Chart Synthesis ✦ Dawn Bodrogi ✦ The Inner Wheel
A colleague of mine in one of my classes nicely articulated an astrological truth: we talk a lot about the balance of polarities, but this is, in fact, an illusion. The idea that a partner will solve all your problems is also an illusion. The truth is, a partner will more often bring up your problems and issues as they have never been brought up before. Polarities force us to articulate in the outer world what may have been, previously, merely internal conflict. Partnerships are a natural mirror to our inner selves — and on the whole, those inner selves are not balanced. That’s what the struggle of partnership is for.
Working with the Cross
How do we balance polarities and help them flow? The secret is in the two squares that form a cross to the polarity. Crosses have a bad reputation because when you have one in your chart, it’s difficult to get all the pieces working together — sometimes it’s like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. But crosses, when we work with them and when they settle, they take off. They fly. I think of them as wheels that gain momentum and keep on spinning faster and faster.
A kind of cross forms when we get our T-squares working by focusing on the empty arm. It’s as though the empty house provides the gravity for the scale that’s created via the T-square. Without gravity, we have no balance.
The Role of the Fifth House
If we look at the natural zodiac, the applying T-square to the fixed cross would be Leo and the 5th house. If you think of the polarity of 2 and 8 as a scale, the 5th house would be the base of that scale. Both the second house and the eighth house must find some grounding in the fifth. If we don’t find a way to process and express our second house talents and gifts via the fifth, we will come empty-handed to the eighth.
If our talents and gifts are not expressed in the fifth and shared in the eighth, they will languish in an infantile state and never develop. We will spend our days wondering why we don’t feel fulfilled, either in our life or in our relationships. We need to pass through both the third house of communication and the fourth house of emotional grounding before we arrive at the house of self-expression — and before we express ourselves, there needs to be a healthy awareness of Self to begin with.
The Fifth House and Sexuality
Astrologers tend to forget that the fifth house also pertains to our sexuality. The eighth house is about the active merging of two beings, but the fifth is about how we express our individual sexual energy. Say we have lots of commitment signatures — Saturn on the Descendant, Venus/Saturn, lots of relationship planets in Earth. All well and good, but if we have a Mars/Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in the fifth, we’re still going to be curious, experimental, and most likely a bit kinky.
In the fifth house, our sexual expression is about me. In the eighth, it’s about us — how we are able to merge and re-emerge as a unit. A heavy fifth house prevents the temporary loss of individual Self required to properly engage in the eighth.
If the second and eighth houses are emphasised and there is a debilitated fifth house or ruler, we may be too keen to jump into partnership without knowing our own sexual needs, what we need to feel relaxed and confident, what we need to have a sense of fun and play. Without the fifth, all battles will feel like a battle to the death — because we don’t know how to let go.
The 11th House: What Aquarius Is Doing Here
The 11th house and Aquarius can think it’s above it all — but that’s beside the point. The 11th house is about what’s best for all concerned, and what comes down from Uranus is the wisdom to see that very thing. Unlike Neptune and the 12th, the energy of the 11th and Aquarius is very conscious, very aware. Uranus is about Higher Mind — and its concern is not the individual, but how the individual can best serve the group.
Those nights when the voices unite and the chill runs down your spine, and you feel the presence of something greater running through you — this isn’t the merge and dissolve of the 12th. It’s a union of the individual and the universal.
— Dawn Bodrogi
The theatre is Leonine in its expression, but ultimately it’s about group creativity — an 11th house function. Whatever project is on hand, it has a purpose and a goal. It isn’t about individual egos, but about coming together to serve the work. When it works, everyone feels confident enough to let go of fear, and a strength flows through everyone involved — the kind of other-worldly strength that allows you to perform night after night, through illness, deaths, divorces, and bad reviews. Because it isn’t about you at all.
The Power of the 11th House
Finding this power is the goal of the fixed cross. If the 11th house is debilitated in some way, we may find that neither our lives nor our relationships have purpose. Without the 11th house, our partnerships have nowhere to go. (I find it very interesting that in successful partnerships without children — 5th house — there is a natural gravitational pull towards doing something purposeful together — 11th.) Squares between 8 and 11 may find this tough going. Squares between 2 and 11 may want to serve, but have no idea where to begin.
When we get the pieces of the fixed cross all working together, our lives begin to soar, powered by an ever-present and ever-renewing Source. We no longer feel bankrupt in any sense, but are forever and effortlessly renewed.
I’m told it’s bad Latin, but I will stick with it anyway: Fixius — to put to flight.
See also: Fixed Cross Part Two: The Venus/Mars Polarity
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When we get the pieces of the fixed cross all working together, our lives begin to soar — powered by an ever-present and ever-renewing Source.
Dawn,
Too complicated! I will have to go through this twice again before any of this clicks in my (amateur) head!
But as always, you bring out an unusual perspective, thanks!
Sorry if you got lost, but it’s important to learn to think of astrology in conceptual terms–you’ll never really ‘get’ it unless you do. Each of the modalities–cardinal, fixed, and mutable, whether signs or houses–tell a story. Here the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh houses form the fixed house story in sequence. The two polarities that form the cross (2 and 8, and 5 and 11) create the drama, and it’s up to the squares to those polarities (in essence, the other polarity) to resolve the drama. Once you understand this, and the meaning of the sequence of the houses, you will be able to accurately interpret oppositions and squares in these houses. For example, it’s not enough to simply interpret Venus opposite Pluto in a chart, it has to be put into a framework, an area of operation, and that’s where the houses come in. Once you understand the drama of this polarity, you can see more clearly what the problems are with planetary positions that may occur and have a better idea of ways to resolve them. Houses give planets meaning and context. Aspects only give you a part of the story. The more you understand the ‘stories’ of the house modalities the more easily you will be able to interpret charts on your own.
Dawn – due you notice an order of difficulty relating to the integration of the different angle and house modalities ? -are the succedent houses and fixed angles more difficult to integrate because they involve more outer planetary rulers than the cardinal and mutable angles and houses ?
i also wonder about certain planetary exaltations – Uranus in Scorpio – and Pluto in Leo – seems like those two outer planets almost require the integration of a difficult square in order to be to be put to their highest use…..
Hard aspects between fixed signs or fixed/succedent houses are notoriously difficult to integrate. This is old knowledge, long before the discovery of the outer planets, and it has more to do with the nature of fixity itself. There is a long esoteric explanation for it, but the short version is that cardinal initiates, and fixity must use and form whatever the cardinal mode brings. The mutable energy is meant to disseminate the results.
Each modality has its ‘trap’–with mutables, things can deteriorate into a pointless nervous energy. Cardinals can go sparking off things that have no use or purpose, ending up frustrated and dissillusioned. With fixity, the trap is remaining stuck, never evolving, never forging anything new.
You have a point about the fixed exaltations, but remember that Saturn is exalted in Libra and Mars in Capricorn. It’s an area where the planet is given strength, where it works naturally. I’m actually only comfortable using dignities up to Saturn. The ancient system for dignity was a very complex interweaving, and didn’t take in our three outer planets. My instinct tells me that Pluto makes sense for Leo and possibly Uranus for Scorpio if we understand that the old symbol for Scorpio was in fact, a dragon-like creature and not the symbols (Scorpion, Eagle, Serpent, etc.) we use today.
BRILLIANT ~~~ thank you
I was wondering if you would answer a question for me please. What if I don’t have anything in my second, fifth, eighth or eleventh houses? I have a natal chart and those four houses are empty.
I have Sun (Pisces), Mercury, and Saturn in the 7th, Mars, Uranus, Pluto and the Ascendant (Virgo) in the 1st. Neptune is in the 3rd, the Moon and Venus in the 6th, Taurus in the 9th.
My midheaven in the 10th house is Gemini, which happens to be my mother’s sign (sun sign?).
I appreciate your assistance as I try to make heads or tails of this chart and the odd path I’m traveling through the stars.
Hi Elizabeth–if none of these houses are occupied in your chart, it means that these issues are not a major theme in your life. You have other things to work on. However, no house is entirely ’empty’ because each house has a ruler, and when the rulers of these houses come into strain by transit or progression, these issues can come alive.
Hello Dawn, I’ve been reading your articles during the last 2 days and I have to say that you have the most interesting and profound way to write about astrology. You speak about things that aren’t spoken anywhere else and that is really inspiring for me, it makes me want to study astrology more seriously (I read about this since 2006 but I never took clases or had a teacher).
This fixed cross is very interesting to me, since almost all my planets are in this houses (5, 8 and 11) The 2 is empty, and I feel an urge to merge sometimes, but I feel like I have nothing to give, or it’s not enough in exchange of what I would get…. I also feel like I’m very creative but I have so many Ideas I don’t know how to expres them…
I was going to tell you where those planets are but I think its better to just link my chart :p
http://www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi?cid=bdpfilekFpezG-u1341357803&lang=s&gm=a1&nhor=1&nho2=2&btyp=2&mth=qs&sday=12&smon=7&syr=2012&hsy=0&zod=&orbp=&rs=0&ls=1&add=18&add=20&add=22&ast=
pd: sorry if my english is bad!
Hi, Paula. I wish I had the time to comment on your chart, because I think that focusing on the fixed houses would be key to fixing the things that are frustrating you. Just remember that no house is really ’empty’–all houses have a ruler, and if there are no planets in a house the house ruler takes control. Once you understand what you own, you know what you will bring to the table of life to share with others. We can’t express what is not within us, much as we would wish to.
Hello !
I hope some day you plan to write about the Mutable Crosses too.. :)
It was fun understanding the Cardinal cross and the Fixed cross !
I have written about the mutable cross on this site, though not in the same format as the Fixed Cross article. The journey of the mutable cross is the journey of Mercury and Jupiter and the transformation of information to universal truth. Gemini gathers information, Virgo refines and processes it into knowledge, Sag disseminates the derived truth which then becomes universal wisdom/truth in the 12th house and Pisces. You may find the articles by typing ‘Jupiter, Mercury’ into the search engine on this site.
Wow, great article! You have incredible insights, you have given me new thoughts about my ascendent leo-aquarius polarity and abot my fixed t-square with an empty aquarian leg in the 7th house…But I’m still not sure how to operate the empty leg? It’s difficult to make it stable, let alone fly… Since the 7th house is my biggest problem, I don’t know how to resolve this t-quare…But I guess with aquarian 7th house, focusing on the greater good, the purpose of a relationship might be a solution?
What is the significance if your south node is in the 2nd house and your north node is in the 8th house (with planets in the 5th and 11th)?
I was wondering if you could.answer a question for me…. My mother was born with a cardinal t square in her chart.
My sisters all ended up.with a corner.. How common is this?
what if both my partner and I have fixed grand crosses? my is angular, sun in 7th taurus opposing, scorpio in 1st, crossed by Aquarius in 4th opposing Leo in midheaven. I don’t have an exact birth time for hime, but he has a grand cross with the planets, though I obviously don’t have ascendant or houses for him. He has Saturn in Aquarius opposing Leo in mercury, Pluto in scorpio opposing taurus in mars. I also have Chiron rising. I’d appreciate greatly any insight. I also have a yod and he a grand earth trine and rectangle, without including any asteroids etc. He is a cancer