Do you have a tenth house Sun placement? How about other planets?
How does this express itself for you?
If a person has a goal and is determined to achieve it, a 10th house placement can work well for them…but if they don’t, they may feel they haven’t achieved enough or have, consciously or not, set standards for themselves they can’t possibly live up to. They may imagine a harder landing, should they fail or fall from grace. This is, after all, the house allotted to Capricorn and its Saturn rulership, traditionally the house of the ‘father,’ and in olden times, ‘the king’. [Some see it in reverse, that it’s the house of the ‘mother’ and the 4th (Moon/Cancer) is the father, although I haven’t personally found this to work as well. Let’s call it even and say this is the polarity of the parents, either of which can be dominant in our psyche.]
The cusp of the 10th, the midheaven, is where we find ourselves looking down from the top of the mountain peak at what we’ve experienced up to this point (often at mid-life) and either saying, ‘wow, I’ve been through a lot, learned a lot, made a lot of money or become a better/more mature person as a result’, or, ‘I’ve done all this stuff, had all these different careers that haven’t amounted to anything and life ain’t getting any shorter,’ depending on whether the cup is seen as half full or half empty. Even the term ‘a-mounted to’ is very Capricorn mountain goat language!
But the tenth house has another secret. In Tarot, 10 is the Wheel of Fortune, which is based on the zodiac wheel. We see one character going up, another sitting pretty at the midheaven, another going down, and another at the bottom, at all the angles. A metaphor for life’s ups and downs, successes and failures, but also of time cycles and of the houses themselves, which are angular, succedent, or cadent. In the Tarot card above, the figures are saying, “I reign, I reigned, my reign is finished, I shall reign.”
The angular houses are strongest, cadent (fallen away from the angular placement) are weakest, and succedent (next in line to the angular position) enjoy the hope of success/succession. [This is perhaps easiest to comprehend when using the equal house system, which evenly divides the wheel into 12 pie slices, one for each sign, beginning with one’s rising sign/degree, but personally I don’t use equal house.]
Technically speaking, the house moves into the position of the house that was formerly in that position, not the sign or planets, i.e., transiting Mars will be in Gemini at a certain degree all day, but in a different house every hour. The houses, though paired with particular signs/planets and spoken of as a conglomerate, are actually separate entities.
The 11th house of ‘hopes, dreams, wishes, groups’ (allotted to Aquarius/Saturn and Uranus) is where we can perhaps look for help with our 10th house issues. You will notice the succedent houses are all ‘fixed’ sign placements. Thus they have a certain steadfastness, while the angular (cardinal), though strongest in terms of influence, have that built in ‘fear of falling’, just like anyone in a position of power might. Caution: some viziers make better allies than others.
And although cadent (mutable) houses tend to be shoved aside, as if nothing much happens herein, there can be a certain freedom from expectation in these houses that may also be utilized (true, Virgo seems the exception, but will often find freedom in under-the-radar, detailed tasks such as organizing files). The 0 in 10 is, after all, associated with the Fool, who creates his path as he goes along, unattached to outcome. He was the only medieval court member who could openly roast the king, thus reminding the monarch we all fall down, and 10th house achievers that the journey is really what it’s all about, ‘on arrive jamais‘. Sagittarius is allotted to 9th house as jester, highest card in the deck, with none of the responsibilities of a king, yet somehow lucky enough to have Jupiter as its ruler. Hmm. Faith?
Caution: Some fools may be a tad nihilistic and reckless.
Further proof of this ‘power of three’ lies in the fact that every grand trine is composed of an angular, succedent and cadent house of the same element. Being ‘all for one and one for all’, grand trine energy can flow so easily and fast as to not even notice it’s happening.
So if your Sun or other lofty 10th house planets are feeling alone at the top or afraid of falling, look to either side of them, at your 11th (succedent/fixed) house vizier and 9th (cadent/mutable) house fool for a different perspective from planets therein or friends/people with their sun in these signs, who can ‘act as’ planets. Keep in mind that the 10th house planet/sign is still the one ultimately in charge and can make things happen, it just needs support, sometimes – is it being supported or sabotaged? This goes for all the angular houses, but especially the 10th.
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