Adventures on the High Seas of the Controversial MC-IC Axis: Genealogical Research Through Turning the Houses.

   Now this is a long one.  It's actually a melding of two separate posts I made on two separate days, but they flow together thematically and so I'll share them both as one two parts of one essay.  Buckle up!  It gets weird!  Bonus Synch that as I edit this together, we actually are a few days out from a New Moon as it was when I originally wrote it.  Of course you aren't surprised, because astrology always rhymes.

  Ok, I had a revelation tonight.... (aren't we always awash in the seas of revelation when we study the stars? Yes... yes we are!). As such, I'd like to get into the weeds on one of the more contentious arguments in astrology, we'll take a circuitous route there however to discuss the concept of birth and parentage.  

    Before we get to the main event, we'll discuss the concept of nativity to begin with. When learning the houses, the twelfth house is (by its very nature, and in practice) the most nebulous house by far. The twelfth house is the 2 hour span of time (or spacetime... however you want to conceive it in whatever house system you use) after the Sun crosses the horizon. In learning astrology, the mind boggles as to why the rising Sun, and verily, the rising sign itself, is so prominent and powerful, hidden below the horizon, while that which has just risen in the twelfth, is given a far more difficult and negative connotation. The answer blew me away when I first heard an astrologer explain it.  

    The Eastern horizon, where the Sun rises does indeed represent the identity of the person more completely than any other house. It is the identity, it is the human which is just coming into being, because ALL astrology is a study of beginnings. The natal point sets the stage for the life, (or the business, or the date, or what have you), it is the promise of that moment, carried forward into the future, saved as long as the vessel stamped with that chart survives. As I write this, we are approaching a new moon, the new moon is the birth of that Moon, and its condition in that moment sets the stage for this entire lunation cycle, just as a birth chart sets the stage for a life.  

     So why is it then, that the new life is below the horizon, while the twelfth house is above? Because the twelfth house represents the (roughly) two hours before the actual birth, which in general is the most difficult part of the labour. Entering this plane of existence is DIFFICULT, and not for the feint of heart. Blessed be our mothers; warriors on the cusp of existence and the vast beyond! As such, what has already risen represents the hardships of labour. So we can see how the twelfth house begins to get many of its more difficult significations, being in the world, feeling like your skin is too thin to keep out the negative influences.  The world is cold, and dry, and for the first time you will experience being alone, apart from Mother.  

     The ascendant itself, the point where the Eastern horizon meets the ecliptic, IS the birth. It is the moment of the baby's first breath, its first independent action separate from the body of Mother. As such, investigating the ascendant can tell the story of the birth. My ascendant is in Leo. One of the nurses in the birthing room was pregnant herself with her first child, and was extremely enthused about the entire process. She was loudly acting as a cheerleader to my mother (who is a Leo Sun), and my birth. So yes, I was born to a woman literally cheering me on. For anyone who has to deal with me and my ego... I'm sorry, blame her.

    The first person to hold me was my beloved maternal grandmother who worked at the hospital and got there during her lunch break just as I was being born. My ascendant is squared by Uranus. I don't usually use outer planets as modern rulers, but in this instance, it tells the story. Mother is the fourth house, and fourth from the fourth is the seventh, representing my Mother's Mother, this is called "turning the chart".  My seventh house is in Aquarius which we will consider ruled by Uranus in this instance, (and never again!), who makes the tightest aspect to my ascendant.  

    Phew! Are you with me? Because we are just getting to the point of this long rambling post! Did you miss it? I just said something that would throw half the astrologers out there into a tizzy, which is that I said the fourth house represents Mother. This is controversial to say the least.

     As an astrologer, you learn a system, and if it works, you are wise to stick to this system, but being a Gemini Sun I'm low on wisdom (Jupiter being in detriment in Gemini) and high on curiosity, (Mercury's masculine home base,) so I have to read everything. I have to see all the different ways any given system can work, and the shocking thing is, if you devote yourself to it, ALL systems of astrology work. It's a nascent, (there's that theme again), phase of the student of astrology to see the system they studied working, and become haughty about all other theories and systems. This is the sign of someone who is just getting their feet wet. Give them some time, they'll be humbled eventually!

    So I came from a school, (RASA) which taught that the 4th house is Mother, the 10th house is Father, and it works for me consistently. But many other schools teach 10th house Mother, and 4th house Father. From what I can tell, there is more documented traditional sources which state that the tenth is Mother, but the significations of the houses seem opposed to traditional gender roles. The Tenth house is the house of career,  status, and authority, while the fourth house is the place of home, family, roots, and the private family life. It seems odd that that traditional conception was counter to these traditional connections, whereas the more modern application tends to use the more traditional connection of Mother to home and father out in the world working. Huh.  

      Is this getting too confusing? Good. Let me confuse you further and bring this home for you.  The IC absolutely is your link to the past.  The umblilical cord to your lineage and deepest motivation, a womb for your consciousness.  It's hard to not connect that to mother, being deep within, below the Earth, hidden in the abyss of chaos awaiting your birth rising into the world from the midnight point.  There is however another way to view this.  

    As the natal chart is literally a portrait of the birth moment of a child and the promise of life contained within that sacred spark of life, in that moment, the Mother is the one doing all the work. The Mother is the star of the show. The Mother is performing the most potent act of magic she is capable of doing, siphoning a soul into this Earthly sphere, bringing life to the physical domain. Of course she would be represented by the Midheaven of that moment! Meanwhile, the father's role in this birth, while hopefully supportive and present, the only gaurantee of the father in ALL births is that his seed was planted within the womb, which is the IC. Boom. 

   So there's the logic for why the Mother is the MC and the Father is the IC. I'm still not sure what to make of this, because the reality is that astrology is a magical practice where diligent study and concerted effort, merged with a mind open to the messages from beyond our sphere, is interfacing with the mind of God itself. This is why all systems work, because every astrologer uses the tools they have mastered to find the truth of the moment, the Mother is simultaneously the MC and the IC, as is the Father. Many astrologers have thrown their hands in the air and decided that the IC MC axis simply describes the parents in general, and don't distinguish that particularly one way or the other. Personally, I will continue to use the Fourth as the Mother, and the Tenth as the father, with the understanding that things are more mutable than this in reality, and roles can and do reverse. But if I were looking at a chart of a birth moment, looking at the birth itself, I'd look up and south to see the Mother shining bright!

   I used to call this “Realizational Derailment”. This isn’t what I meant to be doing tonight, but you have to follow that Mercurial Muse when it strikes. This is an expansion to an earlier post regarding viewing your lineage through your natal chart. It doesn’t matter whether you use the 4th for Mother, or the 4th for Father, this will work in either system. This long-winded post will wind up being interesting for anyone who adheres to the idea of the human tendency to try and heal inter-generational trauma through relationships. The crude drawing above took MANY attempts, and I abandoned filling it all out because the fractal nature of the resonances can be seen within a few generations regardless. With my crude uncraftiness, it would have simply become unwieldy, monstrous, and overly complicated to view the more I drew in. Neat is not my forte.

    If you aren’t familiar with the term “Turning the Houses” or “Turning the Chart”, the idea is that you can gain insight about the personal effects upon you from more and more distant relationships simply by looking to your own natal chart. If Mother is the fourth house, then your Mother’s Mother is the 7th house. If your Father is the tenth house, then your Father’s Father is the 7th house. Wait. Your Maternal Grandmother and Paternal Grandfather are represented by the same house? Yes, and the implications are mind-blowing.  Not the least of which being that my Maternal Grandmother and Maternal Grandfather actually share the same birthday. 

    Let’s begin with the idea, which is a common modern psychological theory, that we are trying to heal the wounds of our parents relationship through our own relationships. You are represented by the First house in your chart, and your partner is represented by the Seventh. You and your partner are always opposites in the chart, just as your parents are, (Fourth and Tenth) and their parents are, (First and Seventh). It is the union of the Yin and Yang, the attempt to mend that which opposes, the conflict of merging.  

   Assume you inherit the traumas of your parents, in a way, of course we all do. Infinite cycles going back millennia in all directions along the family tree, some negative patterns healing over time, some flaring up into literal nightmares. We all have the opportunity to lessen the intensity of the suffering of this lineage of pain with our choices in this life in whatever ways we can. In general, we have a difficult time with our parents and a much easier time with our grandparents. There’s a need to pull away from our direct lineage, even though their pain and errors are a capitulation of their ancestors which we may venerate. This is simply the nature of things. 

    It is also a tendency that we get along more easily with our parent of the opposite gender. This is also the way things tend to go. There is a part of the little child within us which winds up idealizing the opposite gendered parent and projecting it onto our future partners.  Meanwhile, we shun the similarities we inherited from our same gendered parent and unconsciously act out their roles within our relationships. The theory goes that we wind up in relationships which mimic the problems we had with our parents in an attempt to heal those wounds.  

   Now, back to turning the chart. Within this system, it is a function of the numbers involved, that our direct ancestors will always be angular, (the First, Fourth, Seventh, and Tenth houses). These are the most powerful and prominent houses which determine the main factors in our lives, (who we are, what our home and family is, who our partner is, and what our work and status is). Of course, so much of this really is predetermined just by the inter-generational karma we are born into. Although the rest of the resonances will be there if you use the Tenth for Mother, and the Fourth for Father, I’ll explain some of the deeper insights within the system I use. The traditional gender roles within this are pretty clear, Mother makes the home, (4th) and Father goes to work (10th), and so there is an archetypal embodiment of those roles within how we live out our 4th and 10th houses which resonates with who our parents were. The traditional taking on the trade of the father trope is a very literal way to view that. 

   Let us jump up another level. Our Mother’s Father becomes the First house, and our Mother’s Mother becomes the Seventh. We can’t relate fully and objectively to our own Father (if you are male), we find it easier to look to the grandfather as a masculine role model we have less conflict with. He had likely less conflict with your Mother, and so is integrated more easily into your own first house identity. All these things are true of our Paternal Grandmother, who is ALSO the first house. Now, the conflict between your Mother and her Mother, which was never fully integrated and dealt with, becomes the core of her actions within the relationship you were born into. The same is true of your Father with his Father. Both are represented by the seventh house. YOUR seventh house of relationships. This is how you continue to work out the failings and sorrows of your parents’ upbringings, and so on it repeats in all directions, every single way you look within your chart tracing your lineage back.

    There is much more to say about all this, and how these fractal cycles are repeating through every branch of our family tree. You can see I barely filled out any of this chart, because it’s just too much, and a few generations will show how this works. It’s up to you to find the similarities between distant ancestors on each side who come to represent the same houses in your natal chart. After all, this is a story of hundreds of thousands of people who all, unconsciously, came together because they saw within the other something familiar from their deep, unconscious past. It’s a great bravery to toss yourself into a relationship and make a stab at healing all that endless ancestral trauma.  

   I mean there is some joy and fun involved as well, isn't there?