Three points to study your chart: 1. Planets in the signs. 2. Planets in the houses. 3. Ruler of a house in another house.

If you’re looking at the north indian chart. The houses always follow the same counter-clockwise order with the 1st house in the top middle. The number you see in each house tells you what sign is in the house.

In this example, Scorpio, the 8th sign, is in the 1st house; Sagittarius, the 9th sign, is in the 2nd house etc…

We have to know what signs each planet rules so that we know which house the planet rules in your chart.

In the example, shown Mars rules the 1st house & the 6th house because he rules Aries & Scorpio.

Jupiter rules Sagittarius & Pisces so he rules the 2nd & 5th house in this example; and he’s in the 7th house.

Signs ruled by the planets:
1. Aries – Mars
2. Taurus – Venus
3. Gemini – Mercury
4. Cancer – Moon
5. Leo – Sun
6. Virgo – Mercury
7. Libra – Venus
8. Scorpio – Mars
9. Sagittarius – Jupiter
10. Capricorn – Saturn
11. Aquarius – Saturn
12. Pisces – Jupiter

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The trine lords, 1st, 5th & 9th house lords are always working for your benefit in some way. Developing these houses is one of the first steps for using astrology for personal development.

1st house is our personality, our identity, our physical form. During 1st house lord periods we feel like ourselves, and we develop our personality of body in some way. We are on our path and of course this is typically a good period of positive development.

The 5th house is our intelligence, our mantra, our spiritual practice, whatever we put our whole heart into, our children, creativity students. Developing this will illuminate all areas of life. Periods of the 5th lord bring some fun to life and make our heart skip a beat and allows us to get caught up in the theatre of life.

The 9tb house is our higher wisdom, our fath, our spiritual belief and the ultimate core of our dharmic path, the moral compass that underlies everything we’re actually doing in the active,  karmic, 10th house. Luck seems to shine on us in periods of the 9th lord. We are in the right place at the tight time. We get an epiphanies, and some wisdom dawns on us.

Typically, anything we do to develop or highlight these areas of life will benefit all areas of our life.

It’s from these three houses we recommend stones, constitutional tonics, mantras, temples, gods, myths, stories, icons to follow. Topics of higher study, Phd, pilgrimage.

All that is most suspicious in life is contained in these three house.

The 1st house has some impurity because it’s also one of the Kendra, four middle houses 1st, 4th, 7th & 10th. which are inside the kund. But next to the 1st, 5th & 9th; these other four are the second best house in the chart.

The 3rd, 6th, 8th and 12th houses are all tough houses. Debts, losses, sudden reversals of fortune, illness, accusation, desire, getting bogged down in details, objects, while losing connection with higher meaning and missing the essence. Bad luck seems to reign in period of these lords.

Many special yogas, combinations and specific circumstances can defy these general rules.

Owners of good houses in good houses will give really good results, especially if there are two of them together. But the luck of a good house will be lost if it’s in a bad house. But owners of bad houses do really good in a bad house but can spoil the results of a good house.

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It should be mentioned that the 2nd & 7th house are trying to kill you. Family & partner will drain the life force you have for your personal projects for their own good.

The 3rd, 6th, 7th & 11th houses are sin houses mostly dealing with our desires, anger and greed. The 7th house, representing our marriage partner seems suggest that we are damned if we do (get married) and damned if we don’t. But most astrologers agree that having a good partner in life to share our karma with typically has a net positive effect on life.

There are really only two things that are worthy of being at the centre of our lives: God or children. If your life is not revolving around one if these, you might want to reconsider your priorities.

So, as I mentioned earlier, if we want to boost our luck, we focus on improving and strengthening the 1st, 5th or 9th houses. But we can also release ourselves from some of our suffering by focusing in the 6th and 12th house. I have always found it interesting that the two main houses of moksha are two of the most difficult areas of life. Because after all, we all want moksha right? Wrong! We all say we want moksha, but few of us are actually prepared for it when it comes. We get freedom when some binding or attachment ceases. This typically comes through lose. You want to be free from your partner, but you don’t feel very good when they dump you. Wanna be free from your job: how does unemployment feel? Moksha is good in theory but few of us readily embrace it when it comes.

The trick of dealing with these negative houses is doing it freely, by our own choice rather than waiting for life to take aw at everything that means something to us. This is the lesson of Bhagavad Gita: selfless service and charity.

The 6th house is especially important in this. 6th house shows where our animosity is directed d where it comes from. If we accept this natural imbalance in life then we can step out of the circle of accusations and blame. Of course sometimes we do need to hire a lawyer to clear our name, but most of these patty arguments can just be dropped. We do our best and then turn the other cheek when it’s not good enough. Thank you for admonishing me. I’ll do better next time. Like Dylan used to sing “everybody has got to serve somebody.” so just serve, do your duty and keep your mouth shut. You’ll never get any appreciation from the 6th house: no thank you, no remitance, no care. The fruit from your action is not in your hands, so why worry.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. I offer standard astrology readings, deep self knowledge sessions and mentorships for budding astrologers.