The Second House

What you have

The First House is you, arriving. The Second House is everything you carry with you.

It is the coat on your back and the coins in your pocket. It is the tools you work with, the savings you put by, the wage that comes in on a Friday and the bills that take it out again. It is also, astrologers say, something less tangible: the sense of what you are worth, and what you think is worth having.

The Second House is the house of resources: money, possessions, earning, and the values that decide what you hold on to.

It is the house that follows straight on from the First, just below the eastern horizon in the chart. The First House asks who you are. The Second asks what you need in order to keep going, and how you get it. Traditional astrologers called it the house of livelihood, and that old word is still the best summary: not riches as such, but the means of living.

What the Second House rules

Money and earning

This is the house of your own money: what you earn, how you earn it, how you spend it, and whether you hang on to it. It describes your attitude to money as much as your amount of it. Two people with the same income can have very different Second Houses: one saves every spare pound, the other treats money as something to be used while it lasts.

It is specifically your money. Other people's money, shared finances, debts, loans and inheritances belong to the Eighth House, across the chart. The pair is covered under the house's position below.

Possessions

Traditional astrologers called the Second House the house of movable goods: everything you own that can be carried, sold or lost. Land and buildings went to the Fourth House instead. In practice that makes the Second the house of belongings, tools of the trade, clothes, savings and stock.

Resources and talents

Modern astrologers widen "possessions" to include whatever you have to work with: skills, talents, health, time, physical strength. On this reading the Second House describes your natural assets, and how you turn them into a living.

Values and self-worth

The newest layer of meaning, from twentieth-century psychological astrology, is values: what you think is worth having, and by extension what you think you yourself are worth. A strong, comfortable Second House is read as a settled sense of self-worth; a strained one, as worry about having or being enough. This is a modern reading, but it follows naturally from the old one.

The common thread

Everything here is what you rely on to keep going: what sustains you. The First House is the body; the Second is what feeds and clothes it.

The Second House through history

The general story of the houses is told in A Short History of the Houses. This section follows the Second House's own part in it.

The Gate of Hades

The Greek astrologers gave the second place one of the most dramatic names in the system: the Gate of Hades, the gateway to the underworld. The Latin writer Firmicus Maternus, in the fourth century, called it the same, porta inferi, the gate of the lower world.

The name is usually explained by position. The second place lies just beneath the eastern horizon, under the Earth, and it is one of the places that cannot see the rising sign. A planet there is in the dark, below ground, waiting to rise. It is a striking name for the house that later became the house of money, and it is a reminder that the Greek astrologers did not regard this place as an especially fortunate one.

Livelihood

Whatever its name, the Greek astrologers already gave the second place the meaning it has kept ever since: livelihood, the means of life. It covered income, property, and the material support a person depends on. It was associated with what the person acquires, rather than what they are born with.

Lucrum

In the medieval Latin memory rhyme the Second House is lucrum: gain, profit, wealth. The word gives us lucrative, and the meaning has hardly moved in eight centuries.

William Lilly

William Lilly's Christian Astrology (1647) gives the Second House a characteristically practical list: the estate or fortune of the person, their wealth or poverty, all movable goods, money lent, profit and gain, loss and damage. He adds two meanings that show how concrete horary astrology could be. In a lawsuit, the Second House shows the person's friends and assistants; in a private duel, it shows their second, the friend who stood by them.

Lilly gives the Second House the neck and the back of the neck towards the shoulders, and the colour green.

The modern Second House

Twentieth-century psychological astrology kept the money and added values: not just what you own, but what you think is worth owning, and how you value yourself. Many modern books lead with self-worth and treat money as one expression of it. The traditional texts would put it the other way round. This book gives both readings and says which is which.

What has survived

Across two thousand years, the core has barely changed: the Second House is livelihood, the means a person lives by. Only the modern emphasis on self-worth is new.

Where the Second House sits

Below the eastern horizon

In the chart, the Second House lies directly beneath the First, below the eastern horizon. With whole sign houses, it is simply the sign that follows your rising sign: Libra rising gives a Scorpio Second House, Pisces rising gives an Aries one, and so on.

Like the First, it sits in the eastern half of the chart, associated with the self, and in the lower half, associated with private life. Your money is your own affair, and most people keep it that way.

A succedent house

The Second is a succedent house: it follows on from an angle. If the angular houses are where things start, the succedent houses are where they are consolidated and kept. The First House launches the person; the Second gathers what that person needs to keep going. Planets here are considered moderately strong: steadier and slower to show than planets on an angle.

It cannot see the First House

This is the Second House's most distinctive feature in traditional astrology. It sits right next to the First, and next-door signs make no recognised aspect to each other, so the Second House cannot "see" the Ascendant. It is in aversion to it.

The traditional reading is that what the Second House stands for is not entirely under your control. Money comes and goes by its own rules; you cannot simply will it to arrive. A modern astrologer might say the same thing more gently: income depends on effort, but also on markets, employers and luck.

In practice this means a planet in the Second House cannot directly help or harm the Ascendant, and a ruler of the First House placed in the Second is cut off from its own house. Chapter One's entry on the ruler of the 1st in the 2nd covers that case.

The partner: the Eighth House

Directly opposite the Second lies the Eighth House: other people's money, shared resources, debts, inheritances and, in its oldest meaning, death. The axis between them is the axis of mine and ours. The Second is what you earn and own yourself; the Eighth is what comes to you through other people, or what you owe them.

A heavily weighted Second House often points to self-reliance in money matters; a heavily weighted Eighth to finances bound up with a partner, an employer, an estate or a creditor. A planet in either house is read with the other in mind.

The twelve signs on the Second House

The sign on the Second House describes your style with money and possessions: how you earn, how you spend, and what you value. With whole sign houses it is always the sign after your rising sign, so each entry below names the rising sign that produces it.

As with every sign description in this book, these are symbolic tendencies, not forecasts of your bank balance. Read the sign together with any planets in the house and with the house's ruler, covered later in this chapter.

Aries on the Second House

Pisces rising. Money comes through initiative and goes out just as quickly. You earn best when you can act on your own, start something new or compete, and you tend to buy on impulse rather than after long comparison. Earning is something you do, actively, rather than something that happens to you.

• Strengths: enterprise, energy, the courage to back yourself.
• Watch-outs: impulse spending, and losing interest in steady earning once the excitement fades.
• Ruler: Mars.

Taurus on the Second House

Aries rising. A natural fit: Taurus is the sign most associated with possessions and comfort. You build up resources slowly and hang on to them. You prefer quality to quantity, value things you can touch, and dislike financial risk. Security matters more than excitement.

• Strengths: patience, thrift, good judgement of quality and value.
• Watch-outs: possessiveness, and reluctance to spend even when spending would help.
• Ruler: Venus.

Gemini on the Second House

Taurus rising. Money comes through words, ideas, trade and contacts, and often from more than one source at once. You may juggle several jobs or income streams and enjoy the variety. Spending is frequent and small rather than rare and large, and books, gadgets and travel tend to account for much of it.

• Strengths: adaptability, a talent for trade and communication, several strings to your bow.
• Watch-outs: scattered finances, and income that varies from month to month.
• Ruler: Mercury.

Cancer on the Second House

Gemini rising. Money is tied to security and family. You save for a rainy day, hold on to things with sentimental value, and may earn through food, property, care or anything to do with the home. Your sense of financial safety rises and falls with your mood.

• Strengths: prudence, a long memory for what things cost, care for the family's welfare.
• Watch-outs: hoarding, worry about money, and spending to comfort yourself.
• Ruler: the Moon.

Leo on the Second House

Cancer rising. You like money to show, and you are generous with it. You spend on quality, display, entertaining and the people you love, and you may earn through creative work, leadership or anything that puts you in front of an audience. Pride in your possessions runs deep.

• Strengths: generosity, confidence in your own earning power, creative income.
• Watch-outs: extravagance, and spending to impress.
• Ruler: the Sun.

Virgo on the Second House

Leo rising. Money is handled carefully. You budget, keep records, compare prices and dislike waste. You earn through skill, service and attention to detail, and you value what is useful over what is showy.

• Strengths: good management, practical skill, careful saving.
• Watch-outs: anxiety about money, and undervaluing your own work.
• Ruler: Mercury.

Libra on the Second House

Virgo rising. Money comes through partnership, negotiation and anything to do with beauty, design or people. You like to spend on things that are attractive and well made, and you often share resources with a partner. Fairness in money matters is important to you.

• Strengths: taste, diplomacy in business, a talent for earning through cooperation.
• Watch-outs: indecision about spending, and leaning on others financially.
• Ruler: Venus.

Scorpio on the Second House

Libra rising, as in this book's example chart. Money is a private and serious matter. You keep your finances to yourself, prefer to control your own resources, and may earn through research, investigation, finance, medicine or anything that deals with what is hidden. Your relationship with money tends towards all or nothing: long periods of careful accumulation, punctuated by sharp changes.

• Strengths: determination, strategic thinking, resilience after financial loss.
• Watch-outs: secrecy, control, and an urge to hold on too tightly.
• Ruler: Mars in traditional astrology; Pluto in modern astrology.

Sagittarius on the Second House

Scorpio rising. Money is approached with optimism, sometimes too much of it. You may earn through teaching, publishing, travel, law or anything that broadens horizons, and you are generous and willing to take a chance. Money is for living, learning and exploring.

• Strengths: optimism, generosity, an ability to spot opportunities.
• Watch-outs: overspending, gambling on hope, and vagueness about the details.
• Ruler: Jupiter.

Capricorn on the Second House

Sagittarius rising. Money is built slowly and deliberately. You plan for the long term, respect hard work, and often become more financially secure with age. Status and solidity matter: you would rather own one thing that lasts than many that do not.

• Strengths: discipline, long-term planning, earning through responsibility and authority.
• Watch-outs: pessimism about money, and working too hard for security that never feels like enough.
• Ruler: Saturn.

Aquarius on the Second House

Capricorn rising. Your approach to money is independent and unconventional. You may earn through technology, science, groups or causes, or through some line of work that did not exist a generation ago. You are not much moved by status symbols, and you may value principles above possessions.

• Strengths: originality, detachment from materialism, earning through innovation.
• Watch-outs: erratic income, and indifference to practical money matters.
• Ruler: Saturn in traditional astrology; Uranus in modern astrology.

Pisces on the Second House

Aquarius rising. Money slips through the fingers. You may earn through art, music, healing, charity or any work driven by compassion or imagination, and you give freely, sometimes too freely. Material things matter less to you than meaning.

• Strengths: generosity, creative income, a refusal to be ruled by money.
• Watch-outs: vagueness, being taken advantage of, and drifting finances.
• Ruler: Jupiter in traditional astrology; Neptune in modern astrology.

Planets in the Second House

A planet in the Second House brings its own function into the business of earning, owning and valuing. The planet says what is at work; the sign it is in says how; the house says where: in this case, in your finances and possessions.

Two things are worth remembering throughout. First, the Second House cannot see the Ascendant, so traditional astrologers held that planets here act on your resources rather than on you directly. Second, the old distinction between benefics (Venus and Jupiter), malefics (Mars and Saturn) and the luminaries (the Sun and Moon) applies here as everywhere; Chapter One explains it in its section on planets.

Most charts have no planets in the Second House at all. That is normal. It does not mean poverty or indifference to money; it means the house is read through its sign and its ruler.

The Sun in the Second House

With the Sun here, your sense of identity is bound up with what you earn and own. You want your work to pay, and to pay in a way that reflects who you are. Self-esteem rises and falls with your financial position more than you might like to admit. Many people with this placement are determined to be self-supporting.

• At its best: pride in earning your own way, generosity, confidence in your own value.
• Under strain: measuring your worth by your income, and spending to prove a point.
• Tradition: the Sun cannot see the Ascendant from here. Older texts read it as wealth gained and spent on show, and a reputation that depends on money.

The Moon in the Second House

The Moon here links money and feeling. Your finances may rise and fall like the Moon itself, in cycles rather than straight lines, and your sense of emotional security depends closely on material security. You may earn through the public, food, care, property or anything to do with the home.

• At its best: resourcefulness, an instinct for what people need, care with family money.
• Under strain: comfort spending, and anxiety when the money is short.
• Tradition: fluctuating fortunes; the Moon's condition shows whether the tide tends to run in or out.

Mercury in the Second House

Mercury here makes the mind a source of income. You earn through words, numbers, trade, teaching, writing or any kind of skilled communication, and you often think a great deal about money: planning, calculating, comparing. Several sources of income are common.

• At its best: a sharp business sense, versatility, earning through knowledge.
• Under strain: restless finances, and too many schemes at once.
• Tradition: neutral by nature, Mercury takes its colour from the planets it is joined to and the sign it is in.

Venus in the Second House

Venus here is one of the classic indicators of comfortable finances. You attract money and possessions with relatively little strain, enjoy beautiful things, and may earn through art, design, beauty, hospitality or anything that gives people pleasure. You value comfort and quality.

• At its best: ease with money, good taste, earning through charm and creativity.
• Under strain: extravagance, and a love of luxury that outruns the income.
• Tradition: a benefic in the house of wealth, traditionally a sign of gain, especially when Venus is well placed by sign.

Mars in the Second House

Mars here makes earning a battle you are willing to fight. You work hard for your money, go after it actively, and spend it quickly. Income may come through physical work, engineering, competition, sport or any field that rewards energy and nerve. Disputes over money are possible.

• At its best: drive, initiative, a willingness to earn the hard way.
• Under strain: impulsive spending, financial risks, and quarrels over money.
• Tradition: a malefic in the house of wealth, read as money spent as fast as it is earned, or lost through conflict. Considered less harsh in a night chart, where Mars belongs.

Jupiter in the Second House

Jupiter here is the traditional signature of wealth. Opportunities to earn tend to come along, and you are generous with what you have. You may earn through teaching, law, publishing, travel or advice. The danger is not shortage but excess: Jupiter expands whatever it touches, including spending.

• At its best: prosperity, generosity, faith that there will be enough.
• Under strain: overspending, over-borrowing, and assuming the good times will last.
• Tradition: the greater benefic in the house of wealth, one of the strongest traditional indicators of material comfort. Jupiter is also the natural significator of wealth, so this placement doubles the emphasis.

Saturn in the Second House

Saturn here makes money a serious business. You may have known financial hardship or caution early, and you tend to work long and steadily for what you have. Security is built slowly, often only in middle life, but what Saturn builds tends to last. Many people with this placement become careful, capable managers of money.

• At its best: thrift, discipline, durable long-term security.
• Under strain: fear of poverty, meanness, and denying yourself what you could afford.
• Tradition: the greater malefic in the house of wealth, read as poverty, delays and losses, especially in a night chart, where Saturn was considered harder to handle. Modern astrologers stress the slow build rather than the shortage.

Uranus in the Second House

Uranus, discovered in 1781, has no traditional reputation. Here it brings sudden changes in income: unexpected windfalls and unexpected losses. You may earn in unusual ways, through technology, freelance work or new fields, and prefer financial freedom to a steady but restrictive income.

• At its best: inventive ways of earning, independence, adaptability.
• Under strain: erratic finances, and impatience with saving.
• Tradition: none.

Neptune in the Second House

Neptune, discovered in 1846, is a modern addition. In the Second House it blurs the edges of money. You may be generous to a fault, uninterested in material gain, or unclear about where the money goes. You may earn through art, music, film, healing or charity.

• At its best: generosity, creative or spiritual income, freedom from materialism.
• Under strain: confusion about money, vulnerability to scams, and money that seems to evaporate.
• Tradition: none.

Pluto in the Second House

Pluto, discovered in 1930, is likewise modern. Here it makes money a matter of power and control. Financial life may pass through dramatic cycles of loss and rebuilding, and you may be drawn to earn through finance, research, crisis work or other people's resources. Control over your own money matters intensely.

• At its best: resilience, strategic power, the ability to rebuild from nothing.
• Under strain: obsession with security, and power struggles over money.
• Tradition: none.

As in every chapter, the outer planets describe generations by sign. Neptune in Scorpio belongs to everyone born between about 1956 and 1970; Neptune in the Second House belongs to you.

The Lunar Nodes

The Nodes are calculated points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's, always exactly opposite each other. Chapter One explains them in full. Because they are opposite, a Node in the Second House always means the other Node is in the Eighth, so both entries are about the balance between your own resources and shared ones.

North Node in the Second House

The direction of growth is toward self-reliance. You may be used to depending on other people's money, or on shared arrangements, and life asks you to build your own resources and your own sense of worth.

• Modern reading: growth through earning and owning for yourself, with the South Node in the Eighth pointing to dependence on others' resources as the comfortable habit.
• Medieval reading: an increase to wealth and possessions.

South Node in the Second House

Self-reliance and material security come easily, perhaps too easily. With the North Node in the Eighth, growth lies in sharing: joint finances, trust, and letting go of tight control over what is yours.

• Modern reading: growth through sharing and partnership, with holding on to possessions as the comfortable habit.
• Medieval reading: a diminishing point in the house of wealth, read as losses or drains on resources.

The ruler of the Second House

The planet that rules the sign on the Second House is the ruler of the Second. Wherever it sits, that is where your money tends to come from, or where it tends to go. It links your resources to another area of life. This book uses the classical rulers, as your Slogit course does; where a modern ruler differs (Pluto for Scorpio, Uranus for Aquarius, Neptune for Pisces), read it as a second opinion and say which system you are using.

Find the sign on your Second House, look up its ruler in the sign entries above, then find which house that planet occupies.

One extra check, explained in Chapter One: can the ruler see its own house? From the Second House, the four houses that cannot see it are the First, Third, Seventh and Ninth. A ruler placed in one of those is cut off from the house it rules, and traditional astrologers read that as less direct control over money.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 1st

Read more in Chapter One: The First House; compare the ruler of the 1st in the 2nd.

Money comes through your own person: your skills, appearance, energy and personal initiative. You earn by being yourself, and your identity and your income are closely tied. This is the mirror of Chapter One's ruler of the 1st in the 2nd.

• In life: the self-employed, the performer, the person whose name is their business.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests a good earner on your own terms; weak suggests money spent on yourself as fast as it comes.
• Note: the First cannot see the Second, so the old texts read this as money that depends on your efforts but is not always within your control.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 2nd

The ruler is at home in its own house. Your finances are self-contained and self-sustaining: money tends to make money, and you manage your own resources with confidence.

• In life: the saver, the investor, the person who builds steady wealth.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests secure finances; weak suggests money that circulates but never quite accumulates.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 3rd

Read more in Chapter Three: The Third House.

Money comes through communication, writing, teaching, trade, local business, transport, or brothers and sisters. You may earn through words or travel, or from several small sources close to home.

• In life: the writer, the teacher, the salesperson, the courier, the family business with siblings.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests earning through skill with words; weak suggests money spent on travel and communication.
• Note: the Third cannot see the Second.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 4th

Read more in Chapter Four: The Fourth House.

Money comes through home, family, land and property. You may inherit, earn from property, work from home or in a family business, and your finances are tied up with where you live.

• In life: the landlord, the estate agent, the family firm, the person whose wealth is in their house.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests security through property; weak suggests family needs absorbing income.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 5th

Read more in Chapter Five: The Fifth House.

Money comes through creativity, entertainment, children, pleasure or speculation, and goes on them too. You may earn from art, performance, sport or play, and you enjoy spending on the good things of life.

• In life: the entertainer, the artist, the investor who enjoys the risk.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests profit from creative work; weak suggests losses through gambling or indulgence.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 6th

Read more in Chapter Six: The Sixth House.

Money comes through daily work, service, routine and employment. You earn steadily through skill and effort, often working for others, and health or working conditions affect income.

• In life: the employee, the craftsperson, the health worker, the person who earns by the hour.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests reliable income from skilled work; weak suggests hard work for modest return, or health costs.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 7th

Read more in Chapter Seven: The Seventh House.

Money comes through partners, clients, contracts and other people. You may earn through a business partnership, a marriage, consultancy or negotiation, and your finances are closely bound up with someone else's.

• In life: the consultant, the agent, the business partner, the couple who run a firm together.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests profitable partnerships; weak suggests money lost to rivals, disputes or a partner's spending.
• Note: the Seventh cannot see the Second.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 8th

Read more in Chapter Eight: The Eighth House.

Your own money flows into shared money, or comes from it: inheritance, a partner's income, loans, investments, insurance, tax. You may earn by managing other people's resources.

• In life: the financial adviser, the accountant, the banker, the heir.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests gain through legacies or joint finances; weak suggests debts, or money tied up in other people's affairs.
• Note: this is the Second's own partner house, directly opposite, so the two are in full view of each other.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 9th

Read more in Chapter Nine: The Ninth House.

Money comes through higher learning, travel, law, publishing, religion or foreign connections. You may earn abroad, from overseas trade, or through teaching and ideas.

• In life: the lecturer, the publisher, the lawyer, the importer, the person who works abroad.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests earning through expertise and wide horizons; weak suggests money spent on travel and education.
• Note: the Ninth cannot see the Second.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 10th

Read more in Chapter Ten: The Tenth House.

Money comes through career, reputation and public standing. Income rises with status, and you may earn from a position of authority or a public role. This is one of the strongest positions for the ruler of the Second, since the Tenth is an angle.

• In life: the professional, the manager, the public figure, the person whose pay reflects their rank.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests wealth through career success; weak suggests income vulnerable to a fall in standing.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 11th

Read more in Chapter Eleven: The Eleventh House.

Money comes through friends, networks, groups, patrons and benefactors. Contacts open doors, and you may earn through organisations, societies or audiences. Hopes and plans for the future often involve money.

• In life: the networker, the fundraiser, the member of a profitable group, the person with a generous patron.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests gain through friends; weak suggests money spent on, or lost through, others.

Ruler of the 2nd in the 12th

Read more in Chapter Twelve: The Twelfth House.

Money is tied to what is hidden, private or institutional. You may earn behind the scenes, in hospitals, prisons, charities or large institutions, or through solitary work. Finances may be kept very private, or be hard to keep track of.

• In life: the researcher, the carer, the charity worker, the person who works alone.
• Strong or weak: strong suggests quiet, steady income from institutional work; weak suggests hidden losses or money drained away unnoticed.
• Note: the Twelfth can see the Second (they are two signs apart, a sextile), but the Twelfth was traditionally the most difficult house in the chart.

The Second House beyond the birth chart

Natural significators

Two factors stand for wealth in every chart, whichever house they fall in.

• Jupiter, the greater benefic, is the natural significator of wealth and abundance. A well-placed Jupiter supports the Second House even from elsewhere in the chart.
• The Part of Fortune is a calculated point, not a planet. It is worked out from the positions of the Sun, Moon and Ascendant, and traditional astrologers read it as an indicator of material fortune and the body's welfare. Its sign, house and ruler are read alongside the Second House.

Venus, as the planet of pleasure and possessions, is sometimes added as a third.

Horary astrology

In a horary chart, the Second House is the money and movable possessions of the person asking. It is the house for questions such as "Will I get the pay rise?", "Is this investment sound?" and "Where is my lost ring?", since lost belongings are the querent's movable goods. The astrologer watches the ruler of the Second and its relationship with the ruler of the First, which represents the person asking.

In Lilly's day, as noted in the history section, the Second also showed a person's helpers in a lawsuit, and their second in a duel.

Mundane astrology

In charts for nations, the Second House is the country's wealth: its revenue, treasury, trade, banks and economic resources. Mundane astrologers look here for budgets, booms and financial crises.

Electional astrology

When choosing a moment to start a business, sign a financial agreement or make a major purchase, electional astrologers strengthen the Second House and its ruler, and keep the malefics away from it. A benefic in the Second, or a strong ruler of the Second in a good house, is the traditional aim.

When the Second House switches on

Chapter One explains the two timing methods used in this book: annual profections and transits. Here they are applied to the Second House.

Profection years

The Second House is activated in the year beginning on your birthday at these ages:

1, 13, 25, 37, 49, 61, 73, 85

In those years money, possessions, earning and values come to the fore. The ruler of your Second House sign becomes the lord of the year: in the example chart, with Scorpio on the Second, that is Mars.

Transits through the Second House

• Jupiter (about a year): a time of opportunity and growth in income, and sometimes of overspending.
• Saturn (about two and a half years): a time of budgeting, belt-tightening and building long-term security. Hard while it lasts; solid afterwards.
• Uranus (about seven years): changes in how you earn, sudden gains and losses, a new relationship with money.
• Neptune (about fourteen years): money matters become vague, idealistic or confused; values may shift towards the non-material.
• Pluto (twelve to thirty years): a deep transformation of resources and values, often through loss and rebuilding.

The example chart through the years

In the 1955 Bangor chart the Second House is Scorpio, and it already holds the Sun, Mercury and Saturn. Here is every period between birth and today when a slow planet was in Scorpio.

The pattern is striking. Three slow planets crossed this house one after another, and between them they passed over the natal Sun and Saturn several times:

• Saturn was already there. Natal Saturn is in Scorpio. Transiting Saturn left the sign two months after birth, returned for the summer of 1956, and then did not come back until its return.
• Neptune filled the childhood years. Neptune entered Scorpio in 1957 and stayed until 1970, from age 1 to 14. It crossed the natal Sun between December 1966 and October 1967, at age 11.
• Uranus followed from late 1974 to 1981, ages 19 to 26. It crossed the natal Sun between December 1979 and September 1980, at age 24.
• The Saturn return. Saturn came back to Scorpio in November 1982 and crossed its own natal degree between December 1984 and September 1985, at age 29. This is the classic first Saturn return, and in this chart it falls in the house of money.
• Pluto came next, from late 1983 to 1995, ages 28 to 39. It crossed the natal Sun and Saturn between November 1992 and October 1993, at almost exactly the same time as the profection year at age 37, which began in November 1992.
• The second Saturn return came in October 2014, at age 58, with Saturn in Scorpio from October 2012 to September 2015.

An astrologer would read the years from about 19 to 40 as a long period of change in how this person earned, owned and valued things, with the sharpest points at 24, 29 and 37. Whether that matches the life is, as ever, for the person who lived it to say.

Worked example: Bangor, 16 November 1955

The example chart is the same one used throughout the book: 03:00 GMT on 16 November 1955, Bangor, with Libra rising. It is a night chart. Here is its Second House, read with the eight steps from the contents page.

Step 1: the sign on the house

With Libra rising, the Second House is Scorpio. Scorpio on the Second suggests money handled seriously and privately, a preference for controlling your own resources, and an all-or-nothing relationship with possessions: long stretches of careful accumulation, punctuated by sharp change.

Step 2: planets in the house

This house is crowded. Three planets occupy it:

• The Sun at 22°58′ Scorpio. Identity is bound up with earning and owning.
• Saturn at 23°42′ Scorpio, less than a degree from the Sun. Money is serious business, security is built slowly, and responsibility comes early.
• Mercury at 12°22′ Scorpio. The mind is a source of income: research, words, analysis.

Three planets in one sign is sometimes called a stellium, and it puts heavy emphasis on the house. In this chart, resources and their management are a central theme of the life.

Under Placidus houses all three planets are still in the Second House, and Neptune joins them from the end of Libra; see the comparison in A Short History of the Houses.

Step 3: the ruler and where it sits

Scorpio's classical ruler is Mars. Mars sits at 21°37′ Libra in the First House, alongside Neptune. So the ruler of the Second is in the First: money comes through the person's own efforts, initiative and presence. Earning is something done personally and actively.

But the First House cannot see the Second. Traditionally, that means the effort does not always translate directly into money: the person works hard on their own account, but the reward comes by its own route and its own timetable.

The modern ruler of Scorpio is Pluto, at 28°33′ Leo in the Eleventh House, joined to Jupiter. A modern astrologer would add that money is bound up with friends, groups, networks and audiences. Both readings are worth noting, as long as you say which one you are using.

Step 4: the condition of the planets

• Mars, the ruler, is in Libra, its sign of detriment, where it works through persuasion rather than force. In its favour, Mars belongs to the night, so in a night chart it is in its element.
• The Sun has no traditional dignity in Scorpio: neither strengthened nor weakened by the sign.
• Saturn is neither dignified nor debilitated by sign, but it is contrary to sect: Saturn belongs to the day, so in a night chart traditional astrologers considered it harder to handle. It is also so close to the Sun that it is invisible in the Sun's glare, a condition called combustion, which older texts read as weakening a planet. Combustion is an optional traditional layer, and your course has not yet introduced it.
• Mercury is neutral in Scorpio, and about ten and a half degrees from the Sun, close enough to be called under the Sun's beams: a milder version of the same hiding.
• The house itself is in aversion to the Ascendant, so none of these three planets can see the First House. The Sun, the core of the identity, is hidden from the person's outward manner. That echoes Chapter One's worked example, which found a friendly Libran surface over a more intense and private core.

Step 5: aspects

This book uses a 6° orb for the major aspects, the default allowance in the Slogit Birth Chart Studio.

• The Sun conjunct Saturn (44′ apart). The tightest aspect in the chart: identity, duty and money bound tightly together.
• The Sun square Pluto (5°35′) and Saturn square Pluto (4°51′). Pluto in the Eleventh pulls against the Second House: tension between private security and large ambitions involving groups or the public.
• Jupiter, also in the Eleventh, squares the Sun and Saturn by sign, but at 6°56′ and 6°12′ it is just outside a 6° orb. Some astrologers would count it; under this book's rule it is a background influence rather than a full aspect.
• Mercury makes no major aspect to another planet within 6°, and a planet without such aspects is often read as working on its own: here, a mind that earns in its own independent way. It does, however, sextile the Part of Fortune (3°20′), the point it rules; see step 6.

Step 6: natural significators

• Jupiter, the natural significator of wealth, is in Leo in the Eleventh House, one of the best houses in the chart. It sits right at the end of Leo, at 29°54′.
• The Part of Fortune is at 15°43′ Virgo in the Twelfth House. Its ruler is Mercury, which sits in the Second. So the traditional point of material fortune leads straight back to Mercury in the house of money: fortune tied to the mind, to research and to words.

Step 7: timing

The profection years are 1, 13, 25, 37, 49, 61 and 73, with Mars as lord of the year. As the timeline in the previous section showed, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto crossed Scorpio one after another between 1957 and 1995, with the Saturn return at 29 and Pluto's pass over the Sun and Saturn at 37.

Putting it together

An astrologer might sum up this Second House like this:

Money and resources are a serious, private and central matter in this life. The person's identity is bound up with what they earn and build (the Sun in the Second), and security comes slowly, through responsibility and sustained effort (Saturn with the Sun). Income comes through personal initiative (the ruler, Mars, in the First), often through the mind, research and words (Mercury in the Second, ruling the Part of Fortune). But the effort and the reward do not line up neatly: the house cannot see the Ascendant, and the ruler cannot see the house. The central tension is between building private, self-controlled security and the pull of larger ambitions involving groups and audiences (Pluto and Jupiter in the Eleventh, squaring the Sun and Saturn). The years from about 19 to 40 are likely to have been the main period of financial change, and of change in values.

As in Chapter One, notice that the synthesis uses the contradictions. The friendly surface and the hidden core found in the First House turn up again here, in money terms: steady effort, private reserves, and a reward that arrives on its own schedule.

The Second House at a glance

Further reading

• Deborah Houlding, The Houses: Temples of the Sky (1998). Especially good on how the Second House's meaning developed.
• William Lilly, Christian Astrology (1647). Book One for the house meanings; Book Two for horary questions about money and lost goods.
• Chris Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology (2017). The Greek places, including the Gate of Hades.
• Howard Sasportas, The Twelve Houses (1985). The modern reading of values and self-worth.