In this series, I’m going to break down each and every rising sign and every house of your chart, based on the rising sign. I’m going to be using whole sign houses, which is a house system where every sign is a separate house.
This isn’t so much of a breakdown, actually, and more of a synthesis. When you look at everything in a chart isolated and dissected, ultimately you’re not going to get much of a narrative about your entire chart. By relating every house back to your rising sign, you can understand your entire chart in a more holistic way.
If you’re not using whole sign houses already, I highly encourage you to apply it to your understanding of your chart. While Placidus is still the most popular house system being used, it’s actually more relevant to electional astrology than using your natal chart to understand your personal drives. Whole sign houses are more relevant when you use astrology to build self understanding.
Virgo Rising, Pisces Descending: A work in progress
Contrary to popular belief, Virgo is not such a clean sign. Virgo is very similar to Pisces, which are both signs that are about the process of doing something rather than the result. They’re signs that can feel like nothing is ever really finished or done. They’re not interested in results but in the journey.
Pisces in the seventh house can mean that Virgo rising tries hard to be anyone and everyone to too many people. They feel like they can camouflage themselves into being everyone’s dream even though they actually can’t. Virgo risings are very specific people. They can believe that, because they have so many different types of life experience, that they’re able to contort themselves into being exactly what someone else needs but they can’t. They can only be exactly who they already are.
Because Virgo is ruled by Mercury, the planet of life experience, Virgo risings will learn their own specificity as they get life experience. Priorities are harder for Virgo risings because priority setting is hard when there is crisis. Virgo risings can feel like they’re in crisis all of the time because nothing is done any of the time. They will be able to set priorities when they figure out what about themselves is already done, not changing anymore, and able to be relied on to stay the same even when it’s not ideal.
Libra Second House, Aries Eighth House: Imaginary friends > real people
Second and eighth houses tend to be harder houses since they are the accountability houses. Second house is what puts the first house in its place—Libra, or other people, put Virgo rising in its place. While Virgo risings are geniuses who piece together convoluted theories about everything under the sun, it can be harder for them to explain those theories to other people or find ways to implement their idealism. Depending on Venus and any planets in the second house, Virgo risings can find that any self esteem issues express themselves through feeling like they have to explain themselves to others.
Aries in the eighth house wants Virgo rising to make up their own minds about what they want to share with other people and what they don’t. Sometimes, Virgo risings can be people who don’t actually share that many ideas or feelings with other people but are constantly trying to redeem themselves or explain themselves to the imaginary projections of their friends that they have in their heads. Virgo risings can sound very sure in conversation but backtrack and rethink a lot of what was said once the conversation is over.
Scorpio Third House, Taurus Ninth House: Researchers
Scorpio in the third house is a researcher. Virgo risings are people who use information as protection. Do they have a roach problem, then they will find out everything about the species of roach that they have because having information about a problem makes them feel comforted. Likewise, if they like someone, they will google and find out everything that they can about that person.
Because Virgo risings are such powerful information gatherers, it also takes them a long time before they can make up their minds to have an opinion about something. Taurus in the ninth house is not jumping to conclusions about something that they just found out about. Instead, Taurus in the ninth house can take years before they form an opinion about anything.
Virgo risings are careful thinkers. When they speak on something, they’ve already invested years of thought into the things that they say. When they don’t know something, they ask a lot of questions. They’re such powerful thinkers that debating with one can make you feel stripped down, like they’re scrutinizing all of you.
Sagittarius Fourth House, Gemini Tenth House: Theorist
The tenth house is how we protect ourselves from the world and it’s also how we perceive the world. Virgo risings perceive the world as a simulating place that is full of information. They’re hyper aware that, no matter what the context, that there are things that they simply don’t know all around them. For Virgo rising, knowledge is power and knowledge is the ability to find information that no one else can find.
Sagittarius in the fourth house is about harvesting information from a place of inspiration. This fourth house is what helps Virgo rising focus their curiosity. It’s not that they’re gathering information about everything and anything—it’s that they’re gathering information as if they were on a purpose filled quest. Like any adventurer, they might take detours and shortcuts that lead them around the world chaotically and their movements can look messy to an outside observer. However, the route is always meaningful from within.
Sagittarius fourth house is a head in the clouds kind of placement. It’s a theorist’s placement. Virgo rising’s safe space is their imagination. However, Virgo rising can perceive the reality that was made before them (tenth house) as an overly rational place, with Gemini in the tenth house. Virgo rising feels pressure to explain their feats of imagination to the world, sometimes needing to formulate entire texts of theory to rationalize their gut hunches.
Capricorn Fifth House, Cancer Eleventh House: Pleasure is productive
It’s not that Virgo risings don’t have fun—it’s that, when they have fun, they’re usually in control. Virgo risings might not see the point of a release that culminates into any goal. Instead, they prefer to direct their joy and pleasure into constructive projects. Pleasure is not without purpose for a Virgo rising with Capricorn in the fifth house. Pleasure is something that constructs new worlds. Pleasure is productive. Likewise, work has to also have passion.
Virgo risings are also immensely intentional about who they allow to witness their pleasure. With Cancer in the eleventh house, they’re not going to share their pleasure with anyone and everyone. Part of the directing of pleasure is the choosing of who you play with. Cancer in the eleventh house is a placement that wants community to feel like family. They expect the groups that they’re in to be tight knit.
For those who don’t know Virgo rising well, they might experience them as being closed off. Only those who know Virgo rising well will know that their pleasure is powerful precisely because there is usually a sense of a result at the finish. Because joy creation is such a huge undertaking, Virgo rising doesn’t have time to share joy with too many people. And that’s okay.
Aquarius Sixth House, Leo Twelfth House: Collaborators
With Aquarius in the sixth house, Virgo rising feels like their creativity is not realized unless they are able to work with other people. They want there to be people around them to hold them accountable and to strengthen their goals. Reality is other people and Virgo risings can feel like their ideas are not realized unless they are also seen and understood socially.
Because reality is social relations, Virgo risings need to go into their own space and heads to find their own creativity. When they are busy, they’re going to be thinking about other people’s needs, other people’s ideas, reading other people’s theories, getting people to work together, and seeing the world through the eyes of others. To figure out their own inspiration, Virgo rising needs time and space away from anyone else. This is Leo in the twelfth house.
Because Leo is in the twelfth house for a Virgo rising, they can sometimes feel that social change and collaboration is the ultimate challenge and purpose of life and put themselves on the back burner to work on developing the right kind of community. When their Leo is unhappy, so is their Aquarius. The less time Virgo rising spends by themselves, the less they actually care about their community. They need solo time so that they feel like their social spaces are also spaces that make them feel held.
