The Sun
in the Second House
With the Second House, we enter the realm of possessions, money, and personal resources. There’s not a whole lot of mystery about the Second House, nor much romance. It is a practical place where the ego that shines bright in the First House has to return to the earth and face the mundane necessity of making a living.
All the astrological texts—from the Hellenistic period to modern times—seem to concur with this notion that the Second House is the natural home of the material girls and material boys of this world. It would seem then that having the Sun placed here would be like having a moneymaking machine in your living room. After all, with the Sun in the Second, your energy, vitality, and conception of self are all directed toward achieving material well-being. What could go wrong?
There are cautionary hints in some texts (such as The Astrologer’s Handbook) about excessive generosity and overspending, particularly on luxury items and possessions that feed the ego. Still, in most cases, you would think that the power of the Sun could withstand a few unwise investments and expensive toys. The Sun has to shine, and if that shine is the shine of a platinum bracelet or the hood of a hot new sports car, that’s just the way it is in the Second House, baby.
The Moneymaker
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Having the Sun in the Second House is not a guarantee of wealth. People with this placement typically have to work just as hard as the rest of us to earn their daily bread. What typically sets them apart is a greater awareness of material necessities and a pronounced concern for finding, nurturing, and exploiting the special talents, skills, and resources that allow them to make their way in the world.
It is sometimes said that we all have a special talent. Johnny can draw. Sally can sing. Cloe made a whole ten dollars selling lemonade in front of her apartment complex. That’s a nice sentiment for most of us, but for people with the Sun in the Second, it is much more than that. For them, finding this talent, special ability, or resource and drawing from it every possible benefit is often the central feature of their lives.
For some people with this placement, like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, or Édith Piaf, that special resource was an outstanding musical talent. For others, like tennis great Chris Evert, it was athletic ability. For Oscar Wilde, it was wit. For Alan Turing, it was mathematical genius. However, none of these people with the Sun in the Second relied solely on their gift. They studied, they worked, and they honed their talent. Some of them also managed to become quite wealthy, but it was only through their constant effort to get the best from what they were given that they achieved success.
Of course, most people with the Sun in the Second aren’t born with an extraordinary singing voice or a blistering backhand. Most people with this placement have to search for that special talent. There may be false starts and failures along the way. Maybe you thought you were going to be a rock star or a ballerina but found that you were much better at selling insurance. Regardless of what that resource might be, the key is to get the most out of it. That means looking beyond just the material benefits it provides.
The Gate of Hell
This is the unfortunate moniker that Hellenistic astrologers hung on the Second House. In their eyes, the Second was something like a dead zone, and any astrological body that happened to land here, including the Sun, was debilitated. In modern astrology, we shy away from labeling sectors of the horoscope as inherently bad, but there is one way in which having the Sun in the Second House can lead to misfortune. That is when your concern for the material distracts you from other, more crucial, matters.
It is typical for people with the Sun in the Second to have a heightened awareness of the hard realities of income and outgo. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s good to be aware of when your bills are due and of how much money you have in your bank account. It is also good to occasionally think about your long-term financial well-being and to take steps that make it possible. This sort of materialism is necessary and it is conducive to a person’s health and happiness.
However, when this necessary concern for your material well-being becomes an obsession—when it gets entangled with emotional and psychological needs that have little to do with real, dollars-and-cents realities—that’s when the Second House can become “The Gate of Hell.” It isn’t just about money. It could also be an unhealthy focus on the physical: the assumption that the only thing that matters in life is sensual enjoyment. Everyone needs to be wary of this sort of overindulgence, but people with the Sun in the Second are uniquely susceptible to these tendencies and have to be particularly watchful.
There is also a less obvious way that a person with this placement of the Sun might stray toward that hellish gate. That is by emphasizing the apparent—what they can see, hear, and touch—over what they feel. By dismissing or devaluing intuition and the emotional and spiritual importance of certain experiences, the Sun in the Second person can succumb to a blind materialism that limits him or her in ways that make overindulgence seem fairly benign.
Your Mission
It might be said that the main mission of a person with the Sun in the Second House is to avoid The Gate of Hell, but how do you do this? How do you avoid worrying about making money in a society that considers making money the primary measure of a person’s worth? How do you avoid overindulgence when there’s a fast-food outlet on every corner and a digital world full of iniquitous temptations? If people living in ancient times had trouble avoiding this gate, what chance do we modern folks have?
All is not lost. There is a way to resist the multiple temptations represented by The Gate of Hell. You just have to find fulfillment in the resources given to you that goes beyond material comfort. Whether you’re making music or making shoes, running a corporation or running a drill press in a factory, if you can find something in that activity and in your ability to do it well that satisfies you, that gives you a sense of purpose and accomplishment, then you don’t have to worry about The Gate of Hell. You’ve found the secret of living with the Sun in the Second House. You’ve found your mission.
For some people with the Sun in the Second House, finding that special talent or skill can be difficult. It might not be something that is as obvious as an ear for music or a genius IQ. It might be an ability that develops over time or a skill that they discover only through some sort of crisis. However, life has ways of guiding Sun in the Second House people toward their special resource. Serendipity and luck often play a role in the process, so be both patient and alert.
Once you discover that special Second House resource, that’s when the real work begins. No matter how pronounced and remarkable your skill or talent might be, you have to devote yourself to making it better, to developing and expanding what you can do with it. Again, this is not just about increasing your earning power. It is about being fully engaged with that resource and finding within it a means of continually challenging your ego.
You will also have to deal with a changing world in which skills and talents that are at one time valued become less relevant or profitable over time. In adapting to these changes, you have to keep in mind that your connection to your resource goes deeper than supply and demand. It is a huge component of your ego and your sense of self. In some cases, this might make it more difficult for you to adapt to new circumstances, but if you look at these changes as a challenge and a new way of expanding and improving the resources you have been given, then keeping up with the times will never be a hassle.
Your mission with the Sun in the Second House is to take your natural focus on the material, the physical, and the apparent to a higher level, to make it more than just a way to make a buck. You have to find in the resources that allow you to survive in the real world something that also enriches your emotional, psychological, and spiritual worlds. It’s a simple thing, really. If you do it right, what for others is the drudgery of earning a living can become, for you, the pathway to your own personal heaven.