House rulers: which planet governs each area

Every sign has a planet that governs it, called its ruler: the planet that has its domicile there. The ruler of a house is therefore the ruler of its cusp's sign. If the cusp of your house 10 falls in Virgo, your house 10 is ruled by Mercury, wherever Mercury is in your chart.

Your report's glossary sums it up this way: “The planet governing the sign on a house cusp; its position sheds light on that house's domain.” The ruler links two regions of the chart: the house it rules and the one where it sits. The ruled area passes through the occupied area, and also takes on the color of the ruler's sign and aspects.

A house has only one ruler. On the other hand, the same planet can rule several houses, when two cusps fall in signs it rules. And a planet may rule none.

For a long time the tradition knew seven rulers for twelve signs: the Sun and the Moon ruled one sign each, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn two each. Mars thus ruled Aries and Scorpio, Jupiter Sagittarius and Pisces, Saturn Capricorn and Aquarius. After the discovery of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, modern astrology gave them Aquarius, Pisces and Scorpio.

AstralPro uses the modern rulerships, everywhere in the report: Mars rules only Aries, Jupiter Sagittarius, Saturn Capricorn, Uranus Aquarius, Neptune Pisces, Pluto Scorpio. Mercury keeps Gemini and Virgo, Venus Taurus and Libra, the Moon Cancer, the Sun Leo. A traditional astrologer will read a different ruler for houses whose cusp falls in Scorpio, Aquarius or Pisces; their readings remain consistent within their system, as the report's do within its own.

In the sample chart presented below, the difference concerns house 1 precisely: under traditional rulership, the Scorpio Ascendant would be ruled by Mars; in the report, it is ruled by Pluto.

In three places. First, the Ruler column of the “House cusps” table, in Chapter I, below the positions table: one row per house, with the degree of the cusp, its sign and the planet that rules it.

Next, Chapter IV, Life Domains. Each of the thirteen domains relies on houses whose cusp, ruler and occupants it reads: Health & vitality starts from houses 1 and 6, Love life from houses 5 and 7, Money & resources from houses 2 and 8, Professional life from house 10. That is where a sentence like “your house 10 has its cusp in Virgo, and its ruler, Mercury…” finds its place, and the cusps table lets you check it.

Finally, the glossary, at the end of the report, with the entry House ruler. The prose keeps two distinct verbs: a planet “rules” a house (that is rulership) and “sits” in another (that is its position).

For Camille Morel, AstralPro's sample chart (fictional data), the summary of rulers gives: Pluto rules house 1; Jupiter house 2; Saturn house 3; Neptune house 4; Mars houses 5 and 6; Venus houses 7, 11 and 12; Mercury houses 8 and 10; the Moon house 9.

House 1, cusp 15°59' Scorpio, is ruled by Pluto, which sits in Scorpio, house 1. The ruler is at home twice over: in its domicile and in the house it rules. What concerns presence and the way of approaching life plays out on the spot, without a detour through another area.

House 10, cusp 0°15' Virgo, is ruled by Mercury, which sits in Scorpio, house 12. Professional life passes here through a ruler placed in the most discreet house of the chart: work in depth, of analysis or preparation, built far from the stage before showing itself at the Midheaven.

House 7, cusp 15°59' Taurus, is ruled by Venus, also in Scorpio, house 12. Venus rules three houses in all (7, 11 and 12): Camille's couple bond, friendships and inner life pass through the same planet, in detriment in its sign.

Since Placidus houses are unequal, two cusps can fall in the same sign. In Camille's chart, Aries carries the cusps of houses 5 and 6: Mars rules both of them, from Sagittarius and house 1. Libra carries those of houses 11 and 12, hence the triple rulership of Venus.

Conversely, a sign can be lodged whole inside a house without carrying a cusp. Camille's Aquarius is contained in her house 3 and Leo in her house 9: the Sun and Uranus, their rulers, therefore rule no house in her chart. Some astrologers then give a second ruler to the house containing this intercepted sign; AstralPro sticks to the sign of the cusp, one ruler per house.

Do not confuse the house ruler with the dispositor: the first starts from the sign of a cusp, the second from the sign where a planet sits. Both are read in the same report, each with its own question.