Houses as Roles

[sdi]

I think I'm coming to a realization that the geomantic houses (and, indeed, the figures within them) don't represent people, but rather roles. The seventh house isn't my wife, it's the spousal role. The third house isn't any of my neighbors, it's the neighborly role. The second house isn't my stuff, but the role of possession.

What's the difference? Well, one is that a person may well show up in multiple places in the chart if they play multiple roles. Sometimes this is done with a single figure, but sometimes it is not; for example, one might be distant (Carcer) as a "spouse" (VII house) but cordial (Laetitia) as an "advisor" (II house).

I'm not 100% certain of this yet, but I've been seeing hints at it in some of my charts lately, and it's something I intend to explore more deeply.

Comments

[tunesmyth]

I didn't phrase it to myself in the same way, but this is very similar to how I've viewed divination for a while now. The way I was thinking of it was in terms of there being fated very basic "scripts" which one's astrological indications or divination reflect. If one identifies such a script, in my thinking, though the script is impossible for us to change, it is sometimes possible for us to nudge events through personal choices in such a way that the script gets played out in a different way. I'll attempt to manufacture a silly example: perhaps there is Rubeus in the first house passing to the fifth and sixth. "Oh no!" says the alcoholic geomancer who is trying to reform his ways. "I'll still go to the beach today with my vacation fling, but I definitely won't drink anything when offered." Through force of will, he keeps his word there. However, she entices him into the water and events play out that he is so distracted that he finds himself with a lobster red sunburn over his whole body at the end of it all.

Anyway, though, I have never even thought to limit any person to just being represented by one figure in a chart, and it seems reasonable to me that two figures might sometimes refer to different actions from a single actor-- especially if one spends the day with only one or two people.

[sdi]

I'll attempt to manufacture a silly example, [...]

This isn't silly at all, I've often had something of the kind happen! I think I mentioned back when you started conjunctio that I find my daily charts to be absolute, in that I can't change them... I can only change how they can be expressed. A fifth house Tristitia is never going to be fun, but it sure is great if you're making something. (I keep a few barely-started crochet projects on hand in case I need to mechanically work on something tedious for a while.)

I have never even thought to limit any person to just being represented by one figure in a chart, [...]

I don't think that it was explicitly stated in this way anywhere I've read (like the Art and Practice), so perhaps I just got it stuck in my head that a person is a single figure in a single house unless occupation "extends their reach." But that's the nice thing about practicing daily... you can revise based on what you see happen, and so even if you start off wrong you come around all right in the end, like a roly-poly Daruma doll. I think practicing daily was the most important single piece of advice I got out of the APG.