at the time of the birth, they color the aspects of the life governed by the houses. So one of the early duties of a student of astrology is to learn the areas of life governed by the houses, and then learn the ways in which the twelve signs do their coloring and then begin to combine these two. Never mind the planets at first.

So the first thing to find out about a person when looking at their chart is what is the sign that was rising on the eastern horizon at the time of their birth. In other words, find out their rising sign. Their rising sign will determine where all the signs fall in their twelve houses and right away just based on this, you can say quite a bit about them.

Of course there are only 12 signs, and everyone must have only one of them as their rising sign. So basically there are only twelve types of people when it comes to rising signs because, again, in case it is not already clear, if some one has Cancer rising, then they have Leo in the 2nd house, and so on around. The person who lives next door to them who also has Cancer rising will also have Leo in the 2nd house. These two people may be very different so obviously you cannot make huge sweeping judgments based just on the rising sign and the sign placements in the persons 12 houses. But even though that is true, you can say many things that are true about these two people, just based on a their rising sign.