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.
Sagittarius Rising, Gemini Descending: Easy, Breazy
This easy, breazy personality always looks for what’s most different and contrary to their usual way of thinking. Though Sagittarius risings seem easy going, the Gemini on their descendent means that they expect a certain amount of intellectual conflict, or at least contrast, when going about the world. Having a conversation is a thrilling experience with a Sagittarius rising because they’ll take you somewhere just to disagree with something that they said a moment earlier. They don’t want to be stuck in an intellectual rut.
Having a Jupiter ruled rising sign means that Sagittarius risings are operating out of certain set assumptions about the world and how it works. Having Gemini on the descendent means that they’re in the world to balance their ideological principles with new information. That’s why Sagittarius risings are so thirsty for people who they’ve never met before, places they’ve never been, and facts that they’re never considered. You think that a Sagittarius rising is happily studying history and they’re shock you by venturing into machine learning. You think that they’re heavily invested in chemistry and they’ll go and pursue a Ph.D in gender studies. Basically, they’ll always surprise you because they need to surprise themselves in order to feel alive.
Capricorn Second House, Cancer Eighth House: Paranoia
A Saturn ruled second house is about limitations in self esteem. A lot of the time, Sagittarius risings are happy to be dancing around in the world created by their imagination and proving themselves to be intellectual giants over and over again but, when it comes down to actually doing the work, become frozen by a difficult complex over whether they’re actually good enough or not and about whether people will take them seriously. Sagittarius risings deal with not feeling good enough because the things that they’re trying to do are so ballsy and big.
The eighth house in Cancer reminds Sagittarius risings that, for them to feel important, they have to feel needed first. They’re out here trying to make ideas and things happen that no one has thought of yet, things they people don’t know they need yet, so Sagittarians often don’t feel needed by other people. Instead, they might feel like other people often don’t take the time to understand them or know just what the hell they’re talking about.
A lot of Sagittarius risings are paranoid because they’re stuck in a feedback loop in which they think that every single thing they think matters a great deal. It might help these people to remind themselves, then and again, that most things don’t matter unless it matters also to other people. The Capricorn second house means that Sagittarius’s most difficult struggle is defining their own reality. Cancer in the eighth house means defining the importance of feeling cared about goes a long way in cementing themselves in that reality.
Aquarius Third House, Leo Ninth House: I'm special because we're all special
Again, Sagittarius risings are not happy when relegated to one intellectual discipline. They need to be straddling two or three to still feel curious at all. Aquarius in the third house means that Sagittarius risings create new fields of thought by fusion two, disparate ones together. By thinking one thing one day and another the next, they forge third opinions.
The ninth house in Leo helps Sagittarius risings filter their mind. Leo is primarily a sign that seeks social applause or acceptance. Having it in the ninth house means that Sagittarius is not some lone genius type who is tinkering away in private but a public intellectual type who only wants to engage in theories that include everyone. They need their politics to speak to people first while remaining intellectually impressive. Sagittarius risings with planets in the third or ninth houses are tasked with the mission of making complex theories move through the world.
Mentally, Sagittarius risings are individuals first. They may be big readers or not. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is they absorb, you can bet that they’re thought a lot about it. They might be youtubers who spin out theories about your favorite franchise or Marxists who apply Leninism to disability care. Whatever they are, they’re talking about things in ways that distinguish them away from the crowd but turning the crowd towards them.
Pisces Fourth House, Virgo Tenth House: Inner purpose
Virgo on the tenth house makes Sagittarius risings a bit cynical. They’re always thinking so it makes sense that they’re not going to believe just anything that anyone says. Tell them anything that isn’t immediately plausible or common knowledge and they’ll counter with “prove it.” In fact, tell them something that is immediately plausible and they’ll probably be the first of your friends to tell you to fuck off. They live for challenging common assumptions, after all.
However, what grounds Sagittarius risings in life is a sense of transcendence. They’re not believing every and all theories so they’re also willing to work with any theory as long as it exists in the world. Even though Sagittarius risings don’t believe everything that they read, they’re propelled to keep going in life by their very deep and spiritual intuition. They use that intuition to guide them when contesting all the conflicting facts that are out there.
It’s also worth it to note that this combination of Virgo on the tenth, which can be about working against the physical body, and Pisces on the fourth, which is about trusting your emotional gut can also make some Sagittarius risings use substances as a crutch. When you have a Virgo tenth house, everything in the world is messy, chaotic and you’re going on invisible feelings trying to piece everything together. Drugs can heighten these feelings and make Sagittarius rising put this opposition between chaos and succinct spirituality to the extreme. Using substances in this way can give Sagittarius risings a short cut into this feeling of fighting the world with transcendence without actually doing the work. Ultimately, it kills their inner purpose because it commodifies it.
Aries Fifth House, Libra Eleventh House: That's not my scene
Sagittarius risings aren’t here to emulate the masters or carry on with things the way they’ve always been done. They have Aries in the fifth house of creativity. Aries, being the first sign, is the sign of originality. Sagittarius risings will only engage in creative endeavors when they’re absolutely positive that no one else has ever thought of them before. They’re punks but not in the way that your grandparents were.
Having Libra in the eleventh counterbalances that intuitive originality a little bit because Sagittarius risings are also ones to follow scenes. They look for movement and people out in the world that compliments their own aesthetic tendencies well. A Sagittarius won’t bother with you unless they’re sure that you’re people they want to associate with. This is because, when with the right group of people, whether that’s culturally or ideologically, Sagittarius is able to shine their brightest as an innovator. They can inspire you if you move with them but they won’t give you the time of their day if you’re not in alignment.
This is why Sagittarius talks so much about finding people with the right energy, the right vibe, the right flow. This usually isn’t elitism, by the way. Sagittarius isn’t looking someone up and down, trying to figure out their credentials. They’re literally weighing you based on how much you’re able to stoke their fire and if you’re able to make them excited about something that they’re been tinkering with. The right people, for Sagittarius, are people who bring out the primal part of their creativity.
Taurus Sixth House, Scorpio Twelfth House: Out of control
A Sagittarius’s secret is that, because they fear being controlled by other people so damn much, they actually exercise terrible control over their own surroundings. Listen to them talk and they’re obsessed with understanding just how much control external factors, like society or the government or their boss, has over them. See them in action and you’ll see how their pursuit of true liberation away from all types of social programming makes them scrutinize their every move. This is why Sagittarius often believe themselves to be completely out of control, even when they merticulously control every aspect of their lives.
Moreover, despite Sagittarius’ wild and otherworldly leaps in logic when they’re thinking up their dreams and making their theories, the actual work part of whatever it is they do comes quite slow. Sagittariuses are actually picky people (that Virgo tenth house, anyone?) and they’re not going to entertain anything that falls short of their precise vision. They’d rather spend the next three years working on that painting than let it look less than it should.
Having Scorpio and Taurus in the twelfth and sixth houses mean that Sagittarius risings value their mind and body the most. This is where meaning comes from. Because meaning is being released through exercise, through stretching of tendons and vocal chords, Sagittarius risings feel inspired when they challenge themselves physically. They understand that value sits within their subconscious and their body and, having Taurus in the sixth house, they’re not going to let a single person get it for cheap. No Sagittarius rising ever works for less than they think they can get. Scorpio in their house of value tells them that meaning is speculation. Taurus in the sixth tells them to make up a high number.
