Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Houses

6th House

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Origin 100 BCE to 400 CE

The house of work and health, daily labour, service, routine, and the care of the body. This is a cadent house, working through adjustment, refinement, and the meeting of practical demands. Its natural sign is Virgo and its natural ruler is Mercury, giving it a diligent, analytical, service-minded character. It governs employment and coworkers, habits and hygiene, illness and its cure, and the small disciplines that keep daily life in order.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
100 BCE to 400 CE 1Tradition: Hellenistic astrology in Greco-Roman Egypt
Place of Origin
Greco-Roman Egypt 2
Attributed Author / Compiler
No single author. The twelve places are already traditional in Vettius Valens, writing about 175, and are set out systematically by Paulus Alexandrinus in 378 1
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Kake Tyche, Bad Fortune 1Tradition: Paulus Alexandrinus, Introduction to Astrology
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Mars rejoices here 1Tradition: Paulus Alexandrinus, Introduction to Astrology
Rival Systems
A Rival System's Attribution
Hellenistic Joy: Mars 1Tradition: Paulus Alexandrinus, Introduction to Astrology
Learn More
The Sixth House, the House of Work and Health

The sixth house is the sixth of the twelve houses of the horoscope. It governs work and daily service, routines, health and illness, and, in the older tradition, servants and small animals, the sphere of duty, maintenance, and the ordinary labour by which life is kept in order. It is a cadent house, held to be of lesser force, associated with the mutable, transitional phase of its quadrant. In classical astrology it was reckoned one of the more difficult houses, connected with hardship and sickness. These are the interpretive conventions of the astrological tradition for this division of the chart, in which the sixth house describes the demands of work and the condition of the body; it stands opposite the seventh house of partnership only obliquely, its true opposite being the twelfth of seclusion across the wheel.

Greek astrologers named the sixth house Kake Tyche, Bad Fortune, the direct counterpart to the fifth house's Agathe Tyche across the chart, and the Hellenistic scheme that fixed this pairing, already traditional in Vettius Valens around 175 CE and systematised by Paulus Alexandrinus in 378, held that Mars has his joy here, one of seven places assigned to a planet's particular ease. The name is unambiguous about how the tradition regarded this house long before illness and daily labour became its standard modern description: it was a place of ill fortune outright, and Mars's joy there, the planet of cutting, wounding and forced effort, reinforced a reading of the sixth as a house of struggle, the body's vulnerability and the servant's toil, rather than the more neutral routine and maintenance later astrology tends to emphasise.

Sources A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion with Introduction to Astrology (Eisagogika)Paulus Alexandrinus

The Sixth House: Cadent and in Aversion, the Doubled Disadvantage

The sixth house is an apoklima, cadent, and its Hellenistic name is Kake Tyche, Bad Fortune. It carries both of the classical disadvantages at once: it declines from the angle before it, and counting by whole signs it stands at no aspect to the rising sign, so it is in aversion and cannot see the Horoskopos.

The four places in aversion are the second, sixth, eighth and twelfth, and they are the four the tradition reads as difficult. Of these the sixth and the twelfth are also cadent, which is why they are read as the hardest places in the wheel rather than merely as unfortunate ones. The judgement is not arbitrary. It follows from a geometry that can be checked by counting signs.

On the cusp, whole-sign takes the sixth sign from the ascendant; Equal measures 150 degrees along the ecliptic; and the quadrant systems place it as the second of the two intermediate divisions between the lower meridian and the descendant, by six different rules.

There is a further hazard here at high latitude. Placidus and Koch are both built on the time a degree takes to rise, and above the polar circles some degrees never rise at all, so both systems are simply undefined there and produce no cusps. Campanus and Regiomontanus remain defined at any latitude, as do whole-sign and equal. A sixth house reported from a chart cast near the Arctic Circle should be checked for this before it is read.

Correspondences & Relations

Placed in House

Lilith in the sixth house is read as a rebellion in the realm of work and routine. Modern astrologers describe an untamed relation to service, health and the body, rage at being controlled or reduced by daily duty, and a refusal to be domesticated by the ordinary.

Astrologers read Chiron in the sixth house as a wound in the realm of work and health - a hurt around being useful, being well, or measuring up in the daily task. The modern tradition of this placement describes healing found in service that does not demand perfection, and a genuine gift for the healing of body and habit.

Modern astrologers read Juno in the sixth house as partnership woven into work and routine. The placement is described as a spouse met through the workplace or daily service, a bond in which practical usefulness is a form of devotion, and commitment expressed through care.

With Mars in the sixth house drive is applied to work, and astrologers read an industrious, forceful approach to daily labour and a capacity for hard, sustained effort. The tradition notes energy that gets things done, impatience with the slow or careless, and health strained by overexertion or stress.

With the Moon in the sixth house emotional wellbeing is tied to the daily round, and astrologers read a person who nurtures through work and service and whose moods register in the body and health. The tradition notes comfort found in useful routine and a tendency for feeling to affect the constitution.

Astrologers read Neptune in the sixth house as the meeting of the boundless and the daily task - work touched by imagination or ideal, and a service given with compassion. The tradition notes a sensitivity in health that is easily influenced and hard to diagnose, and a wish to make even routine labour meaningful.

The North Node in the sixth house is read as a turn toward useful work and order. The tradition describes growth through service, routine and health, the willingness to attend to the daily task and improve the real world rather than escape it.

The Part of Fortune in the sixth house is read as fortune through work and service. Astrologers describe well-being found in useful daily effort and good health habits, and a sense of ease that grows from being needed and doing things well.

With Saturn in the sixth house discipline meets the daily round, and astrologers read a capacity for hard, methodical work and exacting standards in the task. The tradition notes duty carried steadily, sometimes chronic strains on the health, and a maturity found in the mastery of routine and responsibility.

The South Node in the sixth house is read as an over-reliance on work, worry and routine. Astrologers describe a comfortable busyness and service, an anxious attention to the daily task, that the person is asked to lift toward faith and the wider view.

With the Sun in the sixth house the vital self is invested in work and service, and astrologers read an identity expressed through daily labour, skill and the care of health. The tradition notes a person who finds themselves in being useful and whose sense of purpose is tied to the task well done.

Venus in the sixth house brings affection to work and service, and astrologers read pleasant relations in the daily round and a wish for harmony in the workplace. The tradition notes love expressed through helpfulness and care, and a taste for occupations that involve beauty, comfort or cooperation.

The Vertex in the sixth house is read as fated encounters in the realm of work and service. Modern astrologers describe pivotal meetings with colleagues, employers or those one helps, turning points that arrive through the daily routine and the ordinary course of duty.

Rules the House

The sixth house is Mercury's other natural domain - the house of work, service, health and daily routine - and astrologers read the planet as well placed and practical here. The tradition notes an analytic, methodical mind that likes to examine, refine and be useful, a facility with technique and craft, and a tendency to worry the same problems, including those of the body, over and over.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

The sixth house of servants, sickness, small cattle and daily labour, called Bad Fortune in the Greek scheme.

Source Christian AstrologyWilliam Lilly

The father's brother, the third house counted from the fourth. Lilly's sixth house names uncles and aunts on the father's side directly.

Source Christian AstrologyWilliam Lilly

Classification

One of the four cadent houses, the apoklimata or declining places.

Sources
1. Introduction to Astrology (Eisagogika)
Paulus Alexandrinus, 378on the joys of the planets in the places
2. A History of Western Astrology
Nicholas Campion, Continuum, 2009History of the twelve-house system in Western astrology: significations of the sixth (cadent) house and its classical hardship.View the Source
A History of Horoscopic Astrology
James Herschel Holden, American Federation of Astrologers, 2006View the Source
The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence
Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, Brill, 2016Hellenistic doctrine of the places (topoi): the sixth place, work, daily service, health and illness; a classically difficult, cadent place.View the Source

Take a Related Quiz

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.