What if I Don’t Have a Planet in the Fourth (or any) House?
No house is ever really empty.
Follow the moonlight,
your house sign and ruling planet,
to connection and centeredness. -Jessica
I’ve received several questions, similar to the title of this post, from readers.
It’s a common phenomenon to look at your chart, see clusters of planets and vast areas of emptiness, and find yourself thinking if there are no planets in a section of your chart, there must be something wrong or missing. With houses connected to relationship or money, for instance, the Ego tends toward: “I have no planets here, I’m doomed!” Ah, I’ve finally got the damning evidence I needed to prove that I will never have the money or a relationship I want.
It is simply not true.
Having an empty house does not mean you will not have, or access, what that house offers. After all, with 10 planets (including the Moon) and 12 houses it would be impossible to have a planet in each house. Planets are energy, and very simply, where the planets are you tend to expend more energy. Not to ignore the evolutionary importance of having a planet in a house; having a planet here means you are especially oriented to do deeper work in this area of life… but that doesn’t necessarily mean those with planet(s) in the fourth house have it all figured out – as you find out when you read my story, in the book! One client told me she has been mystified by having Neptune and Scorpio in the fourth house, devoured my book, and was amazed by the clear way I laid it all out, and answered so many of her open questions.
Yet, many people do find their empty house(s) to be especially perplexing or demanding.
So, what to do with that empty house?
1. With an empty house you may need more awareness around how that empty house works for you. I’ve seen this especially during planetary transits to said house, as well as the house ruler. Suddenly it’s like – huh? What’s this area of life about? How does it work for me? During transits, you get a crash course in how your fourth house operates, and your core stability needs.
Since many people have clusters of planets in a certain part of the chart, with your empty house(s), conscious awareness is key. For instance, imagine your chart is very public/social with the majority of planets in the southern hemisphere which means you spend much of your energy here. You still have a home and family, right? But you tend to feel challenged, perplexed in this area because you are naturally oriented to focus on other areas of your life.
Look to your fourth house sign for guidance. If you do not have a planet, here, look to the sign on the house cusp (which I cover in the book). The sign can be revelatory. In fact, the editor of the book (who knew very little astrology) looked up her fourth house Taurus cusp, read the description and said “OMG I am Riley (the fictional fourth house Taurus/Libra/Venus person described in the book)! I was literally shouting out loud, YES, that is so me, to your words!”
So, yes, you can definitely broaden your awareness and understanding of how an empty house works for you by knowing its sign. AND its ruling planet. Which brings me to my next point.
2. No house is ever really empty. Your fourth house has a ruler. Traditional astrology acknowledges this, but this fact has gotten a bit lost in modern astrology. I’m going to leave the deeper intricacies to someone who studies this branch of astrology, but in practice, every house is mediated by the goings-on of the planet ruling the cusp of said house.
How does rulership work? As said earlier, knowing the sign of your empty fourth house can be enough to send waves of revelation through you. But say you want to know more.
Let’s go deeper. Imagine Cancer on the cusp of the fourth, the fourth house is empty, and the ruler, Moon, is in the twelfth. Can you taste how the flavor of this has now been enhanced? Cancer influences the fourth – the desire to put down roots, the importance of finding Soul mate(s) with whom you want to spend your entire life, a need for emotional transparency with partners. Add a new flavor. Moon in the hidden, spiritual, creative and sometimes confusing twelfth house. This warns of a potential for isolation and confusion in fourth house matters, and remedially, the importance of claiming solitude and privacy, and spending time on developing a creative and spiritual life. You can go even deeper, look to the sign of the Moon, and it’s aspects. Each will subtly influence the flavor, taste, of how the fourth house expresses in your world.
As with all of astrology, it’s all about how deep (ruler, its sign, aspects…) you want to go.
3. In a nutshell, this book is for YOU – fourth house planet, or not. I wrote Follow the Moonlit Path for anyone who wants to feel more centered, rooted and peaceful inside. It felt timely to write. The Earth is going through massive changes, and so are we. It will continue.
This work is truly about the moonlit path within, taking the journey back home to yourself. This likely involves freeing yourself from old childhood conditioning, survival strategies and values that aren’t yours, so you feel more centered, emotionally and spiritually connected, alive: Like a beautifully rooted willow tree that flexibly, gracefully, accommodates wind, storms, change.
Love,
Jessica
Buy here: Follow the Moonlit Path: Come Home to Yourself in the Astrological Fourth House
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