Because there is a certain spiritual quality associated with the 9th House, if your Ascendant ruler is here, you might feel drawn to, or repelled from, certain religious customs or institutions. Whatever the experience, it will play a part in shaping your life.
Reflection Questions
Are you someone who lives in a different country from the one you were born in?
Does traveling fill you with a sense of purpose?
Does teaching connect you to something meaningful?
Do you spend a lot of your life in academic institutions?
Is your life driven by the seeking of truth, wisdom, and meaning?
What about the nature of the planet that rules your 1st House makes an obvious manifestation in your studies, philosophies, publishing, and travel? For example, if Venus rules your 1st House and it’s in your 9th House, do you study or teach gender studies, women’s studies, queer history, or anything related?
ASCENDANT RULER IN THE 10TH HOUSE
Career, public and professional roles
If your Ascendant ruler is in your 10th House, you are directed to pursue professional and public roles. The 10th House is one of the strongest houses in the chart, and any planet here is visible and active in your life. This is the part of your chart that is the public self, and if the ruler of the Ascendant is here, it means that your life is, in part, geared toward pursuing your talents in professional spheres.
Through your career and public roles, you will find the most important struggles, triumphs, and realizations. Whether your audience is large or small matters not. What does matter is that you accept the challenge of pursuing your dreams and taking up space in the world. Public roles are where you get to connect to your purpose and are aspects of life that you should not shy away from, as they will most likely feel fulfilling.
Reflection Questions
Does the pursuit of your career take up much of your life’s energy?
Do you find that many of your relationships are oriented around your career or public roles?
What are the most important public roles that you occupy?
Does the pursuit of your career come at the cost of anything else in your life?
What does pursuing your professional or public roles help you to realize about yourself?
What about the nature of the planet that rules your Ascendant makes an obvious manifestation in your work? For example, if Jupiter rules your 1st House and it’s in your 10th House, are you an educator? Do you inhabit public roles that are big, expansive, or spiritual?
ASCENDANT RULER IN THE 11TH HOUSE
Community, supporters, patrons, hopes and dreams for the future, good fortune through networks
With the ruler of your Ascendant in the 11th House, much of the direction of your life will have to do with the networks, movements, and organizations that you partner with. Here, your life’s direction is steered toward the development of your role in the groups you feel most connected to. For some, that will be easy; for others challenging; for most, a mixture of both. The main takeaway here is that you need to develop a conscious relationship to the groups that you contribute your energy to.
With your Ascendant ruler in the 11th House, it’s also important to put yourself in good company. If the group is moving in a direction that you don’t want to go, parting ways is a must. Since this placement can both influence the group and be influenced by it, it’s important to join peers who positively encourage your growth, challenge you to do better, and inspire you to dream without inhibition.
The 11th House is also the place where we encounter the good fortune of gathering with those who help us find love, work, and purpose. If your Ascendant ruler is in your 11th House, friends, allies, and community are most likely sources of fortune for you. Friends introduce you to important people in your life and invite you to spaces, places, and partnerships that help you in monumental ways. The quality of the help of course depends on the kind of planet and its placement in your chart.
Reflection Questions
When you look back at your life, what social roles, group dynamics, and collective projects have been most influential for you?
What opportunities have come to you through the friendships that have defined you in some important way?
How do you feel your life’s direction is steered by your social roles and the collectives that you become a part of?
What about the nature of the planet that rules your 1st House makes an obvious manifestation in your community, friend groups, and hopes and dreams for the future? For example, if Mars rules your 1st House and it’s in your 11th House, do you find that you are drawn to those who rally around a cause? Is activism a big part of your life? Do you tend to be drawn to working with groups but also have some difficulty in them because you are so independent? Do you often find yourself in contentious community relationships?
ASCENDANT RULER IN THE 12TH HOUSE
Hidden life, solitude, secrets, sorrows, self-undoing, creative energy bound up in our pain
If your Ascendant ruler is in your 12th House, the direction of your life will focus on unpacking the secrets of a situation or on the behind-the-scenes work of whatever interests you. The 12th House is the place where things are hidden. It encapsulates all the institutions in which a society places, houses, or hides its people who have either been exiled from society or who, for whatever reason, cannot integrate into it. Systems of incarceration, rehab centers, hospitals, and mental health facilities are all found in the 12th House. So are creative incubators, studios, dark rooms, and places to sit in solitude and create.
The 12th House points to the sorrow, difficulty, and pain that the psyche struggles with. Having the ruler of your 1st House in the 12th House can often lead to self-sabotage and self-undoing. If you have this placement, you’ll need to learn how to interrupt these patterns so that you can experience the other aspects of this house. When you give yourself the space to sort through and unpack the trauma that you carry, you will find a source of profound creative energy.
Reflection Questions
Do you need time alone and in incubators to connect with your creative energy? Do you value this time?
Does your work require you to remove yourself from your social life and roles?
Are you more comfortable in the background or behind the scenes than you are in the spotlight?
Have you dealt with mental health institutions or the incarceration system?
What about the nature of the planet that rules your Ascendant makes an obvious manifestation in your inner life, behind-the-scenes work, and life story? For example, if Venus rules your 1st House and it’s in your 12th House, are you drawn to working with women, femmes, and gender-nonconforming folks who suffer as a result of systemic oppression? Are you someone who excavates the forgotten or hidden histories of women and gender-nonconforming folks? Do you feel that you have suffered personally because of patriarchal and gender-based violence? Having a benefic like Venus or Jupiter in the 12th House can also signify having a gift here, making it less difficult in some regard.
What’s Next
As with any body of knowledge, a talent for working with astrology and your birth chart comes through your ability to integrate it, and that takes time. This is the frustration that so many can feel when looking at the overwhelming amount of information in their chart. What we have done in this book is review the foundations of your chart, and my hope is that you’ll feel a little more secure about what you are looking at and what it all means.
Without the three keys in place, the rest of our chart tends to run amuck in our minds, but with them we are anchored in context. With the understanding that so much of the meaning of the chart is wrapped up in the placement of the luminaries (Sun and Moon), Ascendant (rising sign), and ruler (planet that rules the Ascendant), we are able to understand why some things have been easy and others challenging.
After going through the steps in this book, you’ll quickly be able to see if there
are any remaining planets that aren’t part of the three keys. Any planets not in relationship to the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, or its ruler will still hold important information for you to work with, but (most likely) they become the supporting actors in the play of your life.*
Since we have spent so much time with Dr. Maya Angelou and Frida Kahlo, two people who have the type of cultural impact that few do, it’s important to note that they lived out a kind of archetypal experience for the rest of us to witness and see ourselves reflected in. Their work speaks to their specific experience in a universal way. We can view their charts as both the personal expression of their life’s purpose and the archetypal impact they had on their communities, their professional fields, and the world at large.
Dr. Maya Angelou and Frida Kahlo left the world a better place for having been in it and their lives continue to be a resource to investigate as well as a foundation to build upon politically, culturally, and artistically. We may not all experience the same level of fame or mastery of our craft, but we never know the impression we make on others. Through an astrological lens, we can come to understand how important it is to follow the path laid out before us—its impact, however, is both beyond our control and really none of our business. Studying the charts of these two is made easier because the archetypes of the planets in them so clearly proclaimed themselves through all they did and all they left behind. The study of their lives, choices, and charts can help us to understand the many ways the planets create the infrastructure of our lives. We have choice within that infrastructure, but the bones cannot be changed.
Readings from a trusted astrologer are important next steps on your journey. Something inherently healing occurs when another person who is skilled at what they do holds space for us and can reflect our journey back to us. I still get a reading once a year from Demetra George and will continue to do so until she refuses me. That hour-long reading is an important addition to what I already know for myself. She always offers context and depth to my life’s events that I miss when I rely only on my own understanding of my chart.
However, no one knows me like I do, and because of that, it is my job to take the information any astrologer gives me and find ways to put it to work. Getting readings from trained professionals is important and beneficial for your learning and healing, but only you can go in depth with your chart. Like reading a map, your chart reveals to you where to go for restoration, stimulation, activation, and satisfaction.
I want you to understand and then own the meaning, impact, and power of your chart. I and other astrologers can help you get there, but ultimately it is yours to unpack over your lifetime.
Understanding the specifics of my chart helped me fully commit to the work that was mine to do. Refusing to ignore my gifts any longer is quite literally how I came to write this book. After years of doubting the relevance of my connection to astrology and writing in general, I was able to reclaim my energy from lifelong self-doubt and redirect it toward the creative possibilities that were, and are, awaiting me. My hope is that this book helps you, in some small or large way, to do the same.
Acknowledgments
I have had the good fortune of learning from many great teachers in my life, people who entered into my world at the precise moment I needed their guidance. I am the summation of their care, protection, and love. Any wisdom that I have been able to cultivate is because of the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual labor they offered me, and this book would never have been written without them.
To my mom, Teo Nicholas, whose zest for life and unstoppable energy is always rooting for me. I feel it always and appreciate it endlessly.
To my father, Tony Nicholas, who always paid me to read everyone’s chart. Thank you for being my first customer and a champion of my profession. I learned the value of working from you—maybe a little too well.
To my sister, Lyndi Nedelec, who has a giant heart, the voice of an angel, and the capacity to care like few others. Thank you for always loving me exactly as I am, in ways only a little sister can. You’ve helped me to heal some of my deepest sorrows.
Cass, your ability to witness my journey, hold my story, and reflect it back to me with such care, clarity, and humor is one of the great gifts of my life. I would not be the person I am today without you. Thank you for telling me how the energy shifted in the room each time I spoke about astrology. You helped me trust it, you helped me connect to it, you helped me build a home in this world for my professional and adult self while never taking your eye off my inner self. What I have learned in my sessions with you has been woven into every horoscope I’ve ever written or will write. If people love the work, they love you too, just as I do.
Keri Lassalle, you have been a cheerleader for me from the start. You’ve never let me forget who I am and how sacred this work is. When I had no faith in myself, I borrowed yours in me, and it carried me through.
Eliza Melody Walter, you’ve been the best friend I’ve ever had. The place I have for you in my heart no one else could occupy. Thank you for always seeing me. Thank you for a million late nights with a billion fascinating things to pontificate upon. Our talks are lifelong and give me such solace and joy.
Ulrike Balke, thank you for taking my homemade cookies as payment for reiki sessions for the better part of a decade. You always provided a space for me to sort out my feelings, feel my body, and honor my process. Your wisdom and guidance were an anchor I held on to in times that were turbulent and confusing. I wish everyone the kind of spiritual godmother you have always been to me.
Demetra George, there are people who spend their time here on earth so immersed in conversation with a body of knowledge, with or without praise for their efforts, that they become an intrinsic part of the lineage itself.
This is you.
You are an astrologer of the highest order. A mythologist. An academic. A master of your craft. Poring over ancient texts that would make most of us weep in exasperation at the cumbersome and sometimes mistranslated works of our astrological ancestors, you have the kind of patience it takes to listen to and decipher the voices of our past for the rest of us.
You are a teacher’s teacher.
Studying with you connected me to a history I did not know I was missing. Studying with you connected me to techniques that clarified not only my craft but my own life’s purpose. Studying with you helped me to understand the simple, specific, and straightforward messages of my chart. I had stared at the thing for twenty-six years and still felt unsure of its specific directives. Until you, I couldn’t really grasp the writing on the wall—or in the sky.
Anything that I have learned to do well as an astrologer can always be traced back to your painstaking efforts in teaching me, and the world, about the profound beauty and wisdom of astrology. I am forever grateful for you, and always thankful for any time spent with you.
Appendix 1
Each Sign and Its Symbol, Modality, Element, and Planetary Ruler
SIGN MODALITY ELEMENT PLANETARY RULER
ARIES
Cardinal Fire
Mars
TAURUS
Fixed Earth
Venus
GEMINI
Mutable Air
Mercury
CANCER
Cardinal Water
Moon
LEO
Fixed Fire
Sun
VIRGO
Mutable Earth
Mercury
LIBRA
Cardinal Air
Venus
SCORPIO
Fixed Water
Mars
SAGITTARIUS
Mutable Fire
Jupiter
CAPRICORN
Cardinal Earth
Saturn
AQUARIUS
Fixed Air
Saturn
PISCES
Mutable Water
Jupiter
Appendix 2
Each Planet and Its Symbol, Sign of Domicile, Sign
of Detriment, Sign of Exaltation, and Sign of Fall
PLANET DOMICILE DETRIMENT EXALTATION FALL
SUN
Leo Aquarius Aries Libra
MOON
Cancer Capricorn Taurus Scorpio
MERCURY
Gemini
Virgo Sagittarius
Pisces Virgo Pisces
VENUS
Taurus
Libra Aries
Scorpio Pisces Virgo
MARS
Aries
Scorpio Taurus
Libra Capricorn Cancer
JUPITER
Sagittarius
Pisces Gemini
Virgo Cancer Capricorn
SATURN
Capricorn
Aquarius Cancer
Leo Libra Aries
Appendix 3
The Houses
Appendix 4
Cheat Sheet on Aspects
You Were Born for This Page 19