The Third House

The Astrological Third House

Looking at the picture, the Third House can be seen as located on the bottom half of the wheel.  The wheel, which represents the earth with YOU at the center, is turning counterclockwise.  The Sun currently filling this position in the photo would be in this position somewhere between 12:30 and 2:30AM, reaching the Ascendant (the far left of the wheel, the midpoint of the 12th and 1st House) at Sunrise.  If you have read my piece on the Ascendant, you may recall the story of the princess' Golden Ball coming back to the surface, representing a physical revelation of Selfhood following a period of subjectivity.

This below the horizon position energizes the experience of COMPARATIVE realities.
This is the final house of the quadrant that starts at the Ascendant, i.e., the realm of Intuitive Awareness. The third house consolidates the 'Who am I' at the First House, and the 'What do I Have' of the Second, and makes comparative observations as to Who and What is effective in the communication and stimulation of the self within a physcial environment.

I was born with the planet Venus in Virgo in the Third House.  Using a form of progression known as the Point of Self, I find my Ascendant (originating point of conscious awakening) nearly exactly on the natal Venus at the time of my brothers birth at the age of 5.  This is particularly interesting given that the Third House is conventionally defined as dealing with Siblings.  Here we deal more with the initial reality of the Other.  The human race is 100% made up with our brothers and sisters of light, but our particular karma in terms of how we are defined versus how our brothers and sisters are defined is worked through in the astrological Third House.

For many, ones self awareness of their personal attributes may lead to pride, or shame, or a number of feelings when communicated to others within the environment.  We are taught in our schools to conform to the mold of what society wants our brothers and sisters to be like.  For some of us, this mold  happens to fit very nicely with the First House conscious I AM, and the attributes of the Second House.  For others, communication may fall on deaf ears, or ears that do not want to hear or assimilate what the native has come to teach or express.  This education begins at home, and when it comes to siblings, it is only natural that natives will be able to recognize and compare what behaviors are encouraged by the parents from those that are discouraged.

My initial relationship with my brother was one of intense feelings of protection.  I did not like my parents as a young child.  I felt an inner light, a connection with something spiritual, that I sought to show him and give to him to help him in dealing with the abusive and disfunctional realities of our early home life.  One of the most memorable and psychologically key experiences of my childhood was the year he was born, a girl in my kindergarden class told me that she was going to sneak into my house and stab my brother to death with a knife.  I stayed awake night after night for what may have been a year after that, making sure that I was there to protect him if she were to come.  Ultimately, my reality was that I was unable to protect him, just as I was unable to protect myself, from the environmental situations which included our place of residence, or neighborhood, or schools, and the poison that my parents fed us physically and psychologically.  If I was able to pass anything to him, it was to help him become aware that the seeds of light within us DID NOT require watering from the parents or the schools.  This light was there from the beginning and grew from within.  This was the only way I knew how to give of this light, although my initial awareness of relationship was the expression of love without the ability to effectively manipulate the environment with it.

It has certainly been my way of being that it takes helping another for me to be stimulated enough to effectively act upon something or to make it happen than it would if it were only myself in need.  My needs never seemed worth a great effort, but the needs of others were motivating.  There are many layers to this.  One can say that perhaps my greatest need was the need to be needed, or the need to be viewed as a source of knowledge and guide within my environment.... one that people looked to when they KNEW that the original source, represented by the parents, the school, the priest, etc, just wasnt working or wasnt right.  Without using this space here to go into intensive detail regarding the psychology of karma of myself, it is true that Venus in the 3rd house indicates my approach to the environment and pool of brothers and sisters.  There is a desire to reach out and share of the self, and at the same time there is great self judgement as to the effectiveness  of my outreach.  Having Venus in Virgo certainly adds to the situation a need to refine the methodology throughout the life in order to effectively express the self.  Adding the natal square of Venus to Saturn in the 12th House, there is a feeling of great unworthiness if I am unable to reach others purely and authentically.  A good example would be writing a poem to a woman that would express my deep love for her.  Upon reciting the poem to her, nerves and insecurities makes me stutter and not communicate the poem the way I envisioned it, essentially turning her off and ruining what the envisioned moment was.  This is an analogy to this part of my consciousness in general.  This very blog that I write, from my perspective, is not for me as much as it is for YOU.  OR that the least, I judge myself in my ability to impart these gems of knowledge to you, and my worthiness for love in return with the effectiveness of this.  Karmically, effective communication is a key word for the 3rd House experience.

In observing the communication of my children, I recall feeling quite angry when my son would communicate to his sister false information.  There was a desire to be respected for knowledge that wasnt yet acquired.  I used this as a time to teach him the truth regarding his claim, but underneath, it doesnt matter what the claim is because right or wrong answers is not the desired result here.  It is a defined name and place within the spectrum of the environment that is worthy of its perception.  In other words, he felt on some level that due to being 5 years his sisters elder, that he was expected to have a greater knowledge base.  (Not coincidently, my children have the precise age difference as me and my brother).  The unconscious desire is to channel the I AM of the First and the resources of the Second to communicate the Authentic Self that needs no other definition.  However, I was able to learn something valuable from this observation, because I realize that it is important to learn the language and the structure and the way of the environment in order to effectively produce any meaning within it.  For myself, it was the worthiness of returned love within it.  I found myself often using denial as punishments to my children (which is what my father did to me), which is a deeper reflection of this complex.  It is telling the children that they need to learn to do things in this way, and once they do they will be worthy of this reward or this harmonious situation, and that I will effect that harmony of their environment by restricting fun activities in order to herd them into correct action.

I have found within myself a system of self reward for when I feel unworthy of reward from my peers or environment.  There is a bingeing level of self destructiveness that comes from this.  There is me protecting myself from being killed by the knife of the mother and the father, but beyond there is a voice inside the head that herds the self into correct action, of focus on learning what I need to learn in order to effectively express what IS THERE and has been within me FROM THE BEGINNING.

We all have a gift, and often what we must do on earth is not so much learn about our inner gift, but learn to create roads and effective means of transporting that gift to the collective.

I recall a client that had Saturn in the 3rd house.  This denotes a special level of karma and the need to truly ground into the foundation of the self as a vehicle for communication.  Stuttering and learning disabilities are more common with Saturn in the 3rd house than any other Saturn placement.  However, during a major transit of this natal Saturn position, my client heard a voice inside him from his spiritual guides, and began channeling information that he would compile into a successful spiritual book.  Blocking collective education his entire life, finally he was able to find the source of information that resonated with his inner self, and effectively communicate who and what he was as one of our brothers.

What we choose to love, and what others choose to love in us, is a big part of the 3rd house reality and especially for myself with Venus in the 3rd house.  Struggle to find love or adequate companionship, someone to hear the voice within you and respond in a way that shows they have been moved, is effectively part of the process of learning how to build those roads and what direction to point them to.  For myself, I often break down and binge on external realities that are not aligned with the direction needed for my self expression, and on one hand being ineffective in this case is punishment for not maintaining discipline (from my karmic perspective), and at the same time an effective means to refine the methodology TO THE VERY EFFECTIVE MEANS of self expression that I seek.