The Signification of The Ruler of a House

The planets are the most important component of the language of astrology. Every sentence in the language of astrology must have a personal planet as the subject. That’s not a problem if you have a question about identity (Sun), or safety (Moon), but what if you want to know about your job or your money?

Those aren’t questions with a connection to specific planets: they’re house-based questions. You can’t have a house as the subject of a sentence in the language of astrology, so you turn to the planet that rules the house. That planet can become the subject of a sentence and answer questions about the affairs of the house. In terms of grammar, the planet is a virtual pronoun, standing in for the house itself. This creates a different context for your interpretation.

Pluto in the 4th House/ Cancer (6)

Pluto in the 4th House/ Cancer

Returning to our image of the Zodiacal cycle mirroring the phases of childhood development, we arrive at the 4th archetype: Cancer/4th house. In the 3rd house/Gemini phase of development we see the desire to learn about the environment and with it the capacity for intellectual classification and language. We may conceptualize this process as the initializing of the physical-etheric body (Aries), the instinctive and emotional body (Taurus) and the mental body (Gemini), all of which coalesce in the formation of the ego, understood here to mean the conscious emotional body, symbolized by Cancer and the 4th house. It is with the development of the ego in Cancer that the personality becomes conscious of its surroundings in a more integrative fashion: my family, my society and my formative experiences. This is the central lens from which the individual then focuses on the world.

Pluto in the 3rd House/Gemini (5)

Pluto in the 3rd House/Gemini

As we move to the third archetype in the Zodiac, we can explore the context from which it arises in the cycle. If we view the twelve archetypes of the Zodiac as a symbolic story of human life and evolution, then on a psychological level the 1st house/Aries can represent birth and the nascent identity instinctually striving to meet its needs within the early environment. The 2nd house/Taurus represents the phase of object constancy that follows the initial purely instinctual phase of life. In early infant-family relations the parental figure is internalized to a sufficient degree that the child is able to be left alone or play by themselves to a certain extent. The child has an inner knowingness that the parent is still there even when not actually physically present. Traumatic events or serious neglect at either of these key stages can be enormously detrimental to the development of a healthy personality. Both the Aries phase and the Taurus phase consist of a critical pre-verbal or partially verbal stage of the development of the self.

Pluto in the 2nd House/ Taurus (4)

Pluto in the 2nd House/ Taurus

Following the yang archetype of Aries is the yin Archetype of Taurus. In contrast to being driven by the outgoing need for instinctual fulfillment, the person with this placement withdraws somewhat in order to experience the nature of their own values and needs from within. Over lifetimes, people with Pluto in the 2nd house and Taurus have had an on-going need to develop self-reliance and internal security. Taurus correlates with biological survival and these people are often harboring memories of prior-lives in which their survival was threatened or they had to develop simple coping mechanisms in order to survive intense and difficult experiences. They enter this life with a highly internalized energy structure, a strong physical/sexual energy and a strongly developed sense of self-sufficiency.

Pluto in the 1st House/Aries (3)

Pluto in the 1st House/Aries

Pluto in the 1st house or Aries symbolizes the beginning of a whole new cycle. Fresh from the ocean of Pisces, the potential for new being emerges through Aries, and as such there is a natural sense of possibility, an instinctual sense of purpose or destiny. With Pluto symbolizing the evolutionary desire of the soul we can see that in the 1st house or Aries the deepest impulse is towards independent experience, the freedom to perpetually grow and express one’s will. This desire will be felt primarily on an instinctual level, as an inner pulse driving the person forward. Consequently there may be little or no conscious understanding of these dynamics.