There are no quick fixes in astrology. Everything in a horoscope is dependent on everything else. Just as your Sun sign is only the first step toward understanding yourself, your Sun house is nothing more than a starting point for reading a horoscope. However, we can give that starting point an extra boost by teaming the Sun with its natural partner, the Moon.
The Moon in the Houses
The Moon plays a role in defining our essential self or ego that is certainly equal to that of the Sun. The difference is that, while the Sun pushes us out into the world, the Moon pulls us inward. Through the Sun, we assert our ego. We make our mark and prove our worth. The Moon’s function, on the other hand, is to protect the ego or self from all the things in the outside world that might do it harm. The Moon uses intuition, instincts, and emotional sensitivity to spot those threats before they become immediate and to steer us in another direction.
For this reason, the Moon is associated with our emotions. However, so is the Sun, particularly when it is in a Water sign. The difference is that the emotionality of the Sun is active and outwardly directed. The emotionality of the Moon is reactive and directed inward. Much of what the Moon does is unseen and unstated. It seeps down into the depths of our personality and into our subconscious.
The Moon is also a major factor in our need to protect and nurture the people we love. Even as the Moon pulls inward away from the slings and arrows of life, it reaches outward, searching for people who can be trusted. At the top of that list for most of us is our mother and our family in general. The Moon is closely associated with both. However, the Moon is always looking for connections to other people who “feel” right, who engender a sense of security and emotional closeness. It is through the Moon that we attach ourselves to certain people who become our network of trust and support.
Of course, not everyone makes the grade. Depending on its sign and aspects, the Moon can be very picky when it comes to forming these connections. The Moon is that part of us that is guarded with strangers and suspicious of the unknown. This suspicion is an extension of the Moon’s mission to protect us. You may wonder why you feel uncomfortable with a particular person or situation. There may be no obvious, rational reason for this reaction. And then days, months, or even years later, something happens, and you realize that there was a good reason why the Moon pulled you away.
Unfortunately, there are moments when the Moon’s protective instincts can go too far. Through the Moon, we remember all the people and situations that brought us pain. We also remember the sort of people our parents warned us against and the rumors and insinuations leveled at a certain person or group years ago. Remembering these things, either on a conscious or subconscious level, is part of the Moon’s function to spare the ego from harm, but, unless we are watchful, those same memories and associations can become the roots of irrational fears and deeply imbedded prejudices.
“Gotcha” Moments
Even though the Moon’s function is mostly hidden within the depths of our emotionality, there are times when the house placement of the Moon makes itself apparent in tangible ways—when the symbolism of the Moon in a house is spot on. For example, let’s say you have a group of people with the Moon in the Fourth House. Some of the individuals within this group might have an extremely close relationship with their mothers. (Both the Moon and the Fourth House are associated with the mother.) Other people within this group might have been brought up in a home dominated by women. (The Fourth House is associated with our early home life and the Moon with females.) And there may also be some people within this group who are fantastic cooks. (Since the Moon is all about nurturing, it is often associated with food.) For those people with the Moon in the Fourth House, the Moon’s placement manifests in ways that are strikingly apparent—that is to say, in perfect accordance with the symbolism of the Moon and the Fourth House. This is what I call a “gotcha” moment.
Like every astrologer, I love the gotcha moments. Not only are they fun, they also help us convince people that astrology works. Nonetheless, relying on these literal connections with the symbolism is not always practical. First of all, these manifestations are inconsistent. Of the fifty-five examples I gathered with the Moon in the Fourth House, there are seven people I know who had an unusually close relationship with their mother or grew up in a home dominated by their mother. They are Prince Andrew, Ted Bundy, Jimmy Connors, Theodore Dreiser, Carrie Fisher, Marie Antoinette, and Catherine the Great. However, I can just as easily point out seven more whose mothers were absent or not a major influence.
Not only are gotcha moments unreliable, pursuing them often diverts us from a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the Moon in the horoscope. The mother doesn’t create the function of the Moon. That function is present at birth. It is influenced by many people and many things. Knowing the sources of these influences can certainly be helpful—particularly when it comes to overcoming problems related to the Moon’s function—but a real understanding of what the Moon is doing in the horoscope requires that we come to grips with its emotional power on a deeper, more fundamental level.
The Partnership of the Sun and the Moon
One thing that can greatly facilitate our understanding of the function of the Moon is examining its interaction with the Sun in the horoscope. The Sun’s function is primarily active, while the defensive properties of the Moon are primarily reactive. To understand those reactions, we have to first know the character of the actions. Likewise, our actions may be facilitated or hindered by the reactions they cause. This interplay is the very fabric of our lives. It is also the place where the meaning of the Moon in the horoscope is often most evident.
This interaction between what the ancients called “the lights” is particularly important when it comes to the house position of the Moon. The Moon’s sign and strong aspects to the Moon are often visible in our fears and preconceptions and in the things that are most likely to put us in a defensive mode. The house position is often more difficult to discern. It is only after we understand the agenda set by the house position of the Sun that the reaction of the Moon’s house position becomes apparent.
For this reason, the descriptions of the Moon’s house placement in this section are followed by descriptions of how that lunar house placement might function with each of the twelve house placements of the Sun. While writing this and studying examples of each combination, I was amazed at how the influence of the Moon’s house position changed as it was matched with different solar house positions. In fact, I have started using these combinations to “rectify” horoscopes in which the time of birth was in doubt or the house positions of the Sun or Moon varied with different house systems.
Considering the house placements of the Sun and Moon in combination also makes these descriptions more specific, but only to a degree. The signs occupied by the Sun and Moon must also be considered, as well as aspects. Another factor is the relative strength of the Sun and Moon. I wrote these descriptions as if they were equal; however, that is rarely the case. For most people, one of these two will be stronger by sign or by aspect, and that will influence how they interact in the houses. Another factor is whether or not the rest of the horoscope is more supportive of emotionality (with an emphasis on Water signs, for example) or the intellect and ego (strong placements in Air signs).
The Sun and the Moon are always the two most important factors in any horoscope. They set the tone for everything else that is happening in the chart. This is true of their sign position, their aspects, and their placement in the houses. Understanding how the Sun and Moon work individually and together in the houses gives us a whole new way of discerning basic themes within the chart and, with the reservations I have mentioned firmly in place, is a font of information about the person behind the horoscope.