2nd And 8th House Polarity - Material Vs Emotional Realism

2nd and 8th House Polarity - Material vs Emotional Realism

Among all the houses in the zodiac wheel, the 2nd-8th house axis is the one linked to both material and spiritual foundation of the human life. While the fact of the 2nd house linked to basic physical survivability is commonly talked about, the emotional realism of the 8th house contrasted with the equally practical 2nd house is something that is less commonly talked about, as the talks of the mystical and dangerous nature of the 8th house overtake the discussions about the true meaning of its energy.

Let's start with the 2nd house and its meaning. The 2nd house rules our basic, individual practical habits. It's basic physical survivability. It's our simplest physical routine, needs, preferences and desires that support our identity and our physical body, that long term end up contributing to the bigger picture of our mental and emotional health. Which is why the 2nd house also rules the physical act of putting food into our mouths and basic nourishment. The 2nd house understands, that the little things we do throughout the day, the small practical choices we make are the foundation of our basic self, and will long term contribute to our general well being. The 2nd house understands the foundational realism, that the basic physical actions we perform influence and control how we feel emotionally on a deeper level. This is how the 2nd house links to the 8th house and instinctively connects to it.

These houses, however, are interconnected polarities, which means that the influence is mutual and directly proportionate. That means the 8th house influences the 2nd house just as much as the 2nd house influences the 8th. That means the 8th house contains just as much foundational realism as the 2nd house does, but at the opposite end of the spectrum. The difference in the spectrum is that the 2nd house represents individual actions concerning solely our physical body, due to it supporting the basic 1st house of self, while the 8th house represents the union of two physical bodies, due to it supporting the 7th house of interactions with another.

The 8th house teaches us, that how others related to us since childhood has formed how we fundamentally perceive ourselves. That there is essentially no such thing as being an individual unit separated from another, because every single personal habit we have ever formed has been given to us by another, and we are always constantly externally stimulated, and thus form our personal habits based on other people's energetic influence. The reality of the 2nd house is how the power of the self can influence another, which is why it's also linked to speech, but the power of the 8th house is understanding how another's influence seeps into our subconscious mind and creates our individual perception. So while the 2nd house gives us mastery of practical realism about how our small physical habits can make or break our emotional and mental health, the 8th house gives us mastery of emotional realism on how our overall emotional state dictates the nature of the physical habits that we allow into our daily routine.

The tricky part of the 8th house, is that while the 2nd house habits are more obviously visible, the emotional motivations of the 8th house are of a more profound nature, and thus in theory take more digging and work to explore. However, the house polarity exists for a reason and that reason is to help us. If you want to check on the state of your emotional well being, observe your physical habits. Do you struggle to get up in the morning? Is your routine compulsive, or conducive to your overall well-being? Is there a looming sense of panic behind your tightly formed schedule? Conversely, if you want to assess the validity of your practical routine, look at your emotional state. Are you feeling anxious or not grounded? Do you experience a permanent loss of feeling of safety? Are you feeling emotionally chaotic, is there an inherent feeling of a volatile influence on your daily life, a sense of panic you struggle to get a hold of? While these things of course also indicate a deeper emotional problem, they can point to what you can change that doesn't work in your daily routine, that is a practical reflection of your emotional turmoil. Through consciously introducing healthy physical habits, while you can't bypass solving the essence of a deep psychological problem, you can develop a routine, that is more conducive towards creating a feeling of peace.

If you have any planets, especially difficult ones, placed in the 2nd-8th house axis, the struggle represented here will be a major theme of your life. The 2nd house especially may feel rudimentary, but I assure you that with malefics placed there, it is a journey to discover even such simple energies. To give you a personal example, I have North Node placed in the 2nd house and it took me almost 30 years of my life to observe how my eating schedule, or a lack of food in the fridge, contributes to experiencing a feeling of emotional anxiety, as I tended to dwell on it in my head instead of simply assuring myself basic physical comfort.

In the 2nd - 8th house axis, there is a delicate balance between managing both your physical and emotional support system, that is nuanced and interchangeable, intricately woven. One can't exist without another. The realism of these houses indicates understanding, how catering to both our emotional and physical needs is necessary to realise either of them. A good example of them is looking at how we need speech (2nd house) to be able to express our deepest feelings and satisfy our emotional needs (8th house), but also, the reason why we even bother to speak to other human beings at all, is because we have a foundational emotional need to connect to them.

Maturity in realism of fulfilment of our basic needs in life is achieved, when we learn how to integrate both of these houses in our daily practice and truly gain an understanding of our individual preferences in this department. You can't achieve realism without the 8th house. That is why this house is also linked with crisis situations, because a crisis occurs when we have neglected our basic emotional survival need to the point our body responds with a warning signal to let us know what is happening. But in reality, creating crisis situations is already a sign of mismanagement of the 8th house. Because if the realism of the 8th house is managed well, we have constant access to dwell within its depths and assure ourselves with basic fulfilment of our emotional desires, and no need for a crisis to occur and remind us who we really are.

“It is already hard enough to understand what someone is saying. Discussion is just an exercise in narcissism where everyone takes turns showing off. Very quickly, you no longer have any idea what is being discussed.”

— Gilles Deleuze, Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and Interviews 1975-1995

Ego battles for Sun in 7h

While it is fruitful to have Sun in 10h/11h for career and public life, the public perception and how you appear in workplace; it is, at the same time, detrimental to have Sun in 7h for relationships both romantic and otherwise.

From 7h, Sun also aspects the 1h, thus giving a personality where the native is ego sensitive, demands a lot of respect and authority. These natives are always looking for respect whether it is their personal relationship or professional, they are insecure if not being given a lot of importance by people in their surroundings.

At the same time, they may have a lot of "self-respect" which is a double edged sword -- 1. on one hand, self respect means that you have standards for how you ought to be treated by others, that you do not tolerate insults and teasing from others even as a joke and 2. on the other hand, it means that you are too egoistic to take help from anyone, you want to do everything yourself and seeking help from anyone feels like incompetence.

This applies to both Sun in 1h and 7h but mostly for 7th housers the problem is that ego works everywhere except in relationships. Whether it is your parents or partner, ego ruins relationships. These are the people who matter to you regardless of their shortcomings, they stand with you through thick and thin. So, we adjust our egos to better settle with the egos of our important people.

In the same way, according to the principle "like attracts like" that I like to use in astro relationships, the partners they attract have similar demands for authority, respect, pride and self-respect. If 7th houser is not consciously aware of their egoistic expectations, it is definitely going to cause problems for the people. So, here the choice is to adjust the need to be "I am right" or "respect me unconditionally" and to understand that it is your expectation that is too high. People cannot respect you all the damn time like you are some royalty. Even if you are a royalty, there will be people who gossip about you behind your backs, can you control them?

Moreover, where does this demand for excessive respect come from? If we explore this demand deeply, we find its roots in the relation to our father which is also indicated by Sun in astrology. In relation to father being excessively hero type or being too cold, we are either too demanding of respect overtly or covertly. For sun in 1h, they act too much like their father who himself was a grandiose type personality who liked to be in limelight. For sun in 7h, they are covertly demanding the limelight, father was likely a figure to be feared and intimidating authority. In any case, the personality of 1st houser and 7th houser Sun are similar.

Difference lies in the area of life; whereas the 1st houser will focus on self image but the 7th houser will focus on other image. The goal is to find respect and recognition.

Lessons of Saturn in Romance?

I have seen in life of Leo risings (Aquarius in 7th house), Saturn placed in or aspecting 7th house, Saturn in angular houses (1/4/7/10), even Saturn in 5th house (aspects 7th house in vedic) that there is a strange thing that happens. Contrary to the idea of romance that it has to be love and display of emotions, these natives are living a relationship of responsibilities, duties, transactions, hard work. Their relationship is not unconditional, that you are "loved" because you are so cute and pretty and creative and funny; you are "loved" because of your usefulness, reliability and capacity to work hard.

A native I know who went into marriage hoping for dinner dates, singing, dancing, romantic evenings, luxury and aesthetics; but instead their marriage is all about work, work, work. Life keeps throwing challenges at the couple in one way or the other. "I have never relaxed in this marriage, there is always something happening" - the native said to me. I notice native watching movies and listening to romantic song, perhaps daydreaming how an alternate reality would be like, one where things were easy and they did not have to work so hard to keep the relationship going.

A native I know who lived in a lot of imaginations of marriage had to learn the hard way that marriage is not about looking pretty and doing romance, it is rather about you being helpful and useful to your partner, learning things to keep your brain sharp, putting intellectual effort into marriage. Intellectual effort is not easy, it is too hard work to read and learn and understand. Their relationship will only work if the native puts mental and intellectual hard work and also be disciplined because you cannot read and learn at your leisure.

What I mean to say is that some natives have it easier where they get married and travel, hang out, post pics on social media, chat with each other and they do not really challenge each other or put too much effort into relationship. After wedding, they set into their roles and adjust to it, it is a kind of leisurely marriage. On the other hand, Saturnian couples are the ones whose married life is all about discipline, hard work, challenges, figuring things out. Their life path is such that unexpected challenges keep happening all the time. Life keeps pushing them to the challenges even if they do not want to fight.

These natives even wonder why their reality is so different from that of other people they see around them or on media. Since they are not aware of Saturnian impact, they live with a sort of "grass is greener on the other side" feeling. Many natives do not know about astrology and their birth chart, they are caught up in the sociocultural norms but keep resentment because rather than being fun and lighthearted, their romance is all about emotional control and challenges. Maybe they just have too many financial, social, career problems or the partners themselves are too demanding and have high expectations that they have to keep working to fulfill them.

Lessons of Saturn are hard to figure out. Even the internet communities suggest that "love should be unconditional, you do not need to work hard for love, if they cannot love you for yourself then go find someone else". But we know that in real life, it is not so easy to go find another partner just like that. We know that even in the new relationship we will face the same challenges because we have not resolved them. And life is not really that full of opportunities that everywhere you go you find single people looking to date you.

Saturnian couples are the ones who are faced with so many challenges that they start disgusting at love. They cringe at the idea of it, they might even be repulsed by the idea of love because they realize that all this is mere fantasy, childish, narcissistic desires. It is strange, isn't it, how the romantic love is not the same for every couple depending upon their planetary placements? These natives are not necessarily born cold hearted but with age and life experience, they gain maturity and eventually realize that their life path is more challenging than the average.

Emotions associated with Saturn are that of guilt, shame, heaviness, tiredness, discipline, monotony, feeling trapped, feeling stressed and feeling restricted in expressing their desires out of fear that they will be shunned or that life is already so challenging then how can they desire fun and adventures.

There must be some value in hardships; unfortunately society and media do not talk about Saturnian relationships, they are rather seen in philosophical discussions.

The 8th House.

“No more the victory of spirit over matter and definitely not the victory of matter over spirit – the next stage is not one overcoming the other, but a merge.”

— Frederick Nietzsche

Shrouded in mystery, the 8th house continues to riddle those who refuse to consciously plunge into it’s depths. This house belongs to scorpio and pluto, who take no prisoners. This is the area between life and death, the transcendental void where all possibilities exist. The 8th house contains within it, hidden treasures and guarded secrets of the occult mysteries. Those who superficially seek it’s riches for power are lured into it’s dark waters where they are led to a spiritual imprisonment of their own demise. The knowledge attained here is sacred and those who happen to stumble upon such information without first establishing proper spiritual maturation and discernment are forewarned. Prematurely eating from the fruit can come with a high cost and dissolution of the “veil of ignorance” must not be rushed by the ego. This house is not concerned with affairs of the flesh but rather total dissolution, purification, and transformation. Natives with heavy 8th house placements are learning lessons of surrender and the proper use of power. It’s only through facing ones darkest, innermost demons that the shadows of the past are finally brought into the light of awareness and the shackles that have bound us to these unforgiving cycles are finally released. Through sacrifice and dedication, those who brave the unforged path to self mastery are awarded the ultimate gift of spiritual liberation. True wisdom is only attained through experience.

About 8th House, some notes.

Source: https://barbarapijan.com/bpa/Bhava/8randhra_bhava.htm

The Unseen but suspected;

The Unheard but intuited;

The Unknown but sensed.

* Comfortable with Uncertainty.

* If 8th house is without a planet, life runs on conventional lines till the ruler receives strong aspects.

* There are slightly hidden phenomena, which are not accessible to immediate perception. This type of phenomena can be known indirectly by inference.

* Roll with the punches.

* Surprising spiritual benefits consequent to the shocks.

* Saturn-influenced resistance to change may be uncomfortable at the very least. Occasionally, the result = severe physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual trauma.

* Sudden appearance of "luck".

* The hidden dynamics which may suddenly emerge to motivate a rejuvenating cycle of death-and-rebirth. 

* Tantrik, catastrophic, and transformative.

* The perception of sudden or shocking transformation may be converted into the perception of knowledgeable observance of the changes. This perceptual conversion is available through many varieties of tantric education.

* If the planet in occupation and also the house ruler are well-disposed, one may enjoy a lifetime of tantric initiations which result in magnificent liberation from material attachments. One may be judged a failure by those lacking eyes to see the value of such a profoundly transformative process.

* Engage in a state of constant uncertainty and ongoing emergency

* Few humans can tolerate the constant challenge to one's natural acquisitive tendencies 

* Usually an experience of death recycle rebirth which does not require destroying the body, but after a certain number of cycle-spins the physical form may be destroyed to create a new birth

* The core image of 8th house is the tantrik hunter, moving cautiously through the thick forest, alert to hidden energies which may suddenly emerge at any moment. The outcome of the hunter's awareness could lead to a successful capture, or it could protect one from surprise attack. In any case, graha in bhava-8 must pay profound attention to the Unseen.

* How the world actually works.

* How the native handles sudden, secret, transformative, catastrophic changes, self-destructive behavior: spiritual release of ego-membrane attachments, or collapse of social identity?

* You must be born again.