Welcome back to another episode of Astrology with Alice.

I'm your host, Alice Bell and today where we're turning to some birth chart basics by reviewing the twelve houses of your chart and how you can look at them in different ways.

I personally find the houses way easier to conceptualize than the signs because the houses of your chart represent these very real, concrete areas of your life where things are happening.

And when we're thinking of signs versus houses and how they're different, you can think of the signs as the traits that you're embodying and how you're carrying out the energy of a planet in your birth chart based on what sign it's falling in, whereas the houses show what area of life you're applying those qualities to.

So a house shows what specific area is a planet or a transit being applied to.

Also, sorry if my voice feels a bit off today.

I have recently even sick.

I'm usually not someone that ever gets sick like ever, and since Jupiter moved into my twelfth house back in June, I've had like frequent colds.

So I just feel like that's the universe's message and Jupiter going through the twelfth message of telling me that I need to slow down and not do as much, and it's just interesting.

I wanted to note this one because my voice sounds weird, yes, but also because transits to the twelfth and the six always align with dealing with health issues, and especially especially with a planet like Jupiter, it amplifies health related stuff.

And makes it harder to avoid.

So with Jupiter in my.

Twelfth until next July, I feel like resting and not pushing myself so hard is something I just am unable to avoid.

I cannot fight it.

Also, just some notes before we fully get into the episode.

I'm not going to be running through the meaning of all twelve houses in this episode today because that takes one hours, and I've done that over on substack.

If you go to my substack page Alicebell dot substack dot com and go to my archive, you'll find a whole guide on what all the twelve houses mean and it's free for everyone to read, so.

Check that out.

And I also did an episode on the meaning of all the twelve houses in my last podcast, Astrology and You, that I did with my friend Maxine, So if you want to listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can always revisit that old podcast of mine instead.

Today I want to.

Look at different ways of viewing the twelve houses and tips on how they all work together.

So maybe you can start to see the connection between certain houses and how they complement each other, because no house operates in isolation, and it always is going to embody themes of houses that oppose it or square it for instance, or trying it.

So for instance, if you have a transit that's moving through the six house of your chart, not only are themes of this sixth house going to arise during that transit, but also it may pull in themes from the twelfth house, or the third and ninth houses, or possibly the second and tenth houses.

So today we're going over like why that is and how you can see how the meanings of certain of these houses all fit together.

So overall, I just hope this episode helps you to gain further insight into interpreting your birth chart and maybe also adds another layer of knowledge when looking at certain transits.

And before we get into it, just have a quick couple of announcements.

You can watch any of these podcast episodes on YouTube, so if you want to support my work, or you just want a more visual experience of this podcast and see diagrams pop up to more fully understand what I'm talking about.

Definitely check out my YouTube channel, it's Astrology with Alice.

I'm also Astrology with Alice over on substack, So if you want to go further with learning astrology in the coming months, or you just want a more in depth look at what all of the monthly transits mean for your charts, specifically based on your rising sign, you can find that over on my substack Astrology with Alice, and that's a mix of paid and free articles, and I also host live monthly workshops over on zoom.

Last announcement is that for the next episode this month, so two weeks from now, I'm going to be doing a Q and A episode where I answer your astrology questions.

So if you want to submit for that, feel free to leave it in the comments on YouTube, or you can email my assistant at info at alicebellastrology dot com and hopefully I'll get to those throughout the episode.

Try not to make the question super chart specific, because I want everyone to be able to get something out of the questions I answer, so if you have general astrology answer general astrology questions or general question is about your chart or certain timing techniques, feel free to send those over.

And that episode will be out later this month.

Okay, disclaimer before we get into different ways of looking at the houses.

In my astrology practice, I use whole sign houses because that's what has resonated the most with me, and I also practice Hellenistic astrology, so using whole sign houses is a key factor of that.

So that is the house.

System I'm working with as we go through this episode.

But if you have another house system you love and you really want to stick with, I think all of this information still applies, but just wanted to make that clear because there'll be certain areas where I refer specifically to using whole sign Okay, so first I want to talk about this way of categorizing the houses by looking at how much visibility and power the houses hold.

So there's three categories here that we're going to get into.

And they are dividing up the houses into angular succeedent and cadent houses, and together angular succeedent in cadent they make up this little trio of three houses.

And because there's twelve houses.

In your chart, there'll be four little trios of an angular house in the middle, a succeedent house that immediately follows an angular house and falling away from the angular house, so on the other side of it will be the cadent house.

The diagram here might give a better visual of that than what I'm saying, but I want to go through these categories and show how houses that share this same category share similar themes.

The first category I want to go over is angular houses.

So this is the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth houses, and these are the most prominent visible houses in the chart, and they represent these very core themes in life.

So the first house is all about yourself and your eye identity, and the fourth house is about your roots and your family and your home life.

Meanwhile, the seventh house is about one on one partnerships and close relationships, and the tenth house is overall life calling career, long term goals, and also public image.

So planets placed in these houses have the most visibility in the chart and they really demand your attention.

But even if you don't have planets placed in any of these houses, it's still important to look at what planets rule each of these houses and where they placed, because even if their placement is outside of the first, fourth, seventh, or tenth, like maybe the ruling planet of your first is in the second, then that will automatically give this second house more significance because it's associated with one of the angular houses the first house in this case also Transits to these houses tend to bring up the most major life events and change that is very very visible.

Like external events happening in your life are major shifts in the way you think about yourself and what goals you want to pursue.

These bigger life moments that don't come around often are represented when transits move through.

These angular houses in your chart.

So like, for.

Instance, if you have eclipses across the first and seventh houses, or eclipses happening across the tenth and fourth houses, so right now, that would be all of the mutable sign risings Gemini, Sagittarius, pisceson Virgo, that is when these major life shifts are occurring.

So with eclipses to those angular houses of your chart, you can automatically know, Okay, bigger life events are about to occur, and maybe my identity or my career or my relationships or my home life is about to shift in a more major way, or you could take a longer transit like Uranus, and maybe that's moving from a more hidden house in the chart like your twelfth and as an inner as an angular house like your first house.

Then life shifts become way more visible, whereas before maybe it was stuff going on internally, like shifting your mindset or your spirituality or your beliefs or your mental health.

Now it's like, Okay, now I'm seeing the results of how my sense of identity is changing or how I'm going through all of these kind of random life shifts at once, and it's something other people can see as well.

And when using whole sign.

Houses, sometimes the mid heaven and the icy angles won't fall in the tenth or fourth house.

In a lot of cases, they'll fall like you'll have your mid heaven in the eleventh house and your icy in the fifth house, or maybe your mid heaven's in the ninth house and your icy's in the third house.

So in those cases I would put just as much importance into those houses, like they bear the significance of the tenth and fi fourth house just as much if not even more, especially when transits hit the exact degree of the mid heaven or the icy, it's going to bring about these like super potent changes in your life that have to do in that case with career or public standing and home life or things going on in your family.

The next category of houses are the succeed in houses.

So this these are the houses that immediately follow the angular houses.

So they're the second, the fifth, the eighth, and the eleventh houses.

And I kind of think of them like, if we're looking at the angular houses as all of these times of personal times of important personal growth and development, you're taking all of what's happened and what you've learned with what you've developed in the angular houses, and now you're learning how to apply those skills and have greater confidence in what you have to offer to the world with this succeed in houses, and as a whole, I noticed that all four of these houses, second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh have like they share this underlying theme of building greater confidence, greater self esteem and considering what you value or how you can be more self sufficient, like self starting, like how can I work on myself and then bring these skills and put them to good use, or have more faith in who I am and not fear criticism so much.

It's a lot about learning not to rely on the world or other people for validation and learning how to build yourself up and out.

Of these four houses, the fifth and eleventh are typically more positive than the second and eighth.

The fifth and eleventh have to do with creativity getting support from other people.

They also just like they're more fortunate houses in general, whereas the second and eighth house because they're hidden from the ascendant and descendent angles, they don't make a major aspect to the ascendant or descendant access.

They're more challenging, and they kind of have to do with maybe feeling frustrated at work with how you're valued or how much you're paid.

Or with the eighth house, it can bring up relationship issues that you need to work on or tough mental health stuff that you really need to prioritize.

But yeah, as a whole, the succeedent houses are like, what what do I have to offer and how can I put that to good use?

And then moving on to the final category within this trio, these are the cadent houses.

So these are the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth.

And if we're looking at that trio of angular, succeedent cadent, the cadent is on the other side of the angular.

It's falling away from the angular house, or you could just look at it as like the next house on from the succeedent house.

But the cadent houses are they represent these periods of transition, and they're more about what's going on internally, so they're not super conducive to gaining a lot of success in your career or being super public facing.

They're more about topics that relate to spirituality, mental health, learning, challenging yourself with subjects that you want to learn about, like looking into different cultures or more complex information, or opening yourself up to different ways of thinking about the world, and also having greater compassion for other people, wanting to be of service to the world.

Also, these houses represent this necessary downtime, especially when transits come along to the cadent houses.

It's like this slower period in your life that you need before your life inevitably picks back up again and gets a lot busier.

When the transit then leaves the cadent house and moves into the next angular, So it's really like preparing for that next new chapter, but not quite knowing what it is yet.

And similar to how I said, the second and eighth houses are more tricky because they don't make an aspect to the ascendant descendant in the case of the cadent houses.

The six and twelfth have that they are hidden from the ascendant, so natal planet's placed in the six or twelfth or when you have transits through these houses, they can be felt in a more challenging way because they're not relating back to you, Like it's harder to grasp what is going on in that part of your life, and it takes a while to fully understand and incorporate it back into your sense of self, whereas the third and ninth houses tend to be more lighthearted and fun and about relationships or travel or learning.

Six and twelfth.

Deal with these heavier topics of mental health physical health, looking at ways in which you can work against yourself, sometimes like limiting the leafs and mindsets.

Now I want to touch upon a different way of looking at the houses, which are looking at the houses that are in opposition to each other.

So there's twelve houses in the chart, there's going to be six pairs of opposing houses, and houses that fall opposite to one another will be part of the same category that we just went over.

So like the second and eighth houses, those are opposite to each other, but they're both succeed in houses, whereas the first and seventh those are opposite to one another, but they're both angular houses.

But I find the opposing houses to be interesting because you often need the themes of the house opposite to the one that may be filled with natal planets or has a transit occurring in it.

You may want to look to the house opposite to that one to see what qualities do I need to help balance this area of my life out, Like the opposite house will naturally have what the other house might be lacking, and vice versa.

And themes of opposite houses always become very obvious at the time of the full moon each month, because the full moon is when the Sun and moon are in opposite signs, and therefore they're activating opposite houses in your charts.

So whereas the sun transits through one sign and house of your chart for about a month long period during that represents an entire zodiac season, you're very much feeling the need to develop the traits of that sign and house of your chart.

But then at the time of the full moon, the moon won't move into the house and sign opposite, and it's like, Okay, wait a minute, I've been working so hard on this one area of my life.

Now I'm being asked to step back and look at how does this other opposite area that has similar themes but they're different in certain ways.

How is that asking me to balance balance these themes out with a full moon?

So to give an example to make this a bit easier to understand, right now, we're currently in Libra season, so we're getting a full moon in Aries.

I believe that's coming full moon and Areas is coming up just a few days after this episode releases.

So let's say Libra rules your fifth house.

Actually no, let's say liber rules your eleventh house and Aries rules your fifth house.

So for all of Libra season, you've been focused on groups and community and doing stuff for other people and considering the relationships in your life for working towards these bigger goals that other people are helping you out with.

But that doesn't leave a.

Lot of time to take time to be alone and focus on, wait, what actually makes me happy apart from the activities that I do around other people?

And that's where a full moon triggering aries the fifth house in this chart really helps you to step back and be like, Okay, what are my personal gifts that I can spend time developing more?

What brings me joy and happiness?

And how can I develop that and maybe then incorporate it back into the eleventh house realm of community and relationships.

Again, so life is all about balance and the opposing houses very much show that.

Just to go over a few more examples of houses and opposition to each other and how they share similar themes kind of like what we touched upon a few minutes ago, the six and twelfth they both share that core theme of health, whereas the six house, though, is about physical health, physical body and practical details of your everyday life like how to get better organized, how to stay on top of your workload or tend to all the errands and busy work that you need to be doing, whereas the twelfth house still shares that theme of health, but it's more about your emotional nature and asks you to slow down and rest and look at what's going on inside more than getting caught so caught up in like needing everything to be perfect in your everyday life.

But then on the other hand, you may go too far in that direction and be more checked out or not able to focus and kind of lost in your own inner world.

And that's when it's necessary again to look back at the opposite house of Okay, let me get my act together and focus on work and errands and bring myself back down to these practical details that make up my everyday life, so they really work hand in hand.

And then another one in a similar vein would be the fourth and tenth houses, where it's like kind of about professional life versus personal life matters.

And with the tenth house, it's about your bigger, long long term goals, your career, what you want to be working towards, and what you want to be committing to, while your personal life is stuff that's a lot more private and has to do with home or fa family or your reflections on the past and like how you nurture yourself.

And then a final way we can divide up the houses is by putting them into groups that are of houses that are ruled by the same element of sign.

So we looked at how there can be a trio of houses in the angular cadent and succeedent way.

But you can also look at houses that make a trine aspect to each other.

So together they make this huge grand trine in your chart.

And these houses that are part of that grand trine, they'll share similar themes and they'll work in harmony with each other.

So, for instance, there's three houses in the chart that are super social and relate back to relationships and how you communicate with people or relationships getting developed under transits to these parts of your chart, and those are the third, seventh, and eleventh houses.

Then we can also look at another trio of houses that are very career focused and those are the second, sixth, and tenth houses.

There's also the group of three houses that really relates back to yourself and building up creativity, knowledge, self exploration, and those are the first, fifth, and ninth houses of the chart.

And then there's these houses that are geared a lot towards mental health, your emotional self, and they're more private parts of the chart where maybe we need to step back and like not be around a lot of people for a period of time or you just you need this time to be alone with your own thoughts and feelings, and those are the fourth, eighth, and twelfth houses of the chart.

So using whole sign houses, all of these houses that share that same theme, that same link of themes will be ruled by the same element of signs.

So maybe all of the social oriented houses in your chart are ruled by water signs.

So like let's say your.

Third house is ruled by cancer, that automatically means that your seventh house will be ruled by Scorpio, and your eleventh.

House will be ruled by Pisces.

So the element of sign that rules these houses can speak to how you approach those areas of your life.

So like with water signs rolling social relationship oriented houses, maybe you're someone that's super nurturing in your relationships or you need that deeper emotional connection to people for there to be something that forms.

Meanwhile, maybe all of.

The workhouses in your chart, the second, six and tenth houses, they're all ruled by Earth signs, so you have a very practical approach to your career and you're able to go the distance and put in a lot of hard work and effort or be realistic about what you can accomplish at work or how you handle money, set long term goals for yourself, or structure your day to day activities.

So you can know that when transits come along and activate one of in this trio that form of trying to each other, there are always going to bring up general themes that relate back to those other houses that share that same element ruling them.

So, for instance, more emotional challenging periods of your life may come with transits to the fourth, eighth, or twelfth houses of your chart.

Meanwhile, transits to the third, seventh, or eleventh are times when you want to be around people a lot more and you're more focused on developing community and strengthening certain relationships in your life, while transits that activate the first, fifth or ninth relate back to I don't know, kind of reflecting on who you are, what interests you, what personal goals you want to develop, and how you can share more of yourself with the world.

So that's always important to keep in mind.

And one other thing I wanted to say is it becomes very obvious when this tree of houses is highlighted when mercury retrogrades happen in these houses because mercury retrogrades happen across the same element of signs over a two year period.

So throughout twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five, mercury retrograde has been happening across the fire sign houses of your chart.

So if you have.

Fire signs ruling the career the second, six and tenth houses of your chart, you can know that for that two year period there's going to be a lot of restructuring and reflection on work.

Whereas if those are the first, fifth, and ninth houses of your chart, you can know that for this two year period you've been doing a lot of self reflection and figuring out what personal goals are important to you or how you want to express yourself creatively.

So that's just an interesting transit to tie back in because it very much emphasizes the trio and how they all work together, and the themes of that trio becomes super important for a couple years period when there's mercury retrogrades happening across them.

Okay, so I hope this was helpful in giving you another layer of interpretation to the houses in your birth chart as well.

As what you might expect when transits come along to these houses, and how they may bring in themes from houses that are linked to that house, but maybe not.

They're not as like seemingly obvious because a transit isn't exactly activating that other house, but it's still linked to the one where.

A transit is occurring.

But yeah, that's all I have for today.

Again, we have a Q and A episode coming up, so please submit your questions for that otherwise I'll see you back here next time.

That's fine,