Fourth Astrological House

In House 1 we just are. In House 2, we discover our unique identity. In House 3, we turn our attention to the outside world and begin to form our opinion about things. During this trip, we gain a sense of who we are, our individuality, our physical body, our mind and our environmental context. As we approach the Fourth Astrological House, it is time to stop and assimilate what we have learned in previous Houses.

Index

Sphere - Family environment
Planet - Moon
Sign - Cancer
Element - Water
Quality - Cardinal
Polarity - Female
Position - Angular
Physiology - Stomach and breasts
Places - House, family tree
Color - Red
Keywords - Home, parents, identity, value system, childhood, inherited patterns, family environment, education

House 4 and the Personal Value System

In House 4, naturally governed by Moon and by Cancer, we face the challenge of putting all the pieces together and integrating them into our own value system, which will become the center of our personality, in our unique identity. Some people continue to make this synthesis throughout their lives, making their value system evolve and integrating the reflections they make based on new learning. Others stop doing it and their personality crystallizes.

Often, we focus more on one aspect of life than another (some people value a professional career more than the family, and vice versa, for example). When we focus on the outside, we lose track of our “I” and fail to pay proper attention to our innermost needs. We cease to nurture our center.

House 4 and Bottom of the Sky in the definition of the personality

The “I” is designated by the sign found in the Bottom of the Sky or Nadir (which symbolizes our roots), and by the planets positioned in the Fourth Astrological House. In this House, we integrate our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and actions into a single system that makes sense to us. The Bottom of the Sky or Imum Coeli and the 4th House also allow us to keep the center of our personality, our value system, stable.

House 4 represents the place where we go when we turn inside ourselves - the most intimate place where our “I” returns to rest before starting new activities.

The 4th House is our base of operations. The place where we find space to analyze events, transform them into experiences, define strategies, and outline modes of action. For this reason, House 4 has been associated with the home, soul and roots of who we are. It is the inner face of our personality. The side we only share with a few people. It is our true nature.

Bottom of the Sky (Imum Coeli or IC), marks the point in the sky immediately below us, at the moment of our birth.

Fourth Astrological House, of Home and Family

The Bottom of the Sky and the 4th House reflect how our origins, our family, influence our personality, our way of being. The planets and signs present in House 4 reveal the environment we live in the home and the type of influence we receive from it. It is our family's psychological heritage. On a deeper level, House 4 reflects all that we have inherited from our roots, from our ancestors.

For example, Saturn in the Fourth Astrological House or Capricorn in the Bottom of the Sky may indicate a cold and distant family environment or a very conservative family. Venus in House 4 or Libra, in the Bottom of the Sky, can mean a loving home and a possible harmony between personality and family tradition. Moon in the 4th house or Cancer at the Bottom of the Sky, suggests a harmonious home, while Uranus in House 4 or Aquarius in Bottom of the Sky, implies the non-identification between the personality and the family context where it grew up in childhood.

House 4 and the Relationship with the Parents

Normally, the influence exerted by parents on our personality is attributed to the axis formed by the 4th - 10th House. The rulership of the Moon meant that the Fourth House was traditionally associated with the Mother while the 10th House (ruled by the planet Saturn and by the sign Capricorn) to the Father.

The experiences we live in childhood, the type of home we grew up in, the relationship we build with our parents or other significant figures, will affect the way we relate to others in the future (friends, partners, children, with our own parents later in life). The image we create of parents is formed in the early stages of life, in childhood, and always accompanies us.

For psychological astrology, the study of the impact of the personality / parents relationship can open the way for the clarification of certain issues or difficulties in relationships or personal frustrations that the individual cannot explain. On the other hand, sometimes it is necessary to dig deep to get to the origin of everything and, from there, deconstruct perceptions that affect us negatively to replace them with others, more positive and that are in harmony with our way of being.

House 4 and the Past

Fourth Astrological House represents our origins but also the way we end things. The way in which we conclude a process or terminate a situation is related to the positions of this House. Venus finishes everything neatly, clean for everyone. Saturn tends to prolong the situation and takes a long time to finish it. Moon and Neptune discreetly move away, Uranus and Mars give themselves away to the fight.

House 4 also suggests the environmental conditions of adult life. The deepest reflections emerge in the mature phase of life. The accumulation of experiences, positive and negative, advancing age, the awareness of our own finitude, or the loss of loved ones, invariably changes our notion of time and of life itself.

Life becomes urgent. There is no time to waste. We can feel an overwhelming desire to make our dreams come true. To buy time. To accomplish what we have not been able to do so far. Life experiences and the reflection made from them can lead to a new stage of self-discovery.

Everything that takes us into ourselves leads us to the energies of House 4. Although we live in the present, with our eyes on the future, our past will always be with us. It is part of our identity, who we are, and our heritage for future generations.