1st House

Looking in the mirror

The first house in astrology is considered to be the great beginning—the initial gateway our souls take to understand ourselves in this incarnation; a connection with who we are at a very primal level.

If one reads the houses as a grand astrological journey from birth until death, the first house is the first stop, taken by tiny babies. After birth, our souls have chosen this body and this life, exploring the very beginning of understanding what it means to be. "Who am I?" The Ascendant, the left-most line in the birth chart which marks the beginning of the first house, is the initial point in our journeys.

Who we all are

Astrologically speaking, this is a bright, assertive, and active house associated with the sign of Aries. It is a place where we can connect with our authentic way of being and learn to share that with the world. Natives with heavy first-house influence are on a quest to understand themselves on a deep level and share this knowledge with the universe at large.

Think of this house as a cozy, inviting, and pioneering home out on the plains, where the owner has taken up residence in the world, making a stand for oneself. There is defiance of the way the rest of the world works and a determination to be oneself no matter the circumstances or the odds. In this determination lies great strength against the tides of the world. First-house heavy individuals know that by being true to themselves, they are most in line with their purpose.

House of the self

These natives are strong, relentless in their pursuit of authenticity, and readily share themselves with the world. The search for self, while not always a conscious process, as an ongoing one here.

If the chart shows a number of afflicted aspects to planets in the first house, especially squares from the fourth, then the quest for self can be much more troublesome and arduous, or it can highlight narcissistic tendencies. These unfortunate individuals tend to see everyone they meet as extensions of themselves. The danger of the first house influce in these individuals is a lack of empathy when they see other people who are struggling. Not exactly a glowing endorsement of this energy, is it?

The good news is that this is an uncommon presentation of the energies here, however, and the majority of first house-heavy individuals express the positive traits of this placement. Confident, bold, honest and direct, like a solar Aries, first house individuals know who they are. In the end, the native always finds their way back to their true home—a pioneer in the wild.