- House type
- Angular
- Natural sign / ruler
- Aries / Mars
Keywords: Body, appearance, first impression, approach, entry into life
The 1st house begins at the point rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of your birth, known as the ascendant. It is the starting point of the chart, and the whole house system is built from it.
What it describes is not identity but interface: how you come across to the world, what people notice first when you walk into a room, the reflex you bring to a new situation. The Sun describes who you are; the ascendant describes how you are received.
The ruler of this house stands for the chart as a whole. Wherever the ascendant ruler sits, that is where the center of gravity of the life lies. It is the second thing to look at when reading a chart; the first is the trio of Sun, Moon and ascendant.
If the house is empty
Whether it holds planets or not matters little: even when the 1st house is empty, the ascendant ruler is always read.
Other houses
- 2nd house · Resources and value
- 3rd house · Mind and immediate surroundings
- 4th house · Roots and home
- 5th house · Creation and pleasure
- 6th house · Work and routine
- 7th house · Partnership
- 8th house · Shared resources and transformation
- 9th house · Meaning and distant horizons
- 10th house · Career and visibility
- 11th house · Community and the future
- 12th house · Retreat and the unconscious