The 2nd House represents the subconscious programs that control interactions with the outside world. The symbolic rulers of the 2nd House are Taurus, Chiron, and Venus. Houses symbolize specific circumstances, and one of the typical manifestations of the Second House is the moment of feeling ownership of things, especially money.
Generally, the Second House controls values: material and spiritual. A possessive attitude towards things is a completely mystical circumstance, far from being exhausted by the possibilities of free manipulation. You can push your things around like slaves, you can use them, ignoring and even despising them, you can be friends with them and love them, and all this happens in different people in completely different ways. The energy field of any object strongly depends on the state of the biofields of the surrounding people, and, of course, there is also an opposite effect.
The 2nd House Personality
Chiron – a Planet that knows how to materialize subtle forms – enables a person with a developed 2nd House to live among things, as among people, to respect their character and enjoy their devoted love. This culture is part of a common human culture, and the ability to spend money is nothing more than a symbol of the fact that a person is in an energy balance with the surrounding material world; greed and waste are violations of this balance. The energy field of any object strongly depends on the state of the biofields of the surrounding people, and, of course, there is also an opposite effect.
The Second House governs contacts with the outside world in general, and at the superficial level, in particular, it concerns relations with objects that are not too deeply embedded in the world: real estate is run by not the Second, but the Fourth House rules. The 2nd House controls the material flow, which is a symbol of a rather rigid energy flow in the subtle world. A person has bad energy – he is forced to cut his expenses or live at the expense of others.
This also applies to money; with the stricken Second House, there are circumstances when you have to live at the expense of others or on a very tough financial regime (all this is subjective: it is rumored that one billionaire who, having gone bankrupt, was left with only a few million and committed suicide, considering that sum insufficient to live on). Therefore, the Second House work can take place in very unpleasant external conditions: a person is forced to borrow from the outside world.
Energy balance with the outside world is ensured by correct behavior, and the 2nd House controls the psychology and ethics of a person’s relationship with the outside world as a whole. Ethics of the Second House often concerns the external, visible to man and other people’s choices.
The first inclusion of the Second House in a child requires a rejection of a purely selfish view of the world as a part of oneself: “What can I take for myself and what should I share with others?” The ethics of the Second House are completely comprehensive. Every action has a choice, even if you choose the apple variety in the store. Therefore, all contacts with the outside world must be ethical, which happens by itself only with a harmonious 2nd House. Then the person will not hit the corner of the bed and cut himself with a knife, and the rare lack of money will not overshadow his peace of mind.
Harmonious Taurus gives a good sense of forms (any, including subtle ones) in general, and a harmonious 2nd House means a much higher level of applied magic: a person will arrange objects in a room in ten minutes so that it becomes comfortable. The Signs influence more subtly, they are expressed in styles, manners, general inclinations, and abilities, while at home they are manifested much more concretely and are implemented more imperatively.
The 2nd House Evolutionary Levels
At the first, lowest level of the Second House development, a person is worried about objects and money as abstractions, he has no contact with them specifically. This level is characterized by greed since the principle of the Second House – the ethics of harmonious relations with the outside world – is not implemented here. A person wants to take things from the world, possess them rigidly and soullessly and give nothing in return.
This level is typical for childhood, and the best way to work through is to expand the child’s perception. It is good to draw the attention of a girl who loves to dress up to the details of the decoration, the texture of the dress, the cut, to discuss how it fits into this or that interior, to show her that the dress on her can live and breathe, or maybe suffocate. When she learns to feel well the energy of clothing, her ethics will rise to a completely different level, she will feel oneness with the outside world and will respect its laws.
At the second level of working on the 2nd House, a person develops a broad ethical program of behavior in the external world (the laws of karma begin to be felt) and in relation to the things with which he is associated. Every object, as Buddha teaches, is given to us for temporary use, so we must handle it carefully and treat it with due respect. If a picture hangs on the wall, you need to look at it and see yourself in it, and when all its energy available for our perception is over (the picture is tired), it needs to be sold or given away, and not left to gather dust on the wall or in the closet.
At the third level of elaboration of the Second House, the correct attitude to things extends to people. For the average person, the people around him are interesting (within the framework of the Second House) only in the sense of what things can be obtained from them and through them, voluntarily or by force. The level of ethics, when in the outside world, in the “not-me” the animate ethics (of another person) is realized and taken into account, can be considered very high (the wife, husband, and children are most often included in the 2nd House, but as completely inanimate: “And this my house: my color TV, my wife, my bedroom set, my son…“).
Weak Second House
With a weak 2nd House (this means that there are no Planets in it and its rulers, actual, as well as symbolic: Taurus, Chiron and Venus, are weak), a person is rather indifferent to his material environment. At a high level of elaboration, this can give a saint, for whom subtle forms are more tangible than dense ones, he feels the essence of things and is indifferent to their appearance. At the average level, a person pays little attention to the flow of material life, there is little money, but there are no special problems with them (this, however, depends on the general level of defeat or harmony of the card), as well as the need to develop Household and general ethics.
Harmonious Second House
Harmonious 2nd House – the flow of external benefits goes without efforts on the part of a person; aspects to the ruler of the 2nd House and the Planets in it will indicate the ways of getting money. The outside world loves you and gives you Signs of attention, and you should not drown in this stream of love and gifts. The temptation to gradually become lazy mentally and physically; with the harmonious aspects of the Second House, you need to give a lot to the outside world, only then the hand that lavishes gifts on a person will not become scarce over time.
Stricken Second House
Stricken House II does not mean a lack of money. Rather, it is a frequently occurring feeling that they are not enough, and its acuteness depends solely on the person’s inner attitude to the outside world. Here, the outside world does not ask (as in a harmonious version) but requires a person’s attention to himself and hard work with inSignificant visible returns. Not receiving this attention and service, the outside world begins to take revenge. Then a person begins to feel some corners in life, and if he suddenly sees something that he likes, he grabs it with a stranglehold, like the Moon in Taurus.
The defeat of the Second House can give pathological greed and senseless, self-destructive generosity as negative overcompensation (position: “Since they don’t give me what I need, strip completely naked, let it be good for you, and I’ll die!”). Sharp tastes for things around a person. Here, elaboration gives great opportunities for self-realization in external activity, which will be indicated by the squares and oppositions.
Second House and the Zodiac Signs
The Sign on the cusp of the 2nd House, that is, the Sign – the ruler of the 2nd House, gives background, general circumstances and the style in which the situations of the 2nd House usually develop.
Scorpio as ruler of the 2nd House is a deeply emotional, almost sexual attitude towards things and money. With a defeat and a low level of elaboration, it is a mania to destroy everything; with work, the ability to transform the external world, especially the material one. At a high level – psychoanalysis in the densest structures of the human psyche, especially with the aspect of Chiron to the 2nd House.
Taurus on the cusp of the Second House is a serious, constant, fundamental attitude towards property. When defeated, pathological greed is possible. But the desired reliable material environment and money are unlikely to come in the first half of life; you need to develop very serious ethics and follow it unswervingly, without falling into dogmatism (which is not easy, but Taurus, as a ruler of a House, always gives difficult karmic programs for the 2nd House).
The air Sign as the ruler of the 2nd House gives an abstract-mental attitude to property and the outside world as a whole. One must learn to respect existential reality without translating it into mental models or, worse, fantasies. A person can, as in an exam, very cheerfully say how to live, but it is difficult for him to follow this, because there is no true understanding (in sensation) behind his words.
2nd House and the Planets
If there is a Planet on the cusp of the 2nd House, then it becomes especially active and acquires its intense color. Such a Planet also belongs to the 1st House, so that at the moments of its activity, both Houses are turned on simultaneously (usually one of them goes as if the first plane, and the other – in the background). If the Sun is on the cusp of the 2nd House, you are a potential spiritual teacher with a program of practical ethics (actually, perhaps a traveling salesman); if the Sun stands on the cusp of the 1st House, then it is also a spiritual teacher, but, on the contrary, with a strong shade of mysticism and renunciation of reality (the influence of the 12th House).
