First Lessons

Welcome to Fifth House Sun School of Astro Creativity.

On this page are essential “Pre-School Basics”.

Good for absolute beginners and those looking for a little refresher course, alike.

Lesson 1: “Creative” is the only kind of “Fifth House Sun” there is.

The Sun rules Creativity. The “Natural Home” of the Sun and the sign it rules – Leo – is the Fifth House.

The Fifth House in your own chart – including the sign and planets involved with it – plus the location, sign and aspects of both the Sun and Leo in your chart will inform you about your own Creativity.

This school celebrates Creativity.

This school revels in the fun, joy, thrills, risk-taking – and those are all good Fifth House values – of Creativity.

Especially the creative symbolic language – with its psychological and mythological implications – of Astrology.

Lesson 2: There are a lot of Rulers in Astrology.

(But in this school, not so many rules.)

“Ruler” is an Astro-Term indicating just what it sounds like: governance, overseeing, being concerned about certain specific things.

Every sign of the Zodiac is ruled by a planetary body. Like Leo is ruled by the Sun. Thus, the Sun is called Leo’s “Ruler”.

Lesson 3: The “Natural Zodiac” is not a show where Crawl Thru Fire is done without make-up.

Or clothes.

It refers to the universal line-up of all 12 signs, and their rulers, in their own houses on the familiar Zodiac wheel.

If you download this pdf (just click) Natural Zodiac-FHS, you’ll see a depiction of the Natural Zodiac. Worry not it if it makes zero sense right now. One day – sooner than you think – it will. (Page 2 of the pdf is a blank wheel. To print up for taking notes if you choose.)

Lesson 4: Come home, come home.

Each pie wedge in the Astrology chart represents a “house”.

There are 12 pie wedges for 12 houses because there are 12 Zodiac signs.

Every sign, and its ruler, has a house of its own, known as its “Natural Home” in the Natural Zodiac.

Houses are – speaking broadly – the “where” of Astrology. Because the Houses rule “arenas”. Like the Fifth House rules Creativity – among many other vital things.

The houses are numbered sequentially, indicating their position in the Natural Zodiac’s wheel, and the numbers are used often: First House, Second House, Third House, etc.

Lesson 5: A circle is always a circle.

Symbolically.

And mathematically.

Like every circle, an Astrology chart is 360 degrees.

360 degrees divided by 12 signs equals 30 degrees for each.

In your chart, and every chart, each sign covers exactly 1/12 of the 360 wheel real estate: 30 degrees, no more, no less. After 30 degrees, no matter where that falls, the next sign begins.

And the next sign is always the one that comes in the sequence of the Natural Zodiac. The 12 signs of the Zodiac are always the same order around the chart wheel, from Aries through Pisces, one after another, 30 degrees of wheel space for each sign.

Lesson 6: The circle has no end.

But the Zodiac does have a beginning.

The First House, you will see, is ruled by Aries and its ruling planet Mars. So, the First House is the Natural Home of Aries and Mars. Making Aries the start of the Natural Zodiac.

The sign Aries actually begins on the Spring Equinox.

For a very long time, the Vernal Equinox was considered the start of a new year in the Northern Hemisphere. Which, of course, makes a lot of sense if you’re actually paying attention to how the cycles of the Earth flow, especially in agrarian societies. Plant seeds, start a new year.

Lesson 7: Size can matter. Or not.

In the Natural Zodiac, every house is exactly 30 degrees in size, with only one sign and one planet involved.

In individual charts – because the Earth is in continual orbit, spinning on its axis to create the 24/7, and an Astrological chart is based on sky math – house size varies.

And unlike Rock Stars, bigger is not necessarily better-er. (We’ll cover this more in later lessons.)

Lesson 8: Your Top 10, or 12, or more, have all got their own number.

Your full chart will show all the planets – plus as many asteroids and significant mathematical points as you please – located at a precise numerical degree on the 360 wheel.

These placements will be written with numbers that show the specific degree – and minute – in a particular sign where that planetary body was actually located in the sky at the exact moment of your birth.

04 SAG 22, for example, means 4 degrees and 22 minutes of Sagittarius. It might also be written with the Astro Symbol for Sagittarius in the middle of the 4 and 22 instead of the SAG. (Look on the pdf at the 9th House, the Sagittarian Natural Home, and you’ll see the symbol: a slanted arrow with a small cross stroke. Every sign and planetary body has its own Astro Symbol. You’ll see them on the pdf.)

Lesson 9: Like music sales, where things chart matter.

When a planet appears on your chart in a particular pie wedge it’s said to be “in” that House. (Like: “When the Moon is in the 7th House…)

That house location becomes the personal “address” for you, dawg, for all that is represented by that particular planet, and its ruler.

Lesson 10: Like a spot near the stage, some points on the chart are key.

They’re called “angles”.

They are the points at the ends of the two lines dividing the Zodiac circle in half both horizontally and vertically. And the houses starting at those points – the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th – are called Angular Houses.

The point between the 12th House and the 1st House marks the start of your chart. And the sign placed there is called your “Rising Sign” (As in “Libra rising”.)

More technically called the Ascendant.

And the point on the other end of that horizon, between the 6th and 7th House, is called the Descendant.

The top of the chart is called the MC, which stands for the Latin Medium Coeli, not Master of Ceremonies, though it does have a spotlight effect. It is also frequently referred to as the Midheaven.

At the other end of that vertical line is the IC – Imum Coeli which is Latin for “bottom of the sky”. The IC is also known colloquially as the Nadir.

Lesson 11: Rulers always rule. Change always comes.

Because every house is concerned with specific arenas of life, referring to a particular house is like a shorthand reference to all the areas that house covers.

Thus, saying “Fifth House” is like giving an address for Creativity and everything else the Fifth House represents.

In your chart, and everyone’s chart, no matter what planets are there, no matter if Leo or the Sun are no where in sight, the Fifth House is about Creativity. (Among many other things.) Always. And for that matter, so are Leo and the Sun.

What the houses, signs and planetary bodies rule and are concerned with never changes. But everything else does.

Your individual chart will have planets, houses, and signs in your own unique line-up. It will not look like the Natural Zodiac.

But the Natural Zodiac’s areas of rulership never change.

So when Leo falls in a different house other than the Fifth – say the Third – then Creativity takes on further flavor. The constant flavor of Leo, and the added flavor of Gemini, the Third House’s natural ruling sign.

And then to learn more about your Creativity, you’d examine where Mercury – the Third House and Gemini’s natural ruler – falls in the chart. And you’d also look at what else is happening in the Fifth and the Third House.

And this game – called following the dispositors – is what interpreting a chart is much about.

Reading an Astrological chart is deciphering the symbolic language of “what it means” as the various planetary bodies in every chart fall in signs and houses. And how those placements, and what the signs, houses, and planets rule and represent, combine with each other.

And in this school, the most important “meaning” is whatever combination and interpretation reveals the most Truth to you.

Lesson 12: Memorizing is essential.

The more you memorize all 12 signs, their ruling planets, the location of their Natural Zodiac home and the areas of life they govern, the freer you will be to follow the dispositors, see the connections and influences, and develop creative insights into your chart and all of Astrology.

Lesson 13: Memorizing is boring. Also confusing.

So we won’t be doing that right away.

Being forced to drone through and remember all that Symbolish stuff first thing is like being told you have to memorize all the @Names of everyone you want to follow on Twitter before you could start interacting. #JoyKiller.

The Fifth House is home to gambling, so we’re gonna roll the dice another way.

Lesson 14: It’s more fun to jump right in the deep end and swim.

In Psychological Astrology. And Twitter.

(Did I mention the Fifth House also rules risk-taking?)

Experiencing the signs, planets, and houses in action will create context.

Memorizing will happen as you develop relationship with the energies. Just like, now, you know the names and energies of people with whom you have fun on Twitter, PF, or wherever you call “home” in the “Natural Lamberteria”.

So, right now, you will not be getting long lists of what the houses, signs, and planetary bodies rule.

All you have to grasp right now is that there is Rulership.

Lesson 15: Repetition is how the brain chooses to learn.

Doing something over and over chemically creates a kind of better-er conductive pathway along neural pathways. (Known as myelination)

So quick repeat of the Rulership Refrain:

Rulership:

Each sign, and its ruling planet, are “in charge” of the goings on that are the specific domain of their house. (Example: The Fifth House rules – among many other things – Creativity.)

Each sign, and its ruling planet, also rule other specific aspects of life, both emotional and physical. (Which you will learn through upcoming lessons.)

Lesson 12: Like all of Astrology, and much of Life, this school has a bias.

Actually, several biases.

Full disclosure: A Whole Lotta Biases.

And since this school currently has a faculty of one – and that would be me – all biases are mine.

You absolutely don’t have to agree with me. Frequently, I may not even agree with me. (Oh, and the Fifth House also rules performance. Which includes: Acting.)

But before you open your mind and let Psychological Astrology own your heart, you ought to know what you’re getting into. (And yes, the Fifth House also rules the Heart.)

So, coming soon, our “Next 1st” lessons will appear. And they will be following the Adam Lambert Tradition of revealing orientations right from the start.

But for now, enjoy the Natural Zodiac. (Repeatedly.)