The Second House: Channeling your inner Dora the Explorer.
The second house is one of the harder houses to understand, because this house is not simply about money. The second house is about assets, both metaphorical and physical. What are your personal assets? What do you bring to the table based on your talent, and your skills? The second house represents your own money, and finances, since through your own skills you can gain material possessions. But what is money? What does it mean to have personal assets beyond pieces of paper with imaginary value? The second house forces us to reckon with what we value about ourselves, and what we value in this life. The idea of value may represent itself in the form of money, but it can also appear in the form of personal self-esteem, and what we personally deem worthy.
Firmicus describes this house as involving an “increase in personal hopes and in material possessions.” When we think about these two themes together, we can think about money. People hope to increase their personal assets and value through material possessions, but these two may also differ. One can personally hope to become more talented in a skill, which could eventually lead to monetizing their hobby, so this hope isn’t just about gaining or making money, it can also be about becoming better at something. Becoming more skilled. Here, in this house, one can ask themselves, what are you good at? What can you become better at? Do you see your own value in your personal skills? Are your skills your assets in this life?
The second house does not aspect the first house through any traditional whole sign aspects (sextile/60°, square/90°, trine/120°, or opposition/180°). This means that the first house and the second house are averse, and are not able to see each other. Houses having a physical line of sight to each other through whole sign aspects are crucial for themes to merge, or become sympathetic with each other. When an aversion occurs, the themes between the houses do not see eye to eye, or are misaligned in some form. In terms of the first and second houses, here we see an aversion between the self (the first), and the needs of the self (the second), in the same way our needs, at times, do not align with who we want to be. This means that the second house is not just about money, it’s also about survival—because well, under capitalism you need money to survive. Literally.
Our needs are separate to our identities in the way that, as humans, especially living under a capitalist system, we have no choice but to survive. We need houses, and roofs over our heads, and well, rent costs money. We need food to eat, healthcare, water to drink, and all of those needs cost money. When we’re too busy trying to survive, we forget who we are, or who we want to be; our identities take a back seat to basic survival, to meeting our needs, representing the aversion between the first and second houses. Imagine how many poets were denied the opportunity to become what they wanted because rent needed to get paid, and well, writing isn’t viewed as a valuable asset within a capitalist, money hungry society? Or we could take an opposing example, and think about how many artists sacrifice their needs, while prioritizing the development of their identities, hence the existence of the “starving artist” archetype? The second house can also be about privilege, about the resources we have personally been born into. One can measure the strength of the second house by looking at the ruler of the house, the sign, where it sits in the natal chart, and if its well resourced, or lacking support from benefic planets, Venus or Jupiter.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: Just because someone has a benefic or malefic planet in the second house does not mean you are either rich or poor, it’s not as easy as that. This is about our relationship to needs, and what money personally means to us. The conditions of what happens in the second house in reality are diverse, as they reflect the diverse condition of people’s lives. Ok, carry on!)
In hellenistic astrology, the second house is called the “Gate of Hades,” since the second house leads away from the first house, away from the Eastern horizon where the Sun begins its morning rise above the sky, representing a planet’s descent into the underworld. I think this metaphor doubles down on the idea of our own mortality, as people who have basic needs for survival. At the end of the day, to seek passage into the underworld, you still had to pay Charon, the ferryman, who transported the dead across the river, Acheron and Styx, separating the living from the dead. Here, in the second house, is where we find the living, and where the living still pay to, well, live. In this axis between the second and eighth houses, there is always a cost to pay, whether to ourselves (second), or to (others), and it’s easier to pay the cost of being alive by being skilled at something.
The second house is where you can market what you’re good at, as a way to gain resources. Back in the ancient times, someone’s asset could have been building houses. If you were good at building houses, then you could exchange the skills needed to build a house, for other resources, such as specific food items, or medicinal plants. In today’s day and age, we exchange our skills in return for monetary compensation. But monetary compensation can tell us even more about what we truly value in this life. Are we exchanging our skills with the purpose of gaining money, or do we genuinely enjoy the talent we have been given? This is where the topic of self esteem also falls in the second house. Money is a reflection of our own self worth, which is a capitalistic nightmare we, at times, can not avoid. Self worth isn’t just about what skill can be exchanged for what amount of money, but it also gives us a sense of purpose in this life, which I think is of equal value, or even more so, than money.
Okay, so now let’s think about the second house when there are no planets inhabiting this area. What does it look like? Empty houses are looked after by the domicile lord of the house. For example, if you have an empty second house in Leo, this house would be ruled by the Sun, the domicile ruler. You would then look at wherever the Sun is in the natal chart, and extract your significations of the second house through the condition of this ruling planet. In this instance, I’d check what sign the Sun is in, if it’s in a sign it has strength, and then which other house it occupies to further deduct what the second house looks like. If the Sun was in the fifth house, in Scorpio, then the second house (ruled by the Sun) inadvertently takes on the elements of a Scorpio fifth house Sun, and you could deduct that someone’s tools are connected to their creativity, self expression, working with children, and while in Scorpio, could be dedicated to investigative journalism, or detective work. Astrology is one big treasure hunt! Empty houses are still valuable, you just need to check the condition of the house ruler for more information.
When we think about the idea of worth, we think about what is important, what is worthy, in this life. Our needs are important, our personal hopes are important, so in turn, what we’re good at, our skills, become important. The second house of worth and value is then connected to the idea of our worldly purpose by trining the tenth house. The trine between the second and tenth houses shows us that how we meet our needs is eventually how we live our lives, and how we live our lives, eventually becomes what we’re known for; it becomes our reputation (10H). What we value feeds into our grand purpose, and what we deem our highest aspirations. Having planets in the second house is like having tools in your own tool box. You could be left in the middle of nowhere, not knowing the land, not knowing the people. And although you may be lost, if you have your own tools with you, you will never be without nothing. The tools, plus your own skill in wielding them, then become a passage to recovery, to leaving that unknown land where you’ve been left, and to return somewhere more comfortable.
Having planets in the second house is about knowing which tools you carry with you, inherently. Forever. Like Dora the Explorer, and her purple Mochila: what do you carry on your back regardless of how heavy it is, because you’re better with it, than without? If you have Mars, is the tool exceptionally efficient, but costly? Does it entail a severance of sorts, a sacrifice from yourself? Does it cut you every time you use it? If you have Saturn, does the tool become better as it ages, because you also age? Does is ask patience of you because it requires lived experience? If you have the Moon, what parts of meeting your needs bring you security, both emotionally and physically? What does feeling self-secure feel like? The second house is about journeying into what it feels like to meet your needs. And whatever planets sits in the second house, becomes your wielded weapon, handy tool, or favourite accessory to do exactly that.