The Third House is connected to the Fourth House by more than just proximity. The Fourth House represented your home, but the Third House is associated with all the ways that you and your home are connected to the outside world. You could say that the Third House in astrology represents your neighborhood.
The Fourth house is nurturing, but doesn't reflect the reality of the outside world. The Third House, on the other hand, prepares us for experiences that occur outside the home and without a safety net. On occasion, the Third House may represent neighbors, but only if you interact with these neighbors regularly. Most of the time, this house is considered to be the house of relatives because you interact with these people on a regular basis.
Actions ruled by the Third House include short trips to visit relatives, neighbors, and local businesses. The communication of information and techniques that are a result of these trips are also connected to this astrological house. Conversations, reading, and writing are also Third House matters as they reinforce the principle of making connections with the world around you. So the Third House is also considered to be the house of connections.
The Third House rules reading and writing, which leads naturally to the idea of basic education. Teaching and learning are ruled by this house, and the planets and signs in our Third House will reveal how we feel about both education and communication in general.
The Third House is ruled by the planet Mercury and the sign Gemini.
The Eighth House in astrology is strongly connected to the Second House. While the Second House is associated with the resources and values that are under your control, the Eighth House is associated with resources and values that are under the control of both you and others. The Eighth House has also come to symbolize power and power struggles. Power struggles are almost inevitable when two or more people combine their resources, but when these people come together in harmony, the power they can gain is considerable.
Sex is also connected to the Eighth House. This comes naturally when you consider that sex is the union of two people and the Eighth House represents unions. Sex is also the celebration of life, but life must end, and so death is connected to this house. Sex and death, two sides of one coin, are also associated with mysteries and investigation. This leads us almost directly to the concept of magick. Why? Because magick is mysterious and, in some forms, can be defined as an attempt to exert power over yourself or others. So the Eighth House concerns power, power struggles, sex, death, and magick. Therefore the plants and signs sitting in your Eighth House can provide insights into how you feel about these particular subjects.
Because of its connection to power struggles, this astrological house is connected to the concept of change (again, we see death here, since it's the single largest change in our lives). Change is an important part of this house, but whether we succeed or fail in our attempts to affect change is dependent upon our ability to use our personal power to alter the thinking of others, at least where the Eighth House in concerned. The resources of others are at play in this house, bringing up the concepts of loans or inheritances. It's important to note, however, that these terms are not limited to tangible things. You can inherit wisdom or power just as easily as you can money.
In general, the sign and planets associated with the Eighth House can give you insights into how you relate to and handle resource that are either jointly owned (with you) or resources that belong exclusively to other people. The Eighth House is ruled by the planet Pluto and the sign Scorpio.
Since the Twelfth House is associated with your hidden life and other things that can work for or against the you symbolized by the First House, the Sixth House in astrology is associated with your hidden life in relationships and how you connect to others, and therefore also represents things that can work for or against your relationships with others.
This may sound a little complicated, but it's not if you think about it. The most obvious thing that can work for or against your relationships with others (who are symbolized by your Seventh House) is you, so the Sixth House immediately becomes related to work and services performed for others, either you working for others or others working for you. A century ago, this house may have been seen as the house of the servant, but with so few people employed as servants in today's world, this connection no longer makes any sense.
The sign and planets associated with your Sixth House symbolize how you feel about working for others and how you feel about others working for you, while the signs and planets associated with your Seventh House symbolize how you feel about working with others as equals. The Tenth House is related to your career while your Sixth House is related to your job. This is an important distinction. As is the one between the Sixth House and the Twelfth. The Twelfth House in astrology focuses on charity and philanthropy practice by you, but the Sixth House is instead focused on charity and volunteer work performed by you. The physical body is usually the center of the message of the Sixth House.
Because of the Sixth House's associated with the use of the body while performing work, it has also become associated with the ideas of bodily health and hygiene. This leads directly to an association with food, including the growing, cultivating, preparing, and eating of it. This is why the practice of healing is ruled by the Sixth House. The signs and planets associated with your Sixth house can symbolize not only the kind of work you might do, but can also explain your general attitude toward food and health.
The Sixth House is ruled by the planet Mercury and the sign Virgo.
While the First House represents the outer you and how you project yourself into the world, the Twelfth House is the opposite. The Twelfth House in astrology represents the inner you and how you don't project yourself into the world. You could say that the First House is what you want to be known as while the Twelfth House is what you don't want to be known as.
We all have an aspect of self-doubt, a face that we would rather stay hidden. Any person who denies this, or who dwells too much on it, is going through life in a weakened and self-defeating manner that only invites enemies. This type of action is characteristic of the Twelfth House.
But don't take this to mean that everyone with a planet in the Twelfth House acts in such a way. Instead, it indicates that there is a hidden dimension to the personality. It is the planet in the Twelfth House that will indicate what qualities this hidden dimension possesses.
Associations change over time, and the Twelfth House has come to mean all things that tend to negate our ego. Some religions and other institutions in which individuals are only a small part (including corporations, hospitals, prisons, the military, and most branches of the government) are governed by the Twelfth House. It rules the need for privacy and the solace found inside ourselves.
Since the horizon line divides the First House and the Twelfth House, a person born with the Sun in the Twelfth House would be born just after sunrise, which is a quiet and gentle time of day. This is the perfect time for solitary pursuits and meditation. It is a time when all things are united as the world transitions from darkness into light. Dawn is the time of mist and dew and nothing seems truly real. The Twelfth House is associated with mysticism and faith, the kind of faith born out of the magick of a new day. This innocent faith makes us more willing to both forgive and sacrifice, so philanthropy and charity are also associated with the Twelfth House.
This house also symbolizes the early years of life, usually to age seven. These years are usually hidden inside our own subconscious, so the subconscious is also ruled by this house. The signs and planets ruled by the Twelfth House can indicate the major themes of those formative years and provide us with insights into the nature of their effect on our later years.
The Twelfth House is ruled by the planet Neptune and the sign Pisces.
