Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses
Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs
and Houses
By Michael Erlewine
This is intended to provide some background
information for those of you interested in
studying astrology. For starters, we could define
Astrology as the study and practice of the cycles
of life. We study to gain ideas of what is
happening to us and we practice and implement
in our life what we have found through our study.
We will start with the study and the dictionary
definition of a cycle.
The Oxford Universal Dictionary states a cycle
is:
"A circle or orbit in the heavens. A recurrent period
in a definite period of years. A period in which a
certain round of events or phenomena is
completed, recurring in the same order in equal
succeeding periods. A long, indefinite period, an
age. A round, course or period through which
anything runs to its completion. Etc."
Cycles are so important in the study of astrology
that understanding what the dictionary has to
say about them is but a start. We must extend
and deepen this understanding until we can see
cycles at work in our day-to-day life. It could take
us some time to appreciate these ideas and to
experience them happening in the life around
us. Without grounding these ideas in our life, we
have mere abstract ideas -- words empty of
experience.
Yet our life is filled with cycles. There are very
short cycles, short cycles, long cycles, and very
long cycles. All cycles repeat or return on
themselves -- happen again. In fact, if there is
no repetition, we have no awareness of them.
Some examples of convenient sized cycles that
we can understand and grasp with our mind
include the cycle of our breath, the cycle of the
seasons or year, and the cycle of day and night.
The cycle of our heart beating is almost too
small and fast for us to keep in mind. Smaller
cycles yet include cellular cycles and, of course,
atomic and sub-atomic cycles. These smaller
cycles happen so often or fast that they are a
blur to our mind. They fall through or beneath
our awareness and make up the ground of our
consciousness. They are subconscious.
When we look for long cycles, the planets
provide good examples. We live through and
experience the two-year cycle of the planet
Mars, the 12-year Jupiter cycle, and even the
30-year Saturn cycle. However, many people
don't live through the 84-year Uranus cycle
much less the much longer cycles of Neptune
and Pluto.
It is possible to grasp the meaning or import of
these longer sized cycles with our mind, but very
hard to bring home the meaning of the cycle -- to
practice them consciously. Then there are
cycles like that of our Sun orbiting the Galactic
Center that take so many millions of years that,
for our purposes, these cycles assume the
proportions of a straight line. The portion of this
size circles or cycles that we can witness or
comprehend in a lifetime are so small as to
appear like a line.
Thus our awareness is bounded by the
incessant smaller cycles on one hand and the
long theme straight-lined cycles on the other.
Which leaves us with our awareness or
consciousness of those cycles that we can
recognize and appreciate. At this point, it is
important for you to be beginning to understand
that our entire life is cyclic. It is ALL cycles --
nothing else.
All existence (our life) is maintained by the sum
total of the endless repeating cycles of which it
is composed. It is even more direct than that and
I am going to get very abstract for a moment.
Our very existence IS only by virtue of our
awareness of these cycles or circles. And now
for the hard part: Everything IS only by returning,
repeating, and restating itself.
That which does not re-instate or repeat itself (in
other words, that from which we get no return)
IS NOT for us. In fact, it comprises the sum total
of our ignorance. Our consciousness is the
returns or returning of cycles. This is not an easy
concept to grasp, but it is an essential one. I will
try to clarify.
Our consciousness is (in fact) the endless
returns we can realize in our life. When we
reach the 'point of no return' in any project, we
abandon that direction. Our life can be viewed
as a process of investment and returns, giving
and taking, and this process endlessly repeats
itself and can be studied in the form of cycles.
A Second Approach
 Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses
Our heart beats, cycle after cycle. Our lungs
open and close our whole life. These cycles last
as long as life. They return or repeat each
second. We live on their returns. We count on
them for life.
In a similar, but more abstract, way, our whole
life depends on this kind of return or repetition,
the return of the sun to the eastern horizon each
morning, the return of the springs rains each
year, the return of youth in the form of the next
generation.
As you study astrology, you will find that we 'are'
these returns. We are conscious only of what
returns on itself or restates itself. Anything that
does not return or repeat itself is soon forgotten
and (from our point of view) is not -- has no
reality.
For example: investment and returns. If we
make investments which bring us no return, they
are lost to us. In fact, we cease investing when?
At the point of no return, of course. We are
habituated to investing in something (even a
friendship) and receiving some return, sowing
and reaping. If nothing comes back, we stop
investing. We invest in our life in the very same
manner.
The situation we face in living follows all the
laws of cycles -- of investment and returns. It is
very important that this be perceived and
understood.
You are investing time in reading these
sentences. You are looking for a return of some
sort. You want to get something out it,
something back. You are creating a body of
knowledge, called astrology, through your
efforts.
The concept of bodies, how they are made and
unmade, is important. We are used to thinking of
a body as the physical body, the body of a cat, a
dog, etc. And yet, we often speak of a body of
knowledge or a body of thought. We may feel
that this or that idea embodies our hopes and
dreams, and so on.
These alternate uses for the word 'body' are
very important for our work here with astrology.
We need to recognize that there are many
different kinds of bodies, that bodies are created
with the mind as well as the flesh, and that these
bodies (all bodies) hold together for a while and
then come apart.
Learning to see these many kinds of bodies in
their creation, duration, and eventual dissolution
can provide meaningful access to such difficult
to understand concepts as re-incarnation, karma
and the like.
When we try to understand everything in relation
to our physical body, our personal life and death,
we are biting off a very large chunk. Since most
of us can't seem to remember life before our
birth and have trouble grasping what life after
death might be, we can be left with some very
large questions -- some real doubts.
The very same process of birth, life, death is
happening all around us in countless examples,
but on a smaller scale. In fact, there is nothing
else.
We can be said to have lifetimes within lifetimes
within our personal lifetime. And it is possible to
examine these smaller lives or cycles in their
entirety and, by analogy, to get a picture of how
our personal lifetime too must be like. If we
spend considerable time now on these
concepts, it is because any real understanding
of astrology depends upon grasping the
essential nature of these cycles and lifetimes.
Without this understanding, we are left with rote
memorization. The primary goal of these articles
is to enable you to generate the details of
astrology rather than to memorize them.
The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac
One way to study astrology is to memorize all of
the different attributes for each sign, planet,
aspect, etc. without understanding how they are
related or fit together, how they correspond. This
is a traditional method, but very slow and prone
to misunderstanding. A better way to approach
learning the signs is to learn about the concept
of the zodiac itself, just what it is. Once you can
grasp the concept, you can generate all the
keywords, attributes, and what-not for each
zodiac sign yourself, because you grasp the root
principles. It is not difficult.
The 12 signs of the zodiac (in order) together
make a circle or cycle. They follow one another
in a strict order and each is a phase in the circle
or cycle of the zodiac. These twelve signs make
up the whole circle or cycle and they should be
studied in their order in the sequence of the
zodiac. The meaning of each sign leads to the
next, and on around.
 Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses
If a picture helps, the whole circle or cycle can
be pictured as a circle with Capricorn at the top,
Cancer at the bottom, Aries on the left, and Libra
on the right. When reading the signs in order,
the movement is counter-clockwise, going from
sign to sign and starting with any sign. Here we
have started with Capricorn, at the top of the
diagram.
The whole cycle, like any cycle, has a point of
greatest expansion (like blowing up a balloon)
and a point of greatest inwardness (letting all the
air out). In the zodiac scheme presented here,
Cancer is the point of greatest expansion and
outward-ness while Capricorn is the most inward
part of the cycle, the point of least expansion,
the impulse or idea.
Using the four-phase approach, Capricorn
represents the idea phase, Aries the attempt to
get the idea across into practice, Cancer the
material result of the idea in manifestation (the
experience), and Libra, the point where we
begin to learn or get something out of the
experience, and back to perhaps a new or better
idea at Capricorn again. And so on around the
cycle, endlessly.
Below are descriptions of the twelve signs of the
zodiac showing how each zodiac sign
represents a phase in this process and leads to
the next sign. If you can grasp the concept, you
will be able to understand in short order why this
or that keyword fits this or that sign. Instead of
memorizing endless lists of zodiac
correspondences, you will be in a position to
understand all the standard terms and generate
new ones at will.
A Brief Overview of the Wheel of the Zodiac
The wheel of the signs follows this general
scenario. I may not be able to say it well, but try
to get the idea. If you do, the rest is easy.
Every so often in life we get a moment (or day)
in insight, some personal revelation that lifts us
out of our day-to-day workings and allows us to
survey the landscape of our life. These high
moments of clear-seeing represent the
Capricorn experience, the insight point in the
cycle. Given a new insight, the first thing we
tend to do is to want to hang on to it, to not
forget it, and to see that it matters in our lives.
This resolve to not forget and to put our insight
to work is Aquarius. Armed with a new insight
and the resolve to implement it, we come down
from any high experience and back into the
same old personality we left when the insight
came. It can be hard to go back. This re-entry
requires acceptance of our situation and the
ability to put up with whatever inequalities we
might find for the sake of bringing some of our
new-found insight across in our actual life. This
is Pisces, accepting, surrendering.
Much of our insight is invariably lost in our
attempt to bring it across in our personal life.
Whatever new impulse or idea that we do
manage to get across into our life is Aries. This
is the new 'word' or seed impulse that we are
trying to bring across through our personality to
make a difference. Anytime we manage to bring
something new through the hassle of our
personality into real manifestation, it draws
reaction. Taurus is the reaction to whatever is
stated or brought across at Aries. Taurus draws
around the Aries impulse an appropriate
response or body. Once that body is formed, we
begin to feel for its limits. This search
(investigation) for limits is Gemini, reaching to
find what in fact we are. When we reach the end
of our search energy and can search no farther,
we, by definition, find our limits. This is Cancer,
the physical (Full Moon) of our experience. This
is the fullness of the experience itself.
Nothing lasts forever. All experiences end and
the end of the feeling or experience at Cancer,
when we begin to come out of it or become
aware or self-conscious of it, is Leo. Leo is the
dawn of personal awareness, that we have been
through something, thus pride. The awareness
in Leo is the first sign that the experience part of
the cycles is ending. As the experience
continues to wane, what was the rush of self-
consciousness at Leo turns to an attempt to
preserve and hang onto whatever remains of the
experience. This is Virgo, an attempt to salvage
or hold back the inevitable end of what was
experienced at Cancer.
At Libra, all attempts to hang onto the personal
end of the experience (or lifetime) is
abandoned). Libra is the exodus from the
physical, the acceptance of our personal
situation in its entirety. It is clear at this point that
the personal part of the experience has no
future. We must accept our personal situation in
its entirety. This is the "I do" of Libra. Once we
accept this situation, we set about actively
removing and stripping away whatever excess is
of no use to us. This is Scorpio. And last, the
stripped down remains of what was our lovely fat
 Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses

experience at Cancer is Sagittarius -- the spiritual experiences into the body of our life's
essence. And this is the seed for the next existence.
illumination or insight at Capricorn.
Aquarius and the Eleventh House
The cycle of the signs is an endless cycle that,
Aquarius is the first step to carrying the light
like breathing, expands and contracts, forever.
experienced at Capricorn into manifestation,
We pop out of our bodies, have and insight, and
putting the idea to work or practice, for the
dive back in to put that new idea to work. The
slogan of Aquarius is "SPIRIT MUST BE MADE
idea results in an experience or body, which
TO MATTER." Making the spirit or clear insights
expires and we withdraw from it, taking with us
we have matter is the experience of this sign.
whatever we can glean. This whole process
Aquarius remembers the clear vision of the
goes on.
Capricorn experience and wants to carry this
Capricorn and the Tenth House light into every part of our body and life, literally
to build this new light into us and to make our
Capricorn is the light of spiritual realization.
vision permanently matter and forever a part of
Capricorn is the clear-white light of spiritual
our conscious experience. Here is a fixed sign, a
realization as it comes to us in flashes,
power or warrior sign, and it is deaf and dumb to
moments, and even days of our lives. In these
anything outside its total urge to DO and make
moments we find ourselves outside the body of
something important matter.
our day-to-day experience and able to see
clearly exactly where we are in the working Aquarius is the first step toward manifestation
through of the difficulties of this particular life. It and really getting something done. This broad
is in these moments of clarity that we take vows, intention to affect all and every area of our life
make resolves, and commit ourselves to with this new message has made this sign the
change. For in these moments of clarity we can symbol of all broad or collective and group work.
see what is to be done and we deeply desire to Aquarius is the great desire we often have to
do all we can, to be used up. make a recent spiritual experience or insight
matter in our day-to-day life, to mean something
The use of matter is the Capricorn's greatest gift:
from that time forth. We seek to build thee
practicality. This is an earthy or practical sign
insights into the fabric of daily life before the
because, being free of the body, the Capricorn
freshness is gone, before we forget. Aquarius is
experience has the greatest ability to see clearly
the spreading out of the light to unrealized areas
the form of the body and the use for which it was
of our life, sending this light into every body we
intended and can be put. In Capricorn we get far
contact. The Aquarian wants to raise the entire
enough outside the body to remember why we
body of man to a more fully realized level and it
got into a body in the first place and we want
is not particular who should be reached first, for
back in. In those good or high moments, we
he knows that: ALL THE CELLS IN THE BODY
clearly see the value of this life. We burn with
ARE FILLED WITH LIFE. Aquarius looks
light and with clairvoyance can see what at other
through our imperfections with the power of its
times has been occulted or hidden from our
new vision and calls us to overcome our inertia
view. Thus we desire to re-enter or re-incarnate
and rise up.
once again. We desire life and more of it. We
reincarnate whenever we truly see the nature of Pisces and the Twelfth House
our life and, armed with this clear light, we
Pisces is the sign of the initiate. After our insight
resolve to really fulfil and make this life matter.
or any high experience, we start to come down
We constantly re-incarnate every day of our
and re-enter the body of our daily life, ordinary
lives with every wish we make.
experience. We carry within us the new light that
Clairvoyance (clear seeing) is the experience of we experienced in Capricorn and we are armed
Capricorn. The spiritual eye of Capricorn fills the with the Aquarian resolve to do something about
entire body of our life experience with light and this vision, to not forget it.
we realize the wholeness of our life in and
However, as we return to our ordinary
through all of its manifestations. Remembering
consciousness, we each meet what has been
these spiritual moments and making them
called the guardian on the threshold, our old set
matter in the routine of daily life becomes the
of habits. Although we have now had new
challenge of Aquarius, that is; to incorporate
insight on how to improve our situation, we have
 Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses
yet to carry this into practice. In order to make
any difference in our life, we have to first pick up
where we left off before our mini-revelation. We
must come down and re-enter our life, with all
the same old personal habits and traits,
unchanged and still not unresolved. They are
just where we left them.
This takes courage and the ability to put up with
or suffer this situation for the sake of bringing
new light to our life. Pisces is willing to put up
with going back into our personal situation for
the sake of the difference the new insight can
make once it is brought through into practice.
This is the test of Pisces and the twelfth house:
surrender, forbearance.
To surrender means to cease struggling with
something, to cut off the energy being fed to it
that keeps it alive, and to allow it to become
separated or detached from us. Without our
attention and energy, our old habits and self will
starve, shrink, and detach itself from us, free to
pass from our life system.
We surrender our past to be absorbed and used
as food for the present. Pisces has got to do one
of two things: drop the light it is carrying from the
Capricorn experience to fight with these old
habits and devils, using in this process all of its
energy (and have that energy absorbed by the
past) or hold tight the light and absorb or put up
with the past within our new realization. Pisces
cares more for the truth that it carries than it
cares to argue over anything.
We have all had this experience, often when we
return to visit our friends or parents. We come
filled with new confidence and yet are received
and perceived as we used to be, with no
recognition of any new growth and light. Right
there we have the test of Pisces: we can react to
the unfairness we perceive, lose all that light in
argument, and be told that: "See, you are the
same. You have not changed!" Or we can suffer
this slight, absorb their criticism, and surrender
it. Let it pass. An through that surrender or
acceptance will flow the new light that we bring
to the situation and than is good. The twelfth
house is the house of self-undoing, for here we
undo and absorb all our old habit patterns. We
surrender them to the powers of non-
manifestation for a change. We undo ourselves
and let our hair down.
Aries and the Frist House
Aries is the birth of the head: a burning mass of
light drawing the reaction of form, that is:
contracting or drawing a body about itself. Aries
is the herald of the coming of the body, the word
or Logos, the "Good News" that will become
flesh and dwell with us. Aries is a new message
or word that demands incarnation demands a
body to bear it out into manifestation. Aries is
the product of the Pisces surrender, the
overcoming of the past. The tide is turned and
the love reaches through the past and pours
forth a fountainhead in Aries. We have
overcome our old self and something new exists
within us, an impulse that will draw to us fresh
experience through which we can grow. Aries is
the first house and the Ascendant or rising sign.
When we ask "What is rising?" we mean: what is
freshly uncovered and just coming into view. A
person's rising sign is where they pour out
unconsciously a fountain or source of light to all
who contact them.
What is life-giving about a person? Aries in daily
life or in a person (like the rising sign) is the
fountainhead or outpouring source where all
may drink that flows despite all resistance,
shining light in the darkness. Aries has
overcome all resistance of the past, paid all
dues, and still it shines and pours forth. Aries is
the strong impulse, unknown and
undifferentiated, that we can feel as our source
and from which all else flows. And it draws to us
all new experience. Aries and the first house are
where we posit or strike light and where we draw
reaction most impulsively toward us. Aries is a
light, alone shining in the darkness of the past
overcome, a voice crying in the wilderness, a
lamb.
Taurus and the Second House
Taurus is the definition of Aries. The field. The
ear. Aries draws forth Taurus as a reaction and
we have a relationship. Taurus is HAVING.
Taurus draws around us all the material through
which we will have to pass to know ourselves.
Here we make a splash or reaction to the Word
or impulse of Aries. Taurus possesses position.
Taurus holds all position or advance and keeps
it fast from retreating or vanishing back into the
unknown. It locks Aries into life. Taurus is
resistance, but also containment. Any new
impulse that we succeed in bringing through into
our life forms and draws slowly about itself a
body of manifestation in reaction. At first just a
 Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses
feeling, it gradually grows stronger and shapes
this feeling into something more definite.
Taurus is the machine or vehicle through which
the Aries impulse becomes effective, where
Aries energy is footed, confined, and made
useable. Any impulse or idea held firmly will
draw about itself the response in proportion to its
purity and that response will be determined as
perfectly as the it original impulse is maintained.
Taurus and the second house are concerned
with how we have or possess something, how
we receive and hold or field an action. Taurus is
the value of any action in that it is the re-action
or sum of what that action has called into being
or manifestation. In Taurus we begin to feel for
our limits since the walls of our action is the
Taurean a response to it. At first just a vague
feeling, it grows more definite as we move
toward the nadir of the chart. Events in our life
come from deep within us. Taurus is the great
womb of the zodiac in its powers of conception
and it is here and not Scorpio that the mystery of
generation is to be found.
First: An impulse (Aries) becomes a feeling
(Taurus), becomes a thought (Gemini), becomes
a fact (Cancer), becomes a conscious
experience (Leo), becomes a memory (Virgo),
becomes a past life (Libra), etc.
Gemini and the Third House
Gemini is the endless search for the experience
of the Self. I search. Gemini is the last step into
the body before we begin to evolve out of that
body at Cancer. Gemini is the eye's SEEING,
searching but not finding. Cancer is all finding.
Gemini cannot find it's limits. Gemini is fine
search or scientific investigation. Gemini is the
last push into something before the resources
are exhausted. Unlimited. Limits can't be found
because they happen. Limits are the product of
expended effort, the end of effort.
If I give you a full tank of gas and you start
driving, you reach the limits of the gasoline when
you run out of gas. Our life is the same way. We
reach our limits when we stop trying, when we
have no more energy to give, when we have
given all. At that point we have gone as far as
we can go and cannot proceed farther. At that
point only do we find our limits.
People think of limits as an outline or form (like
the city limits), when they are more like: how far
can you get before you run out of gas. If I am
pushing into something and I reach the limit of
my strength, I am no longer pushing farther. For
a while, I may hold my position but, as my
strength fails, I begin to withdraw like the tide
coming into a cove and turning, begins to go out.
When the tide turns, we are in a flash: limited.
You know your limit when your tide turns and
you find yourself going the other direction. What
was always there before, driving you, is
exhausted. You've gone about as far as you can
go. You remain as far as you got in whatever
you were doing and from here you will have to
work your way out. When you exhaust your
forward motion, the situation that develops limits
you. In that you are stuck and must work.
The big artery of Aries becomes in Taurus
smaller arteries and Gemini arterioles, the finest
tubes, reaching ever deeper, searching. When
the artery becomes a vein we have reached the
limits we searched for: Cancer.
Cancer and the Fourth House
Cancer is the living end of spirit, the physical
part. Cancer is experience itself as we are in it,
feeling our way through, completely lost in
involvement. Cancer is the mother of the Zodiac
and the living end of life, like the end of a finger
marks the extremity of the hand. Cancer is the
mother who holds us tight, giving us time, as
slowly we struggle to evolve and escape her
grasp. Cancer holds the down-rushing force
generated in Capricorn, holds it and makes it
last long enough for us to feel, know it, and
experience it as our own. Cancer holds us to our
points of greatest extension and deepest
involvement. It is Taurus squared when it comes
to having. This is now our temple, with the spirit
securely inside matter looking out. Here is the
tarot card 'The Chariot', the sluice gate, the
narrowness that makes the way felt. The ball of
spirit is caught and clings to the glove. Cancer is
the reversal, where outstretching ends and in-
stretching is. Cancer is the realization that marks
the end of Gemini. The force is spent, the world
described or circumscribed and it is within these
particular physical limits that the drama of life
will now unfold. Here is the difference between
seeking and finding. "I feel," says Cancer,
because here we are lost in the total
involvement, the nadir of the cycle, the thick
part, the Body.
Cancer marks the experience itself out of which
we will evolve. Involve means to wrap or fold
something up. Cancer is ruled by the Moon, for
the Moon is the life wrapped up in form, lost in
 Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses

feeling its own self. From this point in the zodiac Virgo represents the harvest and gleaning time
cycle we begin to unwrap or evolve out of what of our personal experience. Here is the cracking
we find ourselves involved in. We have reached and drying of the fruit ready to open to the seed.
the point of return and we begin to get ourselves "I salvage," says Virgo. The burst of power that
out of what we are into. We start to rise from the drives the self as felt in Leo, in Virgo begins to
body and have an out-of-the-body experience. fade. One feels the force fading and the first
impulse is to try and go back the way we came,
Leo and the Fifth House
back to the fullness consciousness of Leo. But
Express: to press out of. Emotion (emote): to this is impossible, for this is just what is fading.
move or migrate out from. Offspring: to spring off
Next we try to save and salvage what we can, to
from or out from. Leo is the first step out of the
cap up the open source points of Leo that flowed
body of feeling that is Cancer. Leo, unlike
so luxuriously, but now are ebbing and seeping.
Gemini is no longer anticipating the event, but
We try to conserve and purify and concentrate
rather is the bearer of the first news, the first one
what we have, to re-live again that old glory. No
to come directly from the experience, the
good. Every experience, every body fails and
dawning of consciousness, self-consciousness.
passes. Virgo is the time in life when we realize
Leo is the outpouring of joy at knowing that life is
that we won't have forever that first burst of zip,
possible. "I LIVE," says the Leo. Leo is the first
when we've told our experience to everyone we
move to leave the body of experience itself that
know and it begins to stagnate and lose its
is Cancer. Here the experience starts to pass
attraction for us. Now what do we do?
and we get a handle or perspective on it. WE
KNOW WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH It's clean up time after the party is over and life
SOMETHING, that we have some real does not end, but goes on. Leo has the correct
experience. understanding that life is forever but has not
grasped the idea that the form is ever changing.
Here is the certainty that experience occurred
Virgo is aware that the personality or personal
and the pride that goes with it. Here the first
body is not the end of life and begins to explore
flush of pride, the proud father who has given
beyond the body for the answer. The Hermit.
birth or had an experience. Offspring: sprung off
This is a difficult stage for us all and another
from, the roar of the lion and the chariot ride.
mutable sign (like Gemini) means all that we
The experience that we were totally lost in
know is that we are changing. We don't yet know
begins to come apart or break up, fracture. The
to what. For most of us this means transferring
form within which we were locked (Cancer)
our allegiance from our old fat personal self to
begins to un-last and dissolve and we are
some greater concept that fits the facts. Here for
getting out of this form. We are returning from
sure is the realm of doubt and worry and
and through (out of) this form. We live through
analysis, for there is something we had better
and beyond form. Leo is the pride of the
figure out and get right. Virgo is the great
discovery that we survive embodiment, that we
healing sign as it tries to save and salvage
live in, through, and because of form and not in
whatever is possible from the old form and put it
spite of form. Leo is the first dawn of this
to the best possible use. Here we concentrate
message: that this world is our world and we are
and purify our sources. The Virgin.
a full or equal part and can treat it like our own.
Here is the full flush and power of a new Libra and the Seventh House
experience, when we proclaim and show our
In Libra we are married forever to the body.
fullness to everyone we meet. We share with
Marriage is a natural act or function, a natural
everyone because we have so much to share.
result of growth beyond the personality. In
We are so full of life and so certain. We
marriage we have accepted the total vehicle or
overflow, pouring ourselves out to everyone,
body in its entirety including all its imperfections
proclaiming the greatness of what we have just
and draw to ourselves an accelerated growth
been through. The pride of ownership. the
rate by taking our opposite into eternal union
fullness of the life lived in the body, self
close forever to ourselves. The personaity seen
confidence, and assurance without reserve. Leo
in Virgo must drop or fall within and turn to
the Lion.
repeating itself in its conscious patterns as the
Virgo and the Sixth House soul turns to other affairs. We let go our
personal considerations, not because we are not
 Astrology - The Cycle of the Signs and Houses

personally interested, but because we have essentials is thrilling to our spirit. Here are our
fulfilled ourselves personally as much as "secrets," but not as we have imagined them.
possible. And this fulfillment becomes a constant The sign of fertility is Taurus and spring surge.
in our experience. Scorpio is very late fall, the last of it. It is said
that Scorpio is as far as the great beast or
We are personally continually filled with spirit
dragon reaches into spirit. This is the last stand
and satisfied with the course of our life. In a
of the personality and here is removed and burnt
sense we have achieved salvation, that is: we
away all the dross and webbing that covers or
have salvaged what we can from our personal
hides our deeper spirit. This is the furnace.
vehicle and, having this under control, we go
beyond the personal in impersonal work. For Sagittarius and the Ninth House
many people Christ led the way for us to
The Seed. The Relic. Sagittarius is the seed
complete the circuit of our lives and go beyond
essence of what remains after the furnace of
the personal, to transcend. When we transcend,
Scorpio, the extraction or clarified remains. It is
we do not do away with it, but only work upon it
that which can defy the test of time, having lost
from a higher level or plane. The seventh house
what within it was subject to change. The Relic
and Libra mark the enlightenment of the body as
and thus, the ninth house of religion, from that
we pull away from our personal considerations,
Latin word 'religare,' meaning to bind back and
expanding to identify with eternal life. We work
to last (lash) something together, to make it
outside the body from this point and we have
hold. Religion literally is the study of how things
crossed over and become one with the Great
hold together and last. Sagittarius is the power
White Brotherhood or brothers in the light. We
of the thing to endure or last, the concentrated
are illumined and our past loses its grip and falls
or one pointed thing. The seed-essence. It is the
within our vision. We treat our personality as we
symbol or code or formula or crystal that is the
would treat any other person. We allow it to
essence, that which collects or holds light.
change naturally, while we go on into the work of
the Spirit. We are called. Sagittarius is the final winding of the spring,
forcing spirit completely (by this force) beyond
Scorpio and the Eigth House
the confines of the body until it can see at
The furnace. The phoenix. Purgatory. Scorpio is Capricorn through this binding down. Here is the
the response to our enlightenment and marriage arrow in flight, the severed sting of the Scorpion,
at Libra. The responsibility that comes with the last leg out of the body before we begin a
knowledge. The reaction. The personality is return, all that remains of our experience back at
exposed at Libra for exactly what it is: whatever Cancer. What was a long story then is now but a
we have made it. If we had good training and reference, a symbol, a seed. We have kept the
guidance forming our personality, we will have a essence. This is the ark where life lasts. This is
good response to it. Most personalities formed all spirit but the symbol or trace that holds us still
today are encrusted with excess. Excess is any to matter, the code or law that binds. We
part of our habits or personality that is untrue, become the essence of matter, the purified body
that is: has no future. We no longer have the of light set spinning by the power of Scorpio,
energy or life to support these extras and it is in whirling faster and faster, tighter and tighter,
the eighth house of Scorpio that these are until within that ball of fire slowly out spreads the
removed. deeper light of the soul embracing, step by step,
every form within itself. This dawn of light sees
This house has to do with inheritances, debts,
the end of the end and opens out into the full
and death. The only inheritance most of us get is
light of Capricorn.
the responsibility to clean up our act and do
something with our warped personality. This
becomes our inheritance and the debt we must
Michael@Erlewine.net
pay. Scorpio is the stripping down to bare
essentials, exposing the spirit to light. Scorpio is
not a sex sign. The reason people go "ooh" and
"ah" when Scorpio is mentioned at this time in
history is that we are about to undergo a mass
purging of our personality, as a country. This
destruction of nonessentials and the exposure of