All matters that are more or less hidden from the public, se­crets, mysteries, governments or large corporations, institu­tions, hospitals, prisons, inhibitions, third "health house" for serious illnesses, boarding schools, convents, hidden contrac­tual matters, detective work, espionage, research.

The first six zodiac houses are called the personal houses. They rule our private and immediate lives: individuality, our daily environments, our siblings and peers, parents, and our attempts to define and express who we are. A person whose chart has lots of planets in the first six houses may have trouble leaving the nest, or may remain nostalgically loyal to childhood friends. Houses 7-12 are the interpersonal houses If you have houses with no planets, that doesn’t mean that you were born with some sort of cosmic deficit. Consider that throughout the year, planets move through all the houses. There’s always action going down. Even if your fifth house Libra has no natal occupants, what could the current presence of Mars spell out for you? If you have an empty house, look to where its planetary ruler is. Maybe your 12th house Cancer is vacant, but Cancer’s ruler, the moon, is in your second house Virgo. What is the connection between those signs? What other planets does your moon interact with? There’s always plenty of context to work with.

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This house includes social foundations (as opposed to personal home foundations in the 4th), recognition, personal achievements, social responsibilities, sense of duty, authority figures, politicians. This House encompasses the most public areas of one's life, and the career that you grow into, as opposed to daily work and odd jobs ruled by the 6th House. But it wasn’t until the 1960s and 1970s that modern astrologers popularized the “natural chart” as the primary basis for interpreting house meanings. Considering that so much of astrology’s foundational theory had been lost, it made sense. The horoscope (hora=hour, scope=picture) represents the planetary positions at the time of a person's birth. Beyond its most common association with career, the 10th House is how we present in public: are we dynamic, admired, resented, scandalized? Whether for good or for bad, this house is a place of high visibility, and with visibility comes admiration - or condemnation. The business of this house is to take the pre-existing 4th House foundations and build towards an independent public profile, cobbled together through our actions and interactions.

How the Sun moves through the sky during the day (in other words, how the Earth turns), forms the basis for house meanings. Audre Lord said it best: "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." This is a part of the chart best negotiated via deep-trawling techniques like Jungian therapy and Shamanic healing, or at the minimum, with a worthy psychopomp-cum-vizier by your side.As with the 4th House, astrologers are divided over whether the 10th House rules one's mother or father. Those that say the 4th House rules the mother, say the 10th House rules the father, and vice versa. What is clear is that the 4th House rules the nurturing, home-body parent, while the 10th House rules the public, success-focused parent (the parent who "wears the pants").