The 12 Houses

Houses divide the sky at the moment and place of your birth into twelve sections, each tied to an area of life. The house a planet falls in shows where its energy shows up most often.

Houses turn quickly with the Earth's rotation, moving through roughly one house every two hours, so they need an accurate birth time and place. Without a birth time, there are no houses and no rising sign. We use Placidus houses, and switch to Whole Sign houses at high latitudes where Placidus can't be calculated.

The cusps of the 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th Houses are the Ascendant, the IC, the Descendant and the Midheaven. Together they're called the four angles, the backbone of a chart.