the 8th House in Astrology
This is the first installment in a mini-series of posts talking about the dark houses in astrology — these houses are the 2nd house, 6th house, 8th house and 12th house. For this inaugural post, in addition to talking about the 8th house, I’ll also provide some overall context, including :
what are the houses?
what are the “dark houses” and why are they called that?
what are the some of the prominent topics, meanings + significations for the 8th house?
These dark houses tend to come up a lot inside of astrology sessions and consultations. Hence, this series of posts. From the get-go, I want to clarify that these posts are for learning and general understanding; they are NOT a personal interpretation of your natal chart. Without an actual personalized reading of your chart, there is no way we can interpret yours accurately. One of the many gifts of astrology is that it can offer us a lot of nuance and specificity; however, that nuance and specificity has to be addressed in context of each unique chart. For more information on how to book an astrology consultation, click here.
Often, the dark houses are approached in a rather polarized way. On the one hand, they are discussed with a lot of fear and trepidation — re: “if i have planets in there or something transits through this house then something terrible is automatically going to happen right now all the time forever.” On the other end of the spectrum, some people decide they don’t like the more challenging potential of the house so they completely rewrite the historical meanings to include nothing dark or difficult at all — re: more of a Pollyanna approach. As with most things, there is a wide range of possible outcomes that are as unique + multitudinous as there are charts. It’s not simply one or the other.
I also wanted to start this exploration with a quote from the Tao Te Ching, translated by Ursula K. LeGuin. I find it pertinent for these 8th house topics in particular.
“💫 “Give yourself to loss / and when you’re lost you’ll be at home.” ”
And, while I am not an expert on the Tao by any means, I appreciate this suggestion that we can become skillful with life’s more challenging dishes; and through that skill, we can build a sense of at-home-ness in ourselves and the world even amidst loss or grief. It’s quite a powerful invitation, and also a very applicable invitation to the 8th house in particular.
So with that… let’s dive in.
What are Houses in Astrology?
So let’s start with some quick context — What are The Houses? First off, here’s a link to an article I wrote last year where I cover the astrological Houses more generally. And, if you haven’t already, be sure to grab our free cheat sheet for the Houses, which can help you unpack more of your natal chart and understand how transits may potentially impact that chart. The cheat sheet can be a useful guide or companion as you listen to forecast episodes on the podcast and help with a broad overview of what the Houses are. Because those resources exist, I’m not going to go into too much detail on the Houses here.
To briefly summarize, the Houses are the 12 divisions in an astrological chart. When you look at a chart, you’ll see it divided up like 12 pieces of pie and each of those pieces of pie is a House. Each House, is a container of specific topics, meanings and interpretations. As we look through all of the houses, we see a broad landscape of the topics of life ranging from birth to death, dating, committed partnerships, career, home, etc. The houses lay out these topics of life so we can interpret their unique volume, landscape, and location in this particular life. When we integrate the Houses with the actors of the planets, we get a lot of information about how and when these topics show up as we move through our days.
What are the “Dark Houses”?
Next up, what do I mean when I talk about the Dark Houses? In a traditional Hellenistic approach astrology, the dark houses are houses 2, 6, 8 and 12. These houses are dark because of their geometric relationship to the first house, which is the Rising Sign. One way we can think of the Rising Sign (1st House) is as this cusp of life or emergence of life for the chart native. The Rising Sign is this orientation or container for the impulse of this particular life, this incarnation that we’re looking at. So the dark houses are called this because, using traditional Ptolemaic aspects, the dark houses can’t see the Rising Sign, which is this “light of life”. The Light of Life therefore doesn’t shine on these houses since they aren’t visible from this cusp of incarnation aka the First House. So these are called dark houses because they aren’t receiving that light from the Rising Sign. As we could expect then, when we look at the chart as a whole, some of life’s more challenging or difficult topics tend to live in these dark houses.
Why does that matter? And why can’t every house be a sparkly, secret unicorn with a rainbow cauldron dispensing nothing but life’s goodness and delight? Well, because astrology is a way that we talk about life. And life isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. So we have to have a way we can talk about, work with, and make sense of some of life’s more challenging topics.
For instance, one of the primary topics for the 8th house is death. And everyone immediately goes “eeehhhhhhmmmm”. Obviously, not everyone’s favorite topic… BUT how accurate, how honest, would astrology be as a container for life if we didn’t have a place we could talk about death? One of the most central components of the human experience is our mortality, the impermanence of everything. So, in order for astrology to be effective and honest, we have to to be able to find language for all aspects of life not just our favorite parts. Otherwise, it’s not a very holistic language.
Back to this concept of darkness and dark houses. Things tend to feel more mysterious in the dark; they can feel more hidden, scary or unpredictable simply because we can’t see them as clearly. Think of a landscape outside when the Sun is shining, bright and warm. Now think of that same landscape when it’s pitch dark outside. That landscape feels very different at night, yes? Our experiences of them will be quite different based on how much light is available. The content of the landscape is essentially the same (it’s the same place, after all); however, it feels very different when we can’t see. We tend to behave differently in the dark, and our perceptions sharpen or weaken in different ways than in the daytime. We perceive ourselves differently as well, and we may have to encounter more uncomfortable sensations or parts of ourself when navigating through a place with less light.
When I was a kid, I loved being in my room. But when the lights went out at night, suddenly I would get scared. Was the boogie man in here? What was that noise? Was there something in my closet now? It’s not that my room was essentially different. It’s not that anything was necessarily out to get me. It’s just that there was less light, and so I had to find other ways to orient and assuage any fears that came up in the dark. The way we’re going to walk through the meadow or the forest at night is different than how we are going to move through it or experience it at noon. This can be helpful to remember about the dark houses in general.
Quick Recap : the dark houses don’t aspect or “witness” the rising sign (using traditional aspects) and so they aren’t “lit up” so to speak. Another way we can speak about this is to describe the dark houses as “in aversion” to the Rising Sign. And, the topics we find in the dark houses, tend to be those that we struggle with or are intertwined with some challenges. This doesn’t mean good things can’t happen here. It doesn’t mean we can’t receive benefits from these places, we totally can. It also doesn’t mean challenges can’t arise from other areas of life! They totally can. But, in general, the dark houses have some unique struggles simply because they are not in this direct, light-receiving, visible position from the place of steering (aka the Rising Sign).
What is the meaning of the 8th house in Astrology?
So now, let’s look at the 8th house in particular and see what topics we find in there.
Death, Loss + the 8th House
““Death is the oldest and most consistent signification for the 8th house”.”
According to Demetra George’s extensive research into the Houses and the development of their significations over thousands of years, she says : “Death is the oldest and most consistent signification for the 8th house”.
Like I said earlier, how accurate or useful would astrology be as a language if we could only talk about the easy parts of life? Death is so foundational to our experience of being human — our mortality informs our choices, relationships, how we orient ourselves to age and what is most important. While mortality may not be the easiest truth about life, it is true. Different belief systems offer us a wide variety of maps and beliefs around our mortality and what to do with it and how we should therefore live. Regardless of how you personally make meaning around death, its inescapable reality very much informs how you live. For me, there is always an invitation to “live as if we were dying” so we can live more honestly to ourselves, our destines, to one another and to the stories that we are most akin to in this life.
One of the ways the 8th house personally manifests for me is through a persistent death-bed perspective on life in general. I’m consistently measuring the quality of my life, my choices, and my stories through the lens of : “how is this going to resonate when I’m on my deathbed?” A very 8th house perspective for sure.
And there are so many different kinds of death, yes? Any time we experience a loss, it’s a kind of death. Any time we morph into a new version of ourselves, we die to an earlier version of us. Whenever we move, the previous home dies. Whenever we enter a relationship, the part of us who wasn’t in a relationship dies. Whenever we lose a pet, a sentimental object, a job. Whenever we go through these “dark nights of the soul”, experiences that live very close to death. Through their connections to loss, these are all very 8th house experiences.
These losses, deaths, are also lessons of how life is always moving, growing and changing. And in order for change to happen, there must also be death. In order for something new to come in, then we must surrender something else. So if we have a life that is growing, evolving, changing, then we are also living a life that must get good at surrendering, releasing, grieving, letting go.
So we also could see death as an experience of catharsis, as experiences of loss which is also related to an underworld experience of possible renewal or rebirth.
Money, Inheritances + Debt in the 8th House
Another common topic for the 8th house is inheritances or “other people’s money.” We get inheritances, for instance, when someone else dies. It can be a benefit and something that blesses our life, but it is still connected to death or loss.
Other ways we can find this topic of “other people’s money” in the 8th house
the partner’s money (romantic or business) — if there’s a committed relationship or partnership, the 8th house is where we would look for the partner’s money in the chart.
debt — money we borrowed and owe to others
taxes — more money that gets tied or owed to someone else
I’ve also seen very nice 8th houses that signaled that the native was good at getting money from others through scholarships or fundraising.
Hidden Things in the 8th House
The 8th house is also a house of hidden things - the topics we don’t normally speak about in public or are considered taboo in polite conversation. What is “taboo” changes from era to era, but each generation and culture generally has a category of things that are considered too messy, spooky, morbid, impolite, secret or raw to drop casually into conversation. These things that are considered taboo or occult, we can find in the 8th house.
Along a similar vein, we also can’t see what is going on inside our minds. Those processes are hidden from us, and can they can be parts of our nature that we don’t fully understand. So in the 8th House, we can also find mental health issues, fears or other headspaces we can’t see (like the idea of the unconscious).
In the episode we did with Alkistis Dimech, she talks about the “occulted body” which is a very 8th house-y idea/reality to work with or through. This way of knowing, sensing, the unseen about ourselves and the hidden parts of our body and bodies.
Idling + Fields of Knowledge
Another name for the 8th house is “the idle place.” Think about that 4:00pm-ish time of day where it’s not time for dinner yet, but you’re so ready to be done with the day and transition into the evening. Time sort of hovers at this hour. The Sun isn’t in its beautiful sunset moment yet; it’s just sort of hovering in a low, weak place as it makes its descent. That’s the 8th house time of day — when the Sun is “idling” in the sky. It’s not super bright and visible, but its angle is casting more shadows across the landscape. The Sun is on its way down for the nightly “under the world” journey, but it’s not in that beautiful, striking moment of color we see at sunset. Things can feel a little hazy or unclear.
Sometimes, planets in the 8th house may struggle with this lack of visibility or trying to being bright. Just like the topics of the 8th house may, in and of themselves be hidden, the actions of planets in the 8th may be things that take place covertly, or behind-closed-doors, or they could simply just struggle with being amplified, getting acknowledged or being shiny in the world.
Depending on other things going on in the chart, sometimes these topics can show up more as the field of someone’s work or expertise instead of something they personally deal with. For instance, therapists, mental health specialists, death doulas, hospice workers, accountants, psychics, tax attorneys. All of these people deal with these topics as a regular part of their lives. They may not be the ones suffering from the mental health issue, death or debt, but they are acting in the field of those things. They have some kind of expertise in these topics, and this is a landscape where they are acting even if they are not the ones directly suffering from it.
I find this can be especially true if there is a well-placed luminary in the 8th House or other otherwise happy and healthy planet. It can sometimes function as someone who is bringing good or blessing or light to some of these more hard and difficult topics.
So is it “bad” if I have a planet in the 8th house?
People are usually asking me : Is it bad if I have a planet in the 8th house?
The short answer is : No.
So many different things get taken into consideration when determining how well or not well a certain planet is doing or how an area of life is going. It’s not as simple as : “A planet is here (or not here), therefore xyz is bad or good”. It’s a multi-layered and nuanced process through which we go about assessing the conditions.
What it does mean, though, if a planet is in the 8th house — it means that this planet must act through the 8th house. This planet must manifest its responsibilities, its virtues, its qualities through the matters and topics of the 8th house. For instance, maybe you have Mercury in the 8th house. Whatever Mercury is responsible for in this chart… whatever Mercury cares about or is involved with in this chart, must come to fruition through the filter of the 8th house topics.
Since the 8th house is a dark house, it could also mean that a planet here is sometimes difficult to access or rely on, or difficult to use as a guide because they’re traveling in the dark, which isn’t always the most efficient way. That planet may get lost or disoriented and may require extra work in order to function well. A planet acting through a dark houses may take us through less-traveled paths where we have to use more of our intuition because the way feels less apparent, less direct, less obvious, less revealed. It may mean that in order to bring about what this planet wants to do, that we have to undergo these 8th house processes of healing, catharsis, death or periods where we feel lost or “in the dark.” We may have to confront mental health issues, or confront matters with other people’s money, debt, inheritances or death.
But, no, the planetary presence in the 8th house doesn’t necessarily coincide with negative outcomes. And…just because something is hard, or even dark, doesn’t mean it is automatically is bad. We can also look at these as invitations to engage more directly with any needs, wounds or insecurities we have around these areas in life.
It’s also worth noting, that even if you don’t have a planet in the 8th house, there is still an 8th house. It still exists. It’s still acting somewhere in the chart. It still has planets who transit through it. That house still has a ruler and it is still acting in the chart. There is no life where we don’t have to deal with these 8th house topics.
an Invitation from the 8th House
I want to wrap up here with potential invitations present and a reminder that we are always being invited into healing.
How we can get skillful with healing? With seeing in the dark? How can we become more accepting of death and compassionate with loss? How do we get to know our Underworlds and become better storytellers of those spaces? How do we practice the surrender necessary for growth and evolution as seasons change? How is the natural world teaching us about these things all the time? How do we get more skillful with money? Where do we need support? How can we ask for help?
What are ways we can learn to express what we need so we can see our hidden things more clearly? Maybe we never see or understand these things clearly, but how can we know them or work with them anyway?
If we’re having trouble seeing something about ourselves, what or who can serve as a mirror to help us with that? Who can see our blind spots? Are we in skillful relationship with the money of others, and how could we improve?
And, do we allow ourselves hidden things? Do we allow some things to be just for us, to stay secret, which is sacred?
Can we become better travelers of different kinds of terrain? When we think about Venus retrograde (article below), for instance we often talk about Innanna’s descent or Persephone’s abduction or Jonah in the belly of the whale or other underworld mythologies… how do we become good travelers through this darker terrain so that we can move through both worlds the way trees do, legends do, humans do.
When we become better travelers, there are fewer things that we fear because we’ve met the darkness and we know its name and we can therefore move through it and with it and travel in it when we’re called to. Because we’re meeting all of life (which includes death) all the way — a life in which there is the “beauty and the terror” as Rilke says.
““It is precisely because we resist the darkness in ourselves that we miss the depths of the loveliness, beauty, brilliance, creativity, and joy that lie at our core.””
I’ll wrap up here with a quote by Thomas Moore that feels applicable…
in Conclusion
So I hope this gives you a good intro and some food for thought re: the 8th house. If you have Q’s or more things you’d like discussed on the podcast reach out, leave us a comment or email us and let us know. Remember to also check out our free resources below and you can also sign up to join us for our free Astro Meet-Up which takes places the first Wednesday of each month.
And with that, I wish you light on your way and the ability to see in the dark when there is no light. May you be well. Peace.
