The 2nd house in astrology: what you value

The second house in astrology is the area of a birth chart that stands for what you have and what you value: the money you earn, your possessions, your skills and your sense of your own worth. It describes your attitude to these things, how you earn, keep and spend, and what makes you feel secure. It does not show how much money you will have.

What the second house covers

The houses are twelve sections of a birth chart, each linked to an area of life. They are counted from the Rising point (also called the Ascendant), the degree of the zodiac that was coming up in the east when you were born. The sign it lies in is your Rising sign. The basics are in the twelve houses explained.

The second house comes right after the first. The first house is read as "I am". The second is read as "I have". Astrologers place five things in it.

• Money you earn yourself. Your own income and how you handle it. Money you share with others belongs to the eighth house.
• Possessions. What you own and how attached you are to it.
• Resources in a wider sense. Skills, time, energy, a talent you can rely on.
• What you value. What something is worth to you, and what you would not trade away.
• Self-worth. The sense that you are worth something, apart from what you own.

Money and self-worth share a house because they answer the same question: what do I have to stand on? For one person that is savings. For another it is a craft nobody can take away. The second house describes which of these steadies you.

As a memory aid, astrologers link the second house with Taurus, the second sign, and with Venus. Your own can begin in any sign.

The sign on the second house cusp

The cusp is the border where a house begins, and the sign on it colors the whole house. For the second house this is usually the sign that follows your Rising sign. In the Whole Sign system, where every house is exactly one sign, it always is.

Read these as tendencies. None of them says how much you earn or own.

Planets in the second house

A planet in the second house means that this part of you is busy with having and valuing. Astrology counts ten planets, the Sun and the Moon among them.

• Sun: your sense of who you are is tied to what you build and can call your own.
• Moon: feeling safe depends on material security, and spending follows your moods.
• Mercury: you think in practical terms, and knowledge and words are among your resources.
• Venus: you enjoy beautiful things and know what something is worth to you.
• Mars: energy goes into earning and into defending what is yours.
• Jupiter: confidence and generosity around resources. It is read as trust that there is enough, not as a promise of wealth.
• Saturn: caution and a sense of responsibility. Self-worth is built slowly and through your own effort.
• Uranus, Neptune, Pluto: read here as an unconventional, an idealistic or an intense relationship with possessions.

One detail you can check against your own birth: the second house lies below the eastern horizon, in the part of the zodiac that rises after the Rising sign. People with the Sun in the second house were usually born late in the night, a few hours before sunrise.

The second house does not show how much you will have. It shows what you count as enough.

What an empty second house means

It does not mean a lack of money or of self-worth. A chart has ten planets and twelve houses, so every chart has empty houses. More on this in how to read empty houses.

To read an empty second house, start with the sign on the cusp. Then find its ruler, the planet linked to that sign, for example Venus for Taurus or Mercury for Gemini. Where the ruler stands is where the story continues.

Take Gemini on the cusp. With its ruler Mercury in the tenth house, astrologers read resources as tied to the public role, to speaking, writing or passing on information.

The second house and the rest of your chart

No house is read alone.

• The eighth house, exactly opposite. The second house is "mine". The eighth is "ours": shared money, trust, what you owe and are owed. Astrologers read the two as one axis.
• The sixth and tenth houses. They describe daily work and public role. The second adds what work gives back to you. How the three work houses fit together

One honest limit: a birth chart is a tool for self-reflection. It describes how you relate to money, not what your money will do. It is no basis for decisions about buying, saving or investing.

What to do next with your second house

1. Check your birth time, because the house borders shift within minutes. How to find your birth time
2. Find the sign on the cusp and read its line in the table. Ask where you recognize it in how you earn, spend and hold on.
3. Note any planets in the house. If it is empty, find the ruler of the cusp sign.
4. Then ask the question behind the house: what do I count as enough, and what does my sense of worth rest on?

If you would rather have it read for you, a Birth Chart Reading is written for your chart and calculated from your exact birth data.