The Joys of the Figures and Rethinking the Geomantic Houses

[sdi]

Let's bring this discussion of the houses back to geomancy.

(Paging tunesmyth, we're getting back into "grand unified theory" territory. Also, fair warning, my associations of the astrological theories of the past two posts with geomancy are as yet untested, and you should consider them speculative!)

First, I want to discuss the planetary joys, since this is central to the understanding of the scheme presented in the previous post. Traditionally, fundamental to the understanding of the houses was the system of planetary joys, which indicate in which houses the planets rejoice. Chris Brennan goes into quite some detail in his book Hellenistic Astrology, but he also has an article freely available online which covers much the same ground. Briefly, though, each house was associated with a planet believed to have affinity with that house, and these associations are related to the meaning assigned to each of the houses (which I dug into in my previous two posts):

1. The first house was called Helm, since the ascendant steers the horoscope much like the helm of a ship. This is the house of one's consciousness, one's executive capacity, one's ability to steer their own life. This is the joy of Mercury, since He goes between, and the first house goes between the notional heaven and the notional earth. Similarly, the self is central to one's perception of the cosmos, and Mercury is associated with the mind.
3. The third house is called Goddess, since it is the joy of Luna. It is the house of the feminine and represents what you receive: it is where (in your family, in your community, etc.) you are situated, it is the basic understanding you are given along with everyone else (e.g. childhood education, common knowledge), it is listening to others (communication, news, rumor). These are the things you take in and, through the alchemy of life, transform into something new—though we'll get to that shortly when we talk about the triplicities.
5. The fifth house is called Good Fortune, since it is the joy of Venus. It is the house of material blessings, of pleasures of the body (food, drink, sex and children, etc.), luxury, etc.
6. The sixth house is called Bad Fortune, since it is the joy of Mars. It is the house of material troubles: sickness, injury, hunger and thirst, etc. Other martial associations also apply here, too, such as following orders (and, hence, servants, domestic animals, service workers, etc.).
9. The ninth house is called God, since it is the joy of Sol. It is the house of the masculine and represents how one is active: it is what you strive for, it is what you do, it is the ways in which you express. Higher education comes here, as do the arts, philosophy, religion, trained skills, and so on.
11. The eleventh house is called Good Spirit, since it is the joy of Jupiter. It is the house of spiritual blessings: friendships, benefactors, hope, charity, etc.
12. The twelfth house is called Bad Spirit, since it is the joy of Saturn. It is the house of spiritual troubles: sorrow, enmity, despair, patterns one is locked into, etc.

In the same way, the geomantic figures of each planet may be associated with those same houses. (In fact, Pietro d'Abano does exactly this in his fourteenth-century Handbook of Geomancy.) This leaves only the two figures that aren't associated with a planet unaccounted for: Caput Draconis (associated with the ascending node) and Cauda Draconis (associated with the descending node). If you were paying close attention to my previous post, though, there is an obvious placement of these: the second and eighth houses have the exact same association of passing from one side of the ecliptic to the other! So we might associate ascending Caput with the rising second house, and descending Cauda with the setting eighth house. These seem especially apt, as Caput is associated with resources not yet put to use, and Cauda is associated with energies not yet finding expression. Further, the lunar nodes are traditionally considered malefic, due to their association with eclipses, and so "bad" houses would seem to be an appropriate placement for them.

So far, so good. But geomancy doesn't simply use the astrological houses directly: it adds additional layers of meaning, as it adds three special houses (called "the court" and drawn in the center of the chart), and also inter-relates the meanings of certain houses. How do the astrological joys relate, then, to these additional meanings of the geomantic houses?

Let's begin by looking at the four triplicities:

1. I've discussed the first triplicity in the past, and that discussion holds here as well: how you direct (first house) what you have (second house) is, quite literally, what you do (ninth house). Thus the first triplicity is about the self, and the company of the first two houses is about logistics.
2. The company of the second two houses is about domesticity (which should be no surprise, given that Luna's joy is here): how you deal with the basics (third house) in your private affairs (fourth house) is what empowers you to engage in public affairs (tenth house). The second triplicity is therefore social.
3. The company of the third two houses is about materiality: your material fortunes for good (fifth house) or ill (sixth house) are what dictate how high you can rise (eleventh house). Thus the third triplicity is about your state of well-being.
4. The company of the fourth two houses is about things outside of your control: how others (seventh house) interact with things beyond your reach (eighth house) determines the limitations imposed upon you (twelfth house). Therefore the fourth triplicity is about externalities.

In all of these cases, the triplicities feel kind of like little slices of Maslow's hierarchy: getting the material needs of the bottom tiers of the pyramid met allows one to move up and address higher and more spiritual needs. I think it is also notable that the first and third triplicities are both about you, while the second and fourth are about others: this is necessary because of the fractal nature of the chart; if it were not so, then these triplicities could not, themselves, be added together to form the witnesses.

And, speaking of the witnesses:

• The Right Witness is the "greater" you, the Microcosm. It is formed from the union of what you do (ninth house) and where your public life situates you (tenth house). These quite naturally describe what opportunities are available to you, and what capabilities you are able to bring to bear on a situation. Just like the company of the third and fourth houses are "domestic," being Luna's domain, the microcosm is Sol's domain: one's center, one's "little" solar system, one's whole being.
• The Left Witness is the world beyond you, the Macrocosm. It is formed from all of the immediate spiritual influences in your life, blessings and curses alike. (Which makes sense, does it not? Spiritual causes bring about material effects. This is merely saying that the situations you find yourself in are the result of your karma.)

Finally, these in turn give rise to the judge, which is simply the Cosmos, as it is formed by the union of the microcosm with the macrocosm. This brings us full circle: the geomantic shield chart is no less a map of the universe than the astrological horoscope is; but while the astrological chart is oriented directionally (up/down, near/far), the geomantic chart is hierarchical (building from gross materiality up to spirituality and, eventually, to unity). But these two models are related, and one should always use the model more appropriate to the situation at hand.

So, summing all this up, the unified astrological and geomantic charts might look something like this:

VIII ☋ Death	VII Earth	VI ♂ Misfortune	V ♀ Fortune	IV Underworld	III ☽︎ Impression	II ☊ Resources	I ☿ You
XII ♄ Curses		XI ♃ Blessings		X Heaven		IX ☉ Expression
Left Witness Macrocosm				Right Witness Microcosm
Judge Cosmos