Skyscript Astrology Forum

While I was browsing through my collection of charts it occurred to me that siblings who grew up in the same house, typically have different themes and energies regarding the 4th house in their respective charts. To me, this indicates that a sibling can have a different subjective experience of their home life compared to another sibling, no problem here. I can understand how that works. However what troubles me is how can one draw objective conclusions about the parents and maybe even the physical home itself from the condition of the 4th house when it comes to looking at siblings charts? Afterall, assuming that both siblings have the same parents, grew up in the same home and had a relatively stable upbringing then how is it possible that one sibling's chart could say one thing about the nature/appearance of the parents, and another siblings chart say something different?

I always assumed it was possible to be able to say something concrete about a person's living conditions and possibly even the parent's physical appearance/personality by looking at their 4th house (since you can usually do this with the other houses like the 11th, 3rd, 7th or 5th house), however now I am beginning to suspect that in some cases, the houses only represent the individuals subjective experience of the topics associated with that house, and you may be unable to glean objective details from it. What is your alls opinion on this?

(I want to add that since I switched to traditional astrology a few years ago, perhaps I am missing one of the major fundamentals when it comes to how natal charts are supposed to be interpreted.)

I think this is a big issue in astrology. As one of three siblings and the mother of two adult children, I think we are really looking at experience more than at reality. Obviously if you had the entire family's charts for comparison, you could possibly sort out the commonalities.

Mind you, some astrologers are more skillful, knowledgeable, and intuitive than others. They are able to make accurate interpretations that the rest of us would miss. Also, with many questions, we have to think about timing.

I also think we have to dig deeper than the most popular meanings of a given planet, house, or sign. For example, I have Sagittarius on my IC, with Jupiter in the 4th in Capricorn (Placidus.) One might think that I spent my childhood overseas, or that it involved international travel. Actually no-- because children have little choice about where they live. I grew up in the same house until I was old enough to move out. But it was a house full of books (Jupiter), and where achievement (Capricorn) was valued. As a more autonomous adult, I did move several times, and currently live in Canada (not the US, where I was born.)

I would say that the Natal chart is a map of a person's subjective reality. It is their paradigm.

I wouldn't expect 3 kids growing up in the same house to have the same evaluative experience.

When someone's parent is old and their health is failing and a bunch of relatives convene and discuss said parent, there are often many revelations for the exact reason given above. It was the same parent (or home, etc.) and yet each one sees it through their own eyes measured through their own experience, etc.

An example...

A: "Dad always was too strict."

B: "I didn't think Dad was that strict!"

A: "That's because you were always his favorite! You could get away with anything and usually did!"

It's the same Father, but the way they experienced them was diametrically opposed. The astrological differences in the Natal charts should account for this difference in perspectives. (if the birth times are correct)

This is one of the problems with trying to read absolutes from the chart. You're NOT seeing the Father as he IS, you are seeing him as he was "experienced"... ie. subjectively much more than objectively

AstroNovice wrote:Afterall, assuming that both siblings have the same parents, grew up in the same home and had a relatively stable upbringing then how is it possible that one sibling's chart could say one thing about the nature/appearance of the parents, and another siblings chart say something different?

Don't forget that Valens says that some charts are more "chrematistikos" than others. That word means both "busy" and "telling" and in the latter sense one needs to realize that the chart will often speak about some things to one sibling and other things to another about the same subject (parents). Sometimes a chart has much to say about ones parents or just one of them and not much about the other. Of course there is the relationship/subjective issue as well, but think of a chart as an advisor where the advisor only has so much time to talk about a subject and decides what is most important for that person to hear about that subject.

For instance on the issue of my mother, I have Moon in Gemini 8th and the topic says "death of the mother" and I puzzled over it for some time because it looked like a nonsensical statement (everybody's parents die sooner or later) until I understood that I was supposed to see that as a sign to ask for when and with the descendant at 1 Taurus, Moon at 9 Gemini, mom passed at age 38 which are the number of degrees between the years 1961 and 1999. Also a ZR performed upon the Moon comes to Saturn in 8th from Gemini (Capricorn) in 1999. Why did the chart decide to tell me this and not my sister? Well, the both did but in different ways, but the statement to me was more perspicuous (chrematistikos).

Hi,

I would suggest looking at the two Lots of the parents in each child's chart and start comparing. That is, compare the Lot of the Mother in the charts of each of the siblings. The Lots of the parents distinguish the mother and father, and bring out lots of interesting details you could never get from the 4th house alone.

In my experience, the Lots of the parents do reflect a particular child's experience, but it is not merely subjective--the Lots do describe objective realities about who the parent is as well. Focus on (1) the house where the Lot is located, (2) the nature and location of the lord of the Lot, and (3) the closest aspect to the lord. This should give you a good sketch of who the parent was, particularly for that child. For instance, maybe the Lot of the mother in one child's chart is in the 6th, but for the other sibling the lord of the Lot is in the 6th--both of these would reflect a key 6th house feature of the mother's life and what that meant to the children, such as being sick, having surgeries, long-suffering, etc. And often the most obvious and in-your-face meanings of the houses and planets are the most relevant.

I just released an MP3 audio workshop on Lots that gives many examples of different Lots (including the Lots of the parents), though I don't do any family studies in it.

Best,
Ben Dykes

This is a very interesting idea and worth researching.
I tried out the lots of mother and father in horoscope of two siblings.

JFK:
Part of father- in sagittarius: is Jupiter in taurus in 8th- conjunct Algol and the part of father is 6th from 10th.
Father exalted in child's authority or did everything to get his son elected but was shunned by his son - the President.

Ted Kennedy:
Part of father in Sagitt- Jupiter retro in 7th squaring MC.

family name hindered as well as helped(Jupiter trine to the part of father).Father not there to promote him.

Part of father is squared by Sun.

PD

Very helpful posts, Curtis and Ben! And thankfully I had the foresight to post previously to yours:

Mind you, some astrologers are more skillful, knowledgeable, and intuitive than others. They are able to make accurate interpretations that the rest of us would miss. Also, with many questions, we have to think about timing.

Thanks waybread and atlantean for sharing your experiences/thoughts, what you all said helped reinforce what I initially suspected, glad to see im not the only one who thought that haha.


@ zoidsoft

yeah that answer actually makes perfect sense, I have heard you mention that concept before but I never really grasped how it could actually play out until now.

@ ben

will do, I haven't really played around with the lots much up until now, I would say that I saw them as about as helpful as asteroids. (dont flame me ) I mean, they just seem so arbitrary and "imaginary", but apparently there must really be something to them. I'll definitely have to check it out.

Astronovice:

I know what you mean. I think there are two main reasons why Lots are overlooked. (1) There is little consistency in the texts (even in medieval works) as to what they mean and why they are different from houses. Many authors just mix them into a general stew along with all sorts of other things, so their importance is blurred. I try to address this in my workshop. Also, (2) the Lots are often thought of only as occupying a particular degree, so it seems you have a lot of little, trivial points sprinkled around the chart.

But Lots express relationships between significators that already mean something (such as the Sun and Saturn for the father), which are then personalized by being cast off the Ascendant (in most cases). And they are understood mainly to occupy an entire house, so that you can immediately start interpreting them by house and lord, etc. I think they also provide interesting commentary about our subjective (but not merely subjective) experience of various topics, how we are "thrown into" these situations and relationships with people. So please do try them out!

Very informative, Ben.

Would you use this Arabic parts calculator? http://libracentre.com/arabic_parts_chart.php

I notice that it uses modern planets, and not a lot of distinction between day and night births. Then again, Al Biruni had all kinds of "fortunes", including for watermelons and chickpeas.

waybread wrote:Very informative, Ben.

Would you use this Arabic parts calculator? http://libracentre.com/arabic_parts_chart.php

I notice that it uses modern planets, and not a lot of distinction between day and night births. Then again, Al Biruni had all kinds of "fortunes", including for watermelons and chickpeas.

Because, finding a watermelon in a desert is indeed a fortune.It has sugar and most of all, a lot of water.

And some thought went into it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickpea#History

Chickpeas:

Ancient people also associated chickpeas with Venus because they were said to offer medical uses such as increasing sperm and milk, provoking menstruation and urine and helping to treat kidney stones.[4]

and so does Venus find a place in the part of chick-peas:

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/alparts.html

Chick peas Asc + Sun - Venus R

PD

Hi, everyone!

I had a phase a few years ago when I tried to get as many charts of twins as I could and treat myself with, what I thought was going to be both educational /constructive and fun project. However, I soon had to abandon the whole idea (or to focus only on that and toss away all other charts) because, not only was it an exhausting project but it was also an almost impossible one. Regardless of the fact that all charts I collected belonged to people whom I knew, when it came to this problematic (similar charts, different influences), I figured that i needed much more than to just know the person for 15 years. 95% answers that were necessary for such an adventure were still missing. I'd have to ask these people at least a zillion more questions in order to make a sound conclusions about a single aspect.
A similar (although, almost diametrically opposite) thing happens with charts of siblings, as you pointed out- different charts, same family. What now?

As waybread has already rightly pointed out - the keyword is often "experience". To this, I could add another variation of the same word- "experiental". As someone once said- the reality is only the state of things as they appear to us . The charts of two siblings will inevitably show them as two different entities who are most likely (or definitely) to experience the same phenomenon in a different manner. To a certain extent, this applies even to twins born only minutes apart. Obviously, we also have to consider the fact that the same potential does not necessarily evolve equally in two different entities and that, whilst one person may use a specific characteristic to its full potential, another one may leave it untouched and allow it to become almost extinct. Unless she actually turns it into a frustrating obstacle.

So, how do we apply this to things that seem solid and unchangeable?! In my opinion, by simply following the good old rule that the reality is how we perceive things and not how the things really are (because, who is to tell that green is really green, after all?!). The same house (the 4th), may look like a castle to one sibling and make her stay in it forever whilst the other one may spend her youth feeling as though she was born in an ugly dungeon. Pretty much the same applies to their relationship with their parents. I have a nice example in my family - my grand aunt was the kind of person that no emancipated woman wants to be. At times, I think that the feminist movement was founded just to punish my grand aunt and ban her actions. She never worked anywhere, her home was her temple, the kitchen was her altar and the husband was her god. And she wasn't a cold mother either. My two aunts, her daughters, grew up with a loving mother, with parents who weren't horribly strict and had a very happy childhood. However, the mother (much later) confessed that she never enjoyed sex or cuddling whilst her husband, didn't mind peeking under other women's skirts. They didn't talk about it, he had never confessed a single affair but, instinctively, she knew about all of them and, again, she didn't really mind - he was her god, she had her temple and, let's face it, she wasn't willing to give him what he was looking for anyway.
But, when the daughters became women themselves, the differences in how they perceived this relationship became more and more visible. One them saw her parents as the ultimate example of a loving couple and entered in a, more or less, same kind of marriage herself. The other one got married at the age of 25 and, by the time she was pregnant with her 2nd child and only 30, she found out that her husband had been cheating on her. She instantly decided to file for a divorce although she was 7 months pregnant at the time. However, her mother's attempts to make her change her mind only managed to dig a giant well of objections and bitterness that went beyond just her own marriage. Instead of to listen to her advice and either accept it or say that staying with this man would make her a miserable woman for ever and ever, she shifted the focus onto her mother's marriage and tried to make her understand that the life she witnessed in her childhood, that of her mother, was, in her eyes, a life of a miserable and neglected woman. They entered into a long lasting fight that was never fully resolved but, to everyone's great disappointment, this episode also started a long lasting war between her and her sister as the other was was fully supportive of their mother. Up until then, they were very, very close. But, ever since that moment, they have been almost strangers to each other. Whilst one of them cannot stand the idea of a woman living the life once chosen by her mother, the other one actually wants a life of that kind even for herself. Obviously, the 4th house issues are not perceived the same way.

Finally, we sometimes have to assume that the circumstances change as people change. My sister is almost a decade younger than me and, when you look at our charts, you can't but to notice that our childhood was bound to be significantly different. I was a clear example of a spoilt kid, growing up with two loving parents and having everything a kid could ask for. My sister, on the other hand, has a few strong signs of growing up in drastically different circumstances. When I was 17, my father decided to leave his old job and go abroad "for a while". At the time, my mother didn't think that the whole family should move since she had had a steady and well paid job and loved her town. besides, it was only a temporary solution. I moved out soon after that and it didn't really affect my growing up but, since my father remained abroad for almost 2 decades after that, my sister, who was only 7 when he left, basically grew up with our mother. Our grandparents also died in the meantime and the comfort of having a huge, loving family was, in the aftermath, only my privilege. And this goes beyond just "reality" - I never really felt comfortable in my hometown whilst my sister decided to shift her priorities and study economics instead of going to a law school because she didn't want to live anywhere else. Our home town simply looks like a much better place to her than it does to me.


Cheers,

aglaya