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When I last wrote about the houses, I conceived them as starting with the querent and working outward in distance as we went around the chart. That worked well enough, but I've been starting to properly study astrology and it occurs to me that I really missed the obvious. (Well, maybe not so obvious to us moderns; but at least literal.)

A horoscope is constructed of two main axes, the horizontal and the vertical. In astrology, this is quite literal: the horizontal axis is the ground, and the vertical axis stretches from heaven above to the underworld below, with earth sitting on the horizon itself. So the upper houses of the horoscope (VIII through XII) are literally spiritual (where everything happens but has no form), while the lower houses of the horoscope (II through VI) are literally material (where nothing happens but everything has form), and we human beings live on the boundary between the two. What's more, the earth is constantly rotating, and this causes the ascendant (and therefore the houses) to rotate as well: so the eastern houses (I, II, III, XI, XII) are rising—in a sense, coming towards you, and consequently near—while the western houses (V through IX) are setting—in a sense, going away from you, and consequently far away. These all relate to oppositions: going 180° around the chart, you flip from material to spiritual and from near to far (or vice versa).

That gives us the angles, but what about the rest of the houses? Well, astrology is also intimately tied to aspect: the III, V, IX, and XI are in aspect (trine or sextile, as the case may be) to the ascendant, and so are considered to be working with the querent and therefore good; while the II, VI, VIII, and XII are not in aspect to the ascendant, and so are considered to be working at cross purposes to the querent and therefore bad.

So when you add all these up, what do you get?